The Acceptance Of Fate
By Alex Sitz
At the head of the drainage that seems to run on forever before it twists and turns down to the south where it twists and turns again to the north out of sight. On the north side of the river, hills roll up steeper and steeper towards the sky where they finally pick into mountain tops, brown grass swaying slightly in the wind, scattered with the humps of dusty green sagebrush, all the way to the top of rocky hills. The south is mostly the same except for a few patches of emerald green pines rising up with the mountain and running all the way down to the river’s edge. In between the river and the mountains on the north side, there is a dead zone, where nothing makes its home there except the sage and the rattlesnake that crawls on his belly only to frighten anyone who passes through. And that is all anything ever does in that mid-section of the mountain; pass through.
The river’s edge is different though, not dead as the mountainsides, but full of life and greenery. On the banks of the river, thick willow patches grow only divided up with animal trains, along with the great pines separating the sagebrush from the river. Rocky sandbars emerging from the river itself where tracks of every animal, from the great grizzly bear to small river hopping birds, can be found. In the far distance, snow-capped mountains soar up, there the lone goat or occasional sheep are seen there at the highest top of the mountain.
Right where the mighty pines come reaching down from a north-facing slope to the river's edge only stopped by a sandbar, where a long curve cuts through the bottom of the drainage by the constant water flow. A small rapids rumbles through, just loud enough that it drowns out any other sound once on the river's edge. The speckled golden head of a small cutthroat trout comes up to sip a gray mayfly off the top of the water. On the other side of the river, there is a thick patch of willows only broken up by an animal trail and a single dead pine with a bald eagle sitting in it scanning over the river, as if expecting someone to come onto the open river bank. At the head of the rapid, a frightened cow moose comes high stepping across the water, only stopping for a moment to make sure her calf was following, then continuing on under the eagle and into the willows.
Right downstream of where the moose was, a man dressed in buckskin clothes comes riding out of the trees into the open on his brown and white painted mare with a mule, heave buried with animal skins from this year's trappings and other supplies the man needs, being led behind her. The man's shaggy blond hair moving in the wind and his breaded face worn from many winters with a scar on his left cheek below his eye from a run-in with a Shoshone warrior some years ago. Across his lap, a flintlock rifle lay with a large antler-handled bowie knife in his belt. His broad shoulders moving up and down with the movements of his horse. His eyes looking warily across the river.
With a jerk of the rains, he stops the mare and starts scanning the open area of the river bank. Climbing off his horse with his rifle now in hand, he leads both her and the mule out onto the riverside, going between watching the ground and the thick willow line. Looking up for a moment to notice the eagle watching his every move as he walks along the river. The roar of the river now in his ears as he looks down again to scan the sandy bank.
Walking up along the rocks of the river looking for a place to cross, something seemingly catches his eye in a small patch of sand with a singular large track in it. Moving closer to it, he starts seeing more and more detail in the sand. Finally standing right over the track, the trapper kneels down to put his hand next to the track, that is almost twice the size of his hand, only to utter a single word with his gravelly voice.
“Bear.”
As he said this, the eagle let out a startling screech and flew off upstream out of sight of the man. The trapper then looked back at his horse, talking to her.
“It’s the same one that got into the food and been stealn’ the fur out of our traps. He’s been circling us for weeks.”
Looking back down at the track and standing up, he went on.
“I’m tired of this. Damn thing won’t show his ugly face, but he always knows right where we at. Tonight this its gonna end. Tonight we kill this beast.”
The mare lifted her head and snorted as if in disapprovement of the decision. The man then remounted his white mare and rode off across the river, above the rapid into the willow and under the dead pine.
Up the river a couple miles or so, in the shade of a circle of pines maybe a hundred yards off the riverbank, the trapper sits on an old downed log. The horse and the mule were tied to a pair of trees off to his left and a small fire going in front of him with a pot of coffee boiling over it. His rifle leaned up against the log within arms reach and an ax next to that. On his lap, a young pine shaved of all its limbs sits as the trapper takes his knife making a fine point at the end. Then inspecting his work, throws the newly made spear into a pile of ten or eleven others.
Looking around and seeing that the pot of coffee was done boiling, he steps over to it, takes it off the fire, and pours it into a cup sitting next to him. Grabbing the cup, the man takes a sip and looks back at his horse who is already intently watching him.
“You know how we gonna do it?” He asks his horse,” I'm going kill a deer. I saw some fresh tracks and a pair of does as we came in here, so finding one shouldn’t be a proble. After I kill it, we’ll bring it back here before I start cutten into it. I'm gonna put that deer in the middle of a ring of spikes with one opening to walk into and build up a bunch of little fires around to make sure the bear goes for the deer the way I want him to. Then, I’ll take you and the mule to go hide somewhere safe. I’ll come back and hide out of sight, maybe in that tree or something so the bear can’t get to me. When the big buffoon comes for the deer I have a clear shot and if he comes runnin’ at me he’ll have to go through the spike to get me, given’ me enough time to reload.”
Looking around he could see exactly what would happen tonight and how it would play out. The bear would come right for the deer, he would take his shot if that one did not kill it, then before the bear could reach him, he would reload, take another shot and kill the beast. It seems simple as any trap could be, but yet it seems as if it was too easy. With the sun high in the sky, there was plenty of work to do before he could set his trap perfectly.
With the sun now going down over the mountain, the river drainage entered a deathly quiet, as if knowing and awaiting for the up roar that will surely come. The horse and the mule now gone, hobbled in a safe meadow to graze, the trapper walks back into the place where his trap will be sprung. The deer hanging up enclosed be spiked almost all the way around it. Eight small fire pits placed around that, sit ready to be ignited with a touch of flint. The man, walking up to the deer, leans his rifle against one of the spikes, cuts a slab of meat off of it for himself. He then grabs his rifle and walks over the largest of the fire pits. Setting the rifle and the meat down on his right, he takes out a piece of flint and steel from his pocket.
Grabbing the ball of grass he had felt for this purpose, the trapper starts clicking the flint and steel together making sparks fly into the dry grass. Finally landing one big spark in the middle of the grass clump, he raises it to his face and begins to blow vigorously on it. As smoke rises into his face, clouding his entire vision except the grass clump, a small glow springs out of the grass as a newly born flame begins. The man adds more grass to keep the flame going then takes it and puts under a premade teepee of small sticks. After a moment the sticks ignite too and the man starts gradually adding larger and larger sticks till the fire is going enough that he can lean back for a moment to take a look at his work.
As he does, a small movement catches his eyes. Looking up to find the motion out infront of him where the trees begin again in the circle, he finds it standing there, right out of the pines staring right back at him with his white teeth snarling, was the beast he was waiting for. The bear that has been stalking him, stealing out of his traps, and rummaging through his food on nights passed, has finally shown its ugly face. This bear was no normal grizzlie, this griz was bigger and stronger than any other bear the trapper had ever seen before in his life. Kneeling on the grow, the bear seems to tower over the man while being on all fours. It’s grizzled fur marred with scars of past fights. Its breath coming rapidly in and out with its obvious musculature tensed ready for the fight to come. But the man was not ready yet, had not repaired the trap or started the fires or anything. It was too late for any of this now.
The man took in all this information at once, while he and the beast were staring right at each other. To the trapper, the stare down in the dead silence of the mountain seemed to take forever, but in reality it was not more than a few seconds.
Breaking the silence, the griz let out a huff and with the huff the man darted for his gun, landing on his side and cocking the hammer back all in one fluid motion, as the bear barreled down on him. Without aiming he fired a shot, pointed in the direction of the bear, ending in a cloud of white smoke. For a moment there was a pause, but then charging out of the veil of the smoke came the beast.
The force of the charge knocked the rifle right out of the hands of the trapper and flung it ten yards off into the trees. With the bear now on top of him, the man started punching at the head of the beast, trying to wrestle it off of himself while its massive paws tore at his flesh. As he took a hard left swing, the bear, catching his forearm in its mouth, bit down sinking its teeth to the bone causing the man to let out a cry of anguish.
Being face to face with his arm in the beast jaws, the man looked into the bear's eyes. In them he saw one thing. He saw that the bear was going to kill him and the only thing he could do was kill it before it finished him.
Accepting his fate, he pulls out his bowie knife with his other arm still trapped in the bear's mouth which had begun to thrash him around. As he goes to sink the first jab, the bear stands up on his hind legs, lifting the man five feet off the ground. Being thrashed around in the air, the trapper stabs the bear over and over again all around the shoulder and neck area, each time sinking the blade all the way to the hilt.
As the bear thashed the man around like a rag doll, he swatten his massive paw leaving a gaping gash on the man's upper right thigh. Immediately, blood started running out and down his leg, dripping all across the ground. With this newfound pain, a fury started to burn inside of the trapper. Tapping into this fury, he raised his blood washed knife and drove it deep through the griz’s skull.
Without delay, the bear let out a wounded roar with its eyes rolled back in its head as it released the man's arm from his muzzle, sending him crashing to the ground. Holding his damaged arm close to his body, the man, using his good leg, scooted quickly away from under the beast as it came stumbling down, only to take a couple wobbly steps then slump over dead.
With blood still running out of his leg, and all his other wounds he had not noticed till now mainly the gashes on his chest and rips, the man crawled back against the base of a tall pine to brace himself. Having his back probed against the tree, the trapper took what was surely going to be his last look around before he bled out.
The sky was now dark and the first stars had started to show through the black mat. The small fire that he had built, that had been kicked around by the bear's charge, was scattered, but still glowing in the darkness enough to illuminate the silhouettes of the ring of trees. The skinned deer and the stakes around it stud as if nothing had happened. A map drawn with blood and scuff marks lay across the dirt and pine needles that make up the forest floor. An enormous heep of scarred grizzled fur and blood, which used to be the beast that had stocked him for weeks, lay silent with an antler handled knife still sticking out of its massive head.
Though he seemed to be meeting a violent end, the man was content having gone out in a blaze of glory in this wild and beautiful place. Taking a deep breath, sucking in the chilled night air and letting it out darkness seemed to enclose around the man as he passed out from the loss of blood in his leg.
The quiet of the night surrounded the ring of trees. From some distant hill side a lone wolf sounded off for a moment then all went quiet again. Coming opposite the man's slumped body, a shadowy figure appears through the trees right outside the glow from the broken up fire. The figure stops and stands still as can be, taken in the entire scene from the battle that ended a few moments ago.
In a bison hide teepee, a fire cracks and snaps as a stew in a pot, suspended by cooking sticks, boiled above it. Smoke rising from the fire and wafting out the hatch in the top of the structure as a single beam of light shone down onto the grass floor. A man sitting cross legged next to the fire, leans over to stir the pot. His long black hair tied into a braid with multiple painted feathers sticking out of it, runs down his drown colored bareback. Behind him, a shaggy blonde headed man lay under a buffalo pelt blanket asleep. His breaded face worn from a life of physical work with a scar from a past battle sits under his left eye. His left arm wrapped in a white cloth bandage stained with blotches of red blood. Under the blanket, there is a second bandage wrapped around his upper right leg with a third larger one wrapped across his back and chest, each spotted with blood. His torn and blood stained shirt hangs at his feet, with his rifle with an antler handled bowie knife, also stained with blood, resting underneath it.
It was the trapper. All of the sudden, his eyes shoot open, wildly looking all around the teepee. Not knowing where he was or what had happened to him one question entered his mind.
“I’m alive, but how?”