The Bear Went Over the Mountain by William Kotzwinkle

Author:William Kotzwinkle [Kotzwinkle, William]
Language: eng
Format: epub, azw3
Tags: Fiction, Literary, Humorous, Satire
ISBN: 9780307822321
Google: GUljC03pZkYC
Amazon: 0805054383
Publisher: Holt Paperbacks
Published: 1996-01-01T11:00:00+00:00

Arthur Bramhall and Vinal Pinette slid down a wooded ravine at twilight to the mouth of a cave. Bramhall sniffed the opening thoroughly and cautiously. The smell was of pine boughs and bear. He crept in, over the dried needles that covered the floor.

“How’s she look?” asked Pinette, appearing behind him at the doorway of the cave, into which the twilight streamed. “Abandoned.”

Pinette crept into the cave and squatted down on the dried boughs. “Uncle Filbert tried cave life once. Leonora Spraggins was after him, as he’d put a bun in her oven, and Leonora’s five brothers was after him too.”

Bramhall squatted down with his back against the wall. The whirl of the world was far away. There was only the smell of bear and pine boughs and the view through the cave door to the trees. A sigh of comfort went through him, as of some larger creature whose requirements were not easily met, and for whom a spacious cave such as this was just the ticket.

“To complicate matters for Filbert the police was on him too, for rigging a bingo game. So a nice cave was just the ticket.”

Bramhall crawled outside to a nearby pine, snapped off enough boughs to fill his arms, and returned. Pinette watched him lay the boughs down. “Filbert come out to a bright new future. The police had forgot about him and Leonora had found herself another suitor who fit the bill even though he did have a goiter on the back of his neck the size of a seed potato. You think we should write this down? My memory ain’t what it used to be and we might never catch hold of this material again. I believe it’s the stuff of pop’lar entertainment.”

Bramhall sat on the fresh boughs, feeling more secure in this cave shaped a million years ago than he’d felt even in his barn or in Gummersong’s hut. The enclosure had sheltered countless generations of animals, and he felt their affection for it, as if the walls of the cave held memories of their feeling.

“Uncle Filbert must have done some deep thinking during his spell of denning, because a little while after he come out he wangled himself a loan from the government and started up his own grocery business. He’d have been a rich man today if he hadn’t made one little mistake.” Pinette gazed through the somber light of the cave toward Bramhall.

“What was Uncle Filbert’s mistake?” asked Bramhall.

“He used to drink himself to sleep every night with a jug of wine, which in itself don’t entail much risk. But one night he reached for his jug and fetched up a jug of Clorox instead. We found him next morning stiffer’n a rolling pin, finger hooked in the empty Clorox jug.” Pinette nodded his head solemnly in the shadows. “So right there we got ourselves an instructive tale about what and what not to keep by the bedside. That kind of story has an audience.”

Bramhall saw, caught in the jagged face of the cave wall, strands of coarse fur left by the previous occupant.

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