Emory's Gift Read online

  “What’d you find out?” my dad asked him.

  “They’re coming at midnight,” McHenry said.

  chapter

  THIRTY

  MY dad looked grim faced at the news, while I’m sure I just appeared mystified. Dad peered past McHenry out the window at the campers, who were standing in a tight ring, listening to Pastor Klausen and Pastor Jamie, who were talking and shaking their heads. Drawn together like that, it didn’t look like much of a defensive force against the Fish and Game, and even as I watched two of them deserted, heading up to where their cars were parked on Hidden Creek Road.

  “Who is that in the truck?” my dad asked. I looked up on the road and could see a white pickup parked near McHenry’s truck, a man sitting behind the wheel.

  “His name’s Ransburg. He’s the one I told you about,” McHenry said.

  “He can come in, if he’d like. No need to wait out there,” my dad said.

  “He’s supposed to remain neutral, he says.” McHenry shrugged.

  I followed this exchange with my comprehension running on empty and my anxiety on full. I was liking it less and less that my dad was talking to McHenry as if they were buddies. The man shot Emory!

  “How’s the bear?” McHenry asked. Meaning “How’s the bear I tried to kill in the woods?”

  “He seems to be able to move around just fine, but all he’s interested in is the food you sent. Odd thing is, he goes straight for the berries and only eats the apples and the salmon when they’re all gone. I guess I thought that given the choice he’d gorge himself on fish.”

  McHenry smiled in delight. “I guess I’d better call in another order of berries.”

  “We do appreciate it,” my father replied.

  “Dad!” I said. I meant it to sound casual, planning on communicating my distress with my expression, but my call came out more like a hiss of alarm. The two adults turned to gaze at me. My dad read me instantly and met eyes with McHenry.

  “You need to tell Charlie what you told me, Jules,” my father said softly.

  “Why don’t we all sit down,” McHenry suggested.

  We arranged ourselves in the living room. I took what was normally my dad’s big soft chair, the one that swiveled, and turned it so I could see them both on the couch. My dad’s expression was, as usual, frustratingly unrevealing. McHenry just appeared uncomfortable.

  “Charlie,” he said. He wrestled in his mind a minute and then nodded at me as if we’d both agreed on something. “Well, first, I’m really sorry I shot the bear, that I hunted him with dogs, all of it.”

  I gave him the cold stare my father gave me whenever I did something boneheaded and my first attempt at an apology was too halfhearted.

  McHenry sighed. “This isn’t easy to talk about because I’m not sure how to explain it. I mean, that bear’s teeth were practically on my throat. I could feel his breath.” McHenry agitatedly stood up. “I thought I was going to die; I knew I was going to die. But that bear, he not only didn’t kill me, he looked me in the eye, and he … he forgave me.” McHenry said these last words in a whisper. Now he was staring out the back window into the night as if we were no longer in the room with him.

  “I’m not the best man, Charlie; I’ve done some things in my life … well, I don’t need to go into that. I’m not, I mean, I have sinned. I believe … anyway, I, I just … despite everything, the bear, he … my God, it was…”

  This was starting to sound like a conversation McHenry was having with himself.

  “And then he pushed your rifle down, pushed it away from my face. He saved me.” McHenry turned back to look at me. I was avoiding my father’s glare, so I kept my gaze locked on McHenry’s, and I saw an odd, intense light in his eyes. “I don’t believe in reincarnation. I don’t believe in God. But I do believe everything happens for a reason. I realized there had to be a reason I was spared. I’m meant to do something, and my fate is tied up with that bear. He saved me, and now I need to do whatever I can to save him. We cannot allow him to be killed. He’s here for a reason, too.”

  McHenry seemed to sense that he was coming on a bit strong and sort of got control of himself. He relaxed his shoulders. “It was almost a religious experience for me,” he said, sounding apologetic.

  My father and I didn’t say anything for a long moment, out of respect for McHenry or maybe just because we were worried he’d crank up again. Eventually he shook himself out of it and explained what he meant when he said they were coming at midnight.

  Just as I’d always suspected, a man of means like McHenry was able to curry favor, and he’d managed to find out that the sheriff and the Fish and Game Department would be returning that very night.

  So naturally, my father wanted me to go to bed.

  I was outraged. In less than two hours we’d be under armed assault and my father wanted me to sleep? I thought I should be up with them, loading weapons to repel the invasion. But you don’t disobey my father when he gives you a direct order. Fuming, I did as I was told, but I made sure I banged cupboard doors and brushed my teeth loudly in protest against his unfair directives.

  “Good night, Charlie,” McHenry said.

  “Night, Charlie,” my dad echoed.

  I punished them by remaining brutally silent. I slid into bed and stared at the ceiling, still steaming. They were treating me like a child. Obviously there was a plan in place to resist the sheriff. My father and McHenry both carried themselves with a grave resolve, committed to some action from which there would be no turning back. And I, the person who found the bear in the first place, was being excluded from the operation.

  As it would turn out, I was betrayed not only by my father but by my own body. My eyes were wedged open by an iron willpower, my brain a fully engaged sentry, wakeful, alert, tense. That I dozed off was unforgivable, and I was furious with myself when I opened my eyes and my room was dancing with reflected red lights.

  They were here.

  I dressed hurriedly. It had gotten much colder in the short time I’d been asleep, so that I shivered a little as I yanked on socks. I was bent over my shoes when I heard a squeal from a megaphone.

  “Anyone interfering with police business will be arrested,” Sheriff Nunnick’s voice announced through a bullhorn.

  I ran to the front window. The popular Save the Bear uprising had dwindled to four of Kay’s friends, who were blinking in the strong glare from the headlights. Thoroughly cowed, they meekly began assembling their camping gear, hastily rolling up the sleeping bags. Nobody said anything as they trudged up the driveway, slipping into the deep pool of blackness beyond the vehicles.

  My dad and McHenry were standing on the front porch. Sheriff Nunnick lowered his bullhorn, cocking his head in a is that all you got? sort of way. I saw the dome light in the white pickup truck come on up there on Hidden Creek Road as McHenry’s mysterious friend opened his door. Ransburg, McHenry had called him. I’d completely forgotten he was there. Several flashlights from sheriff’s deputies swiveled and found the man, who squinted at them.

  “You should let that man through, Sheriff. He’s involved in this,” McHenry called. Two deputies cautiously moved toward the stranger, who raised his hands for them to see.

  I slipped out the front door then. My father turned at the sound of my footfalls and nodded at me, thankfully not insisting that I return to bed. The three of us left the porch and walked up to the sheriff, our breaths all coming out as gusts of steam.

  “Now, George,” Sheriff Nunnick warned as we stopped in front of him. He handed his megaphone to a deputy without looking and pulled a pack of Marlboros from his pocket. “This thing has gotten out of hand and it’s my duty to see to it that we get back on track with the law. I’m here to ensure that the Department of Fish and Game executes a valid court order unimpeded and I mean to do so even if I have to arrest you in front of your son.” He pointed his cigarette pack like a weapon.

  Mr. Hessler stepped forward from behind the sheriff, joining us.
He looked a little sheepish.

  “Hello there, George.”

  “Herman.”

  “McHenry,” Mr. Hessler greeted.

  “Herman.”

  It was like a Western, except we didn’t have any six-guns.

  “He’s a cop!” someone called from the pack of people surrounding the guy named Ransburg. Sheriff Nunnick accepted this news with a tilt of his head, eyeing us.

  “Let him through!” the sheriff called over his shoulder.

  Ransburg trudged down to join us. He was tall and thin, with a scary scar drawn across his left cheek in a straight white line. He reached into his jacket pocket.

  “Evening. I’m Marshal Richard Ransburg,” he said dryly.

  The sheriff and Mr. Hessler glanced at each other. “I’m Sheriff John Nunnick,” the sheriff finally said, sticking his cigarette pack back into his pocket so he could offer a hand to shake. The marshal dropped an envelope into the sheriff’s open palm.

  “You’ve been served,” the marshal said in the same inflectionless tone. He turned to Mr. Hessler.

  “Are you Herman Hessler?”

  Mr. Hessler nodded, swallowing.

  “You’ve been served,” the marshal said. He held out a piece of paper that Mr. Hessler accepted with great reluctance.

  A third and fourth envelope came out. “These court orders were issued today by Judge Raymond McNichols and are directed to your respective departments. You accept service on their behalf?”

  Sheriff Nunnick looked angry, but Mr. Hessler was reading his sheet of paper and appeared almost ready to cry. The sheriff nodded curtly and took another piece of paper from the marshal.

  “Herman?” my dad said gently to get his attention. Mr. Hessler looked up, blinking.

  “You accept service for the Idaho Department of Fish and Game?” the marshal asked.

  “Um … yeah,” Mr. Hessler finally said. He took the paper.

  I had the sense that at this point we were winning the war, but I was absolutely in the dark as to how. Fortunately, Mr. Hessler was as confused as I was.

  “What’s this all about, George?” Mr. Hessler asked plaintively.

  McHenry answered. “The court order is an injunction against any further action against the bear by your department or the Boundary County sheriff pending a hearing in court in five days’ time—Monday. And then I am suing you and Sheriff Nunnick personally.”

  “For what?” Mr. Hessler protested.

  McHenry shrugged. “Trespass. Endangering wildlife. Endangering a child. False testimony. Causing damage to property.”

  “It’s a load of manure, Herman,” the sheriff snorted contemptuously. “He can’t sue us for doing our jobs.”

  “You’d better get a good attorney. I’ve got one,” McHenry said simply.

  Everyone stood looking at each other for a long, tense moment, and again, it felt just like a Western. Then Marshal Ransburg nodded. “Good evening, gentlemen.” He turned and walked back up the driveway, got in his truck, and drove off, carrying a lot of the confrontational feeling with him.

  Within fifteen minutes the entire posse was gone, Mr. Hessler shooting us one last betrayed look. We trooped victoriously into the house, where my dad built a fire in the fireplace and we sat and watched him do it, the two men drinking whiskey in celebration. I had warm milk, the only beverage made available to me by the house bartender.

  The warmth from the milk and the familiar snap of the fire filled me with good feeling. Emory was saved by subpoena. The courts had given him a stay of execution. He could spend the winter in the barn, and in the spring we’d go fishing together.

  “So basically, we’ve got five days,” my dad said as he settled down with his drink.

  That took the grin off my face.

  “We might be able to file for a delay, but I doubt it. The sheriff’s angry and he’ll get government resources on his side. I won’t be able to ambush him again,” McHenry said heavily. “Monday morning my attorney is going to be taking a lot of heat and I don’t think the judge is going to be too happy.”

  I sifted through these words carefully. “I thought we were suing,” I finally objected.

  McHenry gave me a steady look. I liked how he held me with his eyes, including me in the conversation. “The lawsuits against the sheriff and Hessler are junk. They’ll get thrown out. And the injunction—do you know what an injunction is, Charlie? Okay, good. The injunction is based on a lot of allegations I wouldn’t want to actually defend in court. My lawyers are creative, but they can’t work miracles.”

  I was crushed and I guess my face showed it.

  McHenry’s smile was sad. “We couldn’t really argue that the bear is a reincarnated man. No judge would ever rule in our favor on that; he’d be impeached. We’ve made the issue that Emory is a tame bear, but it’s pretty clear from historical precedent that they won’t let Emory stay.”

  “So in five days the whole thing will happen again,” my dad concluded.

  “Today’s, well, it’s technically Wednesday morning,” McHenry said, looking at his watch. “But yes, five days until Monday.” He looked at me. “We’ve got to get the bear to go up into the mountains. He’s fat enough to make it through the winter, and it’s getting cold. He should have left under his own volition by now.”

  “He’s no ordinary bear,” my dad reminded McHenry.

  “No.” McHenry pursed his lips. “But if he doesn’t behave like one soon, we don’t have a hope of saving him.”

  “He’s eating like crazy,” my dad said. “So in that way, he’s acting like a normal bear.”

  “Right. That’s what I’m thinking, that the rest of his instincts will kick in and he’ll go find himself a den.”

  I watched the fire leaping up, gloomily reflecting on what I’d just heard. When my mother had been sick there had been so many days like this: good news, then bad news, then good news. She’s getting better; she’s not getting better; she’s not as sick as we thought; she’s not dying; she’s dead.

  With Emory, there was at least a chance he might get through this, but only if he left. My fantasy of him hibernating in the pole barn was childish and silly.

  I fell asleep in front of the fireplace and awoke in my own bed well past my normal waking time. My dad had gone to work, but McHenry was in the kitchen, talking on the phone. I ate Puffa Puffa Rice with sugar on it and went outside. Emory was not in the barn.

  It was too cold for anyone to hang out in the front yard, though a lot of traffic streamed by all day, the people of Selkirk River driving up to spend some time staring at our open pole barn. The folks I knew personally sometimes came down to talk to me and to verify with their own eyes what they could see for themselves, which was that there was no bear in there. A lot of them asked me if I believed the bear wrote words on the wall, and I said I did, and they asked how, and I said I didn’t know. It was the truth; I didn’t for sure know. I was splitting hairs again, my chief testimonial talent.

  Sat Siri told me one time that keeping secrets and hoarding even trivial bits of information was classic behavior of the children of alcoholics, who feel compelled to exert what control they can over their chaotic family lives.

  “My dad was never a drinker,” I responded.

  She gave me a patient, serene look, like she always did when I pretended not to understand her point.

  Roughly translated from Sanskrit, “Sat Siri” means “Great Truth.”

  I went off to find Emory and came across him right away—he was standing on two legs, leaning on the split-rail fence that bordered the edge of our property nearest the pole barn. He didn’t hear me approach, and for a minute I stood there looking at him. The expression on his face, the way he was resting his head on his front paws, seemed wistful, pensive, even sad. Did he know what was coming? When I remember Emory, I often think of him the way I found him there that day, so humanlike in his posture and expression. He turned when I walked up to him.

  “You need to leave, Em
ory,” I told him intently. “You need to go up to the mountains and hibernate.”

  My voice caught in my throat, but Emory didn’t react at all. His eyes lifted to mine and there was that warmth in them, that human quality I’d noticed from the very first day I’d seen him, but I could not say for sure he knew what I was saying or understood how hard it was for me to say it.

  “You could come back, though, next spring,” I said softly, looking back at the house to make sure my father and McHenry were not within earshot.

  Again, no reaction. My heart hurt so much I had to hug my arms across my chest.

  We went back to the barn together, and Emory ate more of McHenry’s food plus a freezer-burned casserole I had thawed for him for old times’ sake.

  At that point, I thought our biggest problem was looming five days away, when the judge would pass down another ruling. But I was mistaken; the threat was much closer to hand.

  chapter

  THIRTY-ONE

  WHEN things started to go wrong, it happened so gradually and with such little fanfare I wasn’t in any way alarmed. The next morning, Thursday, a car stopped on Hidden Creek Road and a man I’d never seen before got out and there was just something odd about him. He had long hair and a beard, which wasn’t unusual, but it was wildly unkempt, and his face was deeply tanned and kind of dirty. He walked down our driveway and stopped in front of me.

  “I’m here to see the bear,” he told me. He looked at me with eyes that were tired and bloodshot.

  I stuck out my hand like I’d been raised to do. “My name is Charlie Hall.”

  He shook my hand. “I drove all day and all night, Mr. Hall, from San Francisco, California. My car broke down in the town of Kennewick, state of Washington. I have come to join my brother.”

  The first part of what he said sounded so normal that I didn’t initially catch the last part. “I’m sorry, sir?”

  “I served in the Army of the Potomac alongside Emory Bain. He saved my life at the Battle of Gettysburg. We are brothers in arms, he and I. I have served under General John Pershing and General George S. Patton and I was most recently an enlisted man in the United States Army from 1964 through 1966, honorably discharged. Medically. Though I was well qualified, I did not see battle during my last enlistment.”