The following is a short story submitted by upstate New York author Roger Page. Roger is an avid outdoorsman who has authored a couple of ebooks available from Amazon.com. This story can be found with others in his book “Get Out ‘N Stay Out–Short Stories From A Life Outdoors“.
Another Bear
By Roger A. Page
“Don’t shoot. Don’t you shoot…”
I swear I spoke the words out loud but that cannot be or the bear would have heard them too. He was that close. I still get chills remembering my bow string anchored beneath my jaw while the bear silently slithers through the dense tangle of saplings, wild rose and winterberry. He pauses sporadically, nosing the air in front of my ground blind, but keeps coming. What a terrible time to debate the inclination to shoot. What keeps running through my mind is, “Don’t do it. Whatever you do, do not shoot,” but the bear has stepped clear and is broadside at seventeen yards.
He is oblivious; unaware an argument rages about releasing an arrow meant to end his life. Seconds pass before the bear moves on.
I relinquish my draw. My arrow pops from the string and rattles against the cut-out riser of my bow; and keeps rattling, too. I lean against a nearby tree and try to stop my arm from shaking, but it isn’t just my arm and it doesn’t help anyway. Who cares? I sprout an ear-to-ear smile while the bear vanishes into a maze of laurel and hemlock.
Not far prior to that incident, sitting at a friend’s kitchen table, I boasted how I would not shoot a black bear if it walked up and begged me to. Kitchen tables are no place to measure hunters, I’ve known that forever and did concede that a bear in the flesh may be different, but I absolutely would not shoot. That’s what I said then but am no longer as brazen. That I managed to pull it off ends that story but as other hunters listened to it a provocative consensus evolved; nearly every hunter claimed they would have attempted the bear. Their consistent responses cultivated a nagging question—if I could do it over should I shoot?
Here is that story.
This is two years later and the first week of bow season. I nocked an arrow and tucked myself into a different ground blind, one located in a deep basin at the bottom of Smith Hill. A small stream courses the pit of the ravine and I have scouted an area down here so cluttered and thick you would struggle to see beyond forty yards in any direction; deadfalls scattered all over the place, knurled coils of laurel, clusters of young hemlock, silver ferns, carpets of spur-moss and it’s just a swampy, green jungle.
The evening I am going to tell you about seemed peculiarly hushed; not even the slightest breeze. I checked my watch shortly after five-thirty, stood to stretch, sipped some water, and then eased back into my seat where I could rest comfortably against the immense hemlock that anchors my set up. Moments later I heard the crackle of a small branch and casually checked it out. I expected to see a tiny red squirrel, the place teems with them, but I could immediately decipher something larger. I turned more deliberately to steady my gaze. Slowly, eerily, through the shadowy deadfalls a reminiscent form evolved. Like last time, my eyes bulged and I spit an involuntary gasp.
“Another bear,” I heard myself utter. “Holy cow, it’s another bear.”
I quickly latched my release to my bow-string. Even from this short distance I could gain but glimpses. I am certain the bear was not forty yards out but aside from the tan contrast of its snout I could interpret little more. The bear randomly scoured about corralling beech nuts and acorns while I strained to piece together a reliable image. At first it seemed small but when I did manage a fleeting view at the size of its head the bear appeared more daunting. Despite lacking a good view one detail did stand unmistakably clear—if given the chance I would try to kill this bear.
Gradually that chance diminished. The bear sluggishly retreated back over the deeply carved creek bank and out of sight. I sank back into my seat wishing to have seen it more distinctly. So rare to see them in the wild.
“Woulda shot that one,” I murmured, shifting my weight and settling back in. “Woulda shot that one for sure.”
In the heat of the moment I failed to consider a peculiar terracing to the terrain I am hunting. Three well-defined tiers cut sharply into a bank that slopes nearly straight down into a rocky creek bed. What I perceived as a bear leaving was not that, but instead, a bear literally dropping out of sight. When he reappeared I felt a rejuvenating jolt and quickly latched my release back onto my string.
The bear continued to graze quietly rousing little more than a gentle snap of a twig or a soft pop of a beech-nut in its teeth. Then, like before, it dropped from sight.
“Why does it keep leaving?” I wondered, still overlooking the drop-offs robbing my view.
I watched and waited hoping for his return but grew worried as time wore on. I began to fear he might be gone. Should that be, I wanted to agree it had been thrilling nonetheless and began to prepare myself to accept that. Suddenly, though, a tell-tale belch erupted from the creek below igniting a resurging chill to etch my spine. The truth came clean; there is only one way I wanted this to end.
The bear resurfaced exactly where I had first seen it and continued to dine. His movements, sauntering and hypnotic, lulled me to forget how quickly a moment might turn. Without hint or warning the bear abruptly ceased gorging and set a linear course directly toward me. When it disappeared behind a giant double oak separating us my mind raced and I fully confess momentarily succumbing to an engulfing paralysis. Should I draw? Is he coming? Where is he?
I can tell you this. You have not lived until you have heard the heavy clunk that is the sound a rock makes tumbling down into a stream; and on its heels a reaffirming splash of stones sliding along behind. The bear had turned.
But now things were happening faster. He slipped deftly through a knotted mess of entangled deadfalls, hopped onto a crossing log, jumped from there into the stream and then angled toward the opposite bank. Effortlessly, he ascended the bank and moved toward an open flat designed for a twenty yard shot.
I drew.
My breaths came rapid and short. He lumbered steadily forth until, with fewer than three yards left to cover, the bear did this: it halted and for whatever agonizingly unwarranted reason, pivoted, sharpened its ears and narrowed a cutting gaze straight at me.
“Oh, no…no…no, please, no,” I heard myself groan. “Oh no, he’s smelled me. This is over.”
Twenty yards seemed so tight we could hear the other breathe. There would be no shot; it would end as a frozen moment in time so I absorbed his stare in an eternal way because that is all there was left to do. Soon he would whirl and be gone. So certain of that outcome, I felt my eyes balloon with adrenaline when, inexplicably, he swung back to the trail and proceeded. When he stepped clear, broadside on the wide open flat, he paused a final time—my yellow sight-pin settled behind his shoulder…
I released the arrow and the impact initiated a frantic scramble. In a flash the bear dashed from sight through the dimming light trying to make it to the steep incline on the opposite side of the flat.
A massive sigh launched from my chest and I felt my brow raise high with relief.
“Boy, I hope I didn’t get that too far back,” I fretted. But I knew. I knew the shot was on the money. The way he tore out of there, for one; the absence of lingering commotion against the serene evening, for another. I soaked up the silence for a long while until I thought I might scream it right out loud but all I could do was hang my bow and whisper, “Yes! Yes! I got ‘im. I know I got ‘im.”
“Call Karen, call Karen,” I stammered beneath my breath.
I dug out my cell phone and speed-dialed home. She answered with an innocent, “Hello.”
“I just shot a black bear,” I whispered, excitedly.
“You did? You did?” she shouted, ambushed by the news.
“Yeah. I might have hit it back a bit, don’t know, but the way it crashed outta here I have to think I got ‘im.”
“Oh, man, that’s exciting.”
“I’ll give him a few minutes. It’s still pretty light. I’ll check where he stood and then decide what to do.”
“Do you want me to call Mike? Do you need him to help you?”
“Well, first I’d better make sure I got ‘im.”
“I’m gonna call over and tell him you’ve shot a bear.”
“Okay, but I haven’t actually found it yet.”
“Yeah, I know but I want him available to help you.”
“Okay.”
“Let me know when you find it.”
“Oh, you’ll be the first to know.”
“Okay. Good luck. And be careful.”
“Too late for that,” I laughed… tentatively.
I shed some clothing and located my orange marking tape before heading to cross the creek. I expected a short chase but still took care to silently ease my way up to the flat. Blood was immediately evident and several feet opposite where the bear last stood laid my arrow. I retrieved the arrow and briefly inspected it.
He was dead. I was sure.
Step by step, then, I traced through the tangled flora and cluttered deadfalls across the flat. Anticipation intensified with each new drop of blood until, at last, the trail ended.
It always looks peaceful; as if the animal is merely sleeping. You will not resist petting it. To touch a wild animal is uniquely gratifying, yes, but balanced against taking its life, uniquely perplexing. Amplified in this case. This, the sleek coat of a bear, how to describe it? I had envisioned a smooth and silky coat but that is not a bear. A bear is wiry, like a coarse paint brush. I don’t know why but I did not expect such long and wiry hairs. The head, though, did not surprise me a bit. His rounded ears seemed wooly and his tan snout smooth to the touch as our hound, Daisy’s. His eyes—eyes moments ago burning into my soul, now appeared glazed and lifeless amid the dampened oak ferns and sprouts of swamp grass in the soft meadow where he had fallen. When I looked longer into his smallish eyes my throat tightened and I needed to allow some time for that.
Next I stood to call Karen. I began for my phone but found it impossible to peel my eyes away from the bear. What an animal. The way its coat shone in the twilight high-lighted by a bluish tint that only the deepest black elicits, the bulky forearms seeming powerful even now… an elegant and spectacular animal. I kneeled back down to inspect one of its paws. I wanted a closer look at the underside. Each bear I have encountered has left me wondering how on earth such a ponderous creature so quietly moves, even across frozen leaves. And now I know. Continuing to kneel at his side I eagerly explored the teeth, claws, and whatever else a bear is when you are this close for the first time.
Finally I stood back up to call Karen. Admit it, I wanted to tell someone.
“Hello?” she answered; her voice anxiously rose to express the word as a question.
“I got ‘im.”
“Oh my gosh, you got a bear!”
“Yeah. He didn’t go far. I’m not exactly sure how big he is. I know he’s an adult and I know he’s a male. Wait ‘til you see the head on this thing.”
“Oh, I can’t wait. Are you bringing it home?”
“No, I’ll have to come back for him. I’m sure I’ll need help getting him out of here.”
“Okay, I told Mike to be on standby. I told him you’d shot a bear.”
“Okey dokey. Give me some time to pack up and get home. I’ll probably be about forty-five minutes.”
“Okay.”
“Alright, see ya.”
“You got a bear!”
“Yep, got a bear.”
“Wow.”
One last moment alone.
Hunters are not born to explain the ambivalence surrounding these personal times; we learn to accept it. Here, there is no one watching, no cameras, no handshaking or back slapping, nothing but you and an animal you have killed. Never is the truth about man hunting animal so stark. What has occurred is practical, that is not for debate. That you have sought this outcome, and will again, is what distinguishes hunting. I have learned it to be both; death, something I will never get used to—but, too, I have learned to take from these moments a form of sustenance. Sustenance I pray to respect, appreciate, and chase until I am no longer able.
“I’ll be back to take you home,” I said aloud, finally resolving that sooner or later I would have to leave.
I left him and headed back to my ground blind. There, I packed my duffle-bag, strapped my quiver to my side, picked up my bow, and cast a last deliberate gaze across the stream to the open flat where the bear had stepped clear.
“I got a bear,” I murmured, wanting it to sink in. “A bear.”
Then, with a settling twilight drawing its curtain over an exclusive day, I hit the logging road out. I trudged quietly and elated, my footsteps creasing the dampened leaves with a rhythmic cadence. Now and then a soft crackle of a twig interjected and at some point I recall announcing right out loud, “Boy, am I ever glad I took that shot.”
… Good. That’s answered.
Leave a Reply