A Bear Story
Copyright 2011 by Clyde Key
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A Bear Story
This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance of a character in this story to any person is purely coincidental. Because this is a work of fiction, no bears were harmed in the production of this story, although you can’t say as much for Elmo Dingle.
Elmo Dingle—usually known to his friends (both of them) as Mo—went to visit one of his friends who had just moved into a new home in the country. Mo was mightily impressed with the new digs, for good reason. The house had been built in a picturesque rural landscape. It was a rambling ranch house with a large courtyard, four bedrooms, four baths, living room, large kitchen, formal dining room, and a large den.
Mo bragged on his friend’s house but he especially liked that den. It had a picture window that looked out over the valley, polished wood floors, knotty pine paneling, and a large stone fireplace that took up most of one end of the room. But what Mo really liked best was the enormous bearskin rug that lay in front of the fireplace.
“Man, I really love that rug!” said Mo. “You got to tell me where you got it so I can buy one for my place!”
“I’m afraid you can’t buy a rug like this, but this one has been in our family for a long time,” said the friend. “Grandpa went out and shot the bear years ago. Then he took it to a taxidermist who made the rug for him.”
“Well, that’s a shame,” said Mo. “A rug like that would sure look great in my old place.”
But then Mo got to thinking: it shouldn’t be too hard to shoot his own bear and have it made into a rug. After all, a bear is just a big dumb animal. How hard could it be to bag his own bear? So he went home and started researching bear hunting on the internet. He learned that the nearest bears—grizzlies—would be living in the mountains just a few hours drive away. Then he researched what kind of equipment he would need—rifle, camo clothes, etc. And he located the address of a hunting lodge right in the mountains where he intended to hunt.
First off, Mo went to the sporting goods place. The salesman there told him that he thought it wasn’t legal to hunt bears nowadays, but he wasn’t sure. So maybe Mo ought to look it up before he went hunting. But the salesman sold Mo a really wicked looking big-bore hunting rifle anyway. (Mo figured it ought to scare a bear to death even if he missed it.) Mo also got some camo coveralls and a camo hunting hat so the bears wouldn’t be able to see him. Then, at the suggestion of the sporting goods salesman, he bought a fluorescent orange vest so other hunters could see him. He finished off his list with a few other items like a canteen, a backpack, a big hunting knife, and a compass and map so he could find his way off the mountain—although downhill seemed like it ought to be easy to find. He almost forgot to get some rope to tie the bear across the hood but remembered it before he left the sporting goods store. Then when he left the sporting goods store, Mo went over to the car rental place and rented a jeep for the trip. The next morning Mo loaded all the stuff he had bought and headed off to the hunting lodge.
That hunting lodge turned out to be just as good as it looked on the website. It had a big main building with a kitchen, dining room, and office, and it was surrounded by several rustic log cabins for the hunters. Mo took a cabin in the back and drove around there and unloaded all his stuff. Then he went back to the dining room where the staff told him a meeting was going to be held. Mo was so excited he could hardly contain himself.
The meeting had started and the room was almost full when Mo got there so he took a seat at the back. The fellow sitting next to him had a nametag that said Harv. Mo introduced himself to Harv and asked if he had missed anything important. “Nah,” said Harv. “The guide is just talking about what permits are required if you’re going to hunt elk or deer.”
“Hmm. I’m not hunting either.” Mo raised his hand and asked, “What about permits for grizzly bears?”
“There are no permits for bears,” said the guide.
Mo turned to Harv and said, “Hey, that’s great. That must mean permits aren’t required for bears!”
Harv looked back at him a bit strangely but Mo didn’t pay it any attention. He was used to people looking at him that way.
Mo raised his hand again. “Can I hire a guide to help me hunt grizzlies?”
The guide gave him that strange look. “No.”
“Bummer,” said Mo. “I figured I could use some help.”
Harv nudged him and whispered. “You better let this go. But if you really want to hunt bears, I can tell you where to find them. And I can give you some advice too. See me after the meeting.”
The meeting was over soon and Mo sought out his new helpful friend. “How about telling me where to find the bears. And what about that advice you were talking about?”
“Number one,” said Harv, “is where you’ll find bears. I have seen several about two thirds of the way up the mountain. You can stay on the road from the camp most of the way, but there is kind of a big ledge up there that you can’t miss. Get off the road and take the ledge as far as you can with the jeep. You’ll have to go on foot after that, but it won’t be far. There are bears nesting in the caves down under the ledge. They’ve been in hibernation all winter but it’s warming up now so they should be stirring around some.”
“That’s great,” said Mo. “That’s a lot of help.”
“But my advice is don’t come back through the camp if you bag a bear.”
“Might make folks jealous, huh? But I don’t see any other way back except through the camp.”
“There is a way,” said Harv. “When you come back down the mountain, there’s a trail that leaves the main road about a half a mile from here. There’s a sign but it’s old and faded so you can’t read it. It passes behind the camp and hits the highway about two miles from here.”
“So I could just keep on going? But my stuff is in the cabin.”
“No problem,” said Harv. “The trail runs right behind your cabin. You can stop your jeep in the bushes and go back to get your stuff.”
“Okay!” said Mo. “Thanks a lot!”
* * *
Mo got up early next morning, dressed in his new hunting clothes, and loaded the hunting gear into the jeep. He was so excited, though, that he almost forgot the ammo for that big hunting rifle. Oops! Better slow down and get everything right! So Mo took a couple of minutes and thought out his plan, remembering everything that Harv had suggested, and checking the list of everything he had bought for the trip. So nothing could go wrong.
Then Mo headed up the mountain road in the jeep. He located the faded sign and trail that Harv had told him about, and made note of the features along the road that would help him find it on the way back. Mo stopped for a minute and marked the trail location on the map. Then he found the ledge Harv had mentioned on the map and calculated the mileage he should see on the odometer to be sure he didn’t miss it.
But he wouldn’t have missed it anyway because the ledge was plain to see. He found plenty of room to turn the jeep around so it would be easy to get out when he had bagged his bear. Then just to be on the safe side (so he wouldn’t lose them), Mo put his keys under the driver’s seat of the jeep.
It seemed awfully steep off the side of the ledge so Mo took the precaution of tying one end of the rope to a tree and tossing the rope down as far as it would reach. He figured the rope would make it a lot easier to get down and back up the mountainside, and he would probably need it to haul a bear back up, especially since he wanted to bag a really big bear to make a really big rug. Mo rappelled down—it actually wasn’t far down to the next ledge—and had a look around for those caves.
There were some caves that Mo could see from his position and he was thought he could see a bear in one of them, although he couldn’t be certain. So he propped the rifle against a tree. Then he grabbed hold of a branch and leaned way out for a look. He still wasn’t sure so he stretched a little further. Then the branch broke and Mo slid down a few feet, landing in a mountain stream that was fed by melting snow from the mountaintop. It was the coldest he had ever remembered.
Mo was very cold, but from his new vantage point, he could see that there were two bears in the cave. So then he had two problems: first, he was so cold and wet that he couldn’t possible aim the rifle and, second, his rifle was up on the next ledge anyway. Mo looked around a bit and found a way to get back up. It wasn’t easy but he managed to scramble over the rocks and pull himself up with branches to get back up to the next ledge.
Then Mo was so cold he knew he’d have to warm up before he could hunt. So he took off his clothes and spread them over bushes to dry out. Then he was really shivering, so he got back as far out of the breeze as he could. At first, he was miserably cold but he began to dry out. Then the breeze died down and the sun came up high enough that Mo finally began to get warm. Before he knew it, he had dozed off.
Then a passing shadow and a rustling noise woke him up. When he opened his eyes, he was staring face-to-face at a big grizzly bear. Of course, that woke him up completely in a hurry but, before he could move, the bear grabbed him. That bear held him so tight he almost couldn’t breathe and Mo thought it was the end for him. But then Mo quickly figured out what the situation really was. It was a she-bear that had grabbed him, and she didn’t want to hurt him at all. The fact was that the other bear was still in hibernation and she was feeling really neglected. The she-bear danced around and around with Mo, squeezing him tighter and tighter.
What could he do? It certainly didn’t seem like a good idea to tell her she wasn’t his type. And Mo sure didn’t want to make enough noise to wake the other bear. Then he saw that they were swirling closer to his rifle with every spin. He just had to grab the rifle and shoot the bear. The other bear was bigger but this one was plenty big enough for his den. Of course, he’d either have to make a getaway before the other bear could get up there or he’d have to shoot the other bear too. In that case, he’d either have two rugs or he could choose which one he liked best.
When they swung close to the rifle, Mo grabbed for it. But he missed it. Instead, he knocked it over and it went clattering down the mountainside until the trigger caught on a twig. The gun went off and that woke up the other bear.
Then it got real dark on the mountain. The other bear had come up to see what was the commotion, and it was so big it blocked out the sun. That didn’t stop the she-bear from dancing around with Mo, though. But as she spun close to the big bear, it roared so loud that it shook rocks loose from the mountain. That scared the bejeebers out of Mo, but it also startled the she-bear enough that she loosened her grip and that gave Mo a chance. He got loose from the bear and quickly climbed back up the rope to his jeep. He was relieved to see that the keys were right where he left them so he started the engine, threw it in gear, and launched back to the road.
But the big bear had jumped up in front of him and blocked his way. Who knew bears could leap like that? Mo veered to one side and the jeep started sliding down the mountain. But, fortunately, he wound up back on the road at the next hair-pin turn. Then that bear jumped down right behind him. Mo accelerated just as fast as he dared and barely made the next turn. However, the bear cut across and almost caught him, forcing Mo to miss the next hair-pin and start sliding again. Once more, the bear cut the corner and almost caught him but Mo was beginning to get the hang of mountain driving. He cut across and met the road where it doubled back. The bear still chased him but that gave him some margin so that he could stay safely ahead. Then Mo was relieved to see the bear give up the chase.
As Mo thought about the situation, he decided to forget about getting a bearskin rug because it was way too much trouble and dangerous to boot. And then Mo realized that, along with his bejeebers, he had left his clothes back up on the mountain. I can’t go back through the camp like this! What’ll I do? Then he saw the faded sign that marked the back trail and that solved the problem. Mo turned the jeep onto the trail. He decided he would park the jeep in the bushes behind the cabin and hide there until nobody was around. Then he would sneak into the cabin and get some more clothes.
But the trail got pretty steep as it got away from the road. It got rougher, too. Mo tried to slow the jeep down but its brakes were completely gone. He must have torn a brake line loose on the wild ride down! When he got back even with the camp, the jeep barreled right through the bushes. It ran into six big garbage cans and sent them rolling through the camp, probably making enough noise to be heard on the next mountain. But Mo turned off the ignition and got the jeep stopped. He’d have to make a frantic dash back to his cabin before anybody came out to investigate.
That would have worked, except that Mo stepped in some cooking grease that had spilled from one of the cans. He went sliding down toward the kitchen, knocking over a stack of snow shovels along the way. Then the two ladies who worked in the kitchen ran out to see what was going on.
The first lady screamed, “Eek!” and ran back inside. But the other lady picked up one of the shovels and drew it back to whomp him.
“Wait! Please don’t hit me! I can explain!” cried Mo. “I was just out hunting bear!”
“Well, I can see that,” she said. And she whomped him anyway.