Setting Free the Bears

A logger's road ran beside the river, and snow was still in the cool woods; patches of it were yellowed in our headlight and laced with dark needles from the firs. There were smudges of bright chalk-colors on the trees marked for lumber, and the road wound with the river.

When the river made a bend away from us, the bank widened; we jounced off the center crown and slithered over the wet grass to a flat place on the bank. There were frogs and mice in the grass.

I listened for dogs. If there'd been a farm very near, we'd surely have heard a dog. But instead there was only the river and the wind creaking the bridge out on the main road, the wind brushing through the tight forest - like silent city men creeping through coat closets; not the noises soldiers would make, with their iron parts clanking between the trees.

The Ybbs had a muted rattle and a thousand separate trickles. We unloaded the motorcycle in whispers, not missing a word of the night. When we laid the groundcloth down, we had to pinch the mice out from under it. We were still in sight of the bridge on the main road, but in all the time we stayed awake, there was nothing passing by. The bridge line across the sky made the only geometry above the riverbed; the only other shapes were the jagged ripples in the water and the black, uneven tree line against the brighter night. There were rock pools near the bridge pilings, and the waterlap tossed its phosphorescence to the moon.

Siggy was sitting up in his bag.

'What do you see?' I said.

'Giraffes, ducking under the bridge.'

'That would be nice,' I said.

'How nice!' said Siggy. 'And the oryx! Can't you see him wading across the river, dipping those fantastic balls?'

'Freeze them off,' I said.

'No!' said Siggy. 'Nothing could damage that oryx!'

Living Off the Land

THERE WAS A boulder under the bridge, and it made a tiny waterfall to clean our trout in; we let the water spill into their slit, flapping bellies, sluice about their lovely ribs and fill them up to their high, springy breastbones. You could clamp up their belly slits and pinch on the bulge; the water came out of their gills, first pink and then clear.

We took twelve trout between us and plunked down their innards on the bouldertop. Then we sat by the motorcycle and watched the crows swoop under the bridge, diving for the fish guts until the rock was picked bare. When the sun came off the water and hung level with the bridge, we thought we'd find a farm and make our deal for breakfast.

The road was soft and we slipped off the high crown into the ruts; Siggy drove slowly and we both leaned back to catch all the air smells, of pine pitch in the woods, and of clover and sweet hay beyond. The woods were thinning, fields swelled behind and beside them; the river was white-capped, running deeper and faster, and nudging a fine froth out to the cutaway banks.

Then the road climbed a little and the river ran down and away from us; we could see a village now - a squat church with an onion-shaped spire, and some solid buildings close together in a one-street town. But before the village was a farm, and Siggy turned in.

The driveway was a slough of mud, as plastic as dough, and our rear wheel sunk to the drive chain; we wallowed, caught in a sponge. There was a goat on the bank of the driveway and we aimed at it, posting on the foot pedals. The goat bolted when we made the bank; we thrummed past a pigpen, the little pigs springing like cats, and the big pigs running like fat ladies in spike heels. The mudcleats whacked themselves clean of the driveway slop; the mud-splatter pelted behind us. The bolting goat had roused the farmer and his wife.

A most jovial Herr Gippel and his Frau Freina looked quite eager to make the exchange - coffee and potatoes for half our trout, and the coffee was black-bean roast.

Frau Freina tried to say, with her pale, winking eyes: Oh, come see how pretty my kitchen is! She had a proud, motherly, grouse-like swell to her breast.

And this Gippel appeared an expert in feeding.

'You're a fine fish eater,' Siggy told him.

'Oh, we eat a lot of trout,' he said. He'd pinch them up at the tails and coax the meat off neat. He kept a tidy stack of skeletons to one side of his plate.

'But so many trout!' Freina said.

'And we're just starting out at this business,' said Siggy. 'Living off the land, Graff! Back to the simple laws of nature.'

'Oh now,' Gippel said, 'you would have to go and remind me of laws.'

'And we've had such a lovely meal,' Frau Freina said.

'But the question of laws came up, dear,' said Gippel. 'And it was twelve trout they had between them.'

'Oh, I know,' Freina said. 'But we wouldn't have had the same breakfast if there'd been just ten.'

'Just five apiece,' said Gippel. 'What you're allowed, of course. But my Freina's right. It wouldn't have been the same breakfast at all.'

'I think this is terrible,' Freina said, and she went out on the porch.