Ralph's Arc

Chapter 3 of 4

By noon the next day, Ralph's food bag hung empty. He turned it inside out and shook it. Two crumbs fell. The bear padded close and sniffed his fingers. It whined low in its throat. Ralph had split his last dried meat with it that morning. Now the cub pressed harder against his leg, and its ribs showed under the gray fur. A hungry animal, he knew, would not stay gentle for long. He stopped beside a spiral pine, its needles wound into tight twisting layers. He needed food, and fast. He had no snare and no skill with traps. The bear looked up at him, waiting. Ralph rubbed its round head and tried to think. Then a bell jingled on the trail behind him. Lewis came through the ferns, the same mailman who had set Ralph on this road. He had a long pole over his shoulder now, not his leather bag. He stopped and looked at the empty food sack in Ralph's hand. "Out already," Lewis said. "Figured you might be." He swung the pole down and held it out. A line hung from the tip, a small hook on the end. "Stream runs close, just past those ferns. It's thick with fish this time of year." Ralph took the pole. "I've never fished." "Then watch." Lewis led him to the water. He flicked the line out. It slipped into the stream and sank. He planted his boots and leaned back. In a moment the pole bent hard. Lewis hauled, and a fat silver fish broke the surface. The bear lunged forward, nose working. "Keep it still," Lewis said. He tossed the fish on the bank. The cub fell on it and ate. Ralph cast the way he had watched. The hook sank. He waited. The line jerked. He pulled too soon and lost it. He cast again. This time he waited longer, then hauled slow. A fish came up, thrashing. He swung it to the bank. The bear ate that one too. For an hour Ralph worked the stream. He pulled up six fish. Three went to the bear. Three he strung on a cord to carry. The cub flopped down, belly full, and licked its paws. It no longer whined. Lewis shouldered his empty pole. "You'll pass streams the whole way to the hall," he said. "Fish each one. The bear eats, you eat, and nobody goes hungry." He handed the pole to Ralph. "Keep it. I've got another." Ralph took it. The hunger problem was solved. He could feed them both now. But the bear sat up and watched him coil the line, and he understood something had changed. The cub no longer followed him by chance. It followed the man who fed it. The trail to the hall was his to walk, and the bear was his to keep.