The Bear Went Over the Mountain Read Online Free PDF Page A

think of the hours it would take me to pick this many blueberries … And there was no competition from crows, no foxes to chase away. He ignored the quiet voice within him that said that this superabundance came with a price other than the one fixed to the lid of the jars. By the time he reached the checkout counter, he had every jam jar in the store. Mounded above them were packages of cookies,cakes, pies, and doughnuts, and his respect for humanity’s accomplishments was boundless.
    The supermarket had narrow aisles and stock crammed everywhere. The checkout lines were long and customers smoldered with impatience. But the bear didn’t mind, as it would have taken him months to gather in the forest what he’d just gathered here in a single hour. He pushed his cart in behind an elderly female. She’s old, she’s wise, I’ll copy her. Be a golden opportunity.
    “This goddamn fucking place,” said the elderly female.
    The bear nodded and made a mental note.
    The old woman pointed a gnarled finger toward the girl working behind the checkout counter. “She’s half-asleep. She don’t care. We can wait here all day for the little slut.” The old woman rammed her cart against the end of the checkout counter, rattling the magazine stand. “Come on, speed it up!”
    The checkout woman gave the old lady a flickering glance of contempt and continued with her slow and dreamlike tallying of merchandise. The bear found her performance mesmerizing, the way she’d take hold of something, slide it along, make a bell ring, then slide it further along, to where another young woman bagged it. The movements of both women were so smooth, their manner so poised, like a particularly graceful shorebird whose antics he appreciated in salmon fishing season. Thethought of this bird took him suddenly backward, to memories of his territory. Who was commanding it now? What incursions would be made into his favorite fishing spots? What other bear was even now sniffing its way into those fields he’d staked as his own? A stab of jealousy ran through him, for the unfettered step of that rival whom he could sense across hundreds of miles, a rival alone at the edge of that special field, sniffing, sniffing. Used to be one big tough sonofabitch controlled this patch. Gone. Must be dead. So then it’s mine.
    “Get with the program, girlie,” growled the old lady, banging her cart against the counter again.
    The bear angled his own cart so that he was able to bang it against the counter too, like a real human being, and in doing this he silenced the battling voices inside him.
    The old lady turned toward him with a conspiratorial glance. “We oughta set fire to the place, that’d get them moving. They’ve only checked one goddamn item in the last minute and a half.” The old lady pointed to a watch that was pinned to her coat along with a card bearing her name and address. “Don’t think I haven’t timed them.”
    The bear continued banging his cart back and forth against the checkout counter. I’m a model of deportment here.
    The checkout woman totaled the old lady’s order. “That’ll be twenty dollars and fifty-two cents.”
    “Up your ass,” replied the old lady. She paid, was handed her parcels, and left the store, muttering to herself.
    The bear emptied his cart onto the conveyor belt. When his items had been packaged and handed to him by the bagger, he said, “Up your ass,” and walked toward the door. He was learning more every day.

 
    “What you want,” said Pinette, “is a story that will touch people in the heart.” They climbed into Pinette’s truck and he steered them through the twilight, along the dirt road that connected the houses in the remote settlement. “I hate to see a man’s suitcase stolen by a bear,” continued Pinette. “Nor a child neither.”
    “A child?”
    “Mavis Puffer, one time, was out covering her garden against the frost. She looks up and sees a figure by the fence, which could