“No further questions.”
John Warwick approached Professor Settlemire. “Professor, could you tell us in a general way what the contents of this novel were?”
“It was a copy of a best-seller.”
“A copy of a best-seller? Why, that’s very interesting. I’ve just heard that Arthur Bramhall used an old lumberjack’s stories without sharing with him—”
“Objection!”
“Overruled.”
“—and now I hear that he copied a best-seller. We have a word for that, Professor. It’s called plagiarism.”
“Objection!”
“Overruled.”
“What was the title of that best-seller, do you recall?”
“Don’t, Mr. Drummond.”
“Your colleague made a copy of Don’t, Mr. Drummond?”
“He copied the style. I didn’t think it was a good idea.”
“I agree with you, Professor. It’s not a good idea. It’s an idea that can lead to a great many complications. But let’s return to the idea, whether it’s good or not. You say Arthur Bramhall plagiarized—excuse me, I mean copied—Don’t, Mr. Drummond. Have you read that book, Professor?”
“I’ve glanced at it.”
“Could you characterize it for us?”
“It’s a piece of romantic trash.”
“And you are, one could say, an authority in such matters.”
“One would like to think so.”
“You like your students to read only the best, I’m sure.”
“That’s correct.”
“Would it interest you to know, Professor, that my client’s book, Destiny and Desire, is already required reading in hundreds of English classes around the country? That it has received critical acclaim from such authorities in the field as Kenneth Penrod of Columbia University and Samuel Ramsbotham of New York University, two of the most distinguished places of learning in America? Would you say that this is a powerful endorsement of the book’s merit?”
“Yes, I’d have to say so. Although Ramsbotham’s views on some things—”
“The point is, Professor, my client hasn’t written a copy of Don’t, Mr. Drummond, he’s written a highly original work, beloved by the American public and endorsed by two of the greatest minds in the field of contemporary American literature. That doesn’t sound anything like the manuscript your colleague showed to you, does it?”
“No,” admitted Settlemire uncomfortably, for he’d hoped, in his peculiar way, to have done Bramhall some good here today. He couldn’t remember a word of Bramhall’s book, nor of Don’t, Mr. Drummond, for the cells of his memory were stuffed with as ifs.
“Professor, when did you see the portion of the novel your colleague showed you?”
“It must’ve been a year and a half ago.”
“And what happened to that novel subsequently?”
“Bramhall had a fire. The novel burned.”
“The novel burned? How unfortunate. Yet a year and a half later, your colleague enters this courtroom and claims someone stole his novel. Which was it, burned or stolen?” Warwick sent a sidelong glance toward the jury.
“Well,” said Settlemire, “Bramhall said it was burned and then stolen.”
“Burned and stolen?” Warwick looked at the jury again. “This manuscript of his has certainly undergone a harsh fate.”
“He rewrote it,” said Settlemire. “And then it was stolen.” Settlemire’s head cocked itself in a strange, sideways manner, rather like a mother baboon looking for fleas; a man who spends his best hours looking for as ifs must expect this.
“He rewrote it and then it was stolen,” said Warwick in tones suggesting the ludicrousness of this idea, while all the time the bear was mimicking his lawyer’s gestures. It’s not difficult, really, he said to himself. You have to turn your head toward the jury and give them a big smile. You have to stab the air with your paw, then wave it in their faces a little in case they didn’t see it.
A passing breeze tucked in at the window and slipped up his nose with scents of the nearby riverbank, of forget-me-nots, golden bells, water hemlocks. He inhaled deeply, closed his eyes, and swayed in his chair. It was springtime in Maine, spring at its most beautiful. With a cry of jubilation, he rolled off his chair onto the floor and writhed around, scratching his back.
“Order in the court!” Judge Spurr’s gavel came down with a loud crack. “Counsel, control that man!”
“Hal, for god’s sake—” Warwick dropped to his knees beside his client and gave him a vigorous shake.
The bear opened his eyes and drew back his upper lip with a snarl. Judge Spurr brought his gavel down a second time. “Mr. Warwick, if you can’t restrain your client, I’m going to hold him in contempt.”
“Your honor, I believe he’s having some kind of seizure.”
“He looks remarkably like a man who’s scratching his back.”
Warwick took the carafe of water from his table and poured it on the bear, who let out an angry roar. Warwick drew back in fear and turned to the judge. “Your honor, my client is ill.”
“He does not appear ill to me, sir. He appears drunk and disorderly and I won’t have it.”
The jurors were leaning forward in their chairs, and Judge Spurr had risen from his, gavel in hand. Warwick knew that if it came down again it would be with a contempt citation. All of the sympathy they’d gained from judge and jury was going out the window. At that moment, Vinal Pinette’s dog, locked in Pinette’s truck outside the courtroom, decided he’d been left in the truck long enough and began to bark. He liked to project his bark as far as it would go, for the beauty of the thing. His barking reached the bear’s ear and the bear sat up, fully alert.
“Hal,” said Warwick, “are you all right?”
The bear’s nose was twitching with concern. Had they set their dogs after him? A few more sniffs convinced him the dog was alone and too far away to be a threat. He allowed Warwick to help him back into his chair, where he sat quietly sniffing the air.
Warwick turned toward the judge’s bench. “Your honor, Lord Overlook’s family has had, for some generations, a rare neurological condition. This episode we’ve just witnessed is characteristic of the disease.”
“Runs in the family, does it?” Judge Spurr was already regretting having spoken so harshly to a lord of the realm. Eccentricity in the aristocracy was something you had to tolerate; the illustrious Overlook line must have thinned a little with inbreeding and produced the weakness he’d just witnessed. Judge Spurr was inclined to be tolerant, as he felt the Overlook family would appreciate such concern. “Is he well enough to continue? If you’d like to move for a recess—”
“We would, your honor.”
“This court will recess until tomorrow,” said Judge Spurr, and rose from his bench.
Warwick nodded to Magoon, indicating he wanted to talk to him outside the courtroom. The two men retired to a cloakroom and stood together beside an open window looking down into town. Warwick said, “Even though I know we’re going to win this case, for the sake of my client’s health, we’re ready to settle out of court.”
Magoon sat with his client in the diner on Main Street. The sound of the river could be heard from their table, along with the cries of a pair of ospreys circling overhead, looking for the glitter of a fish beneath the water. “Cavendish Press is offering us a half a million dollars.”
“But they keep the rights? I wouldn’t be the author?”
“That’s right, Arthur. But your financial problems would be over for the rest of your life.”
Arthur Bramhall ran a hand over his tortured, shaggy brow. He heard the cry of the osprey, and he understood its high-pitched sound. He felt the living presence of the river calling him to flow with it.
“Half a million, wisely invested …” said Magoon.
“I’m not giving them my book.”
“Don’t be a fool. The jury’s already against us.”
“I don’t care,”
growled Bramhall. “I’m the author, and we’re going to prove it.”
“I no longer know if I can do that.”
“The answer is no.”
“This is a terrible mistake. Warwick’s going to tear you apart on the witness stand.”
“I’ll tear him apart,” said Bramhall with a savage growl.
Magoon moved back in his seat, startled by the animal ferocity in his client’s eyes.
Vinal Pinette sat with his dog in front of his kitchen stove. “I let him down,” said the old man, staring at the scarred wooden floor.
The dog looked up, hoping for a hunk of wiener to find its way to his patient snout. The boss tossed him a few every night around this time.
“I got all tangled up, y’see. That lawyer feller started ’sinuating things, and I went after it, like you after this wiener.” Pinette tossed one and the dog grabbed it midair with a fast snap of his jaws and swallowed it whole, as was his custom so no other dog could steal it from him, though there were no other dogs anywhere near, but it paid not to take any chances in the matter of wieners.
“I made Art Bramhall look like a crook, is what I done.” The old man’s head sank lower as he shook it slowly back and forth. “ ’Cause I ain’t got no more sense than this here wiener.” He shook the end of the wiener in the air, and the dog’s head went up and down.
“I’d like to go back in that there courtroom and set it right, but they got all the use out of me they need.” Pinette tossed the wiener, and the dog’s head made a quick sweep sideways, catching the object and sending it to his stomach in one gulp.
“We ain’t never gonna get our book wrote now,” said Pinette sadly. The dog retired to his rug behind the stove for some moderate ball-washing. Literature was not one of his burning interests. The Life of a Wiener, yes, that might hold his attention, if it was boldly illustrated.
On the following day in court, Eaton Magoon gave proof of his client’s literary abilities, from his Ph.D. through the many scholarly essays he’d published in his academic years.
Warwick held up the jacket of Destiny and Desire and flourished numerous magazine and newspaper articles about his client. There was no need for him to show anything else, nor could he have if he wanted to, because there was nothing else.
The bear was gesturing in imitation of his lawyer. As Warwick talked, the bear mouthed the words. He’d practiced in his room last night and now he felt he had the pattern down. When Warwick returned to their table, the bear pointed at the witness box and said in a rough whisper, “Put me up there.”
“No,” said Warwick.
The bear’s paw closed on Warwick’s knee, and a gusher of pain ran up the oil lawyer’s leg. He stood and said, “Your honor, I’d like to call my client to the witness box.”
The bear was sworn in. He took his oath with great solemnity, his right paw in the air. He could feel the bright, bubbling words pooling up in him, ready to burst out in a colorful stream.
Warwick didn’t leave the area of his desk. “Is your name Hal Jam?”
“Yes.”
“Did you write Destiny and Desire?”
“Yes.”
“No further questions.”
The bear looked at Warwick, a hurt expression on his face. “I’ve got more to say.” He gestured like a lawyer toward the jury box.
“You can say it to me,” said Magoon as he approached the witness box. “What kind of person are you, Jam?”
“I’m a person,” said the bear quickly, glad that this key point had been addressed before anything else. If he was a person, they couldn’t put him in a zoo.
“I asked what kind of person are you? What kind of person is it, Mr. Jam, who steals another man’s hard-won work?”
The bear made the little gesture he’d been practicing, and it felt just like the gestures he’d been watching his lawyer make, but the words that were supposed to accompany it failed to come out. They were swirling around inside him like sparkling fish in a stream but when he tried to pull one from the stream it wriggled through his grasp and slipped away. He turned to the window and sniffed at the air, filling his nose with the scent of the countryside.
Magoon was only inches from him now. “You stole Arthur Bramhall’s book. That’s who you are, sir. You’re a thief, plain and simple. What else can we call you?”
“The fields,” said the bear.
“Excuse me?”
“The river,” said the bear. “The flowers.” He looked toward the courtroom window. His confidence had vanished like a soap bubble. He was thinking of the river, and the pine forest beyond it. He couldn’t speak like a lawyer, couldn’t make the bright, bubbling sounds that were the true mark of a real person. “The springtime,” he said in desperation. “The new buds.”
That’s the feeling of Destiny and Desire, thought one of the jurors to herself as she leaned forward to listen more closely. She’d read the book with much enjoyment and that, she said, is the sound of it. She looked at the person in the witness box and knew he was the author of the book she’d loved.
“Is that your answer, sir?” asked Magoon, pressing his advantage. “You’re the springtime? You’re the new buds?”
“I’m a bear,” admitted the crestfallen beast.
Yes, thought the juror, he’s the voice of Maine—the bears, the moose, the birds, the flowers, the trees, and the forest in spring.
“You say you’re a bear?” asked Magoon snidely.
“He is a bear!” Arthur Bramhall came to his feet, everything clear to him now. “He’s the bear who stole my book!”
“Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, have you reached a verdict?”
“We have, your honor.”
The jury decision was that the bear was the author of Destiny and Desire. All rights in the property, past and present, remained his. They didn’t know he was a bear, in spite of his having told them. This was because they were human beings.
At the announcement of the decision, Arthur Bramhall emitted a sound that was guttural and harsh. The members of the jury took this as further confirmation of the correctness of their judgment. A man capable of such a noise could never have written Destiny and Desire. They watched him shuffle slowly to the courtroom door, his body swaying from side to side in his badly fitting J. C. Penney suit, which had ripped up the back seam. He gave the door a shove; it flew open and struck the wall with a bang, and he shuffled through, the courtroom deputy watching him suspiciously. The fur-bearing woman, who’d been sending him positive vibrations throughout the trial, now tried to encircle him with clear white light, but he pushed past her with a groan. He went down the stairs and through the lobby to the parking lot, where Vinal Pinette’s dog started barking at him, the dog throwing itself against the window of the truck in which it was confined; that sucker is a bear, thought the dog, or I’m not man’s best friend.
Arthur Bramhall sat by the edge of a stream. Events from the courtroom were behind him now; he’d been able to sustain an interest in them only while his rage was fresh. But rage had died the moment he set foot back in the forest, and as the days went by, his peace of mind returned. The voice of the forest had his full attention once again. With the passing of weeks, his sense of smell became acute. A network of information became available to him, and he pursued it rapturously, sniffing his way through a layer of experience that had been sealed off from mankind for eons. The fragrant carpets of moss spoke intimately to him, as did the flowers, the pine needles, and wild grasses. The forest was hung with aromatic veils, creating numerous subtle chambers, through which he walked like a sultan in an enchanted palace.
His energy increased. When he ran, he glided, his feet striking lightly, knowing the terrain already. He fed on fish, wild plants, and berries. He needed nothing from anyone.
This is all I ever want, he thought as he sat by the water, looking at the forget-me-nots, the golden bells, the water hemlocks. Their scent was in his nose along with the cool moisture from the stream, which spoke of the
miles of country it had crossed. He dipped a hand into the water and smiled at the sparkling drops that collected on his knuckles. He broke into a joyous dance, throwing his powerful arms into the air and stamping his feet.
Vinal Pinette stood watching from an adjacent hilltop. He missed Bramhall’s company, but he knew happiness when he saw it, and what more could you want for a friend?
The old woodsman stepped back into the trees and started back through the forest toward home. His watery old eyes glistened as he walked. There was only the sound of his boots moving softly on the forest floor.
“Hal, I’m so very glad to finally have the chance to meet you,” said the vice president, on the south lawn of the White House.
The bear sniffed the vice president, going past the aftershave to the essential scent and trying to place where he’d smelled it last. I’ve met this dominant male before, he thought to himself.
Shaking the bear’s hand, the vice president said, “I owe you a great deal.”
“I bopped him on the head!” said the bear, suddenly remembering the hotel lobby where he’d settled a territorial claim.
“You certainly did bop him on the head,” said the vice president. “You’re a genuine American hero, Hal.”
“Ursus americanus,” said the bear, nodding.
The vice president allowed himself a momentary frown of puzzlement, but the bear did not elaborate. He was sniffing the warm scent of the flowers that greeted them as they entered the president’s private garden. There’s some excellent honey around these parts, or I’m not Hal Jam.
“The president wants to meet you too. He’ll be along in a minute.”
“Who’s he?” asked the bear.
Again, the vice president frowned, and began to understand why, at the briefing for this meeting, he’d been told that Hal Jam was odd. “My wife read your book. She’d like you to sign it for her.”
“I can sign my name,” said the bear. “Hal Jam. I’m a person.”
The vice president, maintaining his puzzled frown, continued in step with his guest, in the informal stroll advised by his staff. Hal Jam was known for celebrating nature in his work, and the vice president’s staff had decided he could be counted as an environmentalist. The presidential garden, therefore, seemed the most appropriate setting in which to say thank you to him. It was felt that Jam was probably a moderate, though there’d been talk that he might be tilting toward the far right, indicated by his meeting with the Reverend Norbert Sinkler, and the president did not want to lose another influential intellectual. So, though Hal Jam was proving to be peculiar, the vice president was disposed to be patient, and to plumb the depths of his potentially helpful guest.