On Bear Mountain

by Deborah Smith

  “I’ll wait,” Quentin said, and leaned against a nearby counter with the quiet calm of a man who doesn’t have to announce his capabilities. He trained his eyes on the back room’s doorway. He had no intention of doing anything more.

  The customers wandered back into the main room and halted at the sight of him, uncertain. Beefy and crewcut, with NASCAR T-shirts, crisp jeans and expensive running shoes, they quickly put on attitudes like cocky pro wrestlers. “I’m not giving you twenty dollars for these. They ain’t worth it. I’ll give you ten,” one said loudly, dumping a pair of handmade iron tongs on Mr. Beaumont’s desk. The tongs knocked over a plastic mug filled with iced tea. Mr. Beaumont moaned with dismay and began shuffling his paperwork out of the way while snatching sheets from a box of tissues.

  The one who’d caused the accident backed up, looking disgusted. “Sorry,” he said without much sincerity. Quentin walked over, picked up the tongs, laid them aside, and moved a stack of catalogues for Mr. Beaumont, who shook harder as he dabbed at the stream of light-brown liquid spreading across the old wooden desktop.

  “You work here?” the other man brayed at Quentin, and his friend laughed.

  Quentin set the stack of catalogues on a display case. “Just shopping. Thinking of buying some tongs.” He picked up the tongs and put them on the case. “In fact, I’ll take these. And I’ll pay twenty.”

  Their laughter faded instantly. “What the hell you think you’re doing?”

  Quentin turned to the pair without any overt anger or threat, yet they both took a look at his face and backed up. He could hear the faint sound of a police siren, now. “I want the tongs, that’s all.”

  After a tense moment, the leader snorted. “Shit, take ’em. I don’t want the damn things anyway.” He and his friend walked past Quentin and out the door. Mr. Beaumont wrung his hands. “Oh, they’ll drive off and take my stolen goods with them. Luzanne will never forgive me.”

  “I’ll try to keep them here until the police come.”

  “Oh, thank you, thank you, sir, you’re so kind. Bless your heart.”

  Quentin followed the pair outside to a gleaming red, late-model truck parked with one brawny wheel atop the curb. “What the hell do you want?” the driver said loudly, as he swung his door open.

  “I want you to wait here and have a little talk with the local cop.” Quentin gestured up the lane, where a Tiberville police cruiser was only fifteen seconds from turning the corner off Main Street.

  “Kiss my ass!” The driver started to climb into the truck. Quentin had visions of a police chase through the town square, which had begun to fill with a crowd for the start of the festival’s second day. He took two long steps, sank his hands into the man’s shirt, and the next thing the driver knew he was facedown on the ground. Quentin stood over him, with one foot planted squarely on the back of his neck. He pulled the man’s extended left arm as high as it would go and angled it over the man’s back, then twisted it just so. He held it by the wrist with one hand. “Move, and I’ll break it,” he said calmly.

  With his other he slid his knife from his khakis’ front pocket, and when the second man ran over, shouting obscenities, Quentin flicked the long blade out. The man froze with the knife posed under his chin.

  That was the scene Officer Rexie Brown saw when he pulled up. He found Mr. Beaumont passed out behind his rolltop desk. He pulled his gun, called for backup, and arrested everyone in sight.

  • • •

  I was more familiar with the Tiberville jail than I cared to remember. My stomach knotted as a deputy led me back to the holding cell. Quentin had his back to us and was gazing out a small, barred window toward the sheriff’s personal garden plot. Short-termers wearing striped convict uniforms planted, weeded, and harvested vegetables, then sold the produce at the Tiberville Farmers Market. The proceeds went to a fund for needy families.

  “I hope you like dirt and okra,” I said.

  He pivoted slowly. There was no doubt the man was handsome, no doubt the cool gray eyes and the slight sardonic smile had a startling effect. “Bless my soul,” the deputy, a grandmother, said under her breath.

  “I only eat okra with my grits,” he answered.

  The deputy unlocked the cell door. I stepped inside, and she locked me in. “Thank you, Mrs. Dixon.”

  She arched a silver brow. “I’ve always told people you’d end up here again.”

  After she left I sat down on a low steel bench along one wall. He sat down next to me. I arched a brow. “Do you always carry a switchblade?”

  “It was standard issue where I grew up. I never lost the habit.”

  “When you pulled it, Mr. Beaumont thought you were about to cut somebody’s throat. He’s in the hospital having heart palpitations. They haven’t gotten his side of the story, yet.”

  “I’ve told my side of the story. The police found what I said they’d find in my friends’ pockets.” He spread his hands. “Look, I mind my own business. I didn’t come here to get involved, to strike up a reputation as a do-gooder, or to make any kind of point on behalf of my father’s work. I just came to buy the bear sculpture.”

  “Then you better stop rescuing people.”

  “Sounds like you believe I’m innocent.”

  “You risked your own safety to pull me out of that barn yesterday. I can’t picture you terrorizing old Mr. Beaumont.”

  He snapped his fingers. “Always trick old people, women, and children with fake piety. That’s my rule.”

  “Oh, mine too,” I said as lightly as I could.

  His humor faded. He nodded toward the door. “What did that deputy mean when she said she always knew you’d come here again?” I said nothing, but looked at him firmly. He arched a dark brow. “I’m a nosy Yankee,” he said.

  I gave in. “I worked on the processing floor at the Tiber chicken plant as a teenager. I tried to unionize the employees. A real Norma Rae moment. I climbed up on a table with a Union Now sign. I got fired, so I went back the next day and put up union posters on the break room wall. When I wouldn’t apologize and promise not to do it again, Mr. John had me arrested. John Tiber. He’s a cousin of mine.”

  “Your own cousin locked you up?”

  “Yep. I bet you thought we just married our cousins around here.”

  The weak joke did nothing to lighten his intense curiosity. “How was it settled?”

  “I apologized very humbly, and they let me go.”

  “Well. You were only a kid.”

  “You don’t understand.” I hesitated, again. Warning bells were going off in my defense systems. I was telling this man too much about myself, and I didn’t understand why that seemed so necessary. I’d never told Gregory about the jail incident. “My father came here and insisted on being locked up with me. He wouldn’t leave. I apologized to get him out of here. He didn’t deserve the humiliation. He had enough humiliation in his life.”

  Silence. Finally, Quentin nodded at this information. “It’s easier when it’s just you. You can stand anything if there’s no one else to worry about.”

  He understood. Shaken, I got up quickly and began searching through my purse as if I needed to find something. Keep moving. He’s in the salvage business. He’s picking you apart to see what’s valuable. He’ll use it against you. “I’ve never thought of it that way, but yes, that’s true. Of course, the people you love should be worth the effort. And he was.”

  “I envy the way you feel about your father,” Quentin said softly.

  I halted, staring at him, wanting to know why he couldn’t say the same about his own father. Suddenly I noticed long, raw welts on the inside of his wrists. I forgot everything else. Rexie had done that to him, with handcuffs. The clumsy redneck. “Jesus,” I said with no charm at all. “Your wrists.”

  He glanced at them as if he’d just noticed. “It’s nothing.”

  I opened my macramé tote bag wider and got out the can of Udder Balm. “Here.” I sat down next to him again, scooped th
e soft, thick cream on a fingertip then bent over his hands, smoothing the ointment into each red mark. As I put the can away I met his troubled gaze and went still. We were sitting closer than I’d realized, or I had moved closer without noticing. We traded a long, silent look that made my heart race. “Thank you,” he said.

  “It’s teat salve. I’m wearing some on the gash in my head, too. In the course of my life I think I’ve used it everywhere except my teats.”

  He laughed sharply, then stood and went to the window. He leaned against its narrow metal frame and surveyed me with dark amusement. “So. Do you plan to stage a sit-in on my behalf? No need. Just see if you can arrange bail. And take care of my dog.”

  “No. You’re my Yankee. Everyone’s already decided. I won’t leave you.”

  He pinned me with another shrewd gaze, now touched with quiet admiration. I couldn’t look away.

  “You’ve got company coming,” our grandmotherly deputy sang out as she came back down the hallway. I went to the cell bars as Mrs. Dixon led Mr. John to the door and unlocked it. He gazed at me with portly aggravation, then turned his eyes to Quentin with a deep scowl. “What have we here?” he demanded.

  “He was only protecting Mr. Beaumont,” I said quietly.

  The door swung open. Mr. John marched inside and went to Quentin. “I know that. I do, indeed. Old Beau is finally calmed down and telling everybody who’ll listen what a fine fellow you are. I may not approve of your methods but I’m here to apologize for your trouble and to thank you. You’re a free man, Mr. Riconni.” He thrust out a hand. “John Tiber.”

  Quentin looked from him to me for a few intense seconds, an awkward space of time that brought red to Mr. John’s clean-shaven cheeks. “Your cousin?” he asked. I nodded, bewildered.

  Quentin turned to Mr. John and asked softly, “Were you responsible for taking my father’s sculpture off the campus of the college?” He captured Mr. John’s attention with stunning ease, his voice a deep monotone, his hands resting casually by his sides. No fuss, no brag, no physical menace, just the pure, polished knowledge of his own purpose.

  Mr. John lowered his hand. He blinked, startled. “Yes, I was.”

  “And you sold it to Tom Powell?”

  “Yes.”

  “You would have sold it for scrap, otherwise?”

  “I . . . yes.”

  “Were you responsible for the college lying to anyone who asked what had happened to it?”

  Mr. John’s face began to redden. “I was indeed responsible. Are you calling me a liar?”

  “Yes. I just want to know why.”

  “My family founded this town, sir, and we are responsible for what comes into and what goes out of it. Including any so-called art.” Mr. John pivoted and glowered at me. “Ursula Victoria Powell, will you explain our ways to this gentleman? I came here to thank him, not to be accused of crimes I never committed.”

  “He has good reason to want answers,” I said as politely as I could. “It wouldn’t hurt to apologize to the Riconni family. His mother grieved over the Bear for years. The college told her it’d been destroyed.”

  Mr. John stared at me as if I’d lost my mind. “Now, listen here. Your daddy had a lot of foolish ideas, too, and I tried my best to set a good example that he might follow, but he never did. If I was hardnosed about it at times, it was for his own good, just the same as I’m trying to be firm with this fellow here for his own good. I am not going to apologize for anything. I came here to make a noble gesture on behalf of Beaumont, and now I find myself being insulted!”

  I stared at him. Foolish ideas rang in my head. “Mr. John, you might want to sit down,” I said through gritted teeth. “I’ve got some news. Richard Riconni’s sculptures are valuable, now. The Bear is worth a fortune.”

  Mr. John gaped at me, then at Quentin. “I don’t believe it,” he said.

  Quentin nodded. “What you think or believe is beside the point. Any apology you have to offer is beside the point, too. I came here to buy the sculpture and take it back where it belongs. This is business, not family sentiment. I just want the truth.”

  Mr. John snapped to attention. “If that sculpture’s worth a good deal of money, then you better believe, sir, that my family deserves a large piece of the credit — and the money.”

  “What?” I advanced on him with slow, even steps, incredulous. He glanced at me and frowned. “Mr. John, you don’t mean that.”

  “I most certainly do. Miss Betty paid for that sculpture. She commissioned it.”

  “You sold it to my father!”

  “A tepid and informal transaction, at best.” He looked at Quentin. “What is its value now?”

  Quentin gazed down at him as if he were an amazing insect, something so biologically basic that an observer could only marvel at its crude threat before quietly crushing it. “The price is part of a private negotiation with the Powell family.”

  “I see. So you say, sir.”

  “I say you’ll never get a penny of the money. I say you’ll spend the rest of your life in court fighting me over it, because if you dispute Ursula’s ownership I’ll hire lawyers to defend her case.”

  Mr. John was an aging bulldog who didn’t back away from anyone. But an expression came over his face that said he knew, he knew he’d met trouble. “I was only making a point, not insisting on a course of action,” he said.

  “There is no negotiation,” I put in. “I’m not selling.” I was so upset over Mr. John’s betrayal. Warts and all, he was someone I’d trusted. “How you could say you have a right to the Bear? How could you do that to me, to my father? You know the sculpture would be long gone if it weren’t for him. You know that. Would you really take me to court over ownership? Sue me? Do you know what people in this county would say about you if you did that? Do you know what it would do to your good name?”

  Mr. John waved both hands and sighed, having the good grace to begin to appear embarrassed. “I spoke in anger. I was thoughtless. You know I don’t want to hurt you, honey. We’ll talk about this later, when we’ve calmed down.” I had hit him in his public image — a vulnerable point.

  But I was not calming down. I stepped closer. “Daddy was kind to you. He put up with your high-handed attitudes. He always said you’re a good man who’s done a lot of good for the community, even when you behaved like a petty dictator. He believed in passive resistance. He had more patience than Gandhi, but I don’t.”

  “A petty dictator? Is that what you think of me?”

  “You took advantage of his good nature, and you let your family turn their noses up at him over feuds that happened at least fifty years ago. You patronized him and bullied him, and you called it ‘doing it for his own good.’ That won’t work with me. I understand the Tiber mentality far better than Daddy did. I didn’t come back home to play the same old games, Mr. John. You’ll get my respect by earning it. I expect the same courtesy from you and every other Tiber. Don’t you dare try to take advantage of me!”

  “Ursula, you’re agitated. Just calm down — ”

  “The money you made my daddy pay you for the Iron Bear could have gone to medical expenses for my mother. It was Daddy’s choice to spend that money, but it was your choice to demand it. I don’t know if she’d be alive today or not, regardless. And I don’t know if Arthur would have been born without a handicap. But I know you shouldn’t have asked for a lousy two hundred dollars you didn’t need from my father, who loved that sculpture and had earned the right to it a thousand times over the years. You helped kill my mother and hurt Arthur.”

  Mr. John looked furious, but also stunned. He blinked, he shook his head. Finally he caught his voice and thundered, “I’ve always held you up to Janine as an example of strong-minded, hardworking, bootstrap ambition. My wife, rest her soul, used to insist that you’d never be a lady. But I always believed that once you polished off your rough edges you’d be as fine and admirable as my own daughter. I’m very disappointed in your ungracious attack. Wha
t kind of effect has this man had on you?” He jerked his head toward Quentin.

  I recognized a useless battle of ethics and philosophy, here. My head hurt, the barn was ruined, my car was gone, I had the dilemma of Quentin to deal with — the sculpture, Arthur’s future, the enormous sum of money I’d turned down but secretly wanted and desperately craved. I stood in a jail cell with raw nerves and tangled hair stinking of mentholated Udder Balm because I couldn’t afford a doctor’s visit. It made no sense to badger the one Tiber relative who would come to my aid if I were desperate for help.

  I looked into Quentin’s eyes. He thought I was incredible at that moment. Beautiful. Strong. I saw that. I took a deep breath. Oh, what the hell. “I’m disappointed in you,” I told Mr. John. “And let me tell you something about Janine. I hope to God I’m never like her. She’s a ruthless bitch.”

  I didn’t mean to call my cousin a bitch, especially not to her own father. I didn’t like the word, and never used it ordinarily. Like everything else that day, it just came out. The real me. Mean as a snake and twice as cold. A crazy Powell who burned the few ramshackle bridges that led to security. I stopped talking, completely empty of words. I grimaced.

  Mr. John’s eyes filled with tears. With tears. “I am brokenhearted,” he said softly, with a certain degree of melodrama that was, nonetheless, sincere. He walked out. The cell door stood open in his wake. After he left the hallway I realized I was shaking. I sank down on the metal bench and put my head in my hands.

  Quentin sat down beside me, his face carved in thought. It was as if we’d been walking through a gallery of half-formed images all our lives, searching for the one, key element that made sense of so many things that happened to us, that said answers did exist. The energy we’d generated in that room, the karma or essence or fallout from childhood — all of that had settled between us with primitive ease.

  “Are you all right?” he asked. His voice was stern. His willpower was in full force.