The Bear Went Over the Mountain (22 page)

The choir continued their song, for they were professionals, but the burly guest was striding directly toward them with a wild expression on his face.

“… God said, ‘Give those folks the good news, Norbert,’ and I said, ‘I will, Lord, I surely will.’ ”

The bear had mounted the red-carpeted steps in front of the choir and now he let out a roar, just to make sure everyone knew who these females belonged to.

What in the hell
, thought Norbert Sinkler, and fell into stunned silence.

The bear roared again, and threw his paws in the air, in his species’ ancient gesture of territorial sovereignty.

The roar reverberated throughout the auditorium, and several of the faithful in the front row were moved by it, to the marrow of their bones. “Hallelujah!” they cried, and rose to their feet, throwing
their
arms into the air.

“Glory, glory,
glory!
”

The entire row stood up, joining the show’s dynamic guest in his praise of the Lord.

At that moment, a word came into the bewildered preacher’s ear. It was not the word of god, but that of the director, over Sinkler’s ear receiver.
“Go with it, Reverend.”

The Reverend Sinkler dutifully held his arms out toward the audience, a smile pasted on his lips. “You feel it, my friends, you feel the
message
 …”

The bear too turned toward the audience, stunned by the sound of hundreds, and then thousands, of people shouting as one.

“Hallelujah! Hallelujah!”

He roared back, louder than before, his roar of roars, the roar of primacy in the forest.

Now,
there’s
a Christian, thought the audience, answering with their own roar.

The bear forgot about the ladies of the choir. The sound of so many human voices blended together was astounding. Humanity could do this, could merge with a single purpose. It was how they’d discovered popcorn and panties. And the incredible thing was—he was leading them! He roared again, just to be sure. They roared back, everyone coming to their feet and waving their arms in the air, and he knew—he was in control of the buzz.

Bettina Quint charged into the back of the studio
and saw, with horror, that she was too late. Hal had caused a riot.

Then she saw Will Elder, who had done his best as promised, and was in the back of the auditorium, manning a table piled high with copies of
Destiny and Desire
. And then the stampede began, one audience member after another hurrying to buy the book of this great charismatic leader who was rocking the rafters of Kingdom Come Hall.

“Be a good boy, Hal,” said Bettina at the airport. She and Will Elder had accompanied him to the Delta waiting area. His bags had been sent through. He carried a briefcase filled with Cheesy Things.

“We’re going to change the ground rules slightly,” continued Bettina. “If anyone asks you to do something, call me first.”

“Sure,” said the bear.

“Why do I think you’re not listening to me?”

“Delta is now boarding all first-class passengers to Dallas …”

“Well, good-bye,” said the bear, and walked toward the loading gate, ticket in his paw.

Arthur Bramhall woke in his dark cave. He felt the pine boughs beneath him and the walls of rocks surrounding him. Springtime was a long way off, and the pull of sleep was strong, to roll over and curl back into his boughs. But something said
get up
.

He crawled in the dark toward the thin crust of snow that covered the entrance to the cave. He scraped through the snow and stuck his head out into a dying winter landscape. The sun was low in the sky. He squinted against the brightness and continued scraping the snow away with harsh, pawing movements. He was hungry, hungrier than he’d ever been. He was hungry for food and for life.

He pried open the back window of a restaurant. Muffled snorts and grunts came from him as he pushed himself in over the window ledge and landed clumsily on the floor. He rocked his head back and forth, sniffing the darkened kitchen. He let out a grunt of recognition and made his way toward the refrigerator. He opened it and pulled out a pie, which he
pawed hungrily, stuffing pieces of it in his mouth. After finishing the pie he started on a chocolate layer cake. He felt himself to be very clever in having found these items. Beside this, he had no other thoughts.

As he ate, his nose was drawn to a parcel in the refrigerator—a fish wrapped in newspaper. He tore open the newspaper and was preparing to bite into the raw fish when a light, as dim as the one in the refrigerator, went on in his mind. Where the paper curved around the fish’s head, he caught sight of a familiar title:
Destiny and Desire
. He lifted the fish aside and carefully smoothed out the newspaper. The title was at the top of the best-seller list. Suddenly a remembrance of things past came to him as they had to Proust, in exquisite detail: with Proust it had been a cookie dipped in tea that brought back the flavor of the past. With Bramhall it was a fish wrapped in newspaper, but the chemistry was the same—there was the memory of his beloved book over which he’d labored with such devotion. Every sentence of it was burning in his mind and he knew that he’d been screwed.

But by whom? he wondered, and then he recalled the tracks beneath the tree.

“Screwed by a bear?” His voice sounded foreign to him as it echoed in the empty restaurant kitchen. Human speech had slept in him, but now he was caught again in the web of words—their meanings and the sorrow they could articulate. “Screwed by a bear!” he cried, and ripped
the newspaper in half, straight down through the best-seller list, after which he hurled the fish at the wall.

His stomach was rumbling from the pie and cake he’d greedily shoved down it; a bear could handle such gorging, but Bramhall was swiftly shaking off his bearness. “God almighty,” he said as he caught sight of himself in the reflected light on the window—a hairy, naked creature with pine needles and twigs in its gnarled beard. He tried to neaten himself up, then realized it was dangerous to do so here. He had to get away before he was caught and hauled off to jail or an insane asylum.

He went out through the broken window, grunting as he did so, which gave him another shock. The bear in him wasn’t quite dead yet.

“I’ve studied your case, Mr. Bramhall.” Eaton Magoon looked across the desk at his prospective client.

“Well?” growled Arthur Bramhall, who, with much difficulty, was returning to civilization. The suit he wore was splitting at the seams. It had fit him perfectly once, but he now had an inch of hair all over his body, and his neck had grown noticeably thicker.

Through the window behind lawyer Magoon, the town clock was visible, its hands permanently stopped. Beyond the clock was the Feed and Seed store. The lettering on the sign was faded and old, like much of northern Maine. “I’m just a small-town lawyer, Mr. Bramhall, and you’ve got a lot going against you.”

“But it’s my book,” growled Bramhall. He’d been unable to get the gravelly sound out of his voice, and every sentence he spoke ended in a soft howl, like a dog with worms.

“There’s no carbon of it,” continued Magoon, “which leaves us with no proof that in fact you are the author of
Destiny and Desire
.”

“Ask Vinal Pinette. He’ll tell you I was working on a book.”

“Yes, but what book? Vinal Pinette can barely read.”

“He’s an honest man.”

“Honest but illiterate. He’d make a good witness if this were a case of a stolen cow.”

“I wrote
Destiny and Desire
.”

“I believe you, Mr. Bramhall. But will a judge? Will a jury? May I be straightforward?”

“Certainly.”

“Your appearance is against you. You don’t look like an author.”

“What do I look like?”

“Frankly, you look like a bear.”

The bear’s tour ended in Southern California, whose lushness was like nothing he’d ever encountered before. He took an early morning walk on the grounds of the Hotel Bel Air. The tropical trees with their gigantic roots and branches filled the air with a sultry power. He wandered down the path to the pond, in which a pair of the hotel’s trademark swans were swimming. They were pampered creatures, and when the bear looked at them he could not help drooling. Bear drool is aromatic and the swans were shocked. Who was this barbarian? How had he gotten into their hotel? They disdainfully turned their tail feathers toward him and paddled away. The bear charged, paws thumping on the grass. The swans twisted their long necks around in horror, then raced very inelegantly up the far bank into the bushes.

The bear skidded to a stop on the edge of the pond and looked back over his shoulder to see if he’d been observed. I’ve got to hold back on the woodland instincts here. Could be a world of misunderstandings if I ate those birds.

Attempting a casual air, he climbed up out of the swan garden, to another path. It was
lined with moist, exotic flowers; fountains shaped like animal heads spouted water from their mouths. He crossed the dining terrace beneath a canopy of branches which held masses of blue blossoms. Females were already lying on loungers beside the pool, with a shoestring between their buns. He paused, and the young pool attendant said, “Can I set you up in a chair, sir?”

“I’m looking at the buns.”

“Certainly, sir.”

The bear helped himself to a banana from the fruit basket set out for the bathers. Morning sunlight glittered on the pool, and tropical birds sang in the trees. Might be nice to take a little dip, he said to himself.

He removed his hotel robe and took several slow, graceful steps toward the water, then launched himself and hit the water with a tremendous splash, sending waves surging up over the edges of the pool.

With the cloudless California sky above him, he paddled peacefully along. As he paddled, he kept his eye out in case there was a briefcase under a lounge chair. But ladies with shoestrings between their buns apparently didn’t carry briefcases.

He reached the end, reversed himself, and paddled back. A pool like this, he observed, could be improved by putting a few salmon in it.

He emerged and shook himself vigorously, sending a halo of water around himself. Then he walked off with his
robe draped over his arm. He went up a few tiled stairs, past a lighted bubbling fountain on which petals floated. The path opened into a small courtyard with more animal-headed fountains, and his room faced all this splendor. His doorway was framed by flowering plants and trees, their rich scent playing in his nostrils as he passed them. A bee flew out of a blossom, and he caught it and ate it, then looked around nervously.

I really shouldn’t be eating hotel property, he told himself. But the old habits die hard.

He entered his room. It was large and cool, with double doors at the other end, leading to a private garden protected by a high redwood fence. He ordered some breakfast for himself and the guest he was expecting, then waited in his garden in a white lounge chair beneath a tree. He was wearing sunglasses, and his white bathrobe bore the hotel monogram—a swan.