The Big Dirt Nap

Thirty-two

When you're hiking in black bear country and confront a bear, half the guidebooks tell you to drop into a fetal position and cover your head. The other half tell you to wave your arms like a lunatic and make noise—some parks even sell bear bells that you're supposed to jingle to make the bears go away. This struck me as contradictory advice and I had about three seconds to decide which to follow—but I'm not a fetal position kind of gal.

What the guidebooks never tell you to do is throw a Zone bar and a cell phone at the bear, but that's what I did. It wasn't intentional, it was a reflex—they just flew out of my hands. I remembered the bit about making noise and reached into the Jeep, grabbing two hand weeders and furiously clanking the tines together. Then I thought, Just get in the freaking car!

The same reflex as before made me fling the weeders in the bear's general direction and jump in the car, closing the hatch from inside. I scrambled to the driver's seat and raised the windows as fast as I could. The black bear is generally harmless and would really prefer eating berries or garbage to human flesh, but when you're on foot and so is he—despite the fact that it's a different animal and you're on a different continent—visions of King Kong pop into your head and that, inevitably, makes you the screaming, writhing Fay Wray.

I had the presence of mind to lock the doors and was catching my breath when the bear lumbered over, stood on his hind legs, and put his front paws on the driver's side of the car. In the bear's mouth was the Zone bar, the wrapper sticking to his teeth. He didn't mind that it was stale. He seemed to like it, even the paper. In his paw was my cell phone, which must have looked like just another hunk of chocolate to him because that was what he ate next.

The bear took his sweet time walking in front of the car, swatting at the gnats, turning over rocks looking for fat juicy bugs, and finally lumbering off into the night. When I lost him in the headlights it was the first time in hours I was glad I couldn't see that far ahead of me.

Now I had no food and no phone. Lucy didn't know where I was and I didn't know if her hosts, the Crawfords, had returned. The two specks of light I'd seen below had disappeared, probably struggling to negotiate one of the switchbacks, but whoever it was he was getting closer and closer the longer I sat there, so I put the car into drive and took off again.

There was a surprisingly flat stretch of road ahead of me; still I was careful not to get too cocky just in case there was a sheer drop or a second bear on the other side.

The flickering lights above me grew bigger. That was either good news or not; by this time, every tree stump was a bear, every screeching owl was an assailant, and I still didn't know what I'd find at the cabin.

I put the radio on for background noise and that's just what it was, all static. I neurotically went around the dial twice as if that was going to improve the reception. Then I remembered AM. I switched frequencies and got a little buzz, then an oldies station. It was better than nothing and helped keep my mind off lions, tigers, bears, and whoever was in the car behind me. Half an hour later I was listening to Freda Payne singing about her unfortunate wedding night. I was mouthing the words when the road simply ended. No more turns, no more switchbacks, no more nothing. Just the hint of a footpath between the trees.

I stopped the car, opened the moon roof, and stood up on the driver's seat, trying to get my bearings and find the flickering lights I'd seen before. There they were. And this time I could see the faint outline of a cabin.

I climbed into the backseat to look for anything that might be useful. The battery in the lantern was dead. I had a tarp, a few bungee cords, and a pitchfork. I had no idea what I was going to do with them, but I wanted to feel prepared, so I took them just in case.

The folded tarp fit under my arm, I wrapped the bungee cords around my waist, and I carried the pitchfork in my right hand, using it to hold back branches as I made my way through the brush to the cabin. There was a small clearing in front of it, but the cabin was carved into the side of the mountain, Anasazi style; without any lights on it would have been nearly impossible to see. I crept closer to the door, desperate to hear any sounds inside. Nothing. I rapped on the door with the pitchfork.

"Don't . . . don't come any closer," yelled a shaky voice from inside. "I have a gun."

"Lucy, it's me, Paula." I took a deep breath and straightened up from my fighting stance.

"Thank god," she said, opening the door, white as a ghost.

She had an iron fire poker in her hand and if it hadn't been me, she would have been prepared to use it. I had the pitchfork. We looked like a couple of settlers about to go at it.

"That's not a gun."

"What was I supposed to say, ‘I have a poker'? And what is that," she asked, looking at the pitchfork, "a house gift?" Her color came back and so did her smart mouth. Neither of us wanted to admit we'd been scared.

"Mother told me never to go visiting empty-handed," I said, hugging her.

She squeezed back, then pulled away, smacking me on the shoulder. "You didn't call me."

"A bear ate my phone," I said, tossing the pitchfork and tarp on the table. I don't think she believed me.

The cabin was two rooms with a packed-dirt floor, rough-hewn cabinets, a wooden table and chairs in one room, and two monastic beds in the other. One window was carved out of the mud that was the front of the structure.

"I like what you've done with the place. So where are you and Claude going to register? Tuba City Trading Post?"

"Shut up. You caught me at a weak moment, I was very vulnerable. You're right, it was crazy. Now, can you please get us out of here?"

Good question. We could make it to the car, but I didn't love that drive in the daylight going forward, I'd probably hate it at night going backward until there was a spot wide enough for me to turn around in.

"Is there a flashlight here?" I asked.

"No. There weren't exactly a lot of cabinets to check. I bet when these guys misplace something they don't have to look for it for very long."

I went into the other room to search under the beds for any boxes where tools or supplies might be stashed, but no luck. Lucy ran in a few minutes later.

"Paula . . ." she whispered. "I hear something. What's that?" Lucy grabbed hold of my hand and squeezed so tightly my fingers went numb. I closed my eyes to shut out everything else. Apart from the pounding of my own heart, I heard something, too.

Whoever it was would be able to get in; all we had going for us was the element of surprise. We shoved the heavy table closer to the door and rearranged the chairs; I planned to use one of them as a weapon, if necessary. If it was someone familiar with the cabin, tripping over the furniture would slow them down and give us some time. I unwrapped the bungee cords from around my waist, criss-crossed them at ankle height three feet inside the door, and stretched them from the cabinet legs to one of the beds and from the chairs to the other bed so that in the dark, anyone entering would think he was okay and then be tripped up a few steps inside. It would buy us a few minutes at best. I told Lucy to line up our arsenal—the pitchfork, the poker, a chair, and the tarp.

"That's it?" I asked. "No big frying pan à la Wile E. Coyote?"

"I guess the boys don't cook much, they certainly didn't offer me anything. I haven't eaten for hours and you know how cranky I get. I was kinda hoping for those big Navajo pancakes like you get outside of Vegas."

"I know where you can get some of those," I said. "Keep it down."

She chattered quietly about Claude and about her stay, just to keep herself calm, almost like a mother soothing a baby, all the while the cracking of twigs and muttering of voices grew louder.

I told Lucy to find some matches, then kill all the candles and the lanterns except for one. "And get your poker. You may need it."