Views from the Tower (6 page)

While mother always used our full names, my sister always called me Rosie, and to me she was always Snow. We were close—twins usually are—but Snow and I always felt as if we were two halves of the same whole. As children we’d wander all day hand in hand around the little meadow surrounding the cabin and up into the dense forest. We could be silent for hours together, somehow knowing just what the other was thinking without having to waste words.

Father died when we were young, too young to properly mourn his loss. We lived in a hard land, and surviving with just three of us was difficult work. I’m not quite sure why mother never moved us back to be closer to her family in the east. I think she had grown to love the mountains; they’re harsh, but they’re beautiful. Snow and I knew every rock, every tree, every wild thing for miles around and were as much a part of them as they were of us. Perhaps mother knew that taking us off our mountain would have been like ripping us out by the roots. We could be transplanted, but the shock might wither us.

The winter we turned seventeen was one of the harshest we had ever known. Snow drifts piled up almost to the roof of our little cabin. It was all Snow and I could do to keep the path between the cabin and our stable shoveled. By late January, when the nights were the most bitter, we hadn’t seen another living soul in well over three months. On a blustery night, when the wind screamed through the mountain passes and tossed the snow up off the ground so violently that you couldn’t tell it apart from the flakes that fell from the sky, a pounding on the front door of the cabin woke us all from a sound sleep.

The three of us, clad in our nightgowns, crept quietly into the front room. We looked at each other with wide eyes as the pounding became fiercer. Mother was holding father’s gun and had it leveled at the door.

“Please,” a deep male voice shouted, though the words were muffled by the thick door and the strong wind. “Please let me in to sit by your fire or I shall freeze to death.”

Mother nodded slowly and Snow crept forward to undo the latch. Father’s shotgun was a good one, and mother was a decent shot, but I also took down my hunting rifle from over the fire and aimed it at the door. The odds were whoever was outside our cabin was too cold to pose any real threat, but we hadn’t survived on our own in the mountains this long by taking risks.

The door swung open and at first all we could see was a great, black space where there should have been swirling snow. Slowly the empty space resolved itself into a large black bear. My mother gasped.

“Please do not be afraid,” the bear said. “I mean you no harm. May I warm myself by your fire? The night is bitterly cold.”

His voice sounded like that of a man. My mind raced, trying to reconcile the humanity of that voice with the beast I saw in front of me. I wasn’t afraid of the bear—I’d met too many of them in the woods, and I had enough faith in my rifle and my own aim—but I was afraid of what evil a man’s voice rumbling out of a bear’s body portended.

My mother recovered herself quickly. “Come in by the fire and warm yourself.”

Snow stepped to the side, watching with wide, dark eyes as the bear lumbered in out of the storm. After a moment of consideration and a quick look at my gun, which had tracked with the bear’s movements, she closed and latched the door against the biting wind. The bear’s fur was covered with snow and ice. As he lay down near the hearth with a deep sigh, it began to melt off of him, running in little rivulets onto the bare wooden boards of the cabin floor.

“Snow White, Rose Red, fetch the broom so that we may help our visitor divest himself of all this snow.” My mother had already set my father’s shotgun down against the wall. Something about the bear must have convinced her that he would not harm us.

Snow raised an eyebrow at me and I nodded at her. She went to fetch the broom and I stayed where I was, my gun still trained on the bear.

He raised his eyes to mine. They were deep, dark pools and completely unlike the eyes of any other bear I’d seen. They seemed to look straight into my soul, as if the bear saw past everything that strangers first notice about me—past the red hair and too light eyes, past the freckles that the town girls made fun of, and straight to the very essence of what made me who I was. He looked at me as if he somehow knew me more intimately than I had ever been known.

My hands shook slightly, even though I willed them to be steady, hoping that he didn’t notice the slight movement of the rifle.

“I will not hurt you,” he said again in his too human voice.

“I do not know you enough to trust you.” I replied steadily as Snow returned with the broom. She helped my mother brush all the remaining snow off the bear.

“Rose Red,” my mother said in a low voice to me. “The bear has shown no aggression toward us; perhaps you could put the rifle away? Or at least lower it?” she amended when I shook my head.

“Rose Red is right to wish to protect her family. These mountains are filled with many dangers. I do not take offense at her caution.” The bear’s eyes had yet to leave mine.

“A wild animal such as yourself must understand caution.” There was no denying that he was different from all of the animals that roamed our mountain, but the gleam in his eye told me he wasn’t going to rise to my bait and explain why he could speak.

“I do understand the need for caution.” It seemed that was all the answer I was going to get.

It was obvious that some magic was at work. But whether that magic had made a bear speak like a man or a man appear as a bear, I had no way of knowing.

After she had brushed him off, Snow asked in a low voice. “You know our names, sir. But what are we to call you?”

The bear looked sad for a moment, if a wild animal can be said to express emotion. “If I had a name, I have lost it. You may call me Bear.”

“Well, Bear, you are more than welcome to sleep here by our fire tonight.” My mother shot a pointed look at my gun. “Rose Red, let’s go back upstairs.”

“I am not tired, Mother.” I did lower my rifle, but only so that I could take up position in my mother’s rocking chair. I laid the gun across my lap, resting my hand on it.

My mother sighed, but the bear just nodded his head once at me before resting it on his folded paws.

I sat in the rocker all night. I didn’t sleep and the rifle never left my lap. The bear stayed by the fire until the early morning sun crept through our two small windows. He rose, stretched, and lumbered toward the door.

“Could you open it for me, Rose Red?” he asked as he reached the latched door.

I stood, holding my gun in one hand and brushed past him to lift the latch.

“Thank your mother for her hospitality.”

I nodded. “Bear?”

He turned his head back to me, and as he moved my vision seemed to shimmer. I could see bright sunlight glistening off black hair, a quick smile, dark eyes. I shook my head to clear my vision and the bear stood in front of me once more.

“Yes, Rose Red?”

“Rosie.” I am not sure why I invited him to use my nickname. “You cannot tell me of the—” I hesitated over the word— “the magic?”

“I cannot.” He sounded resigned. “Goodbye, Rosie.” He walked out the door and through our little yard. The drifts were piled high; only the tops of the two rose bushes peeked out through the snow, their bare branches standing like spindly sentries against the walls of the cabin.

“Goodbye, Bear,” I whispered as I once again closed the door. I hung up my rifle and climbed the stairs. I crawled into bed with my sister, and yet I still lay awake. My life had changed. I could feel it in my bones. But I didn’t understand or welcome the change.

*****

We saw Bear only twice again that winter. My mother had hung a small wooden sign out on our split rail fence. She’d had Snow paint a bear on it as none of us knew if he could read. Mother wanted him to know he was welcome to come in from the cold whenever he wished.

February had opened with a raging storm. Sullen gray clouds had hung heavy with sleet and ice all day and by the time dark fell the clouds were loosing their icy burden upon the mountain. He had sought shelter with us then for two nights. They were the deepest and the coldest that we saw the whole season.

Snow and I saw him one other time later that month as we walked through the woods. Our breath still puffed in front of us, but it had warmed considerably and much of the snow had melted. Our weather was fickle though—winter could roar back in at any moment, so we were enjoying our stroll as much as possible. Bear hadn’t talked to us that time as he had been quite a ways off, but he had dipped his head in recognition of us, and we had lifted our mittened hands and waved.

We didn’t see him all spring, and now it was high summer. Summer, when the days were longer than the nights and the sunlight dripped out of the sky like wildflower honey. Our rose bushes were in full, glorious bloom, near bending under the weight of the precious flowers my mother had fought so hard for all year. Snow and I spent several days picking huckleberries, scrambling up the steep slopes and filling our buckets to overflowing. We’d haul them back to the cabin where mother would cook them into jams and jellies and can the fruit. Enough to last the entire rest of the year and to take down into the city to sell.

On one of our picking days we stopped for lunch, popping the fresh, sweet berries into our mouths between bites of the crusty bread mother had sent with us. We didn’t say much, we rarely did, just sat at the top of a little ravine and watched clouds chase each other across the sky. A low rumble of thunder echoed in between the peaks and we watched the storm clouds spit lightening at each other. The storm was traveling fast to the east and wouldn’t blow all the way north to us, which was too bad, as the day was hot and we could have used a cooling rain.

It was then that we heard the voice, drifting up from the ravine, cursing and muttering. Snow and I looked at each other in surprise. We hadn’t seen another person this far into the wood in at least a year. We crept forward and peered over the edge of the small ravine and down to where the creek babbled below us.

A man—I could tell only because of the voice, the rest of him seemed to be just a dirty lump of raggedy clothing—appeared to be stuck somehow beneath a large boulder near the water’s edge. Snow followed behind me as I made my way down the little path that led to the water. It wasn’t steep, and we had been down it before, but the spray from the creek tumbling over rocks had made it slippery, so we made our way carefully, tucking our skirts up a bit higher so as not to trip over them.

“Hello?” I said as we got closer. “Are you in need of help, sir?”

The man tried to turn toward the sound of my voice but broke off in another curse. As I got closer, I could see that his long, gray beard was stuck under the rock. I had no idea how he would have gotten himself in such a predicament. Perhaps the rock had rolled down the hillside onto his beard while he was sleeping?

“Go away!” he shouted at us.

Snow and I paused, shocked at his words and his tone. He was obviously in need of help; why would he refuse it? Snow nudged my shoulder, and when I looked up at her, she tilted her head toward the creek bank. A pan and a sluice box were stacked neatly along with a rucksack. He had been panning for gold. I sighed in frustration. No new gold had been found in our area for years. The rush was over, but there were always those men who were sure that because these mountains had once bled gold, there were still more veins to tap. It was like a drug, the gold lust, seething through their own veins until like the mountain they bled only the desire for gold.

“This is my stake!” the man fairly screamed at us. I glared at him. He was old, older than my father would have been had he lived, and he was unkempt and unwashed. The gold lust was evident on his face and in his eyes. He was mad with it.

“We are not trying to steal your gold. If you’ve found any that is. I must warn you, it hasn’t been found here for years, and when it has, it’s only bits and pieces.”

“Away! Get away, you vile girls!” The old man was almost dancing now with rage. He made a funny picture as his beard was stuck it caused him to bend almost in half from the waist.

“Fine.” I turned to go, figuring it was best to agree with him. If he wanted to die alone in the forest, it was nothing to me.

Snow was kinder than I, however. “Rosie, we cannot just leave him.”

“Why ever not? He doesn’t want help from such ‘vile girls.’”

The old man took the opportunity to interject, “Go away or I will magic you! I have the power to curse you.”

I laughed. I couldn’t help it. “You’re going to curse us? You who cannot even free yourself?”

“Don’t laugh at me, girly. I have powerful strong magic. I traded for it with a medicine man.”

“It must be quite powerful. Your gold pan is empty, and unless you accept our help, you could die out here all alone. If you’re lucky, you’ll die of exposure and not at the claws—or teeth—of a wild animal.”

I reached into the pocket of my apron and took out my small knife. With a quick flick of my wrist I cut the prospector’s gray beard clean in half.

He stood up quickly, howling in rage, and grabbed my wrist.

“How dare you cut my beard, you spiteful creature!” Spittle flew in my face as he hollered. His breath made me gag. The rage in his wild eyes was unlike anything I’d ever seen in a human before. I began to feel afraid.