Jimmy spoke up. “Lets get her out of that tree,” he said.
I stared at him, amazed.
“No!” I groped for some pidgin Spanish phrases. “I… sit at tree with food. Fruit. She loves fruit and… she likes me. She come to me?”
“Ha!” Jimmy wasn’t convinced. Logic wasn’t really his style. The whole group headed for the tree while I suggested loudly that someone go get some food. No-one did of course, and I was too afraid of missing what would happen next to go myself. I had a nasty feeling it would all be over by the time I got back, and probably not for the better. Jimmy’s more masculine approach to problem solving was about as subtle as a kick in the bollocks.
I wasn’t disappointed. As we neared the tree the Ecuadorians ploughed through the undergrowth, shouting at Osita as they went. The bear, not being blind and deaf, quite predictably saw them coming. She had two options; stay or go. She went. Out of the tree and down the side of the valley with breath-taking speed. It took rather more breath for us to follow her, not to mention time; as we cursed our way down the steep forested slope she was already climbing the one opposite.
Neither Jimmy nor Danielo seemed to appreciate the flaw in their tactics. They raced across the bottom of valley like two ten year olds about to lose their football. I was buggered. Even running downhill at this altitude was really difficult. Running uphill would be almost impossible. And running in any direction through heavy undergrowth was guaranteed to result in a big mouthful of ground.
It wasn’t like I could help much. Osita had already given the others the slip. She loped along effortlessly, a big dog playing chase in a field. She changed direction a few times and ended up back at the bottom of the valley, leaving two heavily panting Ecuadorians stuck halfway up the far slope.
From where I stood panting I could watch the whole drama unfold. Bear run up. Men run up. Bear run down. Men run down. Bear run sideways. It was like watching Scooby Doo. At any moment I expected to see Danielo run past wearing a bear head and chasing Jimmy, or Osita tiptoeing along underneath an enormous vase.
All of a sudden the shouts drew nearer. She was heading in my direction! Then… she wasn’t. I’d almost recovered, and the small surge of adrenaline powered little cog wheels in my head. I decided heroically to stay put and wait, figuring she might come towards me again. It beat the hell out of running back up the hill, since I was (inevitably) at the bottom. And then she did! I was ready. She thundered towards me, I mean right at me – then right past me and shot on up the hill. It was only then it occurred to me – what the bloody hell was I was going to do to stop her anyway? Rugby tackle her? Spank her with a rubber welly? We all know what happens when a bear hits you doing over thirty miles an hour. We were a long, long way from the nearest A&E department.
Then, looking up the hill I saw the Tractor Driving Dude, driving cattle for a change. Unfortunately for him he was driving them along the road right above me, and that meant he was about to have an unexpected visitor. I bawled at the others but they were still miles away. I could only watch in horror as Osita crashed through the herd like a giant hairy bowling ball, scattering cows in all directions before plunging back down the hill. The air filled with Moo’s of dismay. But as she barrelled back past me we finally had the break we needed. She ran not into the main part of the valley, but through an old gate into a disused enclosure. It had previously been a deer paddock, so it was huge with a ridiculously high fence – perfect! I jogged casually over and swung the gate closed behind her. I had enough breath left for one yell of triumph and then I parked my ass on the grass.
By the time the others had arrived, I was reclining comfortably and there were cows everywhere. Toby turned up last. He’d been back to the house for a net and a tarpaulin. He even had a couple of bananas! It was good to know one person was thinking, and even better that it was Toby. Jimmy would have come back with a chain mail vest and boxing gloves.
The bosses held a hasty conference before entering the paddock. I nodded grimly at the serious tones of their voices, without actually understanding what was being said. Not like it mattered – from past experience I doubted they were crafting an ingeniously subtle, yet infallible scheme.
Meanwhile, Osita was climbing the fence. It was this new danger that finally broke up the meeting, prompting us to pile into the enclosure, yelling. Losing her was suddenly less of a problem – the fence she was climbing led into the fat puma’s enclosure next door, and that was a disaster just waiting to happen. King Kong’s love child versus the Godzilla of couch potatoes. Even Jimmy wouldn’t dare to break that up. We attacked the fence to scare her away, so she bolted across the enclosure. As we gave a collective sigh of relief Osita found the bottom of a massively tall, extremely skinny tree, and effortlessly ran all the way up it. From the top she seemed to grin down at us, clearly pleased that she’d remembered just how crap we two legs were at climbing trees.
It didn’t improve Jimmy’s mood any. Did I mention his general lack of subtlety? He called for someone to fetch an axe.
“NO!” I shouted. It struck me as a fairly bad idea. I was pissed off too – we all were – but I kinda wanted to keep the bear alive. Jimmy explained that she’d soon get out of the tree when she realised it was being cut down, but I was worried that she might not quite understand the process involved in using edged tools. She was very clever for a bear, and she’d soundly beaten all of us so far, but Jimmy seemed to be crediting her with more intelligence than he had himself!
Then I caught my name. “What?” I asked, suspiciously.
“You like to climb trees,” Johnny said. “Climb the tree.”
Oh shit, I thought. Johnny had actually read my application form? I knew I shouldn’t have put that on it. Unless he was referring to that time in Osita’s enclosure when I cut down a tree whilst still in it.
This tree was about as thick around as my forearm, and about as tall as a million of me stood on top of each other. Well okay, maybe that’s a slight exaggeration, but it was a very tall tree. The bear at the top of it looked more like a cuddly toy than ever.
Except that she weighed more than I did, was significantly stronger and had four legs and a head full of sharp things. And if she did decide to come down she would have to go through me to do it. I tried not to think too much about this as I stripped off my shoes and socks. Actually I was thinking about the nettles I was standing in.
Must look hard, I thought. Must be a man.
I took firm hold of the tree and spiked myself on a sharp bit of bark. Bugger.
Then Toby offered me one end of a piece of old rope. He must have brought it from the garage to tie the bear up. For a few seconds I thought he was expecting me to spontaneously knot up a complete safety harness from scratch, or display knowledge of some tribal rope climbing technique. But as I stared in confusion at the grubby rope in my hand a light bulb pinged on in my head. I’d never felt more like Indiana Jones as, ignoring the oil stains and sawdust, I clamped the rope in my teeth and laid my hands on the bark. And with all the grace of someone who is unbelievably crap at climbing skinny trees, I climbed that skinny tree.
About a third of the way up, sore and sweating, I heard a cry from Johnny. I risked a glance down and saw him waving. I was shaking, just about clinging on for dear life, but I’d made it. I’D MADE IT!
“Okay, tie the rope on there!” Toby called.
I was glad the bosses didn’t speak English.
“Are you fucking kidding me?” I growled around clenched teeth and a mouthful of string. I couldn’t take even a finger off the now smooth bole of the tree. I needed two hands and two feet just to stop myself slipping right back down the bugger. But down below they were clearly waiting for me to do something. How I’ll never know, but I coughed the end of the rope towards one hand and working entirely with my thumbs I made a half-assed knot. That was it for me; my sweaty hands slipped and I slid inelegantly all the way to the ground. Straight into the damn nettles.
And so began m
y first ever tug of war with a tree. Four people pulling back and forward on the rope while the boss called out the timing. “Pull, Pull!” Johnny shouted.
We pulled. The tree shook. And the bear grinned down at us all, obviously delighted with this new game.
It wasn’t long before we gave up. It had been a good idea, but yet again the bear had bested us. She was just better at holding on to a wobbly tree than we were at wobbling it. I suggested food again, and even stood at the bottom of the tree for a few minutes with a handful of slightly squashed banana, but apart from looking vaguely stupid and getting my hand all sticky I achieved nothing. The ball was back in Johnny’s court.
By the time I’d cleaned the goo off, Danielo was already up the tree as far as my rope, running up hand over hand like a partially shaved monkey. He deftly picked at the knot with two fingers as his whole body hugged the tree, then taking the rope in his teeth he swiftly climbed another body length before tying it back round the now alarmingly slender trunk. I have to say it – I was really impressed. I half expected him to grab the free end of the rope, bellow his triumph and swing out of the tree on it.
In fact he also slid down, without substantially more control than me. I guess it just isn’t possible to look skilful when sliding out of a skinny tree.
So the rope was ready again. We had almost five feet of extra leverage, clearly an important factor when squaring off against a hundred foot tree. But this time even Johnny was lending a hand as we tried out the latest scheme from the great minds that brought you ‘Chase the Bear’ and the ever popular sequel ‘Chase Her Some More’. For our next trick we were no longer Movers and Shakers. We were Benders.
Five bodies twined themselves into the rope and prepared to take the strain. A collective deep breath was taken. And Lo! The top of the tree did begin to bend. But that was just the wind. We hadn’t started pulling yet.
We took the strain and began to pull. No grunts of exertion were necessary at first, and the treetop was clearly moving. Bear and all it swayed, then edged closer to the ground. We pulled harder. The tree was really bending now, as our superior strength (or perhaps the extra height in the rope) began to tell. Feeling like my arms would cease to be permanently attached as soon as anyone let go, I gritted my teeth and pulled on. The top of the tree was making a crazy angle with the ground, and the bear was scrabbling around to stay upright. I would have cheered, but my whole body was taught with the effort. Slowly, the scant foliage inched closer. And closer. And closer! We nearly had it! All of us were at maximum effort, five grown men throwing their entire weight onto this rope. So very close! If any one of us could’ve taken a hand off, he could almost have touched the matted fur of our quarry. Slapped her ass maybe, or poked her in the nipples.
Osita noticed this too. She looked around her for inspiration, and quickly formulated a plan. With a speed born of desperation – or perhaps born of being a bear – she ran down the almost horizontal trunk of the tree to the ground. Across the ground for a short distance. And up the next tree over.
You’d think we’d have seen that coming.
I started to see the funny side of it straight away. Along with the equally amusing prospect of all but one of us letting go of the rope in dismay, only to see the last person twanged into the air by the rapidly unbending tree and disappearing into the distance like Wile E. Coyote. Chuckle!
Starting to laugh at this moment was not a good idea, for precisely the reason described above. Recognising that somehow made it worse, and I suddenly realised that I really had to let go of this rope Right Now.
“Let go?” I hissed through clenched teeth.
“After three,” came the reply. “Uno, dos, TRES!”
Five bodies flew through the air as we dived wildly away from the rope.
The tree didn’t move an inch.
Well okay, it wobbled a bit. But it stayed exactly where we’d left it. In our Herculean efforts we’d bent it past the point of no return! This tree had something in common with a bloke I knew in college. It would never be straight again.
I stood up and brushed the grass off my jeans, feeling a little sheepish. Around me everyone else was doing the same, except for Jimmy. Jimmy was spitting out mouthfuls of nettles.
Toby grinned at me. I grinned back. Then we laughed. Boy did we laugh! Even Johnny joined in. Danielo walked over to the tree trunk and reached up to untie the rope, now hanging from a spot just above his head.
And still there was the problem of the bear. The tree she currently occupied was just a little taller than the one she’d recently vacated. Bending was clearly not the answer. I could really only see two options; either sit at the base of the tree and wait, or… wait whilst sitting at the base of the tree.
Johnny had other ideas. He gathered a handful of small stones and started to throw them at the bear. I figured he’d give up soon, as his aim was tragic. But he didn’t give up. He just threw bigger rocks. I was starting to get worried, as a sizeable rock to the head could well result in bringing her down rather quicker than we anticipated. She was awfully high up and there was no way she’d survive a fall. Killed whilst trying to escape? What was this, a P.O.W. camp now?
Then Johnny connected. A couple of decent boulders bounced off her ass in quick succession, and just as I decided to make my complaint more vocal she decided that discretion was indeed the better part of valour, and abandoned the skinny tree – looking annoyingly skilful as she did it. The chase was back on! It was time to start being clever.
Nah, who’m I trying to kid? It was time for a bit more chasing her round the enclosure with no plan or strategy. About three quarters of an hour later, with still no sign of the bear tiring, then it was time to be clever. The only problem being that no-one had any particularly clever ideas at the moment. Chase her with the tarp and the net? Throw them over her and capture her? Wow, good plan. Let’s try that. Again. The bear was not only outrunning us, she was outwitting us.
It was my laziness that saved the day. Instead of following the bear back down the paddock I just stayed where I was, gasping for breath. So when she made a break from her pursuers and ran straight towards me I held my ground, causing her to veer back – surrounded! The net was thrown – and missed.
Then as if by magic (but in fact by the actions of a midget with a bad moustache), the tarpaulin sailed through the air. Jimmy had made a clean throw. And more by design than luck, as he assured us later, it settled completely over her. Score!
Johnny grabbed for her back legs and got a sliced forearm in the process. I grabbed her round the waist, as this seemed furthest from all the sharp bits, and Toby tried to capture her head. This was a mistake. She bit a large chunk out of Toby’s palm. I couldn’t see the extent of the damage as I was too busy trying to avoid a similar fate. Johnny was shouting at me to watch out as she could easily turn her head and take a chunk out of me. Then Jimmy managed to grab a hold of her nose, and suddenly it was all over.
Well, there were a couple of times when she managed to struggle to her feet and drag us around a bit, all frantically holding on, until we got our weight back on top of her and forced her down again. Eventually and after about a hundred cries of “Cuidado!”, Jimmy and Danielo got the rope around her as I pinned her to the ground. They passed it around her again and quickly fashioned a harness, sort of like you might buy for a really big dog. And on the count of ‘Tres’ once more, we all abandoned bear leaving her cunningly leashed and Jimmy alone on the end of the rope. Looking remarkably composed considering.
Osita seemed to have chilled out a bit during her time under the pile of people. Perhaps all she really wanted was a hug! In any case, she was now ready to go home. Jimmy still held the lead and I walked beside her with a leafy branch, shaking it in front of her and tapping her nose whenever she tried to leg it into the trees lining the road – roughly every thirty seconds.
We passed her enclosure, Johnny having decided to rehouse her until we could find out how she escaped, and walked back up
to the main house in a surprisingly calm manner. It must have made quite a sight, overgrown bear cub leading the way like a gigantic dog on a bit of string, me shaking a branch like a cheerleader and three guys following slowly and trying to look macho whilst bleeding all over the place.
Where do you put a rather large bear cub in a very bad mood? Hang on a minute – didn’t some bunch of idiots spend a whole gruelling day reinforcing an enclosure not too long ago? An enclosure now strong enough to survive a direct hit from the Death Star? Perfect.
One rather sad looking fox was evicted, and placed in a cage previously used to house a monkey we’d known as ‘Mr Personality’, because of his lack of it. Osita was happily ensconced in her fortified new abode, and the fox could see the chickens. Literally, as his new cage faced their favourite scratching ground. Maybe we’d see a bit more life out of him now.
What a morning. And it was still only 10 am!
The rest of the day, thankfully, was fairly quiet.
Flight of the Lobo
The next morning brought some unfortunate news.
After spending a full day reinforcing the coati cage to hold a ravening wolf, it was working remarkably well as a cosy little holiday home for Osita.
The ravening wolf, however, was gone. The somewhat thinner chicken wire of the monkey cage we’d transferred him to was about as far distant from Osita’s heavy security as could be imagined. To be fair I think I could have chewed through it given time. With one whole night in which to work our cunning lobo had made good his escape, leaving a pathetically small fox-shaped hole in the mesh. We were so surprised – his demeanour as I’d tried to persuade him to eat a bit of chicken the previous night had been so timid, so withdrawn. He honestly didn’t look capable of escaping from a wet paper bag.
Five Bestselling Travel Memoirs Box Set Page 41
