On Bear Mountain

  I heard soft footsteps and other noises. She knocked back. “Hello.” Her voice was wan.

  “I brought you some cookies. Janine told me peanut butter are your favorite. Liza made these. May I come in?”

  “I get shaky when I open the door. I c-can’t.”

  “Okay, then let’s sit down on either side and talk.”

  “You’re . . . you’re funny. Sit on the floor?”

  “Yep.” I sat down cross-legged and wiped my hands on the legs of my jeans. “I’m going to eat a cookie.” I rumpled the aluminum foil, scuffed the cookie box on the polished heart-of-pine boards, and made loud hmmm sounds as I chewed. Esme’s shadow filled the space at the door’s bottom. I heard her settle there. “You could slip a cookie under the door,” she said.

  I did. We ate in companionable silence. “How’s Arthur?” she whispered. “I heard he’s been sick.”

  “Yes. He misses you. He needs a friend.”

  “I heard — ” her voice broke — “I heard some of Uncle John’s friends say nobody in my family could ever go to Bear Creek again.”

  I groaned. “No. Honey, that’s not true.”

  “Uncle John’s so sad. I know what he did to the Iron Bear. It’s all broken up now.”

  “No, it’s not. We fixed it.”

  “You did?” Her voice brightened.

  “As good as new. I just wish somebody special knew how to fix Arthur.”

  She moaned. “I . . . I could. I know I could. I’m just afraid to go outside. People get run over when they go outdoors.”

  “Arthur feels so bad that he won’t go many places, either.”

  “Oh, Arthur!”

  “Janine and I have an idea that might help him. I think it’s something you could help with, too.” I told her our plan, and she grew very quiet. “I’ll try,” she said in a shaky voice. “For Arthur and the Bear.”

  “Good.” I pushed several more cookies under the door, and told her I’d leave the rest on a hall table. As I walked back to the truck I heard a sad little tapping sound. I looked up. Esme waved at me forlornly from her window.

  She wore her Minnie Mouse shirt.

  • • •

  Quentin and I stood on the manicured back lawn of Miss Betty’s grand old home, which was now occupied by her great-niece, Luzanne. Luzanne kept glancing up at the windows. Mr. John’s eldest sister clutched plump, liver-spotted hands beneath her jowly chin. “I hope this works,” she whispered.

  I whispered back. “I’d say it already has.” Arthur perched on the rim of the back yard’s bubbling fountain, craning his head toward the house. He had not moved in five minutes. “Sweetie, come on,” I called. “We’re going in the shed, now.”

  “I’ll wait out here,” he replied, without taking his gaze from the mysterious windows.

  “He’s seen her,” Quentin surmised. “Come on. Let’s keep up the pretense.”

  “I’ll go in the house and see what I can encourage,” Luzanne said, then hurried up the steps of the back veranda with all the speed her knees could muster.

  I sighed and followed Quentin into the dim light of Miss Betty’s former garage, now a storage shed. We’d told Arthur we might find a memento to use as part of the second Bear. I had something in mind, but wasn’t certain it still existed.

  The shed was crowded with modern metal shelves, and the stone floor was covered in musty carpet squares. Boxes and forgotten trunks had been stacked head-high. Dust motes floated in the air. I caught the remnants of a spider’s line with my fingertip and moved it aside. “Luzanne said if what we’re looking for is still here, it’s probably piled in the corner over there.”

  Quentin wedged his body between jumbles of unwanted chairs and lamp stands. “Let’s look for Atlantis and the lost city of the Incas while we’re at it. Anything could be hidden in here.”

  I went to a corner across from the window and, with his help, spent several minutes methodically moving boxes and ancient yard tools. The space was close and warm. We could hear each other breathe, and there was no way to avoid body contact as we worked. “There,” I said finally, both relieved and disappointed.

  We looked at a baby tram that had lovingly conveyed all of Miss Betty’s children early in their lives: her lost daughters and her favorite great-nephew, Mr. John. The tram’s leather top was falling apart, its metal frame was badly bent, it was missing two wheels, and the satin interior was yellowed and torn. It must be over a hundred years old but still had a sweet grandeur about it.

  “Miss Betty rode in this when she was a baby,” I explained. “It belonged to her mother. Bethina Grace. So it’s a Powell antique, too.”

  Quentin examined the decrepit item with a deep frown. “I might be able to use a piece of the frame in some decorative way.” He hesitated. “I can’t build a structure out of trivia like this. I expect to buy scrap steel and cast iron for the main skeleton.”

  I could see his concern. Turning mementos and junk into an elegant and inspiring work of abstract sculpture was his father’s talent, not his. He was just beginning to comprehend how obsessive every decision must be. I tried to make it easier. “Well, we’ll just take this tram on the off chance you can use it. If not, well, it was headed to the county dump, anyway. After all, we’re only here to pretend we’re looking while Arthur and Esme coax each other into the open.”

  Quentin scrubbed a hand over his jaw and shook his head. “You think what’s between them is all that powerful? They only met once.”

  “They’re soul mates.”

  He arched a brow. “They’re cousins.”

  “Kissing cousins. So distant it doesn’t matter.” I looked at him. “What have you got against romance?”

  “It takes too much simple faith.”

  “You’re saying people who want romance in their lives are simple-minded?”

  “No. It just deserves a full commitment, which most people aren’t willing to make, including me. Why play at it?”

  “Your friend Carla must love it when you talk this way.” I turned my back to him in that cramped space, that cool and provocative light, so he wouldn’t see my expression. I began shuffling through odds and ends on a shelf. “Are you looking for other candidates like her? Let’s see. The personal ad would read: Wanted. Devoted, long-term, hassle-free women willing to be called ‘friend.’” I rattled old watering cans loudly, shoving things aside. A box tilted precariously on the shelf above me and Quentin stepped closer to me, catching it. “What are you looking for?” I persisted. “No hearts and flowers, obviously.”

  He maneuvered the box back into place. His thigh pressed against my hip. “I gave up on hearts and flowers when I was old enough to realize most women want money and a car.”

  “That’s not true.”

  “No, but it sounds better than playing games.”

  Without warning, even to myself, I pivoted angrily. We were only inches apart. “Do you just want someone to fuck?”

  He clasped my face between his hands. “I want you.” No clear answer, really, but deadly effective. He kissed me, and I didn’t stop him. We wound ourselves together, pressing against the shelves, struggling for every ounce of sensation, violent and gentle at the same time. Containers and boxes tumbled around us. I felt him hard against my stomach and arched in response. He slid his hands down me, while we tore at each other’s mouths.

  We heard Arthur shriek outside, and broke apart instantly. By the time we ran into the garden he’d cornered Esme. She crouched behind a large hydrangea shrub, peeking out, white-faced, through large patches where frost had already taken the leaves. Luzanne hovered nearby, wringing her hands. “Oh, they’ve just gone wild.”

  Arthur crouched on the hydrangea’s other side, as if he might either pounce on Esme or run away as fast as he could. “What’s wrong with you?” he asked sadly. “Are you scared of me?”

  “No. I’m just an idiot,” she moaned. “I can’t even run away right. I got run over.”

  “I got run over,
too. Just in a different way.”

  “I’m scared of everything.”

  “Me, too,” he confirmed hoarsely. “But Quentin’s teaching me how to be a man. I bet you could learn how to be a woman. My sister could teach you. Quentin says she’s all woman.”

  “How can I be a woman? I don’t even know how to cross the road!”

  “I don’t care. I’ll stay on one side of the road with you.”

  “Is Mama Bear dead?”

  “I’m not sure. I thought she was, but maybe she’s just sleeping until her neck gets well. When I was in the hospital, my neck hurt and I didn’t want to talk at all. I fell down and hurt it having a fit, you know. But now my neck is fine.”

  “Maybe, if Mama Bear gets better, we’ll get better.”

  He nodded, then inched around the shrub, still crouching, and tentatively held out one hand toward her. She crept toward him on all fours, hesitant, trembling. Then, slowly, she lifted her hand, and they touched fingertips. As if some spell had been broken, they scrambled across the remaining space and huddled together with their arms around each other.

  Luzanne began to cry. “There are miracles.”

  I nodded, then met Quentin’s troubled gaze. We’d only made the chasm between us more painful. All woman, he had said? He was right. “I want what we’ve just seen,” I told him. “Hearts and flowers.”

  His expression said I’d never get them, and I turned away.

  CHAPTER 21

  Tricky began to drop Esme off at the farm every morning and pick her up every evening. Sometimes Janine substituted as a chauffeur, but clearly did not like having to be humble around me. The contract I wrote for the growers’ association left her quietly foaming at the mouth. We were in negotiations.

  Arthur and Esme clung to each other for mutual encouragement. Though Liza and the Ledbetters entertained Esme with their studio work, she spent most of her time sitting with Arthur at the edge of the pasture, somberly watching Quentin. I watched Quentin, too, wounded but still under his spell. I relived every moment and every nuance of our most recent encounter, scolding myself for the weakness.

  He bought a load of scrap metal and iron, then began sorting, shaping, cutting. I wondered at this methodical piecework. Could he imagine where each piece would fit? Did he expect to put a sculpture together as if it were a giant jigsaw puzzle? Or was he simply avoiding the day when he would have to begin to create something whose sum was far more difficult to achieve than each of its parts?

  Several weeks passed as this disjointed work progressed. I needed heavy labor to take my mind off the growing tension. I got out Daddy’s chain saw, sharpened the blade, changed the oil, and began cutting up the huge poplar trees that had fallen during the July tornado.

  Quentin had never seen a woman do work like that before.

  I glanced up more than once and found him moving limbs for me, or stacking the sectioned trunks of the trees, so avoiding him had backfired on me. When I sat down on a stump with the quiet chain saw across my knees and a file in one gloved hand, preparing to touch up the blade, he said, “I could do that for you.”

  I squinted up at him. “Why? I can do it myself.”

  Other men, including Gregory, had withered under such blunt competence, but Quentin simply nodded. “You need a better file, then.” He brought me one of his.

  At night I lay alone in my childhood bed, covered in old pink chenille but no longer innocent. He touched my breasts, eased my legs apart, whispered in my dreams, filled me with chaos. I had duties to uphold as the ruling woman in my own house. I could not allow myself to love a man who wouldn’t stay with me. A chorus of tough southern belles whispered, You need a loyal husband around here. Loyal to you, loyal to your family, loyal to your land.

  I added, Good in bed, smart, and romantic. Politically, socially, and religiously compatible. And he had to want children. Arthur and I were the last of the Powells in Tiber County. One of us must reproduce. I found myself crying over that, just laying in the bed in the dark crying with fury over being the end, the last, the only.

  And loving the wrong man.

  • • •

  Dr. Washington showed up on my doorstep one afternoon, a walking stick in one hand, a bulging cloth tote bag in the other. “I’m here to see the editor and publisher of Powell Press,” he said primly. I invited him in, and we sat in chairs before the living room fireplace. “Welcome to another exciting day at my company.” I waved at the mostly unneeded office setup. Arthur’s two squirrels sat on my desk, eating peanuts from an open jar.

  He set the cloth tote on the hearth and pecked it with the tip of his stick. “I have a project for you.”

  “Oh?”

  “Inspired by Arthur.” He smiled. “It’s good to see him looking lively again.”

  “He’s a long way from being all right, though.”

  The old professor clucked his tongue. “Most of the human beings in the world are constantly searching for pathways back to their own good graces. I came back here to find my own path, and you will, and Quentin, and Arthur, too. I only wish my children would try.”

  I kept staring at the bag of mysterious items. “We’ll think of something to get your family to visit. They’ll change their tune as soon as they come here.”

  “These wild mountains are easy to love. I just don’t know what it’s going to take to get them here.”

  “I know you’re lonely at your farm. Mr. Fred was, too.”

  He sighed. “That’s why I like having Arthur around. Here’s what I meant by inspiration. Do you know what I’ve been doing since last winter? I tell him the stories I told my children when they were little. Stories I concocted about growing up here. He likes them. He’s a wonderful listener.”

  “Children’s stories?”

  “Oh, just silly little tales.” He tapped the bag. “I was telling Quentin about them some time back and he convinced me to make tapes. So here they are. I’m hoping you might listen to a few and tell me if they’re publishable.”

  Now I looked at the bag with greedy excitement. God help me, my marketing hat settled firmly into place, and I could see the headlines in Publishers Weekly and the New York Times, to name only two. Acclaimed Historian Pens Magic for Young Readers. Retired Professor Is New Star in Children’s Fiction. Powell Press Tops One Million Sales With ‘Stories from Bear Creek.’

  “Stories from Bear Creek,” I said aloud.

  His eyes gleamed. “A potential title? You don’t even know if my funny little tales are any good.”

  “I’m betting they are.” I began to gesture enthusiastically, setting up invisible priority lists. “First, I’ll transcribe them. Then I’ll send them to a bookseller I know who specializes in children’s books. She’ll give me some good feedback. Oh, and I know a wonderful illustrator in Atlanta who’s been looking for a project to — ” I halted. Reality sank in, and my hands floated heavily into my lap. “Dr. Washington, if your stories are good, then what I’ll do is recommend them to editors at some of the best publishing houses. You deserve to have your work presented well. I don’t have the money to do that. It wouldn’t be fair to you or your stories.”

  He frowned. “But I specifically want you to publish them. If need be, I’ll fund the costs myself.”

  “No, please. You have no idea how much money it would take to do a good job publishing and promoting your book. It’s out of the question. You need a major publisher with a lot of money to invest.”

  “I’m assuming that financing won’t be an issue for you. Don’t you expect to sell Quentin the Iron Bear?”

  I sat in dull silence for a moment. “I have my doubts that plan will work.”

  “Explain this tangled rationale to me again.”

  “Arthur says he can’t let the Bear go to New York unless he’s convinced it — she — will always be lonely here without my father. He says giving her a friend may make her want to stay. If she’s still not happy when her ‘friend’ is built, then she can go. So all of
my financial prospects are based on Arthur’s whimsy. For all I know, Quentin will build the second sculpture and my brother will say, ‘Yes, that’s exactly what Mama Bear needs, and now she’s happy.’ Meaning she stays. No sale.”

  “Do you really want to see the sculpture leave here?”

  My shoulders slumped. “No.”

  “All right, then I confess. When Quentin talked me into this project — ” he indicated the bag of tapes, again — “we agreed that it had to be a Powell Press book. Ursula, you and I are family, in a sense. We’ll never know what became of Nathan and Bethina Grace, but that bond is between Powells and Washingtons forever.”

  I nodded. “And I’m proud of it.”

  “Indeed. I am, as well.”

  A quiet admission of mutual acceptance after more than a century and a half of silence. Both he and I took a moment to look away, blink, clear our throats. “My stories, if publishable, simply must be done by you. I’d consider it an honor.”

  “I’d be honored to publish them. If I have the money.”

  He nodded. “We’ll leave it at that, for now.”

  I walked out to Quentin’s campsite that night, carrying the bag of tapes. “I’ve started listening to these,” I told him. He looked at me over a smoky cooking grill strewn with steaks — two for him, two for Hammer. “Are they good enough?” he asked.

  “They’re wonderful. I know you’re responsible for suggesting it to Dr. Washington. Thank you.”

  “You’ll have the money to publish them. To publish any book you want. You have my word.”

  One last, lone butterfly, who had somehow escaped the cold weather and the autumn frosts, fluttered lethargically toward the Iron Bear, and lit inside its ribs. What’s the news on this man’s generosity? I asked silently.

  Easy to give, late in the season, when you can’t fly away, it answered.

  • • •

  Quentin Riconni, the son of sculptor Richard Riconni, is the resident artist at Bear Creek this fall, and he’s designing a companion piece for the Bear! We hope to interview him. This notice was published by a local newsletter called Outside In, which billed itself as the monthly journal of mountain folk craft and outsider art. Daddy had helped to start it.