by Beth Lewis
But I quick put him out my head when I saw what did the spooking.
I always figured I could run faster’n any fella in the Mussa Valley, sure as hell could outrun Trapper, but no matter how fast your legs can carry you, there ain’t no way you’re outrunning a six-hundred-pound brown bear. I put everything I had into my legs, making ’em hurt, making ’em jump over logs and slip ’tween close trees. Guess that bear didn’t like me touching his rubbing tree or drinking out his river.
I know I shouldn’t have run. I know it like I know the sky is blue and snow is cold. You run, bear gonna chase you. But shit, that bear was big and it came up on me quick. White foam poured out a’ his mouth and I felt his breath on my back, hot and heavy and too damn near. All that water I just drank came out my skin in sweat and panic and I felt my blood drying up and slowing down.
Dense trees and brush slowed that lumbering beast and I gained a bit of ground on him. My lungs burnt like smelting fire. Hottest you can get. Turned all that water straight to vapor. I couldn’t see nothing but strokes of mushed-up green and brown. All I knew was the thundering bear. I felt every footstep shake the earth and send critters dashing for cover. Felt every roar vibrating in my chest, but I just kept running.
Then I saw something up ahead that scared the spit out a’ me.
A clearing.
No way I was outrunning a bear on open ground. I wanted to scream and curl up in the dirt and hope he got bored a’ me quick. One swipe of a paw and no more Elka. Death put his hand on my shoulder and laughed.
But I weren’t that easy to kill.
Afore the trees stopped, I found my way out. I darted off to the left, heard a roar behind me. Bears, for all their power, are big animals and don’t do well with corners. He crashed into a trunk and I heard that wood split like kindling. Took him a few seconds to recover, and that was all I needed.
Three running strides up a fallen tree leaning ’gainst his neighbor, and a leap of stupid. I caught a branch and swung on it, let go right at the right moment and flew like a hawk to one higher. The bear swiped at the fallen tree, smashed it to splinters. I climbed up on my high branch as the bear stood up. I’d figured eight feet from the rubbing tree but, shit, my numbers always been bad. This boy was closer to twelve.
I weren’t high enough. He started leaning on the tree, rocking it, trying to knock it down and me with it. He growled and the wood started cracking. He reached up with those blade claws and took a chunk out my branch, near took my foot with it.
I was screaming, shouting up a storm. Telling that beast to go back to fishing.
“You don’t want to eat me, bear! I’m all grit and string! Wouldn’t put no fat on you for the sleep.”
I caught the bear’s eyes, like he’d heard my words. Eyes like black marbles stared up at me. Saw the life of the forest in those eyes. Bear reached up one big paw and rested it, nice and gentle like, on my branch, just a finger-length away from my toes. He huffed and gave some kind of low yowl like he was sad and just wanting someone to play with.
Then he dropped down, back to all fours. All that rage and fight drained right out of him. He clawed about in the dirt for a bit, like he was waiting for me to change my mind, then wandered off. Either he figured I weren’t worth the fight, he was already plump and glossy, or he understood my words, saw something in me that he didn’t much fancy eating. We’re both children of the forest, after all, almost be rude to take a bite at me.
I was breathing hard, chest burning, heart thundering. I settled down careful on that branch and got some kind of comfort. Next I opened my eyes it was dark, moon was high and filled that clearing with cool, white light. Near beautiful it was but I knew the beasts that lurked just outside the light, no beauty in them, just teeth, just hunger. Forest was silent but for a few scratching insects. Didn’t hear or see no bears or wolves, but that didn’t mean much, could a’ been one sitting ’neath my tree for all I knew.
I grabbed my flask but felt it empty afore I brought it to my mouth. I didn’t fill it at the Mussa. That bear got to me first.
My belly gurgled and ached. No food for days sent pains through me. Never been that long without a good meal. Even on the weeklong hunting trips with Trapper, we could always catch enough to keep us fed. Maybe he shot a few more geese but then, he never did let me go it alone, afraid I’d show him up no doubt. Afraid I’d come back ten geese and a deer richer and he’d be left scratching his head thinking, Shit that girl’s the best damn hunter in BeeCee and she knows ten times what I ever did.
I’d been eleven days in that forest by myself but I wasn’t even close to living. I was surviving and I weren’t even doing it well. Think I was just a little out of sorts then, see, little bit in shock maybe after discovering the man I called Daddy was…well…Kreagar Hallet. That kind of thing has an effect; it can knock down the smarts, make simple snares and baiting seem like constructing a cathedral out a’ matchsticks. It can knock down other parts of you too. I sat up in that tree and saw everything in my head. All my days with kind Trapper, all my nights with fierce Kreagar, all the hunts and skinning, all the cuts and scrapes he patched up when I was a young’un. All the laughs. All the teachings. What else had he taught me that I didn’t see as true back then?
Felt a tear on my cheek. A tear for all those times, wrecked and ruined now. A tear for Missy and all them other people he’d taken the knife to. I had fear for him when I saw him that first time, running after seven-year-old me, but that went quick. Missy and them other women and that kid he killed, they must a’ had fear for him right till they died. Couldn’t imagine knowing your death’s coming at the hands of a real beast. That bear could a’ killed me, true, but a bear don’t have no malice in his heart. A man like Kreagar, well, seems that’s all he got.
I left them tears right where they was and climbed down the tree. I stepped quiet and slow to the edge of the clearing. All moonlight and floating motes and midges. Little piece of beauty in a world gone to shit. Sky was quiet, no storms threatening to tear it all up though this wood was full a’ felled trees and split trunks what said the thunderhead don’t spare it. Moonlight edged the top of the ridge in silver. That ridge marked the true end of the Mussa and my second life. Right then I didn’t care I hadn’t eaten and didn’t have no water, I just wanted out a’ that valley.
I got to the top of the ridge at sunrise.
The world stretched out ’neath me, ripe and ready and all mine. Land was flat and dry, grass and prairie ’stead of trees and ferns. This prairie weren’t like none I’d seen on my trips south. This was hard land, grass was pale brown ’stead a’ the green it should a’ been this time a’ year. Seen this in some a’ the places hit by the Damn Stupid. Trapper said poison leaked out a’ some a’ them bombs and seeded the land, turned it all to scrabble and scratch and sucked out all the goodness. Weren’t like this was dead land, but it weren’t happy and didn’t give up its fruits easy no more. Had a fear that the more north I went, the more a’ this unhappy land I’d see. The Damn Stupid had turned forest to mud and mountains to rubble and put ice in the hearts a’ those what lived through it, and there weren’t no place hit worse than the North.
Line of mountains, high and ragged, dusted with snow ran crossways straight ahead, bigger’n any hill, any ridge, I’d ever seen. My true momma and daddy were waiting beyond those mountains, living it up, surrounded by coin and salt beef. A piece a’ that soon to be mine.
I quick found north and spied, lit up by the new dawn, a line of smoke trailing up to the sky. Sat out a little ways west, far across the brush and close to a copse of pine, was a sprawling homestead. Herd of cattle penned up, few horses maybe and one a’ them veranda porches ringing the house. Looked like whoever made a life in that place made it well and bountiful. Maybe they’d have a mouthful or two and a cup a’ water to share. What set my head firmer was the thought that my parents might a’ passed up this way. The big north road weren’t far from the homestead, and I figured all them years ago
they might at least a’ stopped for directions.
The ridge sloped nice and easy down to the flat and I kept that smoke in eye-line. It went out a’ my way, few miles west, but the promise of a good meal and warm fire, maybe news a’ my folks, was worth it.
Men got a lot more rules for living than the forest. Some of them are simple and most folk stick to ’em without question: no killing, no stealing, and the like. Then they got the strange ones. No talking while chewing on food. No hunting a deer on someone else’s land, though hell, I broke that one more’n once. There’s a rule for meeting new folks too. No sneaking. Come up on their door like a friend coming for tea and wisdom. Show your weapons open, don’t go hiding. Though I broke that one too and made sure to tuck my knife ’neath my coat. Rules is one thing, but if I don’t follow ’em I can’t trust no one else to neither.
Wooden sign above the gate swung on one chain, struck through with a bullet hole. That should a’ been my first clue that something weren’t right in the place. Cattle penned when they should a’ been out on the plain, getting the last of the summer grazing should a’ been my second. Lot a’ houses in BeeCee had metal shutters over the windows in case a’ bad thunderheads and this one weren’t no different, but half them shutters were closed, locked that way with heavy chains. Sun was shining up there and there weren’t no scent in the air what said a thunderhead was near, weren’t no reason for them shutters to be closed. But my belly rumbled and my hands started shaking for want of a meal and I ignored all them clues. More fool me.
I walked slow up the track to the house, arms up to show I weren’t carrying no gun. I was halfway to the door when it opened and a man, older’n a willow tree and just as thin, stepped out, double-barrel by his side.
“What’s your business here, miss?” he said.
Another rule a’ men is not to say what you want up front, then you got nothing left up your sleeve.
“I got myself turned around in that forest back there,” I told him, and he looked at me sideways, like I was lying, “and I’m in need a’ directions up north.”
He didn’t have a hair on his head and I remember thinking, I ain’t never seen no one afflicted like that. In the woods, you see a bobcat or a bear without fur, it means he’s sick as a dog and likely to die that winter. Looked like this fella had seen more winters’n I could count, so I couldn’t right reconcile the two.
“Where you headed?” he said.
“Halveston,” I said, ’cause that was one a’ them magic words from my momma’s letter.
The man looked at me strange for a few more seconds, then his face cracked into a smile.
“What business has a girl your age got in Halveston?”
One a’ them Trapper rules came into my head. Don’t go asking questions.
“My business is mine. All I need’s to be pointed the right way.”
He nodded slow. “You’ve got a long road ahead, and you look no more than skin and bones,” he said, and quick I thought he was a fine one to talk ’bout that.
“You hungry?” he said.
He put the gun inside the door and pushed the door open wide.
My good sense jumbled up. I was asking for directions, but he was offering a place at his table. Sure I’d hoped he would but I didn’t think it’d be that easy. People in this country ain’t that easy.
My stomach let out one a’ them angry gurgles and he must a’ heard it ’cause he said, “I’ve got a pot of chili on the stove.”
Felt the knife in my belt and I figured if he tried anything, I’d have a fine chance a’ beating them stick-bones a’ his afore he got to his gun. Belly rumbled like a damn thunderhead.
“Yes, sir, I am hungry,” I said.
“Then please, come in. I can draw you a map while you eat.”
His voice was calm and friendly and he smiled right through his eyes, something Trapper never did. His smiles were on the surface, this man’s were down deep. Once you seen ’em both, you can tell the difference quick enough.
I thanked him and went closer, though those were the hardest steps my body ever took. My legs were lead and my joints seemed close to giving up on me if I pushed them much further.
“You own this place?” I asked, worrying over the bullet hole in the sign.
He kept smiling. “You read the name on the gate?”
I shook my head.
“Gate reads Matthews,” he said.
My patience weren’t waiting around for him to make sense. “So you Matthews?”
“I’ll claim that,” he said, “unless I owe you money.”
Then he winked at me and laughed loud. I weren’t sure what to make of him, this Matthews fella, but I could smell that chili simmering on the stove and he was stick-thin and older’n God.
Seems he could sense my worry. He put a face on like he knew my thinking and said, “I’ve got chili to check on, miss, so you just come in when you like. Door’s open for you.”
Then he went inside. Turned his back on a stranger and left his door swinging in the wind. I could a’ been a killer for all he knew. Maybe he figured being a girl I wouldn’t be no danger to him. I hated that my head went to these dark places on first meeting someone new. I don’t got any trust left in me no more, but it seemed Matthews had enough for the both of us.
I went in the house, slow and steady like I was stalking through deer country, but I soon gave that up. Walking in that homestead was like stumbling right onto the pages of one a’ them glossy magazines. Nana kept a stack ’neath her mattress in some plastic wraps so’s they didn’t rot. If I was good, what weren’t all that often, she’d let me look through before bedtime. Said it kept her head on all them things we lost in the Damn Stupid and the Second Conflict, that’s why she kept pictures a’ my granddaddy right ’neath her pillow. Maybe that’s why she was so sore all the time, she was living in the back-then, not the here-now. But them magazines was what told me I’d done good by her so I paid attention. Seemed like all them pages had their pictures took in Matthews’s homestead. “Holidays in the Wild.” See bears up close and personal. Come home to a warm fire and hot cocoa. That kind of thing. He had a grizzly-skin rug on the floor, claws an’ all, leather couches, cooking place with a double range and more pots and pans and ladles and plates than any right-minded folk would need in ten lifetimes. All you truly need is a big iron pot, a skillet, and a damn good knife. Seemed like fancy for fancy’s sake. Made my ten-year home with Trapper look like a flea pit.
Matthews was at the stove, stirring the chili with a long wooden spoon. He didn’t say or do nothing when I came in but I saw a chair been pulled out from the eating table. He picked up another spoon, a little silver one what didn’t seem much use for anything, and dipped it in the pot, took a taste of the sauce. He puckered up his lips like a goat about to bleat and chucked in some salt, some pepper, and something I couldn’t place, some herb or something.
“Coffee?” he said, then tasted the sauce again.
Trapper never let me have coffee. He said it frightened the mind and made it misfire. I didn’t want nothing interfering with my senses.
“Thank you kindly but no,” I said, “though I’d be glad of a drink of water.”
Keep your manners friendly, Trapper always told me, but keep your wits sharp, ain’t no telling what kind of folk live in these woods. I never figured he was talking about himself.
Matthews set down a small glass a’ crystal cool water and said, “This is mineral water, it’ll set you right.”
I weren’t right sure what mineral water was and why it was different from the normal stuff out the river but it was cold and it hit my throat like rain on dust. I drank it all in one long breath and quick forgot my manners. I slammed that glass on the table and belched hearty, loud enough to rival any man.
Matthews didn’t do nothing ’cept smile at me and nod.
“I apologize, fella,” I said, “I didn’t mean nothin’ by that, I just ain’t had no water all day and sometimes you just ca
n’t control your urges. Damn, that chili sure smells good.”
He took the glass off the table, holding it real delicate ’tween two fingers and said, “I know how that is, young lady, and I take no offense. In fact, I take it as a compliment.”
I smiled a bit at him but I confess I felt heat in my cheeks and I’m sure they went red as cherries. Matthews pulled out a chair opposite and sat down.
“Have you been to Halveston before?”
“No,” I said. “I’m travelin’ north, lookin’ to find some folks I ain’t seen in a few years. Wondered if they might a’ passed this way.” I weren’t quite sure what to tell him, he seemed kind enough, seemed friendly and sweet, but I didn’t know him from a hole in the ground.
Wafting smell of that chili sent shivers through me.
He nodded again. Did that a lot, I was noticing. “I don’t get many visitors.”
“This would a’ been summer ’bout fifteen years back. Lady and her fella heading up to them gold fields.”
Part a’ me hated giving out so much, but the part a’ me what still played my momma’s letter in my head when I was trying to sleep hoped to high heaven he’d a’ seen ’em. Least so’s maybe he could tell me what they looked like. Nana kept magazines like they was sacred but didn’t keep no photographs of her own daughter.
Matthews leaned back in his chair and puffed out his cheeks, then he scratched at the back a’ his head. “Fifteen years. That’s a long time to remember strangers. But you say they went for gold?”
I nodded.
“That was the summer we finished building the church over in Martinsville. We had a few travelers pass through our doors in those months.”
Felt a swell a’ hope in me. Martinsville was one a’ them words in the letter.
When he spoke again he spoke slower, kept his eyes on me when before he’d been staring at the ceiling like it had all them memories stored in its rafters.
