On the Wild Edge by David Petersen

Author:David Petersen
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781627798884
Publisher: Henry Holt and Co.

23

For my birthday this year (May 18) I got a bear. A big, brown, unkempt bruin, a month or so out of den. Just after Otis and I had returned from our evening walk, the animal shambled down off the brushy hillside that defines the northern expanse of our sprawling mountain estate, appearing in a little clearing directly behind my office and twenty yards from the cabin. There the visitor stopped and leaned heavily against a big ponderosa, seeming a bit lethargic. When the bear spotted C and me staring at it through the west wall of windows above the dinner table, it registered no reaction. Perhaps the glare of the afternoon sun, from the bear’s point of view, looking east, converted the windows to mirrors. Otis, as always when there’s food being eaten and crumbs perchance to fall, was folded up beneath the table, thus missing all the fun. At one point the bear waved its nose around, sniffing vigorously, apparently having scented our grub … yet remained admirably unmoving, slouched against its leanin’ tree, wisely polite and cautious.

Even so and for all of our sakes, I got up and closed the north porch door, until then guarded only by a wood-framed screen. As we returned to our dinner, the bear continued to stare.

Only several minutes later, as I attacked a big wedge of fresh-baked chocolate birthday cake, did the bruin finally tire of the frustrating show-and-smell and make its move to leave. In a comedic parting gesture, the bruin took one step back from its support tree, sat on its haunches, swiveled 180 degrees around on its shaggy bum (as if scratching or wiping), then stood and shuffled back into the brush.

Gone, but never forgotten.

Like me on rare unavoidable visits to the big scary city, this old bear had ventured down from the mountain to the edge of civilization … sniffed around with cautious interest, been tempted by some of what it smelled but put off by all the rest and wisely retreated, back to the sheltering aspens and their canopy of newborn leaves, where the shadow-mottled forest floor is carpeted with green grass and where elk calves, like big Easter eggs, lie hidden here and there.

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