asked him what he’d meant by “power” when he’d hugged the tree earlier that afternoon.
He shrugged. “Just power.”
“Yeah, but electrical power, gas turbine power, what?”
“It’s everywhere, Johnny. It’s behind things. We can’t reach through to it, but it’s there and it comes across, like it’s just on the other side of everything we can see.”
“How’d you come up with that?”
“When I drowned. When I woke up I just knew it.”
We followed the trail for about ten minutes. It sloped gradually down into a gully then turned to the right behind an outcrop of rock. Beyond this it continued along the bed of the gully and lost itself in thickening trees that looked gloomy and vaguely threatening. What held my attention, though, as we made the turn, was not the sinister nature of the trees, but Bill Prentice’s naked buttocks, luminous in the middle of the trail about twenty yards further along. Crouched in front of him, her face hidden by his ass, was the slim girl in the tartan skirt.
Stan gave a short gasp of amazement and quickly clamped his hand over his mouth. The obvious course of action was to turn around before they realized we were there and go quietly back the way we’d come. I was just starting to do this when Stan jerked my arm sharply and pointed to the opposite slope of the gully where a black bear was padding its way between the trees. It wasn’t a large animal, about three and a half feet from foot to shoulder, but out there in the woods with no bars to keep it at a distance and make it cute it was an extraordinarily frightening sight.
The bear had seen Bill and the girl and was moving slowly down the slope toward them. For a moment Stan and I did nothing, frozen in a crazy moment where it was impossible to tell what the right thing to do was. Should we yell a warning and risk spooking the bear into attacking? Or should we stay quiet and hope it turned back into the forest?
The girl solved the dilemma for us. The black shape lolling through the trees must have tweaked her peripheral vision because she jerked her head away from Bill’s crotch and shrieked like she was in a horror movie. Bill jumped backwards, grabbing at his pants, looking wildly about for what he must have thought was the arrival of some angry parent. When he saw Stan and me he seemed puzzled, as though he couldn’t match the severity of the girl’s reaction to our presence. By then she was on her feet and racing up the trail. As she passed me she twisted her head over her shoulder and screamed one word, “Bear!”
Bill saw the animal then. He backed into a hollow of trees at the side of the trail and grabbed a fallen branch, holding it out in front of him like some sort of leafy broom. The bear was ten yards away from him now and had only a small patch of ground and the trail to cross. I started picking up rocks to use as ammunition. Stan stared at the bear as if he was trying to calculate its weight.
When I straightened again the bear had come to a stop in front of Bill just a few feet beyond the reach of his branch. Bill’s face was drained of color but he did not look weak standing there with his puny weapon. He hadn’t crumbled.
The bear wrinkled its snout and sniffed the air, moving its head through a swinging half-circle. It sat back on its haunches and raised its front paws.
The first rock I threw hit it on its flank, the second bounced off its shoulder. The animal stretched its neck forward and made a hoarse braying noise, then fell forward on all fours again. I could see the canine teeth of its lower jaw. Bill shouted at me, “Stop! You’re pissing it off.”
“It looks pretty pissed off already.”
“We gotta scare it away, not make it so mad it attacks. Get a branch. Three of us should be too much for it.”
Stan and I found a couple of long sticks at the side of the trail. For a moment I stood wondering if it was really such a good idea to go charging at an angry bear, but Stan
He shrugged. “Just power.”
“Yeah, but electrical power, gas turbine power, what?”
“It’s everywhere, Johnny. It’s behind things. We can’t reach through to it, but it’s there and it comes across, like it’s just on the other side of everything we can see.”
“How’d you come up with that?”
“When I drowned. When I woke up I just knew it.”
We followed the trail for about ten minutes. It sloped gradually down into a gully then turned to the right behind an outcrop of rock. Beyond this it continued along the bed of the gully and lost itself in thickening trees that looked gloomy and vaguely threatening. What held my attention, though, as we made the turn, was not the sinister nature of the trees, but Bill Prentice’s naked buttocks, luminous in the middle of the trail about twenty yards further along. Crouched in front of him, her face hidden by his ass, was the slim girl in the tartan skirt.
Stan gave a short gasp of amazement and quickly clamped his hand over his mouth. The obvious course of action was to turn around before they realized we were there and go quietly back the way we’d come. I was just starting to do this when Stan jerked my arm sharply and pointed to the opposite slope of the gully where a black bear was padding its way between the trees. It wasn’t a large animal, about three and a half feet from foot to shoulder, but out there in the woods with no bars to keep it at a distance and make it cute it was an extraordinarily frightening sight.
The bear had seen Bill and the girl and was moving slowly down the slope toward them. For a moment Stan and I did nothing, frozen in a crazy moment where it was impossible to tell what the right thing to do was. Should we yell a warning and risk spooking the bear into attacking? Or should we stay quiet and hope it turned back into the forest?
The girl solved the dilemma for us. The black shape lolling through the trees must have tweaked her peripheral vision because she jerked her head away from Bill’s crotch and shrieked like she was in a horror movie. Bill jumped backwards, grabbing at his pants, looking wildly about for what he must have thought was the arrival of some angry parent. When he saw Stan and me he seemed puzzled, as though he couldn’t match the severity of the girl’s reaction to our presence. By then she was on her feet and racing up the trail. As she passed me she twisted her head over her shoulder and screamed one word, “Bear!”
Bill saw the animal then. He backed into a hollow of trees at the side of the trail and grabbed a fallen branch, holding it out in front of him like some sort of leafy broom. The bear was ten yards away from him now and had only a small patch of ground and the trail to cross. I started picking up rocks to use as ammunition. Stan stared at the bear as if he was trying to calculate its weight.
When I straightened again the bear had come to a stop in front of Bill just a few feet beyond the reach of his branch. Bill’s face was drained of color but he did not look weak standing there with his puny weapon. He hadn’t crumbled.
The bear wrinkled its snout and sniffed the air, moving its head through a swinging half-circle. It sat back on its haunches and raised its front paws.
The first rock I threw hit it on its flank, the second bounced off its shoulder. The animal stretched its neck forward and made a hoarse braying noise, then fell forward on all fours again. I could see the canine teeth of its lower jaw. Bill shouted at me, “Stop! You’re pissing it off.”
“It looks pretty pissed off already.”
“We gotta scare it away, not make it so mad it attacks. Get a branch. Three of us should be too much for it.”
Stan and I found a couple of long sticks at the side of the trail. For a moment I stood wondering if it was really such a good idea to go charging at an angry bear, but Stan
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