Near the Bone(3)

Mattie watched her husband closely as he scanned the area around the fox. His eyes widened when he saw the paw print. “Did you find any more of these?”

She pointed toward the scrub to their right. “There.”

William went to take a closer look, and it was only then that Mattie noticed the scrub was broken, like something very large had blundered through it. The bark on one of the trees had long, deep claw marks, as if the animal had scraped it as it went by. William ran his hand over the marks, a thoughtful expression on his face.

“If it’s a grizzly, it’s the biggest damned grizzly there ever was,” he said. “I wonder where it came from. Something that big would need a lot of game.”

Mattie remembered then just how sparse game had been over the last few weeks. Both she and William had attributed this to the early cold snap. But maybe it wasn’t the cold at all. Maybe it was this bear, this monster of a bear that was out in the woods eating up all the moose and deer that William wanted to kill and hang in their storehouse for the winter.

“I’d like to think it’s gone from the area,” he said. “The footprints seem to indicate its going down the mountain, anyway. Some lucky fellow is going to shoot it and end up with his name in the newspaper, not to mention the best trophy anyone has ever seen.”

Even if some man did shoot the bear, Mattie would never see his name. She was expressly forbidden from reading anything except the Bible. On the rare occasions that William went into town and returned with a paper he would always lock it in his trunk.

Mattie was not permitted to be in the bedroom when he opened the trunk, and he kept the key on a key ring that was on or near his person at all times. The keys to the cabin and the storehouse were also on this key ring, as well as two strange keys. Mattie didn’t know what these were for, and the one time she’d asked about the keys he’d given her two black eyes so she never asked again.

“Big bear like that would be a lot of meat, though,” he mused. “We could eat all winter on that bear.”

If you can kill it without getting killed yourself, Mattie thought.

William glanced at her, and not for the first time Mattie had the idea that he could hear what she was thinking.

“You don’t think I can kill it?” he said, and there was a glint of something in his ice-chip eyes, something that might have been humor on another man. “Well, you might be right this once, Mattie girl. I’m not going to get a bear that size with this.”

He indicated the rifle, which he mostly used for deer hunting.

“It might be gone anyway, like you said,” Mattie offered tentatively. “Gone down the mountain.”

He looked at her, then back at the claw marks. “I’d like to be sure. But if it’s still around I don’t want you wandering on your own. Stay with me.”

He pushed through the broken scrub, expecting Mattie to follow. She did, carefully lifting her skirts so they wouldn’t snag on the broken branches.

William strode ahead without pausing, and Mattie hurried to catch up.

“There,” he said, pointing to another print in the snow. “This is the darndest bear I’ve ever seen. Doesn’t it ever go down on its forepaws?”

Mattie didn’t answer. She knew he didn’t expect her to do so.

They followed the prints for a good while longer. Every step they took gave Mattie a tiny thrill. She wasn’t allowed to go down the mountain, only to places close to the cabin that William approved. It had taken a long time for her to earn that privilege, too. At first she wasn’t allowed to go anywhere without him, not even to the outhouse.

The forest didn’t look any different but Mattie was still deeply aware that she was in a place that was forbidden and new.

After some time her mind began to wander, as it often did, and the tune for that song drifted over her again, but she couldn’t quite catch the words. If she knew the words then she could grab another part of the dream, a hazy thing that was just out of reach.

William halted abruptly and Mattie noticed just in time, jolted out of her reverie before she plowed into his back.

“Where did it go?” he said. “The prints just stop here.”

They stood in a small clearing, the towering pines surrounding them like a fairy circle.

(but how do I know that when I’ve never seen one except maybe I have there’s Heather crouching in the grass pointing at the mushrooms saying it’s a fairy circle)

William stood still for a moment, his eyes darting all around the clearing, but there was nothing to see except unbroken snow.

“What did it do, fly away?” he said.

“Maybe we turned in the wrong direction,” Mattie said tentatively.

“There’s a print just outside the clearing and it’s facing this direction,” William said. “I’m not a fool, Mattie, not like you.”

“Of course,” she murmured. Her heart pounded faster, because when she made these kinds of mistakes he had to correct her.

But William was far more interested in the mystery of the bear at that moment. He continued scanning the area for any sign he might have missed.

Mattie backed out of the clearing, retracing her steps to the last print. It was another rear paw, and it was certainly odd that there was only evidence of rear ones. The animal was definitely not behaving like any bear that Mattie had ever seen. She inspected the trees that surrounded the clearing.