Chasing the Bear

Chapter 22

We walked west along the railroad tracks, Pearl galloping ahead, exploring the woods, occasionally putting up a woodcock and looking at me in puzzlement when I didn't shoot it.

"You saw him," Jeannie said.

"Yes."

"He was dead?" she asked.

"Floating facedown," I said. "I watched him for five or six minutes. He banged round in the white water for a while and then floated downstream."

"Dead," Jeannie said.

"Had to be."

"Good," Jeannie said.

Pearl appeared from a clump of alder and looked at me and wagged her tail. I nodded, and she dashed off again into the woods. The rain didn't seem to bother her. And she didn't seem depressed about having a couple of Oreo cookies to eat. She seemed to be having a pretty good time.

"How do you feel?" I said.

"Glad," she said.

"Nothing else?"

"Relief," she said. "I mean, I know he was my father in a, you know, scientific way. But he was never a father. He was always just something to be scared of."

I looked at the bruises marking her wrist and nodded. We kept walking.

"He used to smack my mother around," Jeannie said. "Me too. Even after my mom threw him out and they got divorced, he used to show up drunk sometimes and try to make her . . . do stuff."

I nodded.

"She ever call the cops?" I said.

Jeannie shook her head.

"She was too embarrassed," Jeannie said.

"Too bad you didn't tell me more about it," I said.

"You're a kid, what were you going to do?" Jeannie said.

"I'da told my father," I said. "And my uncles."

"They would have done something?"

"Yes," I said.

The rain kept coming as we walked. It was kind of amazing how you adjust to stuff. We were wet through and had been wet through for so long that we didn't pay much attention to it anymore.

"When we get out of the woods," Jeannie said, "are we going to tell people what happened?"

"Not until we talk with my father and my uncles," I said.

"So what do we tell people?"

"That we got lost in the woods," I said.

"But you're going to tell your father the truth," Jeannie said.

"And my uncles. They'll know what to do."

"How do you know that?" Jeannie said.

"They always know what to do," I said.

"They do? My mom never does," Jeannie said.

Pearl had tired of the woods and was now trotting along the tracks in front of us. Jeannie put her hand on my arm, and we stopped for a moment. She looked straight at me.

"You saved me," she said.

I nodded.

"You knew what to do," she said.

"Didn't have a bunch of choices," I said.

In front of us, Pearl stopped suddenly and raised her head and began to sniff the air. I walked to where she stood and sniffed. There was a smell. I sniffed some more.

Someone was frying bacon. I heard a car horn. The three of us went on down the tracks, around a curve, and there was a town.