Eye of the Great Bear by Bill Wallace

Author:Bill Wallace
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Aladdin
Published: 1999-01-15T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 13

“BEAR?” DADDY YELPED.

He came flying out from the cabin. He had his rifle to his shoulder.

“Bear? What bear? Where?”

“In the cabin,” I shrieked.

He spun. Then slowly he turned back toward us. His face was all crinkled up—frowning, snearing, confused. The rifle sagged from his shoulder to dangle at his side.

“There’s no bear in there.”

“Yeah, there is. I smelled it. I know that smell. It’s … it’s …”

“It’s raccoons.” Daddy gave me a long, hard look. He shook his head and motioned back at the cabin with the barrel of his rifle.

“Just raccoons.”

“You sure?” Mama called.

“Raccoons,” he repeated.

My shoulders sagged. The air whooshed out of my chest.

“Looks like two families. One in the chimney and the other living in the old dresser. It’s a real mess.”

Mama brushed past me. “Bear,” she said and gave a little snort. “Bailey, don’t scare me like that.” Then to the others, “Come on, kids. Sounds like we got our work cut out for us.”

Patrick glared at me when he walked past.

“Bear,” he muttered.

“Idiot,” Matthew scoffed when he bumped my shoulder on his way to follow Mama.

Luke sneered at me and called me a knot-head. Kimmerly just smiled and went into the cabin.

Talk about feeling like a fool …

I was so embarrassed, I couldn’t even face them. I stood outside the cabin for a time, shifting from one foot to the other. When I finally got up the nerve to go in, they were coming out.

We brought the tools up first. At the general store, Daddy had bought a couple of axes, a froe (for splitting shingles), an auger and bits, two saws, two shovels, two hammers, rope, some hinges, and a broom. After that was at the cabin, we went back for the steamer trunks.

The high mountain air was thin and hard to breathe. It seemed to make even little chores, like walking, next to impossible.

Mama and Daddy carried stuff out of the cabin. Mama swept while Daddy fixed the doors and shutters. The door was still solid and in good shape, only the leather strap-hinges had torn off. He whittled wood pegs, used the auger to bore holes, and set the door with steel hinges. Then he did the same with the shutters.

Next, he and the twins started chopping wood to fix the roof. He handed Patrick and me shovels and told us to go fill in the road where it had washed out, so we could get the team and wagon up the hill.

I used to think that chopping cotton was hard work. By the time Patrick and I shoveled enough dirt to repair the washout in the road, I felt like we must have moved a whole mountain. It was almost dark by the time we were done and had the horses to the house.

We were so busy working, I hadn’t had time to look over our new place. We were up high, but there weren’t many trees—just a few small pines sprinkled around. Our little basin was mostly grass and wildflowers.

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