Ralph's Arc

Chapter 2 of 4

The young bear stayed on the trail. Ralph crouched behind a spiral pine, its needles wound tight into a twisting shape. He watched the animal chew its leaf. Every time he shifted, the bear swung its head and huffed. He tried the left side of the path. The bear lowered its shoulders and stamped. He tried the right. Same answer. The thing would charge if he pushed past, and the trail to the hall ran straight through it. Ralph picked up a stick and tossed it into the brush. The bear ignored it. He clapped his hands and shouted. The bear only blinked. An hour bled away. The crate of tools sat two days off, and this round gray cub would not move an inch. A bell jingled behind him. Lewis came through the ferns, the same mailman who had set Ralph on this road, his blue cap pushed back and his leather bag swinging. He stopped beside the pine and looked at the standoff. "Still here, is it," Lewis said. He did not sound worried. He had walked these woods for years, carrying mail no one else would. He set his bag down in the dirt. "It charges if I get close," Ralph said. "I can't pass." Lewis studied the bear a moment. "You're coming at it like a wall. It's a baby." He pulled a strip of dried meat from his bag and held it low. Then he walked up the trail, slow and easy, talking the whole way in a soft voice. Ralph reached for him. "Don't—" The bear raised its nose. Lewis let it sniff the meat, then set the strip down. The cub ate it. Lewis crouched, reached out, and scratched the bear under its chin. The animal leaned into his hand. Its back leg thumped the dirt. "See," Lewis said. "It wasn't guarding the trail. It was lonely." Ralph came out from behind the pine. The bear watched him but did not stamp. Lewis kept rubbing its chin, and the cub rolled half onto its side, soft belly up. "Mother's gone, I'd guess," Lewis said. He stood and brushed off his knees. "Walk past now. It won't mind." Ralph stepped onto the open trail. The bear sniffed his boot, then flopped against his leg. It did not charge. It did not move off either. When Ralph walked, it rose and padded after him. When he stopped, it stopped. Lewis laughed and shouldered his bag. "Looks like you've got company for the walk." Ralph looked down the long trail toward the hall, then at the cub pressed to his shin. The path was clear at last. But two days each way, through hard country, now came with a hungry young bear at his heel—one that would not be left behind.