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it into a torch among the leaves as he approached. He was running, easily and
fluidly, and she felt not danger to him, but danger from him. She lifted her
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hand in warning, but Danny wasn't looking. The big man was so close to her
that she could see rivulets of sweat oozing from the auburn hair that curled
around his ears, but he was shouting not at her, only to her husband.
"Grizzly! My God, it's a grizzly!"
II
She waited. High in the pine tree where the men had boosted her, her arms
encircling the thick trunk, slippery fingers laced together. She feared
falling; her legs trembled and the limb beneath her feet bent toward the
ground. With
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the slightest movement, it creaked and shed showers of drying pine needles to
earth. The gummy sap smeared her face where she pressed against it and she
thought of blood. She could not see where the men had gone, and heard only
crashing far off in the woods that grew fainter each moment, leaving her as
isolated as she had ever been. She had clung to her husband, pleaded with him
not to go away with the stranger, but he had shaken her off as if she were
only an irritant. Then both of them had lifted her with their huge hands and
pushed her into the branches. Danny had said, "Climb! Damn it. Climb!" And she
had cried out to him, "Come with me. Come with me!" even long after he had
disappeared. She knew nothing of guns, but she doubted the power of the
blue-black, snub-nosed gun he'd held, or of the weapon in the other man's
hand. They were children's toys against the thick pelt and hide of a grizzly.
Together, the three of them, they could have waited the animal out in the
trees until someone came to help them. She felt frustrated rage at both men
for deserting her, for risking everything in her world.
She prayed. She offered up sacrifices to God if only He would allow Danny to
come back to her. Her own life. She agreed to die at fiftyùthen at fortyùif
she could have him again. She would be a better person, please God, and see
that they tithed everything they had. She vacuumed all her sins up from her
mind and cast them out. Gossip. Pride. Pettiness. Avarice. Jealousy. She was
jealous; she would be no longer. Please GodùPlease GodùPlease GodùPlease God.
She repeated the litany aloud, unaware, until her mouth was dry and her lips
started to crack.
She did not know how long they had been gone; her watch was someplace down on
the ground with their supplies. She tried to count seconds and chart minutes,
but it seemed senseless anyway because she had no idea how far they had had to
go or what they meant to do if they ran into . . . it. It seemed an hour to
her since she'd settled into her perch, and there were nerve buzzes along her
arms from lack of circulation. She tried to change position, but her foothold
dropped farther toward the ground, and she could picture
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herself sliding down the limb helplessly, her hands clasping air and dry
needles.
Nothing had really changed. That was the important thing to remember. Danny
had gone off with his gun to do something. Danny went off with his gun every
working day, and the only real difference was that now she knew the moment of
his approach to danger. Their gear on the ground below her was somehow
comforting, familiar possessions, the coffeepot still breathing a small geyser
of steam. The tube of Danny's sleeping bag resting next to hers. The frying
pan, its dregs turning hard and crusted with the last coals of their campfire.
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She would have to soak that or scrub it with sand to get it clean. Tonight,
she could fry fish in itùif Danny caught any.
If he comes back. Don't think that! Thoughts could become real if she let
them. Prayers skittered and fell away before she could hold onto them, but the
fear stayed.
There was a soft rustle in the weeds below her and she looked down and saw a
tiny mottled brown and white bird rise, its tail feathers clean as new snow, a
ptarmigan. The birds were all around her, taking flight from their hiding
places and winging to the branches high above her. But one bird flew straight
to her as if she had called it aloud and settled on a branch a few feet away.
She took it for a sign of hope.
There were two men out there. Big menùwith guns and branch-clubs, competent to
scare off the bear; wild creatures ran from humans if they had an escape route
and there was all the mountain for it to flee. The beast was probably already
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