Mesa Trail ch. 27
Draft 2

"Bear lifted me up so I could see all the earth. He said I may jump high among the cliffs, and live forever." (Crow)











Now, any creature out there in those mountains knew Biggalow, and also knew he was no average bear.  Biggalow was a notorious scooter of moss.  He might be found on any given day right out in the open under maybe a ponderosa or two scooting with this snout across the moss that had laid over fallen wood or even the canopy floor.  Some bears, all the creatures knew, didn't mind a little funky sun dance here and there -- they had all seen that, and certainly kept their distance.  You might all of a sudden stumble upon an opening in the high timber where, just at the right time at high noon, with all that sun burning right down on the rocky patch, a clan of bears would gather together, seemingly nod in unison like they were in a band or something, then stand and reach up to the sky while shaking those massive hips.  This was something for the chipmunks to behold, believe me, because, let's face it, nobody usually gets quite this close to bears.  Sure, the chimpmunks always thought (always taught, too!), those bears looked pretty casual just going after brambleberries hooked onto those rocks and such, but if they turned on you, they were way faster than you ever thought.  And they had long tongues, so if you were a chipmunk in a real pinch, like stuck just under a boulder or in a crease, the bear could give a long slippery lick and get you just the same.  Don't even want to think what it would be like if they stomped on you in a chase.  The rest of the woodland creatures had similar views on things: those bears were a confusing bunch, so casual looking (and the best mothers too), but I really wouldn't want to cross paths with one very badly, especially with cub in toe.

Sister mountain lion once raised her paw to reveal her memory.  It was a day when one of Biggalow's old buddies, Chase, was lolligagging in among the brambles and hollowed out pines licking for ants, when she decided, for the first time, to hang out by Chase, asking him a bunch of questions like why ants, when you can get, like berries, or mice, or even the big stuff, like me. She licked her lips, hoping he didn't get the wrong idea.  Chase was willing to reveal that really the problem with bears was that although they could fight anything in the world if they had to, they were a pretty lazy crew and didn't want to have to move around so much with this big black fur coat on all the time, including summer! Sister Mt. Lion felt a newfound confidence and slinkily walked over near Chase only to be growled at as the big bear rose up on two hind legs and dwarfed her by ten feet.  We also like to be alone, didn't you hear that too in our totem? Biggalow was a contrarian in all senses of the word though.  He was the only male bear that ever took care of all the cubs himself.  He was secretly the best bear sparrer of his age group (grandma bear always said so), but the least likely of all to inflict a big growl or a nasty swipe of the claw against anything. He spent many of his days studying the stars and trying to think of ways to help out the forest.  In this way, he always supposed, he maybe was not a contrarian at all, but a throwback to the old magical realm, when the bear was the guide for all wisdom.  He got no more kick out of anything than showing those two footed characters, the humans, a few different things in the woods and ways to get to them.  He had been helping the most recent group of them down by the river carry very light weights on his back, and this 'two legs,' just now walking up the trail, he looked a little out of place.  Maybe he could show him the way high among the cliffs.