"No," said Mike. "I mean about you. We'll get to the bear in good time/'
"Oh, me?" The young man smiled a rather ingratiating smile. "Peters, Ralph Peters."
"All right, Mr. Peters. What are you doing in this part of the country?"
Mr. Peters sat up straighter in his chair. "Just passing through, Sergeant. I'm a prospector."
I followed Mike's glance. He was looking at the young man's hands. They were well kept. The nails were cleaner than mine and had been buffed until they shone.
"How much prospecting have you done?" Mike asked in a slow drawl.
Mr. Peters seemed embarrassed. He shifted slightly in his chair. "I guess I exaggerated a bit when I called myself a prospector. I haven't done any mining as yet, I'm on my way north. Yukon, matter of fact, to try my luck."
"You must have got in this afternoon. That's the only way I figure I could have missed you—in all that confusion when the fur brigade left."
"A good guess, Sergeant. I came in just afterwards. Met the canoes about a quarter-mile before sighting the dock."
"You're American, aren't you?" Mike asked.
"Why, yes, Detroit."
"And what did you do in Detroit ?" Mike was still looking at Ralph Peters's hands. They seemed to fascinate him.
"I sold shoes. Thomas & Bailey's main branch, Tenth and Church streets."
Mike grinned. "Well, I guess you can tell us about the bear now, Mr. Peters."
At the mention of the word "bear" the color drained from Mr. Peter's face, and he reached for the whisky glass. I filled it for him, he took a sip, coughed, and set it down.
"It was a terrible trip, by canoe, you know. I thought I'd stay here a week or so and get the cramps out of my legs. Well, first
thing I did was borrow that horse and ride around a bit. Wanted to see the country."
"It's a beautiful country, isn't it?" I asked.
He looked at me a little blankly. "Oh, yes. But full of bears."
Mike laughed. "It's the season for them. Summer and spring."
"Yes," the young man said slowly, as though marking those seasons definitely in his mind. "Well, I was just walking the horse, so as to see everything better, and as you say, ma'am, it is pretty country, rolling and mountainous, and the leaves new and fresh. I was remarking to myself that things are a lighter green when they first come out, sort of a lime or yellow-green, I guess you'd call it."
"Where'd you find the cub?" Mike asked impatiently.
Mr. Peters looked at him reproachfully. "In a yellow-green thicket. You see, the horse had stopped to browse when suddenly its ears went back, and it stiffened up. At the same time I saw a movement in the thicket. Well, I was curious. I pushed back the bushes with my gun. If it was anything dangerous, I figured I could shoot it. But all it was was a little bear cub crouching there. When he saw me he made a noise in his throat that was supposed to be growling. He was awfully cute, you know, round and chubby like a chow puppy. I got close, for a better look at him. He whimpered a little when I picked him up, but he didn't put up much of a fight. Had the thickest fur I ever felt in my life. I thought it would be fun to take him back to camp.
"My horse smelled bear and didn't want to let us up, but I finally got me and the cub on her back. I'd just turned her and headed her for home when a whirlwind of fury crashed through the thicket at us. The horse lunged forward like a crazy thing, but it couldn't pull away from that she-demon of a bear.
"Do you know, we must have galloped five miles with the creature at our heels. I could hear it panting. Once I looked back at the blur of mottled fur, at the open mouth drooling saliva, at the bared teeth. The lips were rolled back and the teeth snapped, closing on air, but always snapping closer. I thought I would fall
from the horse. Only the thought of falling under that creature kept me on its back."
"Why didn't you drop the cub?" This from Mike.
"Drop him?" said Mr. Peters. "I didn't know I had him. I didn't know anything but those blazing red holes of eyes. My head was filled with a terrible screaming. I guess it came from me."
"It did," Mike said. And then he made a practical suggestion. "Finish your drink, Mr. Peters."
Mr. Peters raised his well-cared-for hand to his mouth. It was white, and the blue veins stood out in a strongly marked pattern. He thought it held a drink. It didn't. There was no doubt of it. Mr. Peters was badly shaken.
To take his mind off bears, I began to talk about Atenou's tooth. Atenou listened appreciatively as I told about his pain and his courage. He was beaming by the time I got to the extraction.
"Where is that tooth, anyway?" Mike asked.
I looked at the table. The pliers were still there but the tooth was gone. I turned to Atenou. He grinned and pointed to his chest; there, on the end of a buckskin thong, swung a small pouch.
"It's in there?" I asked him.
He dumped the contents of the pouch into his hand. First came a silver button, then a packet of herbs tied together, and finally the tooth. The blood was now dry on it. Atenou lifted the tooth carefully in two fingers and extended it toward Mr. Peters.
"The tooth of wisdom," he said slowly.
"Wisdom tooth," Mike corrected.
"Same thing. Yes?" Atenou asked.
"Well—"
"Yes." Atenou decided for himself.
Mr. Peters drew back slightly from the tooth. "What do you want to carry it around with you for?"
"It good medicine—powerful."
Mr. Peters laughed. "Indian superstition."
Atenou, who did not understand such a long word, was nevertheless pleased by it. "Yes," he said. "Much strong. It make cure of pain between bone."
"Rheumatism," Mike explained.
"Oh, really?" Mr. Peters winked broadly at us. He was beginning to enjoy himself. "And what else does this tooth do?"
"It make love in heart of loved woman," Atenou declared gravely.
Mr. Peters thought this especially funny.
"Him also great protection against bears."
Mr. Peters stopped laughing. "Really?"
"Strong medicine against grizzly."
Mr. Peters turned to us. "You know, I sometimes think these native superstitions are worth looking into. After all, they live in these places and have survived."
"Bear no come where is this tooth. No like, strong medicine."
I was proud of Atenou, the chief hunter of Mustagan. He drove a shrewd bargain with the shoe salesman from Detroit.
Ten
"Up here," Mike said, "there are no signposts or traffic cops. During the day you've got the sun, and at night the stars. From them you'll learn to tell time, direction, and to some extent, the weather."
It was my first astronomy lesson in the clear black night of Hudson's Hope, and the stars crowded in on us, a million times brighter, closer, and more real than the stars of Boston. The Big Dipper I knew, and that was all. Somewhere, I was sure, there was a Little Dipper, but it was hiding. "About the only other thing I recognize is the moon," I admitted.
Our necks were stiff from craning, so Mike laid out a blanket and we lay on our backs, gazing up. I remembered the verse from my mother's Bible, "And God made the firmament. . . ." This was the first time it had really looked like a firmament.
"The two end stars in the bowl of the Dipper, they're called the Pointers because they point to the Pole Star." Mike's hand traced out the line. "Roll your head closer to mine so we'll be looking the same way," he said.
I smiled. "Are you flirting with me, Sergeant Flannigan?"
"Not at all, Mrs. Flannigan," he said, putting his arm under my head. "This is an astronomy lesson, and you'll kindly point out the Pole Star for me."
Well, that wasn't so easy because, to tell the truth, for all it has such an important name, and is (Mike says) the basis of navigation and direction-finding, the Pole Star is a pretty mediocre-looking star and hard to find.
"
There's the Big Dipper," I said, "and there's the Pointers, and there's the Pole Star." And, glory be to the saints, just as I pointed, out jumped the Little Dipper, hanging from the Pole Star like a pot on a hook. "And there's the Little Dipper!" I cried out, much to Mike's amazement.
"So you're learning by yourself, redhead," he said, and hugged me.
Then he showed me the Dragon that curls around between the Dippers, and Cassiopaeia's Chair, and the Hair of Berenice, which the Indians call Owl's Eye, but which I would call Dinner Plate, because that's its shape.
"You're to remember," Mike said, "that the Pole Star is the North Star. It's in its place every night, all night. The North Star never moves from there, but all the rest of the stars turn around it.
"Why is that?"
"Shall I give you the scientific explanation or the story the Beavers tell?"
"It's too lovely a night for the scientific explanation," I whispered. Mike sighed and smiled, but he knew I was right. This cold, clear, enchanted night was no place for mathematics and physics. Right ascension and declination and the ecliptic would have to wait for an evening with an indoor star chart. On this black, bright-jeweled chart that was flung over our heads, only magic and mystery could move.
Mike said, "The story was told to me by an old chief of the Beavers, on my long patrol three years ago. I heard it twice after that, once among the Blackfeet, once in a different version among the Crees. But it always began:
"It was in the days of before-the-before. Before the day of the first chief of the tribe, before the builder of the first tepee, before the father of the first Beaver. Yet even in those days there were men on the earth, and they hunted. And when they died, they went to the plains-above and hunted there forever.
"Now, then there was no sky, and the sun lighted up the plains-below and the plains-above equally. On the plains-below men hunted buffalo and moose, and on the plains-above the spirits hunted smoke-deer and bison of fire. It happened that the men on the flat of the earth became discontented, as all men do, and took to watching the hunts of the spirits and envying them. And it's not hard, my darling, to see how that was. For what is buffalo meat and moose meat and the skin of the beaver compared to the magic meat of the fire-bison and the flashing skin of the sky-eagle ! One day Onowate, a man with the strength of three bears, threw his hatchet into the air and killed a sky-eagle. The spirits were angry and complained to the Great Spirit. And he hid the plains-above from the eyes of men with a blue curtain.
"During the day the sun shone on the plains-below, and during the night it shone on the plains-above. And men continued to hunt deer; and the spirits, deer of smoke.
"At that time there also lived Ayoo, a woman with the cunning of three mountain lions. And she was curious. She wished to see the hunt of the spirits in the plains-above. So she urged the men of the tribe to climb the trees and cut holes in the blue sky-curtain. Now, beloved, the trees then were not like the trees now. They were as large as a mountain, and tall. A hundred men holding hands could not circle the base of such a tree or see the top. The upper branches of these trees rested against the sky-curtain.
And the men persuaded by Ayoo's cunning, the cunning of three lions, these men cut holes in the sky. And when night came and the sun shone on the plains-above, the light leaked out and twinkled.
"The men spent their evenings peering through the holes and spying on the hunts of the spirits, and Ayoo sat on the highest branch feeding her curiosity. One night, Onowate, the man with the strength of three bears, reached through his opening and caught a fire-bison by the leg and pulled it through. Onowate's arm was seared to the shoulder and two of his fingers turned to ashes, but that night he feasted on the dinner of the spirits.
"Once again the spirits complained to the Great Spirit, but the Great Spirit refused to repair the curtain. It seemed that he was angry with the men and yet pleased by their audacity. But at last he yielded to the pleas of the spirits, and with a twist of his hand set the sky-curtain spinning.
"No longer could the men look through the holes they had made. No sooner would one put his eye to the opening than it would begin to move, and he either stopped looking or fell off the tree. Of course, the spinning has slowed down by now, but keep your eye on the stars, and in half an hour you will notice that they have shifted.
"So the men on the plains-below gave up their gazing and returned to hunt buffalo and moose and the skin of the beaver. And Ayoo was unhappy because her curiosity was not full.
"Now, Ayoo was a woman with the cunning of three mountain lions, and she had a plan. She went to Onowate, the man with the strength of three bears, and whispered her plan. And one night he went to where a tree grew that was the greatest tree on the flat of the earth, and its name was Gorikan, which means 'unbendable.' This tree Onowate climbed. And when he came to the top he took the highest branch of the tree Gorikan and thrust it into the nearest hole in the sky. And it stuck there.
"Round and round that branch the sky-curtain whirled, but that point never moved. For it was held there by the tree that was unbendable.
"Then the spirits that hunt in the plains-above became angry. They complained once more to the Great Spirit. But this time He laughed at them. And so they sent fire.
"The fire burned the man's skin, and it burned the woman's hair, and it burned the bark of the tree. But Onowate beat out the fire, and Ayoo put grease on his wounds, and Gorikan stood straight.
"So they sent water. The water loosened the man's grip, and it filled the woman's mouth, and it rotted the trunk of the great tree. But they held firm.
"So they sent stones, and thunder, and iron, and lightning. Nothing worked. The tree stood, and still the sky went whirling around that one point, and Ayoo fed her curiosity.
"In the end, the spirits aroused the terrible Snow Spirit that lives in the below-the-below. And he came with his winds and his rains and beat upon the three. Ice formed on the arms of Onowate, and even with the strength of three bears, he could no longer lift them. Hail beat against the head of Ayoo, and even with the cunning of three lions, she could not think. And snow and more snow piled on the branches of Gorikan, until with a great crash the unbendable tree broke, and fell, and all were buried beneath the snow.
"Yet to this day the sky-curtain turns around that one point in the north. And sometimes at night Ayoo stirs under her blanket of snow and whispers cunning into the ears of Onowate, and with his great strength he starts to lift the tree once more so that she may look in on the hunt in the plains-above. And then the spirits unchain the terrible Snow Spirit and rout him out from his cave in the below-the-below, and we have such storms as make men tremble."
I lay very close to Mike, and we looked up into the sparkling holes in the sky-curtain and dreamed of the man and woman buried beneath the snow since the days of the before-the-before.
"You are very strong, Mike," I said as he tightened his arm around me. "You have the strength of three bears," and I hugged him back.
"And you, little one, have the strength of one bear, or maybe half a bear," he laughed.
"I am much better now," I said. "I'd forgotten." And I suddenly realized that I was healthy and strong, so healthy and strong that for weeks I had forgotten all about my chest and my cough and my pleurisy. I had even forgotten to put my brace on.
And so I thought this would be a wonderful time to tell him, now that I was well, and the sky was full of stars, and his ear was close against my lips.
"Mike," I said, "we're going to have a baby."
He jumped a little. "Is it true?"
"I've known for some time," I said.
"Well, you certainly kept it hidden from me," he said.
I laughed. "That wasn't hard."
"You imp," Mike said joyfully, "you have the cunning of three lions."
And we looked up and watched the sky turn.
Eleven
A WIND HAD sprung up—Meyoonootin, "fair wind," the Indians called it.
I'd been working in the garden all morning. I was a little tired and didn't want to overdo because of the baby. I leaned the hoe against the house and sat on the steps. I shaded my eyes and looked out across the hills. Meyoonootin bent and lift the grass in rhythmic waves like the waves of an ocean, a green sea breaking around the roots of a forest.
A little gray mole ran out from the grass at my feet and scurried blindly up on the porch. He ran first one way and then the other. I didn't want the dogs to get him, so I cornered him and
set him free again. The grass shook and trembled as he made his way through it, then fell again into its easy indolent motion.
The air was heavy and full of haze. The sun seemed half obscured, but it shone with more color. It was a strange, flaming orange. I took in a deep breath. Smoke, that's what it was. Not haze. There was a fire somewhere. It had been such a dry spring. Things were brittle. A fire now would be bad. I felt uneasy. I wished Mike was around. I decided to get him.
As I ran toward the office, I heard one of the dogs behind me. I turned to call it, but it wasn't a dog. It was a cat, a giant cat with a tawny coat, and only a few feet behind me. I braced myself to meet it, my arm lifted to protect my throat and face. The animal's tongue lolled out over its teeth, the eyes were glazed. As it came abreast of me, it veered slightly and raced on. I fell against a tree, bewildered. A small striped badger scurried after the lynx. I began to laugh. There was something wrong with the laugh. But there is something wrong with everything when a wild cat is chased by a badger.
I caught my breath, for I realized now what it was that forced the wild things of the forest to take suddenly to the paths of men. Only one thing could make the badger run with the lynx, and that one thing was fire.
I ran on toward the office, and three gray rabbits ran with me. The smoke was thicker now, and hot ash and cinders sifted down on the path. But the animals were running with me. That meant the fire was behind us. I wondered if it would reach the house. Why hadn't I brought the dogs with me? But they were smart. They'd run the right way.
I saw the red of Mike's jacket as he ran toward me. He didn't say a word, just grabbed me tight against him.