Touching Spirit Bear

by Ben Mikaelsen

  Cole stared down at his chest. The bear’s claws had raked him open. His shredded shirt exposed gashes with long strips of flesh missing. One of the gulls squawked as it stole a stringy piece of meat and skin from another gull. Cole realized the gulls were fighting over bits of his own torn flesh.

  He tried to shout and wave at them, but all he managed was a lame flopping of his left hand. A dull angry grunt caught in his throat. The gulls shied a few feet, then returned to picking through the grass. In a rage, Cole tried to spit at them. The bloody mucus ran down his chin and dripped on his shoulder.

  Cole licked his numb lips, but the pain made him stop—he had bitten his tongue when the bear slammed his face into the ground. He watched as one by one the gulls took to the air. They circled out over the bay in search of better pickings.

  Cole glared at them. The gluttonous seagulls had brazenly eaten chunks torn from his chest and were now on to something else—a herring or a clam.

  What luck, Cole thought. To end up on an island with a stupid bear that didn’t have brains enough to run away. And the seagulls? He hoped they choked to death. What pea brains, eating his ripped flesh as indifferently as they would bits of fish! They treated him like any other animal. Cole wanted to scream, “Hey, look at me! I’m Cole Matthews! I’m better than you.” But all he could manage was a grunt. If only he had a gun.

  The squawking of the gulls over the bay echoed like hollow laughter. They were laughing at him, Cole thought. He wished he had never come to this island. But he was here. Nothing could change that. He was trapped on a godforsaken island, alone, and mauled within an inch of his life by a white monster bear.

  Cole tried to gather his wits. The mauling didn’t make sense. In the past, everything had always been afraid of him. Why wasn’t the bear scared? A bear with half a brain would have turned tail and run. Instead, this dumb animal had attacked. Now it wandered out in the woods somewhere, the mauling little more than an inconvenience to its morning.

  Cole glanced down and spotted the knife blade lying by his side. It satisfied him to see the Spirit Bear’s blood on the blade tip. Grimacing, he raised his left hand to wipe his own blood from his lips. He saw his fist tightly gripping the clump of white matted hair he had ripped off the bear. The sight of the hair caused him to shudder.

  Cole tensed his arm to throw away the stark reminder of his mauling, but paused. Instead he worked his hand to his side and stuffed the hair in his pants pocket. If he lived through this, he would have something to brag about. He could prove he had fought a bear. The hair gave Cole a sense of power. No bear would willingly give up a big clump of hair.

  Cole struggled to shift his position on the uneven ground, but stiffness had set into his joints like hardened cement. He couldn’t roll to either side. If only he could use both arms. Struggling, he raised his head for a better look at his right arm. It lay mangled and useless. All he could see of his forearm was ripped shirt and ragged torn flesh. A bloody white bone jutted out near his elbow like a broken stick. His fingers looked artificial, pale and puffy from grabbing the Devil’s Club. They faced the wrong direction. The only sensation he had from the arm was a throbbing burn in his shoulder.

  The sight of his arm frightened Cole. He drew in a deep breath, but again pain stabbed at his chest, warning him. He returned to shallow tentative breaths, drawing air past his lips as if he were sipping from a straw.

  Cole grimaced and struggled to raise his right knee, but he couldn’t. The crushing bites to his thigh had rendered his leg lifeless. He relaxed his neck to catch his breath. Sweat stung his eyes.

  And still it rained, cold rain, soaking into everything it touched. A breeze swayed the branches overhead. Cole’s gaze wandered in a big circle around him. All of the landscape, the air, the trees, the animals, the water, the rain, all seemed to be part of something bigger. They moved in harmony, bending and flowing, twisting and breathing, as if connected. But Cole felt alone and apart. His soaked clothes chilled his bones. The hard ground pushed at his wounded body like a big hand shoving him away.

  No, Cole thought, he was not a part of this place. He should not be here. It was not his choice to lie dying on a remote island, alone, unable to move. This place held him prisoner more securely than any jail cell. Here, he was powerless. He could not keep warm or find food. His place was wearing dry clothes in a safe warm room, sleeping and eating without a care in the world. His place was having other people worry about him. His place was being in control. That was his place.

  Haunting thoughts pried at Cole’s mind. Night would come sooner or later, and with it, more rain and cold. What would happen when the last bit of warmth seeped from his body? What was death like? Did it hurt? Did it come fast like lightning from the sky or a blow from the Spirit Bear? Did death sneak around like a stinking seagull, trying to snatch life from a body like meat chunks from a rotting carcass? Or did life just flicker out like a dim candle?

  Cole’s tortured thoughts slowly gave way to an even worse possibility. What if death didn’t happen right away? Would seagulls land on him and peck bits of warm meat from his body when he could no longer fight back? And where was the bear?

  Waves of pain wracked Cole’s body. With each agonizing wave, he bit at his lip and whimpered, trying not to cry out. All of his life he had been haunted by nightmares of helplessness. Some nights he dreamed he was drowning, unable to find the surface. Some nights he dreamed of fists raining down on him like giant hail. Worse yet were the dreams he had of being alone and no one caring about him. Now he was living his worst nightmare. Cole flopped his head to the side and spotted a small caterpillar inching over a rotted branch. He reached out his finger and crushed it. That would teach it not to crawl so close.

  The sweet taste of blood kept seeping into Cole’s mouth, forcing him to swallow. His stomach cramped. Wincing, he wiped at his mouth with his left hand, then stared at the glistening red on his knuckles. It reminded him of the bear’s blood on the knife blade beside him. It also looked like the blood he had seen on the sidewalk after beating up Peter. The blood looked identical. This thought drifted about in his head but failed to gain meaning. Blood might look the same, but Peter was a loser and a jerk. Cole dropped his hand to the grass. The bear was a stupid lumbering moron.

  Cole’s stomach churned and cramped harder. A sour bile taste stung his throat. He dared not throw up, but he felt the urge coming like a freight train and he couldn’t get off the tracks. Suddenly he convulsed and vomited. Instant pain attacked his chest, and the world swam in circles. Again and again the spasms came, and Cole flopped his head sideways to keep from choking. He tried to stop throwing up, but couldn’t. Black patches danced across his vision, then he lost consciousness.

  Hours later, Cole awoke feeling weak and confused. His thoughts drifted above him like restless air moving over the bay. The stink of vomit and the salty smell of rotting seaweed hung in the air, and overhead, a leaf drifted down in slow motion as if arriving from outer space.

  Cole forced his head to the side and tried to focus. Vomit covered the ground beside his head. He could see chunks of the fish he had eaten. Beyond, he could see the mouth of the bay where the ocean disappeared into the dull, rain-misted sky.

  Cole damned the rocks, the rain, and the endless ocean. What a fool he had been to come here instead of going to jail. At least in jail he would have been in the safety and comfort of a cell. He would have had some control. Here he was powerless, nobody to control, nobody to blame. Every action worked against him and hurt him.

  A bitter loneliness swept over Cole as tears clouded his vision. He felt so small here, puked up on a remote forgotten shore and left to die. Was this how the world was going to get rid of him?

  CHAPTER 9

  A CONSTANT RAIN and shrouded gray sky masked the passing of hours, leaving Cole in a cruel time warp with only one possible end. He tried not to think about the end, but he could not ignore the maddening pain from his wounds.

  As gusts of wi
nd drove the chill deeper into his body, rain kept falling, penetrating his will, seeping into his consciousness, and flooding his soul. This rain fully intended to kill.

  As Cole weakened, he stared up at the giant spruce tree towering above him. Desperate tears welled up inside and squeezed past his eyelids. The wind gusted harder.

  What did it matter anymore if he died? Nobody else cared about him, so why should he care about himself? As Cole’s gaze drifted among the branches of the tree, a small bird’s nest tucked into the fork of two branches caught his attention. The nest rested near the trunk, protected from both the wind and the rain. As Cole watched, a small gray sparrow landed in the nest, twitched about with a flurry of activity, then flew off. Soon it returned again.

  Each time the sparrow returned, it carried a bug or a worm in its beak and busied itself over the nest. The visits brought faint chirping sounds. Cole squinted and made out little heads jutting above the nest. This was a mother bird feeding her young. Up there on a branch, barely spitting distance away, little sparrows rested dry and warm, having food brought to them in the comfort of a nest built by their mother.

  The sight of the baby birds irritated Cole. Without his injuries, he could easily have crawled up and knocked the nest down. That’s what the stupid birds deserved.

  After feeding, the mother flitted to a branch near the nest. She ruffled her wings and chest feathers, keeping an eye on her young. Watching the bird made Cole curse every second of his miserable and haphazard life. If he were the mother bird, he would just leave the babies to fend for themselves. She didn’t owe them anything.

  That’s how Cole felt—he didn’t owe anyone anything. Nobody had ever cared for him, so why should he care about anyone else? He wouldn’t even be here on this island, injured, if it weren’t for other people and their lame ideas. Nothing had been his fault. Cole’s bitterness flickered to life once more. His anger helped to focus his thoughts, but it could not stop the frigid drizzle or the torturing pain that wracked his body. Nor could it ward off the loneliness.

  The wind that tugged at Cole’s tattered clothing seemed distant. As his attention drifted and his senses dulled, rain numbed his face. Cole stared blankly at the thin sliver of blue sky on the western horizon. Exhaustion finally dragged him into a stuporous sleep.

  Unconscious, he dreamed of the colorful at.óow blanket. His left hand twitched and moved back and forth, pretending to pull the at.óow over his freezing body. The imaginary blanket shielded him from the cold as it had protected many generations before him. Under the imaginary blanket, he slept soundly.

  A loud rumble woke Cole from his sleep. At first he thought he had gone blind. Then slowly he realized it was nighttime. The wind had let up, but the cold rain still fell relentlessly from some endless reservoir in the sky. Then a blinding flash of lightning lit the horizon. Seconds later, deep rumbling thunder rolled overhead, followed by another flash of lightning.

  Before the light collapsed back into darkness, Cole realized the at.óow he had dreamed of was not covering him. And he sensed a presence. He peered wide-eyed into the black night but could see nothing. Then lightning flashed again with a sharp crack, closer this time. In that instant, Cole saw it, ghostlike. Barely fifty feet away, the giant Spirit Bear stood motionless in the rain.

  Then the night went black again.

  Terrified, Cole waited, his eyes prying at the darkness. Had the bear returned to kill him? As he waited, the storm worsened. The wind picked up, gusting harder. Rain fell in torrents, and thunder rumbled across the sky like empty barrels rolling toward the horizon. When the next bolt of lightning lit the bay, Cole searched frantically.

  Nothing! Gone! Again the Spirit Bear had vanished.

  Cole grimaced. He hated this bear. What a coward. This creature was waiting until he grew so weak he couldn’t fight back. Then it would finish him off. Cole moaned as a violent gust of wind pummeled his body. Would the bear just kill him and leave him to the seagulls, or would it eat him?

  Lightning flashed closer, stabbing down with long, probing fingers. The rumbling thunder started crashing and exploding. To protect himself, Cole tried to curl into a ball, but pain stung at his chest, lungs, and useless hip, and he cried out, “Help me! Somebody help me!” The black night and the wind drowned out his voice. Now the lightning flashed so often that the sky stayed lit for several long seconds at a time and the thunder came in a continuous roar. Trees swayed and bent with the wind. White-capped waves frothed and churned in the bay.

  Cole pinched his eyes closed against the piercing rain. Suddenly a prickling sensation, as if ants were swarming over him, covered his whole body. A searing light flashed, and a deafening explosion detonated beside him. He heard a cracking sound as the sky crashed to earth with a violent impact that shook the ground. Splinters of branches rained down. Then came silence and calm, as if the impact had paralyzed the sky. The rain and wind paused, and an acrid smell like burning wire filled the air.

  Cole lay frozen by fear. A sobering power had attacked the earth. This power made the bear’s attack seem gentle. “No more! No more!” he moaned. “Please, no more!”

  But there was more. The storm raged on as Cole lay trembling, his eyes frantic. The explosion had shocked his mind awake. Never in his life had he felt so exposed, so vulnerable, so helpless. He had no control. To this storm, he was as insignificant as a leaf. Cole blinked in stunned realization. He had always been this weak. How could he have ever thought he truly controlled anything?

  The acid electrical smell burned his nose and mixed with the smell of wet vomit on the ground. Cole swallowed hard to keep from throwing up again as the storm kept attacking the sky and earth around him.

  Finally the wind lost its fury, and the sky ran out of rain. The thunder subsided, rumbling back and forth across the sky, searching for someplace else to go. Cole swallowed the taste of bile in his throat and listened to the rumbling overhead. Then once more he lost consciousness.

  When he awoke next, the rain had stopped. Vaguely, he could make out the big spruce tree lying on the ground only feet away from where he lay. Moment by moment, he sorted out what had happened during the storm. Lightning had struck the tree. The splitting sound, the thunderous impact, the splintering and bits of branches showering him, all had happened when the huge tree crashed to earth.

  Cole gazed up at the night sky. A bright full moon drifted ghostlike among the broken clouds. The tortured air had calmed but still shifted back and forth. Cole felt desperately weak. Fighting to survive, he could stay here a short while longer. Giving up, he could pass quickly over the edge. Which way did he want to go? He clenched his teeth against the pain and despair. Which way did he want to go?

  Cole focused his blurred vision on the full moon. It helped him to remain on this side. As he stared, he puzzled at the moon’s shape. Something in that hazy shape held meaning. Edwin had said something about a circle. So had Garvey. What had they said? Cole could not remember, but he kept staring up.

  Later, Cole flopped his head to the side. He could make out the bay and see moonlight reflecting against one shore. The shoreline faded into darkness in the shadow of the trees. Seeing no sign of the Spirit Bear, Cole returned his attention to the fallen tree beside him.

  That was when he remembered the baby sparrows. He tried to make out where they might be now among the fallen and twisted branches. He squinted harder, but all he saw was black. What had happened to the baby birds?

  Mustering all his strength, he raised his head, and with a weak and pinched voice he called into the darkened branches, “Are you okay?”

  CHAPTER 10

  AS COLE LAY thinking about the sparrows, pain surged back and forth through his body. He felt himself slipping into darkness and blinked hard, doggedly clinging to life, willing himself to not let go. For hours he kept blinking, but by dawn, staying conscious seemed less important. Now he hung on the edge of existence, detached from the real world, weightless and moved by the wind. Thoughts of
the sparrows disappeared.

  As daylight seeped through thick curtains of haze, a new pain arrived and gradually worsened until it could not be ignored. Pressure had built in his lower gut. He needed desperately to go to the bathroom but held back, grimacing. He had no way to squirm away from his own waste. Finally the pain became so sharp, Cole let out a deep groan. He couldn’t fight his own body any longer.

  Painful shame gripped Cole as waste slipped from his body and a raw stench filled the air. He jerked his head and arm to drive away the mosquitoes swarming around him, but they returned instantly. Finally he gave up. An absolute and utter hopelessness overwhelmed him. He felt like a helpless baby, not able to roll away from his own filth. He wanted to hate somebody, to be angry, and to place blame on everything and everyone for this moment. But anger took energy, and Cole no longer had energy.

  As the sun climbed over the trees, black horse flies started attacking. Unable to drive them away, Cole felt the huge insects bite him. He gazed desperately away at the fallen tree beside him. A ten-foot trunk remained upright, its ragged top charred where lightning had struck. Whiffs of smoke still curled upward. Beside the trunk lay a tangle of broken timber.

  Cole watched the birds flitting among the downed branches, feeding on bugs and worms. For them the storm was over and life continued. The falling of the tree was simply a natural reality, like the passing of another day. Cole eyed the birds as he struggled to concentrate. Something in those branches had been important. His gaze wandered to the ripped-up grass under the splintered branches and crushed boughs. What had been so important in that maze of destruction? He spotted a small, brown, fist-sized clump of twigs not ten feet away.

  The nest.

  That was it! That was what he had been searching for. Something about that nest was important. But what?