by Brian Hart
“At this point the adrenaline is way up and we’re seeing ourselves as heroes and the whole campground is quiet except for this van tearing out of there. We pile into Bob’s truck with Bob driving and me sitting shotgun with the other three dudes in the back. What a posse, right? Tally ho! Bob hands me a pistol from under his seat and we’re flying through the woods and I’m looking at this hunk of metal in my hand thinking I’ll kill those dirty cracker motherfuckers—no offense—if we catch ’em. I’ll shoot them dead.”
“Did you catch them?”
“Bob chased them so relentlessly down those little dirt roads that he made them crash and one of them was thrown from the van and he was fucked up, like dying, and the van was rolled onto its side and the one still inside was bleeding too, had a big open cut on his head. You could see his skull.”
“What about the kid in the back?”
“We’re standing there, like, OK, we caught them. Now what? I wouldn’t say I was suddenly sober, but I was suddenly not so sure of what exactly I was doing there. Mind you, I’m still holding the pistol, standing in Bob’s headlights, and I like pass it to Bob, like sorry but I can’t go to prison or kill someone. Eight mojitos or not. Honestly, at that point I think I kind of forgot why we’d been chasing them in the first place. The carnage we’d caused was just overwhelming. Then we hear this crying sound from inside the van, just the saddest sound, and I reach in the window and unlock the door and Bob pulls the slider open and there’s a bear cub in there in like a pet carrier thing for cats. The door must’ve popped open during the crash and the bear cub climbs up and runs right by us into the woods. We just let it go. Just let it run.”
“What about the guys bleeding on the road?”
Sol nods. “Bob and I finally got our shit together and extricated the one from the tree and got him onto level ground. We gave him blankets from inside the van. The other guys helped and we did the same with the head injury. They weren’t as bad as we thought at first.”
“They weren’t dying,” the man says.
“I don’t know. I hope not. They were talking by the time we left. They were pissed. So, we went back to the campground and packed our camp, threw everything in the back of the truck in a heap and called an ambulance from the pay phone at the campground. I was on a plane home the next day.” Sol cocks his head and holds out his hands. “We saved that little bear.”
“You’re like PETA, except for the attempted murder part.”
“Vehicular manslaughter, I checked.”
“I bet you did,” the man says. “Where’s your sister now? Where’s Bob?”
“The last I heard from them they were in Homer. Bob was working as a foreman on a desalination plant. I have three nephews and a niece. I’m sure they’re fine.” Nervousness creeps into Sol’s voice.
The moon is blocked by storm clouds and haze. They still haven’t finished butchering the sow. At first they attribute the sound to the sleeping dog having a dream but as it gets louder they get to their feet. It’s coming from the trees. Sol stands and follows the sound. The man holds on to Pecos. Both men are bloody to the elbow.
“What is it?” the man asks. “Take your pistol.”
“It’s another cub,” Sol says. “Keep the dog back. I don’t need a gun.”
“I got the dog.”
Ten paces and Sol is lost in the darkness.
The man can hear Sol talking, low and steady. “What’re you going to do?” the man asks. “You can’t just grab him. It’ll shred you if you pick it up.”
“Shut up for a second,” Sol says.
A long minute passes and the only sound is Sol’s calming voice. Then the cub is screaming like a pig would do and in a moment Sol returns to the firelight with the small angry animal wrapped tightly in his jacket.
“It’s like catching a bat,” Sol says, happy as could be. “You just wrap them up. Now hold him while I make a cage or a pen or something. Don’t look at me like that. I’m keeping him. Bear rescue number two for me.”
“You’re crazy.”
“Here.” And without warning Sol passes him the terrified animal and it takes everything the man has to keep it from squirming free of the jacket or get bitten.
“Hurry up with whatever you’re going to do,” the man says, “or I’m letting this little bastard go.”
“Just hang on.” Sol has his knife out and he’s cutting saplings and laying them on the ground. The fire is dying and they’re both exhausted. The man wants to sleep.
“He’ll chew right through that shit,” the man says. “This is ridiculous.”
“You’ll see.”
“Not if you don’t hurry up I won’t.” The man tells Pecos to stay but the dog is livid. “Use rocks. He can’t chew through rocks.”
“Shut up and let me work.”
The man wrestles with the bear, it’s as strong as a piglet too, twenty-five or thirty pounds, can’t be weaned yet. He readjusts the jacket, careful of its teeth and one free paw, until it’s cinched in and swaddled tight, then he pins it between two large rocks and sits on it with one hand holding its head down. The tragic sounds coming from the bear make the hair on his neck stand up. He wants to let it go, but what happens to it then? He knows what happens. Maybe they can keep it alive. The dog finally listens and lies down and with interest watches the cub as it tries to twist its head far enough to bite the man on the ass.
“I’m telling you, that tree-limb shit isn’t going to work,” the man says.
“Noted,” Sol says. But he stops cutting the saplings and grudgingly takes the man’s advice and begins stacking rocks to make a three-foot-by-three-foot box then ties the saplings together with paracord to use as a lid. It takes him half an hour and the fire is only coals, clouds have moved off, stars are out, Orion, a red sliver of moon.
At Sol’s invitation, the man drops the bear into the rough enclosure expecting it to climb right out but it squirms free of the jacket and just watches as Sol pins down the grid of saplings with more rocks.
“See?” Sol says proudly. “Safe and sound.”
The bear circles the enclosure, puts his paws on the wall.
“Here he comes,” the man says.
“You can go now,” Sol says. “Take your little dog and leave us alone.”
“Fine with me.”
The bear cries on and off throughout the night and Sol stays with him, talking and trying to get him to eat some of the venison.
At dawn he finds Sol curled in his sleeping bag beside the stone cage, and when he looks in, the bear is sleeping with its back to the wall nearest Sol, as if it can feel his heat.
[29]
R>35
CA 96118
Roy heard the midwife’s truck pull into the drive, saw the lights on the wall. Snowing hard and windless last he checked. The front door opened and shut, Sissy said something to Wiley to make her laugh.
Karen and Roy were sitting up on the edge of the bed when Sissy and Wiley came in. Lying down put too much pressure on Karen’s bladder. They’d been all over the house searching for a comfortable place to be.
“Are you ready, Mama?” Sissy took her coat off but kept her stocking hat on, gave Karen a peck on the cheek. “You look amazing. We’ve been preparing for today. We are so ready for this. You’re going to be brilliant. I can see it. Can you see it, Papa?” Sissy had medaled twice in Beijing, gold in the downhill, silvered in the slalom, then broke her femur while up by two seconds in the super-g. She lived in Truckee but the midwife collective she was part of worked as far north as Susanville. When she stood next to him, Roy had no question that she could take him in a fight.
“She looks ready to burst,” Roy said.
“She looks stunning. The last thing she looks like is that she’s going to burst.” The midwife shot Wiley a check-out-this-guy look.
“She does look beautiful.” He smiled at Karen but she shook her head. No need to lie. Call it what it is: ready to burst. Wiley climbed on the bed and rested her he
ad in her mother’s lap.
Sissy worked through her list, blood pressure and pulse, clocked the contractions, nodded at the progress that’d been made since Roy had made the call, then settled in to whisper encouragement and brush Karen’s hair from her face while she ignored Roy. He was used to this. Sissy was expert at making him feel vestigial. Watching the two of them—not to mention Wiley—there was an overwhelming sense of time winding down, an era coming to an end.
When they relocated to the living room, Karen had Roy put the kettle on for tea.
Sissy took a moment to further unpack and organize her midwife gear. Roy wondered if she knew how much better actual medical devices—Doppler, heart monitor, thermometer, even the forceps and scissors, compresses—made him feel.
“Someone new is going to be living in your house soon,” Sissy said to Wiley.
“I know.”
“I’m excited, are you?”
“Yes.”
“She’s mellower than either of us,” Roy said.
“Are you a little scared?” Sissy said.
“A little.”
“It’s going to be fine. You can help me.”
“I already helped Roy fill the tub and test the water and put the towels out.”
“I see that,” Sissy said. “You’ve done a great job.”
“Come here, honey,” Karen said to Wiley. Soon they’d settled into a game of Crazy Eights on the floor in front of the stereo, Desmond Dekker going on about the Israelites and Bonnie and Clyde. Roy had spread Visqueen on the floor beneath the tub to protect from splashing. He’d done the same on the mattress on their bed. Two brand-new trash cans were in the kitchen, one for linens and the other for other stuff. Made him feel like a contract killer.
Roy opened a beer but Sissy snatched it away and put it facedown in the sink.
“I miss happy hour?” Roy said.
“You did good with the tub and the towels. Hang in there.”
“I really wanted that beer.” He shook out the beer can and put it in the recycling.
“Harden the fuck up, cowboy,” Sissy said quietly. “You only get one chance with this.”
“That’s what’s got me worried.”
“You can do it.” She slapped him on the back. “Be a man. You know, for her.”
Sissy made everyone tea. Roy’s had a splash of bourbon in it.
Karen was sitting up in the birthing tub, breathing consciously, clutching her kneecaps so tightly there would be bruising that stayed for a week. They’d rented the tub and Roy thought that was weird but what wasn’t? It came with a liner. How many kids had been born in that thing? Karen’s breasts were swollen and the veins were risen on her chest and on her belly. Dark nipples. So the baby can see them with its undeveloped baby eyes, is what Sissy said. He could feel the heat coming off Karen. Her face was flushed. Underneath Roy’s obvious fear, there was arousal.
“You’re not breathing,” Karen said. “Breathe with me.”
He looked into her eyes and watched her breasts and followed her breathing. The water in the tub looked pink like maybe it was tinted by blood.
“We’re not going to the hospital, then? This is it,” Roy said.
“Are you nuts? No, we’re doing this here. You couldn’t get me into the car right now if you tried.”
“Are you bleeding?”
She looked at the water. “Maybe. It’s OK. We’re going to be fine.” Roy thought he should put some music on. Desmond Dekker had ended. Wiley and Sissy were in Wiley’s room. He could hear them talking but not what they were saying.
“Hey,” Karen said, touching his hand.
“I’m losing it,” he said. “I feel like I’m gonna pass out or jerk off. I can’t tell which. Maybe neither. Or both.”
“You’re OK.” She took hold of his hand and squeezed. A contraction racked her and she crushed his fingers and he started to take his hand back but stopped himself in time.
Wiley’s footsteps went banging through the kitchen and then Sissy said something they couldn’t understand. “This is an emotional time,” Karen said to Roy. “It puts you through a lot, feelings that maybe you haven’t felt in a long time, or ever. It’s fine. We’re gonna be fine.”
“What should I do?” Roy said. “I need you to tell me. I need a mission.”
She let go of his hand and moaned through another contraction. “Go get some air. Look at the moon and the stars, then come back to me.”
He gave her a weak smile. “It’s still snowing. I can’t see the stars.”
“Tell Wiley to come here. I want to talk to her.”
Roy sent Wiley to her mother. Sissy came from Wiley’s bedroom with a skate mag in her hand.
“I’m going outside for a minute,” Roy said.
Sissy removed her stocking hat to reveal her shaved-in breast cancer solidarity head and gave it a rub, then took a seat at the kitchen island with her cup of herbal tea and began flipping through the skate magazine. “If I see taillights, I’ll chase you down.” She held up the magazine, Roy’s Prius ad had won a best advertisement of the decade contest. The old is new again. “Do you guys train for this stuff?”
“No.”
“No conditioning work or anything, strength training?”
“Just skating. I quit smoking for a while, more or less.”
One stunt person to another, a fraternal nod. “That’s goddamn crazy.”
He pointed at the door. “I’m not leaving. I’m just going outside.”
“Don’t be scared,” Sissy said, without looking up from the magazine. “It’ll happen when it’s ready to happen. We don’t rush and we don’t panic.”
Roy nodded and grabbed his coat and stepped outside. He gulped in the cold air and shook his head, trying to rattle his brain into focus. The snow continued. He’d already gone through six pairs of gloves shoveling snow this winter.
The goat shed was ripe with goat stink but he hardly noticed anymore. He checked the charge controller on the PV system that he’d rigged to power the barn too and it was enough to keep the lights on and the water from freezing in the goat pens but he’d have to climb the ladder again tomorrow morning to clean off the panels. Winter was hell on his batteries, he was on his second set already. Triage was how it felt most days: Fix fence, shovel, dig, repair, get by and don’t stop or the whole operation grinds to a halt. As with everything, he and Karen would have to figure something else out long-term.
He pitched Despot the billy some hay and wrenched on his horns. Despot was disgusting, pure stinking destructive horny goat. Roy admired him, respected him even, but he was annoying in his need to destroy everything: fences, gates, feeders, whatever he could find. He’d gotten out last week and dented the shit out of the quarter panel on Roy’s pickup. Just because. The nannies were sweeter and they got grain and nose rubs. Roy had a talent for milking. He’d built their stanchion with help from YouTube. He was OK with the killing and the butchering now, had to be, the guy they used to hire to do it had left town. Necessity normalizes. But Karen was the one with the skills. He made a mess of anything he cut into and the joke was cube steak. Cut it all into cube steak.
The chicks were being housed in a storage room off the back of the goat shed. He closed the door behind him and the smell of woodchips and ammonia hit him first. The heat-lamp-huddled birds had a calming effect on him. He’d built the brooder out of some old double-pane windows he’d saved from the county landfill. A box of glass held together with screws and a piece of scrap wood laid across the top for the heat lamp to clamp on to.
The little white and yellow birds had kicked litter into their food so he took the feeder out and cleaned it and refilled it with the fresh stuff that reminded him of Grape Nuts. He’d filled a five-gallon bucket with water earlier and he topped up the chickens’ water jar from that and screwed on the plastic base and when he replaced it he made sure they all took a drink but one didn’t get up from his corner. The other birds wouldn’t get near the loner.
&n
bsp; Roy picked it up and saw that it was breathing but it was slow and it didn’t try to squirm from his hand. He knew he should kill it but shut the thought out because it seemed like bad luck to kill anything on the day his child was being born. He dipped its beak in the water and thought maybe it had swallowed a little but there was no way to tell. He gently lowered it onto the warmest spot under the heat lamp and mounded up the chips on it and made it a little bed. The other birds chirped and ran and climbed onto the miniroosts he’d built with #2 pencils and toy blocks he’d pilfered from Wiley’s old toybox. They trampled the sick bird uncaringly. They gulped down water and scattered their feed, little prehistoric monsters.
On his way back to the house, head down against the storm, he heard Karen screaming. He ran as fast as he could through the snow and broke the upper hinge on the screen door as he ripped it open.
Karen was still in the tub, on all fours, facing the low flames in the woodstove. Water had been sloshed all over the floor and Wiley was on her knees beside her mother, pants wet, shirt wet, arms glistening. Sissy was at Karen’s ear, talking to her. Roy scooted in beside Wiley and put his hand on her back.
“Where the hell were you?” Karen said.
“You told me to go,” he said. “I was—I’m right here.” Snow was melting on his face and his hands were tingling as they warmed up.
“Let yourself be,” Sissy said to Karen. “Push and let it happen.”
“Fuck Jesus,” Karen said. “Oh fucking Jesus fuck.”
Roy dropped to his knees and pulled Wiley tight to him and she looked up at him with unblinking fear. They were scared together. “Can you sit on the couch, sweetheart?” Roy said. Wiley wordlessly did as Roy asked. “We might need a little room is all. Are you OK?” She nodded yes.
Sissy moved to the other side of the tub and put the heart monitor against Karen’s belly, static, a disconnected guitar amp, then the plop plop plop of a heartbeat. Karen’s hand shot out of the tub and latched onto Roy’s jacket, his dirty chicken shit goat shed stinking jacket, and he broke her grip like a grappler and ripped off his coat and threw it across the room. He came around the tub to face her and held her hands. She looked into his face and she scared him. How close was this to death? Suddenly her body seemed to coil into itself and he could practically hear her bones cracking and she stayed that way for too long, long enough for him to panic, but she released and Sissy was smiling a little but her eyes and her hands and her actions were dead serious and steady as stone. She’d put away all electronics, anything with a wire. She had towels and blankets ready. A little net like you’d use in an aquarium.
