Bear
TW: Homophobic slurs
Early in the hike Rye fell and bloodied his knee against a rock so Alexander carried both of their packs, one strapped to his front. This slowed their progress and darkness began to fall while they were still a mile short of their destination, the scenic waterfall. With no suitable space near the trail they bashed their their way through the brush to the lake shore where there was evidence of a derelict camp site: cigarette butts and faded beer cans, a circle of rocks filled in with flood silt, an overturned fiberglass canoe, the underside stained dark green with scum.
“Cute,” Rye said. “Our postage-stamp camp site.” There was just enough level sand to set up a tent and sit beside it on a gravel and sand porch; the rest was ruined with rocks, scrub, and flood deposits.
Alexander dropped the heavy packs and surveyed the view. The shoreline arced away in both directions, thickly vegetated land rising into ridges populated with stands of deciduous trees and pines intermixed. A few hundred yards from the shore rose a forested island, behind which the sun was setting, casting its shadow over the two men.
Rye sat on the ground and massaged his knee. “It’s getting stiff.” “That’s what he said.”
“Shut up and tend to my wound, Alexander Paxton, M.D.”
Alexander was tugging the tent from his tightly-packed rig. “Are you truly injured, Rye?” “No. I think I just need to ice it. I don’t suppose we packed any ice?”
“Funny.” Within ten seconds Alexander had produced a pack of insta-freeze from the depths of his bag and tossed it at Rye’s feet. “Stomp on it.”
Rye did so. “Now what?” “Feel it.”
“Oh—it’s cold!”
“I told you I’d take care of you.”
The surface of the lake trembled and a chorus of crickets sounded from the thicketed shore; the water had the peace of a candlelit bathtub that had gone lukewarm, the pages of the book in hand wrinkling and steam-dampened.
Rye shook the rocks from his brand new hiking boots. “Did you see the sign at the trail head? ‘Bear Frequenting Area,’ as if it were a divorcee perusing shops along the beach front.”
Alexander had kicked aside the dead branches and large stones to clear the space and was now unfolding the fabric of the tent.
“I’m asking if you think we will be eaten by bears in the night,” Rye said.
Alexander was assembling the spars for the tent. “The only camping worth doing is in bear country.”
“So there are bears here! You never told me about this. My heart is racing now—I’ll have to find my take-as-needed anxiety meds.”
“Don’t worry. The bears won’t bother us. I’ve done this a million times before.”
“Okay, if you say so.” Rye relaxed in the sand and watched the last of the sun die behind the island trees, the full moon rising from the opposite direction. When he looked back to
Alexander, dim in the waning light, he’d erected the pale green tent and was rooting around within, his headlight dodging to and fro as he arranged the bedroll.
“Hey, what about dinner?” Rye said.
It took a minute or two for Alexander to finish setting up the interior of the tent to his liking, after which he emerged and stood to his full six foot, five inch height. “What was that, biscuit?”
“I’m hungry! Feed me!” Rye said. He’d rolled to his side and rested his head on his hand. “Yes, of course.” Alexander set forth into the brush to find kindling.
Rye took his phone from his pocket, attempting in vain to find signal. “Don’t go far; I don’t want the bears to eat me while you’re gone.”
Alexander traipsed into the brush and disappeared in the dark foliage that had become buzzingly opaque with the setting of the sun. The moon, as it rose, projected icy blue silhouettes in the dense walls of foliage. Rye saw a fish’s mouth break the still plane of water to snack on a flying insect and disappear in a blink, leaving a gentle ripple; he saw another, and another, until he was watching the lake like an attentive Labrador. Some crashing behind him in the woods made him jump, and he turned to see his husband carrying an armload of sticks.
“I thought you were a bear,” Rye said.
Alexander laughed. “What would you have done?”
“Die. What else? Run into the water; flee to that island—can bears swim?”
“Most likely. Bears a can do anything.” Alexander deposited the wood beside the fire ring and began to tent the kindling.
“There’s nothing else we could do; there’s nowhere to run,” Rye said, breathlessly, “Do you think that canoe works? We should get it ready,”.
Alexander was using the paper bags and wrappers he’d saved from their fast food lunch from the drive up to start the fire. “You should take those anxiety meds, you’re being paranoid; no bear is going to bother us. You’re more likely to die in a car accident, and you still drive a car, don’t you?”
Rye got off the ground and tested his knee; he could limp around successfully. He hobbled to the derelict boat and tugged on it until it flipped over, a snake darting out from under and into the water like a miniature wraith. “Maybe we’d like to go on a little boat adventure in the morning?”
The fire had taken hold, glowing in Alexander’s face, highlighting his angular Norse features with gold flames and floating embers. “I was thinking we’d hike the rest of the way to the waterfall in the morning and setup base camp there like we’d originally planned.”
The boat was small and light—fiberglass—just big enough for the two of them, and Rye dragged it from the brush to the edge of the water. He looked around for a minute but found no oar. “Just a little trip, what do you think? We could even go tonight.”
“I thought you were hungry.”
“I’m always hungry. What’s for dinner?”
Alexander held up two chrome pouches. “Beef Bolognese or Lime Rice and Chicken?” “Give me that beef, baby.”
“You sure? It’s lot of calories.”
“Give me the beef, you sexy astronaut with your space food. I’m starving.”
Alexander took his camping pot off the fire and poured water into the pouches, steam rising from the openings. He motioned for Rye to sit on the blanket next to him and he handed over a pouch and a plastic camping spork. They ate their meals as they chatted gently and the bats darted above in wild arcs.
*
The last thing Rye wanted to do was peel himself from the warm spoon he had going with his partner, but his bladder drove him into the cool outside where nature had come alive with distant shrieks, rustlings in all directions, frogs screaming for sex from unseen pockets. The stones pinched his bare feet as he limped his way to the lakeside to relieve himself where the giant disk of the moon quaked gently in the placid water.
There was a crashing in the woods behind him and Rye turned and gave a clipped scream at what he saw: the head of a bear looking at him from the edge of the brush. If he hadn’t just emptied everything he would have certainly pissed himself. The bear remained still, its eyes dark and thoughtless; Rye had been literally caught with his pants down, holding his breath, trying not to move. He stared into the bear’s eyes, trying to read the intent, read the soul, but there was nothing. The bear gave out a brief and sonorous snort, and receded into the darkness. Rye watched that spot in the foliage for many minutes, and after nothing had happened, he cautiously raised the waistband of his pajamas and slowly, gradually made his way back into the tent.
Rye shook Alexander’s shoulder and shout-whispered. “What do we do if we see a bear.” “What are you talking about?”
“I saw a bear.” “No you didn’t.”
“I just did, when I was out taking a piss.” Alexander was quiet.
“My heart won’t stop pounding. What do we do? Should we get in the canoe?”
“We don’t have any food out, he doesn’t want to bother us, he’s just poking around. We’ll leave first thing in the morning; we should be fine. Take some of your meds.”
Rye found his pill bottle and popped a couple, rolling onto his back and staring at the stars twinkling through the black mesh of the tent.
“And don’t get the squirms,” Alexander said.
“How can I not? I just saw a fucking bear. I knew I shouldn’t have let you talk me into this. I could be home watching Curb Your Enthusiasm.”
“Oh hush, go to sleep.”
While Rye counted down from one hundred, Alexander began snoring; it was the only ugly thing the man did, the rest of his comportment full of strength and grace. The more Rye stilled himself the more he began to pick out small cracks and crashes in the brush near the tent; they became louder and described the ramblings of a creature who had no reason to disguise his movements. Rye worked out in his head how many steps it would take to get into the boat and push off into the water; he played it over and over in his mind until there was no other thought. Meanwhile, Alexander sawed the air, the frogs screamed, and the creature in the brush thrashed around like a construction crew. A low throaty groan rumbled from the bushes and it was alarming enough to pop Alexander’s eyes open into focused alertness—those surgeon’s eyes with their laser intent. “What the fuck was that?”
“Shhhhh, it’s the bear, stupid,” Rye said.
Alexander’s pupils jerked saccadically for a moment.
Rye was already in a crouch. “We have to go for the boat; I’ve got it ready at the edge of the water. We can sprint to it and push off and get a head start. Do bears swim?”
“Why wouldn’t they?”
“I don’t know. I don’t know what nature does. I’m a conceptual artist—nature is pedestrian.”
Another low roar emanated from the brush, punctuated with a jagged growl. Alexander scissored his legs from the warmth of the sleeping bag and crouched beside Rye; he slowly unzipped the tent and took a read on the distance to the waiting canoe. “We don’t have oars.”
“We’ll use our hands,” Rye said.
Alexander’s pupils dancing, reading and writing information; “I’ll count to three and we go to the boat and run it into the water and on my signal we jump in; we get a running start, okay?”
“And we’ll go for the island?” “Why the island?”
“We can scramble up a ridge to safety.” “Okay.”
“On three?” “On three.” “One.”
A wet snort from the brush. “Two.”
A snapping of branches. “Three.”
The two men sprang from the tent, Rye promptly tripping on the threshold and pitching into the beach sand; Alexander, already two steps ahead, checked behind him, saw his husband sprawled out, and doubled back to yank him from the ground. The bear appeared from the dark of the brush, snorting and curious. The two men paused for a microsecond before sprinting to the boat in a white panic, brains flooded with adrenaline, the gunwale slimy in the hand as they pushed out into the bright cold water, running in awkward splashes, their adrenaline-enabled toes finding jagged rocks, smooshy silt, and tangled roots before Alexander shout-whispered “NOW”, the two men clambering into the boat as it launched free into the gentle water.
Now they were weightless, carried along swiftly from the thrust of their intentions; the island loomed darkly as they closed on it, the moon-lit pines rising in dense night-blue walls to the sky. Rye took a deep breath in and out; a breeze crossed the waters, generating interference patterns. Rye spun around in the boat to look for the fake green of their tent and saw a dark figure bobbing low in the water between them and the boat; the head fully emerged and it was the bear, in no great hurry, swimming after them. “We need to go faster.”
Alexander looked back and saw it, too. “Oh, shit.” He leaned over the prow and spaded the water with both arms like he was working a piece of gym equipment.
“What should I do?”
“Just keep an eye on our friend. And sit back, you’re going to tip the boat over.”
The bear’s emotionless head remained above the surface as it tracked toward the boat, gradually gaining ground. “I’m going to lose that expensive camping food you fed me.” Rye leaned over the rail and wretched and the Beef Bolognese splattered into the black water. “Stop tipping the boat!” Alexander shouted, still with full breath regardless of one hundred percent exertion.
“I’m puking!”
“Sorry.”
“Paddle faster!” He hacked out one last bit into the water. “The fucking nature is catching up with us; oh, why did I ever agree to do this?”
Alexander doubled his pace, sweat beading along his forehead, his hands wheeling gracefully into the water, generating a gentle churn, the boat propelled forward twice as fast.
The land neared and the dark mass of pines rising into the sky became individual dark shafts and millions of heavy green boughs; behind, the bear tracked gradually along in their wake. The hull of the boat hit the stones and roots of the shoreline with a thud and the men scrambled over the gunwhale, Rye catching his toe and pitching into the sand with an OOF! Alexander heard the exclamation and turned to help, but Rye had already heaved himself to his feet and the two ran across the beach and into the woods, leaping over fallen trees, ripping past bramble, and scurrying up the rolling landscape to gain the high ground. They did not look back, did not hear any noise from the bear, and did not notice how they were bloodying their office- worthy feet and tender limbs against the rough textures of the natural world; Rye had even forgotten to limp.
“There! There!” Alexander shouted, indicating a formation of boulders at the crest of a ridge. “We can hide there.”
They collapsed in a panting heap in the space formed by a ring of massive boulders, the soil there tamped down with sneaker prints amid the candy wrappers, dead leaves, and sticks. Rye flicked away a cigarette butt that had stuck to the palm of his hand. “Does nowhere escape the sprawl of man? Nature isn’t even nature.”
Alexander had recovered from his run; his breathing normal and his forehead dry, small sweat spots appearing in his arm pits. Rye was a heaving, sweaty, scratched-up mess and the throbbing in his busted knee returned with a vengeance. “Oh, god, this hurts so bad I can’t see straight; do you have any aspirin?”
“Everything’s back at the tent.”
Alexander crouched at the edge of a boulder to carefully survey the quiet stands of midnight trees for signs of movement; the woods were ominously silent—except for Rye’s continued heavy breathing as he gritted his teeth and stared at the stars for a distraction.
“I told you I’d get you out of the city,” Alexander said, “and show you some of the excitement nature has to offer.”
Rye laughed darkly. “Nature is terrifying—there’s a good reason we fled into the valleys and constructed skyscrapers.” A millipede crawled innocently from the surface of the stone and onto Rye’s hand; he jerked it away, shaking it off and hissing in disgust as the dark thing flew into the bushes.
*
Rye dozed in and out of awareness as the sky gradually brightened above him through the dark lattice of pine branches, the ambient light in the understory rising, everything silent as the nearby creatures avoided the human activity. In the distance the water of the lake sparkled in brief patches visible through the quarter mile of tangled brush and branches.
“Fuck, I’m hungry,” Rye said, stretching, yawning, swatting a mosquito, “You got a snack bar?”
Alexander stood alert by the edge of the boulder, scanning the woods, appearing rested and refreshed, skin glowing. His arm started, on reflex, toward one of the zippered pockets in his athletic-wear, then stopped. “Sorry. Everything’s back at the camp site.”
“Can we go back yet? Is the bear gone? And I’ve got to take a shit. I can’t believe I didn’t shit myself last night when that bear was chasing us.”
A brief smile played across Alexander’s face before returning to its neutral mask. “I think he lost interest.”
“Okay then. Let’s blow this popsicle stand.” Rye sprang from his spot in the dirt and traipsed, limping gamely, over the stones, roots, and wagging ferns. He was oddly refreshed, as if the bear-scare had put some life in his step, the animal terror close at hand reminding him of that city street feel from back home. “So, what’s the plan today? Go see the waterfall?”
Alexander stepped to the front of Rye with the grace of a doe. Rye admired his marathon- running-doctor-husband’s chivalrous grace, but also caught unexpected snatches of fluorescent pink and orange, bright in the sunlit distance beyond the thick cover of the forest.
“We can knock down our camp after some breakfast,” Alexander said, “Move everything up to the waterfall, setup camp again, go for a swim, and then maybe have time for another short hike.”
“Oh fun. More hiking. Ow!” Rye turned his ankle on a slanted stone, faltered, and caught his balance.
“You okay?”
“I’m fine, a real survivor.”
“I’m all out of the gourmet meal-pouches, but I can make us some oatmeal.” “Mmm, oatmeal—thanks, Grandma!”
Alexander stopped with one foot on a fallen tree and reached his hand back to take Rye’s and help him over. “Such a wise-ass.”
They hobbled along, picking and crunching their way through the trail-less underbrush, hand-in-hand, Alexander’s grip bony and strong.
Rye stopped them to scoop a box turtle from the ground. “Now here’s a guy I can relate to. Hey there, mister.” The turtle pawed at the air for a moment before retreating into its shell. Rye held it turned away from his face until the head with the gold-ringed pupils eased back out. “There he is.” The turtle slipped his head back inside and the exoskeleton sealed its ancient seams.
As they neared the edge of the woods an enormous heron swooped from the tree line and glided across the water to take a position in the shallows and it became clear there was fluorescent graffiti scrawled across the tent and the boat at the shore.
Rye uttered some curses and Alexander maintained his level gaze, scanning for threats. The sun was up, the sky spotless, the foliage radiant green as if humans never existed, and yet there it was: the boat overturned, a head-sized hole punched into the hull and the words NO HOMOS scrawled down its flank. Across the water was the tent, long slits waving in the morning breeze, florescent writing sloppy and jagged on the fabric: FAGZ GO HOM.
“Jesus,” Rye said. “Those assholes.”
Alexander stood on the beach, silent, clenching and releasing his fists rhythmically, like a gym exercise.
Rye examined the ragged hole in the fiberglass, his hand rubbing his chin. “Can we patch this?”
Alexander looked at the sand along the shore they had scrambled across the previous night. “Do you see any bear prints on this beach?”
There were the prints of the men’s bare feet loping from the water’s edge to where the ferns wavered underneath the sweeping arms of the the pines; interspersed were the deep prints of large boots in the soft sand.
Rye scanned the beach dumbly. “What do bear prints even look like? A giant dog? All I see are boot prints—oh, fuck, that wasn’t a real bear last night, was it?”
The heron paced nervously along the opposite shore then opened his large wings and launched himself on a gliding path away from the men’s view.
“So, some guy wearing a bear suit?” Rye said.
“It looked real; that was a real bear head looking at us.” “Taxidermy? Someone was wearing a taxidermic bear head.”
Alexander took a step into the water. “You okay with swimming across?”
Rye shrugged and they made their way into the water. As soon as they were across and dripping, Alexander began to take up the tent stakes but Rye stopped him. “No, babe. We have to document this.”
“What for? I want to pack all this shit up and get the hell out of here. I can’t keep you safe in this environment. Bears I can handle; rednecks, I cannot.”
“I need to get some pictures for documentation so I can recreate this scene for my next gallery show.”
“Seriously? You can’t possibly want to drag all this crap into your studio.”
Rye’s face had gone red and a vein popped from his temple. “I absolutely am. People are going to see this! People are going to see what hate looks like!”
Alexander took off his shirt, rung it out, and laid it on a nearby rock to dry in the sun. “Fine, go ahead. Tell me when you’re done so I can get this shit packed.”
*
Flecks of fluorescent paint clung to Alexander’s pack, which he carried on his back with Rye’s strapped to his front, as before. Rye now limped so heavily their progress slowed to the point they would not make it back to the car until just before sunset. Rye had carefully rolled the fabric of the tent to ensure minimum damage to the paint or tangling of the slitted fabric, like he was storing a treasured Japanese woodblock print, as Alexander had stood impatiently by, tapping his foot and scratching nervously at the dry skin on his forearms. Alexander reminded Rye of this every time he wanted to stop and rest along the path, that their daylight was waning due to all the time they spent carefully packing up the site to preserve it for his art installation.
As they neared the parking lot, the path grew wide and smooth, with gnarled roots emerging from the sloping route to form steps worn shiny from foot traffic.
Sweat dripped from Rye’s nose. “This is public land and what they did is a hate crime.
Can’t you get that lawyer friend of yours to file a lawsuit?”
“That’s just it, we have no idea who did this; it could be one guy, or a whole group.” Alexander hopped nimbly over an arrangement of moss-covered boulders buried into the path, his calves pistoning up and down to balance the two packs.
“Oh, okay, yes; let’s just roll over.”
“No, I’m not saying that, but should pick our battles.”
They emerged from the woods onto the new asphalt of the picnic and parking area where there was a rusted Chevy Blazer with the back open and a middle-aged couple seated in folding chairs drinking cans of Coors from a cooler resting on the blacktop. The couple nodded and waved and Alexander returned the greeting while Rye eyed the open back end of the SUV, spotting a Walmart bag with several cans of spray paint, fluorescent fingers of pink and orange dripped along their sides.
Rye’s face turned red and he started for the couple but Alexander caught his arm and tugged him back into place. “What are you doing?”
“Don’t you see the cans of spray paint?”
The man in the lawn chair sat reflectively, his plaid shirt open, airing his bare chest as a spare grin broke over his gray-stubbled face.
“Let go of me, Alex.” Rye wrenched his arm free of Alexander’s grip and limped toward the couple in the lawn chairs. “You know what you did is a hate crime, don’t you? We can take you to court over this.”
The man raised his eyebrows, a washboard of lines appearing on his forehead; the woman sitting adjacent sucked on her long thin cigarette so hard her cheeks caved in. “It’s a free country,” the man said. “I’m exercising my right of free speech.”
Rye stood with his hands on his hips, peering into the dark clutter in the back of the Blazer. “So you admit it.” The bear skin lay crumpled behind two rust-trimmed ten-speeds. “You will kindly give me your names and addresses because you are going to need to talk with my lawyer.”
The man pointed to his chest. “I’m Fuck, and that there”—pointing to the woman—“is You.”
Spittle flew when Rye talked. “Oh, ha-ha-ha. Clever.”
The woman coughed wetly. “It’s nothing personal, honey; it’s your lifestyle. Your kind is an abomination to the Lord; we can’t have you around because it will bring down the wrath of God upon us.” She put her hand on her sunken chest, “We are looking out for our community.”
Rye took out his phone and framed a shot to include the truck and the two people. “I’ve got your plates, I’ll find you. You’ll be hearing from my lawyer.” He went to the side and took pics of the bear through the cloudy window, weakly capturing its dead stare, its toothy maw.
The man gave a small chuckle. “I don’t know what you expect to get—it’s not like we got nothing to take; your fancy downtown banks gave our jobs away to China and Mexico and Africa.”
Rye pocketed his phone. “Okay, so I’m supposed to feel bad for you? The people who destroyed my husband’s tent—”
“Oh, Christ, you homos are married?” the woman said.
Rye held up his hand and pointed at his ring finger. “Yeah. Very. Happily. Married.” “You people make me sick,” the woman said.
“If we have no further business,” the man said, “I’d think it best you go ahead and skedaddle back to your big city, okay, bud?”
Alexander was trying to close the hatch on his Prius, but it was too full of gear. Rye gave the couple a hateful smile, waved farewell, and limped over to his husband’s car to kick the packs so violently the contents crunched and submitted. He closed the hatch, got in the car, and Alexander drove them home to Chicago.
Josh White is an emerging writer with work appearing in Bandit Fiction and LitMag. He lives in Brooklyn, NY.
