What reason had I to live at all? I thought. “Oh, la,” I said. “Ma, please come find me as soon as I can write you a letter.” Tears slid from my eyes, one on each side of my face, and ran down into my hair. I rubbed at the right side, feeling the hair, now a couple of inches long. I must still look like a changeling without the bonnet.
I tried to fall asleep but fear came over me in a wave, and though I lay upon my back, my whole being felt weak. At first I believed I wanted to weep again, but when I breathed the more potent need was to scream. I smelled a bear. I leaned upon my elbow toward the Indian next to me and tapped him on the chest with two fingers. He sprang to wakefulness, hatchet in hand. I did not cry out. “Bear,” I said. “I smell bear.”
He frowned and grunted. They did much grunting, as a way of not bothering with words, I assumed, but sometimes a grunt and a frown spoke enough.
“A bear,” I whispered. “You understand, a bear?” I sat up and made claws of my hands and opened my mouth.
The man stared at me, annoyed. “Ashon,” he said.
“Rarrr!” I said, in a soft voice, making my hands swipe the air as the claws of the bear had done. “Bear.” As if the animal had heard my noise, a low growl come from the brush in answer. “Bear!” I shouted, and the same moment the man hollered, “Owasso!”
The Indians jumped to their feet, all holding their weapons. As everyone awoke, the bear shuffled into the clearing where we slept, and walked right upon Patience, going over her even though she raised her arms. The bear was so startled it stepped on other people, too, and backed up in surprise, rearing up on its hind legs. With but the moon for light, the captives tried to scatter. The Indians yelled and called to each other and three with their hatchets and one with a stone club fell upon the animal. The man with the club rendered a resounding thud upon the bear’s skull. It reeled backward but roared and charged at him, wrapping him in its claws. Other men stabbed it while it fought the club-wielding man as if they were two men battling hand to hand.
Back and forth they went, around the campfire, and as the bear reared up, someone behind me, so close that the air next to my head trembled with the power of it, let go with an arrow that struck it in the breast. The animal swung its paw and sent one of the Indians backward into the coals. He cried hideously and rolled out of it, smoke coming from his leathern shirt in holes that went through to the skin beneath. Another man came behind the bear and climbed aboard its back, stabbing into its neck with a dagger. At last the bear weakened and slumped to the ground.
That caused the most terrifying effect of the night, for such a cry of howls and cheers rose from our captors that I thought Hell had come loose here in the forest. Before long, the fire had been rekindled, and while some of the Indians began to carve up the bear and skin it, others began a hatchet-waving dance around the fire. Now and then they swung their weapons as if fighting, and shouted, crying out to the sky. The fire circle grew to six feet wide, as wide as a man was tall. The kettles prepared, the bear’s head went into one and four others each received a great foot. They filled the kettles again with fat from the bear’s carcass, melting it just as we rendered fat from animals butchered in the settlement.
By sunrise, the special parts of bear’s meat finished cooking and the rest of the carcass was dropped into a ravine. Only six of the Indians ate the meat and drank the broth it served. I could have gladly had some, but it was not offered. The original four men got some, as did the one who had knifed its throat and the one who had been struck into the fire. All the others saluted them and more singing followed the breakfast. During their celebration, I made my way to Patience’s side. The Indians danced in circles, sometimes around the fire, sometimes just spinning in place.
“Dance with me!” I called over the din. “Let us dance, Patey!”
“No, Ressie.”
“It is not a slave dance.”
“No, I said.” She held me to her then, hugging me in a way I did not expect and I fell against her. I watched from under her arm as the savages made merry, holding the bearskin in the air and diving with it as if they were great birds in the sky, calling, whooping, and growling at each other. The stink of bear now seemed like good stink.