An Occurrence in Crazy Bear Valley (3 page)

“Of course not,” Morgan replied. “You don’t pull something like that and just walk away unscathed. We were wanted men before that. Now we’re twice as wanted. I reckon the law will double—maybe triple the bounty on our heads. Then they’ll put the word out. Hell, they probably put it out already. But like I told you earlier, I don’t think any of the folks in the posse will bother riding into these parts to hunt for us. They’re too soft. We’re hard men—harder than them—and they know it. What they’ll probably do is hire their own hard men to come after us. Ex-soldiers, bounty hunters and the like. Lots of fellas like that around these days, looking for a fight. Castaways from the war. So they’ll buy themselves some hired guns to come hunting for us. But that will take a few days—a few weeks, even. I reckon we’ve got time. And it ain’t like we’ve never had those types chasing after us before.”

“I sure hope you’re right, boss” Johnson said.

“Tell you what,” Morgan replied. “If I ain’t, and they do show up here, you can be the first one to shout out ‘I told you so.’ Fair enough?”

Johnson didn’t respond.

“Whereabouts do you reckon we are, anyway?” Parker asked.

Morgan shrugged. “I imagine we’re somewhere near the Humboldt Line. What they call Big Woods Country.”

“That’s an apt name,” Gunderson said from his seat at the window.

“It certainly is,” Morgan agreed. Then he glanced at Parker. “You ain’t cheating now, are you?”

Parker grinned. “I know better than to cheat this bunch, boss. And besides, this ain’t my deck, remember? Mine’s scattered all over that saloon back where we come from.”

“When has that ever stopped you before?”

Parker’s grin grew larger. He winked at Morgan. “Well, I ain’t had time to mark these cards yet.”

A search of the lumberjacks’ footlockers had turned up several rawhide tobacco pouches. It was stale but still smoke-able. After they had finished their meal, the men tamped tobacco into their pipes while Clara and Crystal removed the plates and utensils. Clara joked and flirted with each of them in turn, but it was clear that she favored Johnson. Crystal did her best to mimic the older woman’s behavior, clearly afraid of what would happen to her if she didn’t. Morgan watched her silently. The girl was smart. She’d obviously picked up on the dynamic between Johnson and Clara, so she paid special attention to him. When he ignored her advances, she turned her attempts to Parker, who seemed to appreciate them more.

Once their pipes were lit and flowing, Morgan dealt them another hand of cards. Then he leaned back, blew smoke, and sighed.

“It’ll do us good to stay here a couple of days,” he said. “We can rest up. More importantly, the horses can rest up. Damn things are nearly dead, hard as we’ve been riding them. Which reminds me. Stephens, head on out there and see to them. Rub them down, check their hooves, make sure they’ve got water and such. And tie them close to the cabin. We don’t need them wandering off in the night or getting eaten.”

“Me?” Stephens peered out over the tops of his cards. “I hung the bodies up like you asked, Morgan. Can’t someone else take a turn?”

“No.”

“No?”

“Did I stutter? Now go on and get.”

“Well, that don’t rightly seem fair, boss. Why can’t someone else do it?”

Morgan scowled at him. “Why not? I’ll tell you why not, you fat fucking toad. Because I goddamn said so. That’s why. Now if you want to skin on out of here and take your chances on your own, you be my goddamned guest. But as long as you ride with us, then you do as I say. It’s been that way since the beginning. Shouldn’t come as no big surprise to you now.”

“You’re right.” Stephens pouted. “I just…”

He glanced furtively at Crystal and then back to Morgan, who leaned back in his chair, propped his bare feet up on the table, and laughed.

“Oh, I see! Look here, boys. I’ll be damned if Stephens hasn’t got himself a crush on our new girl. Hear that, Crystal? He’s sweet on you. Trying to show off. Impress you by arguing with me. Prove he’s the biggest wolf in the pack. Is that it, Stephens?”

“No,” he insisted, standing up quickly. “It’s just that it’s getting dark outside and I’m tired and I thought someone else might like to take a fucking turn. On account of we’re all friends, like. I hear tell that friends do things like that for each other.”

“Sounds to me like you’re afraid,” Johnson said.

“Fuck you, Johnson.”

“Ain’t nothing out there to be afraid of,” Parker said. “You tell him, new girl. You’ve been living here with those tree jockeys. Ain’t nothing to be afraid of, right?”

Crystal opened her mouth to speak, but then hesitated.

“Bears,” Stephens said. “Or Indians, maybe. Bound to be some of both in these parts. Hell, that’s why we hung up them bodies—so a bear would come around.”

“But they ain’t gonna eat you.” Parker snorted. “Hell, Gunderson’s right there at the window with a gun. You
know
what a good shot he is.”

“Well, then you do it, Parker. You’re feeling so goddamned brave, you go ahead and volunteer to take my place.”

“I can’t, Stephens. In case you haven’t noticed, I’m busy playing cards. You know I take my cards very seriously. And besides, I recollect that the boss man told
you
to do it. Not me.”

“Go on now,” Morgan warned. “No more arguing, Stephens. Just get it done. There’s a good man. Sooner you finish, the sooner you can come back inside.”

Still sulking, Stephens pulled on his boots, farted, and then, without another word, opened the door and went outside.

There was a lull in the conversation after that. Morgan produced a bottle of whiskey and passed it around. Each of them took a long pull, even Crystal. Then Parker, Johnson and Morgan sat playing cards. Clara stretched back out on one of the cots and closed her eyes. Crystal sat on another cot. She appeared unsure of what to do next since no one was taking a particular interest in her at the moment. She alternated between watching the men play their game and watching Clara sleep. Gunderson, meanwhile, sat motionless at the window, staring out into the gloom, his rifle within easy reach should a target present itself.

About half an hour had passed before Stephens bustled back inside. He was squinting and his expression was twisted, as if he’d just bitten into a ripe lemon. He fanned his hand in front of his nose.

“What the hell is wrong with you?” Johnson asked.

Stephens shut the door behind him. “Something stinks out there.”

“It’s probably your ass,” Parker said. “You been breaking wind again?”

This earned a round of laughter from everyone in the room. Even Crystal grinned nervously.

“No,” Stephens said as his cheeks flushed. “I ain’t joshing around. Something really reeks out there. Stinks to high Heaven, I’m telling you. Bad enough that it’s filling the whole valley.”

“Well, what does it smell like?” Morgan asked.

Stephens shrugged. “It just smells…
wrong
, boss. I don’t rightly know how to describe it.”

“Try. Because you’re starting to piss me off.”

Nodding, Stephens took a deep breath. “Well, it was pretty foul. Smelled sort of like a dead animal that’s been laying out in the sun for a few days, except stronger than that. A lot stronger. It had a sour tang to it. When I smelled it, I started breathing through my mouth, and I’m hear to tell you, boys, I could taste it on my tongue. Almost made me lose my dinner.”

Johnson leaned back in his chair. “You say it smelled like a dead animal?”

“Yeah. A ripe one.”

“Well, hell, it’s probably them lumberjacks’ corpses.”

Stephens shook his head. “No, it wasn’t them. I thought of that at first, too. But this smell was a lot stronger than what they’d be by now. And like I said, it fills the entire goddamn valley.”

“Maybe it was some other dead critter,” Gunderson suggested. “A deer or a raccoon or something, lying dead out there in the woods.”

“No,” Stephens insisted. “I’m telling you, it wasn’t a dead animal.”

“You just said it was,” Clara said. “Make up your damn mind, Stephens.”

“I said it smelled sort of like a dead animal.
Sort of
. But it wasn’t. Whatever I smelled was alive.”

Morgan frowned. “That doesn’t make much sense, Stephens.”

“I allow that it might not,” the fat man admitted, shrugging. “But I don’t know how to explain it any better than that, boss. This was like a musk. A scent. And whatever it was, it spooked me good. I ain’t fucking going out there no more tonight. Send Gunderson outside. He’s the mountaineer. Maybe he’ll know what it is.”

Crystal spoke up then, her voice so soft that they had to strain to hear her.

“It was one of the crazy bears.”

One by one, they slowly turned to her, their expressions mirroring their surprise.

“What’d you say?” Clara asked.

“The crazy bears. They smell just like what he’s describing.”

The group glanced at each other, and then at Morgan, waiting to see how he’d respond. He leaned forward in his chair, rested his elbows on his knees, folded his hands together in a steeple, and stared at her thoughtfully. One of his eyebrows was arched slightly. His mouth was a thin, tight line. He did not blink or speak. In the silence, it was hard to tell if he was even breathing.

“I-I’m sorry,” Crystal apologized. “I j-just thought…”

“It’s okay,” Morgan interrupted. His tone was soft and conciliatory. “Tell us more about this… what did you call it? Crazy Bear? Is he an Indian?”

“Not crazy bear,” Crystal explained. “Crazy
bears
. There’s more than one. And no, they’re not Indians. But that’s what the Indians call them.”

Stephens sat down at the table. The chair creaked under his weight. The others barely noticed him. Their attention was focused on Crystal, who now sat up straight in the bed, looking nervous.

“Go on,” Morgan said. “Tell us about them.”

“Well, I only know what O’Bannon and the others told me. They talked about them sometimes. I never saw the crazy bears for myself. I heard them a few times, late at night. And I thought I smelled one once. But that’s all.”

“What are they?” Parker interrupted. “Bears with rabies or something?”

“No,” Crystal said. “They weren’t animals. According to O’Bannon, they were these sort of… wild men, living together further up the river.”

Morgan frowned. “Wild men? So hey were Indians after all?”

“Not according to O’Bannon. He said they’d been here longer than the Indians.”

“How did he know that?” Morgan asked.

“Before the Indians left this area, O’Bannon and the others used to spend a lot of time in their village, trading and drinking and gambling and such. The Indians told them all about the crazy bears. The tribe used to take these large clay platters heaped with vegetables and raw deer meat to a cave several miles up river where the crazy bears lived. I guess it was like an offering or such. O’Bannon followed some of the Indians to the cave one night, and he saw the crazy bears for himself. He said they weren’t human.”

“But you just said they were wild men.”

“Men, yes. But not human men.”

She paused, studying them warily, as if expecting them to laugh. When they didn’t, Crystal licked her split bottom lip and then winced.

“Go on,” Morgan urged. “What were they, if they weren’t men?”

“Well, he didn’t rightly know. There were all kinds in the tribe—men, women, and even some young ones. The biggest was well over eight feet tall, and O’Bannon said that it must have weighed well over three-hundred pounds. And all of the crazy bears were covered in long hair. Different colors, though. Some of them had black hair. Others had reddish-brown. The only place they didn’t have hair were on their palms and their eyes—and on the females breasts.”

“Well, that’s good to hear,” Johnson said. “Ain’t nothing worse than a hairy titty. I hate when that happens. Get a hair in your mouth—have to use it to clean your teeth with.”

Clara, Parker and Stephens laughed at this until a stern look from Morgan silenced them. As their laughter died, Morgan turned to Crystal and nodded.

“Please continue,” he said.

“O’Bannon said that they were all naked. He said their faces were human, except for their foreheads. And they didn’t have necks. Their big heads just sort of sat on their shoulders, all squat like. Y’all know what I mean? The cave stank—he described it just like the smell Mr. Stephens described earlier. But he said the crazy bears weren’t mean or nothing. More curious than anything else. Sort of peaceful.”

“Where did they come from, originally?” Morgan asked. “These crazy bears?”

“You’ll laugh at me.”

“No, I won’t.”

“The Indians told O’Bannon that the crazy bears came from the stars.”

“Oh, bullshit,” Parker exclaimed. “This is just like them two boys in Santa Fe that swore they’d seen a big, giant bird out in the desert—the Thunderbird. Ya’ll remember that?”

“I do,” Stephens said. “Them two fellas’ from the war. One was a Northerner. Weren’t they the ones who were also convinced that—”