Canada Moose's Arc

Chapter 5 of 7

Canada Moose moved upstream along the near bank, hooves slow on the wet stones. The river ran clear and shallow here, bending where the willows thickened. He had no plan. He had a jacket, a scarf, and antlers. He also had a torn pack he had picked up by the abandoned tent, dragging from one antler tine by a frayed strap. He did not know why he had grabbed it. It bumped his shoulder with every step and rattled with grit and old trash. It was not a weapon. It was not a tool. It was proof, if he stopped to look, that he had walked into this with nothing. Halfway to the bend he passed a blueberry bush taller than his chest, stripped bare. Branches were snapped low. Bear scat sat at the base, dark with skins and seeds. The grizzly ate here often. The grizzly did not share. Canada Moose stepped past the bush and felt his legs shake under the jacket. He kept walking because stopping felt worse. At the bend he found a steel post driven into the bank, left over from some old hiker's rail. It stood waist-high, solid, bolted to a plate in the dirt. He braced his shoulder against it and looked through the willows. The grizzly was twenty paces off, back turned, digging at a rotted log. Canada Moose could see the muscle move under the fur. He could see one paw turn the log like it weighed nothing. He had come to do something. He still did not know what. He lowered his head. He thought about charging. He thought about bellowing. He thought about the antlers stuck in the oak, and the porcupine, and every animal who had watched him kneel. Then the torn pack slid down his antler and dropped into the shallows with a wet slap. The grizzly's head came up. It turned. It looked straight at him across the water. Canada Moose did not move. The grizzly did not move. They stood like that for a long count. Then the grizzly snorted, picked the log back up in its jaws, and walked north into the brush without hurry. It had seen him. It had decided he was not worth the trip across the river. Canada Moose stayed against the post until his legs would hold him again. He had not been mauled. He had not been brave. The grizzly had looked at him and chosen to leave, the way you leave a stone in the path. He waded out, fished the soaked pack from the stones, and shook it dry. No one had seen this. No porcupine, no cougar, no audience. Just him and the bear and the water. He turned downstream. He needed a new story now, because the one he had come for belonged to the grizzly, and the grizzly had handed it back.