CHAPTER SIXTEEN

In the moments that followed the death of the bear, routine took over, ways the Boy had known his whole life.

Bleed the animal.

Don’t think about how close you came to her claws.

The knife at his back was out as he stood over the carcass, finding the jugular, his good hand shaking, and then a quick flick and blood was running out onto the granite of the Sierra Nevada.

Don’t remember her hot breath on top of your head when there was little you could do but go forward with the pole.

Next he made a cut into the chest. Working from the breastbone up to the jaw, he cut through flesh and muscle. When the cut was made he took out his tomahawk, adjusted his grip once as he raised it above his head and then slammed it down onto the breastbone several times. Soon he was removing the organs. Heart, lungs, esophagus, bladder, intestines, and rectum.

My hands are shaking, Sergeant.

It’s just the cold, Boy. Just the cold. Keep on workin’.

It is cold out and getting colder, which will be good for the meat, but I still have much work to do.

Walking stiffly, he descended the mountain and returned to camp. He gathered his gear and when that was done, he began to coax Horse to get up one more time.

Horse seemed stunned that the Boy would even consider such a thing, but before long, whispering and leading, patting and coaxing, the Boy had him up and on his legs.

“I’ll carry everything, you just follow me. We’re going someplace warm.”

Late afternoon turned to winter evening as he led Horse up onto the mountain. Halfway up, as they worked side to side across the gray granite ledges, snow began to fall, and by the time they’d reached the top, the Boy was almost dragging Horse. Never once did he curse at the animal, knowing that he was already asking too much of his only friend. And for his part, Horse seemed to suffer through the climb as though death and the hardships that must come with it are inevitable.

At the top, the Boy dropped Horse’s lead and began to collect what little firewood he could find. Soon there was a small fire inside the cave. He led Horse into the cave, expecting more protest than the snort Horse gave at the scent of the bear.

The fire cast flickering shadows along the inside of the cave and though there was a small vault, the cave was neither vast nor deep.

It’ll be easier to keep warm, Boy. That’s good.

The Boy put his blanket over Horse, who’d begun to tremble. He fed Horse from a sack of wild oats he kept for the times when there was nothing at hand to crop.

Horse chewed a bit and then seemed to lose interest.

That’s not good.

The Boy left the sack open before Horse and returned to the carcass of the bear.

Snow fell in thick drifts across the ledge as the wind began to whip along the mountainside.

‘It has to be done now,’ the Boy thought to himself.

But I’ll need wood. The fire has to be kept going.

In the dark he descended the mountain, working quickly among the howling pines to find as much dead wood as possible. Every time he stopped to look for wood in the thin light of the last of the day, he felt his weak side stiffen.

When he’d collected a large bundle of dead wood, he tied it with leather straps and climbed the mountain once again, almost crawling under the weight, as the scream of the howling winter night bit at his frozen ears.

I am so tired. I feel all the excitement and fear of the fight with the bear leaving me.

Nearing the ledge of the cave, he thought, ‘I could go to sleep now.’

And for a long moment, on all fours, the bundle of wood crushing down upon his back, he stared long and hard at the rock beneath his numb fingers, thinking only of sleep.

Back in the cave he fed the wood that wasn’t too wet to the fire, watching the smoke escape through some unseen fissure in the roof of the cave. He held his cracked and bleeding fingers next to the flames.

You’ll need that skin, Boy.

The Boy knew what that meant.

He’d known and planned what he must do next without ever thinking it or saying that he would do it. But if he was to have the skin of the bear, then what needed to be done would need to be done soon.

The bear was too heavy to drag off the ledge, back here into the cave near the fire.

That’d be the easy way, Boy. Never take the easy way.

He held up a handful of oats to Horse. Horse sniffed at them but refused to eat as he turned his long head back to the fire.

Okay, you rest for now.

Outside the storm blasted past the ledge. Everything was white and gray and dark beyond, all at once.

When he found the snow-covered bear, he began the work of removing the skin.

He completed the cut up onto the bear’s chest. He cut the legs and then began to skin the bear from the paws up. His strength began to fail as he worked the great hide off its back, but when he came to the head, he made the final cut and returned to the cave to warm himself again. He took a handful of the oats, watching Horse’s sleeping eyes flutter, and ate them, chewing them into a paste and swallowing.

Returning to the wind and the night, he dragged the skin into the cave and laid it out on the floor.

I can work here for a while and be warm by the fire.

But he knew if the meat froze on the carcass he would never get it off the bone.

For a long time after that, he crouched over the bear, cutting strips of meat. When he’d gotten all the usable meat he washed it in the snow and took it back into the cave. He spitted two steaks and laid them on the fire.

Into the cold once again, he cracked open the bear’s skull for the brains and took those inside, placing them near the skin.

For the rest of the night he worked with his tomahawk, scraping the skin of flesh and fat and blood. When all of it was removed, he stepped outside, carrying the waste to the edge of the cliff and dropping it over the side.

The storm had stopped.

It was startlingly cold out. His breath came in great vaporous clouds that hung for a moment over the chasm and the ice-swollen river below and were gone in the next. The stars were close at hand. Below, the river tumbled as sluggish chunks of ice floated in the moonlight.

He washed his hands in snow, feeling both a stinging and numbness on his raw flesh.

He stood watching the night.

Clouds, white and luminous, moved against the soft blue of the moonlit night. Below, the river and the valley were swaying trees and shining shadows of sparkling granite. ‘I am alive,’ he thought. ‘And this is the most beautiful night of my life.’

Dawn light fell across the ledge outside the cave. The Boy looked up from the skin he’d worked on through the night. The light was golden, turning the stone ledge outside the cave from iron gray to blue.

He felt tired as he returned to the skin once more, rubbing the brains of the bear into the hide.

“This is all I can do to cure it,” he said aloud in his tiredness, as if someone had been asking what he was doing. As if Sergeant Presley had been talking to him through the night. But now, in the light of morning it all seemed a dream, a dream of a night in which he worked at the remains of a bear.

But I have not slept.

“There is too much to do,” he said aloud.

You done everything, Boy. Now sleep.

The Boy lay down next to the fire and slept.