Chapter 17

Bear Lady

The knock on the front door was insistent and strong. Having just awoke, I struggled to find some jeans and get to the door. Not making it to the door in time, the next series of hard raps came. Opening the door I was surprised to see a ahort woman named Manny impatiently pacing while she waited for the door to be answered. Manny lived on the other side of the county and as I looked out from the doorway I realized that there wasn't a car in sight. She had walked. nearly 20 miles. I imagined that she must have gotten up sometime before three a.m. to be here now. Our summers are short on night and long on days with the sun starting to rise and light the sky at 3:30 am. But still..

Less than 5 feet tall, she wore her frizzy brown hair in a pony tail and she held a long plastic coffee mug in one hand and a cigarette in the other. Her untucked flannel shirt fell almost to her knees making her look as if her legs were an afterthought. She was alone and she did not look pleased. In spite of her lack of intimidating size, her posture displayed pent up aggression. She quit the pacing and stood looking at me hesitantly.

"Morning", I managed.

"Yep", she returned.

"You wanna' come in?" I asked.

"Yeah. I suppose." She dropped her cigarette, then stepped on it. After it was extinguished, she followed me inside.

"You'll have to take off your boots. Want some coffee?" I asked.

"Yeah, thanks", she answered as she struggled to pull off some very tough looking and well worn work boots.

I pulled the pot off the coffee maker burner and motioned for her to sit down at the long honey pine trestle table that seems to be the place where most of our household’s memorable conversations occur.

She sat down and while I poured more coffee into her mug I noticed her studying the house. Her eyes would linger on certain pictures longer than others. She liked the print of the wolf jumping across the iceberg and the print from the Names Project caught her eye. She glanced over the cowboy prints without pause and then her eyes met mine as I sat down across from her. In those eyes I saw fury. Quietly contained for the moment, but still, the anger lingered just under the surface waiting for some ignition source.

"Watch the coffee. Its strong. I'm used to making it for Dallas. 'Guessif ya can't cut it with a knife he won't have nothing of it..." I paused while she sipped at her steaming mug. "Is it ok?" I asked.

"Yeah, its fine." She looked down into the grains of honey pine as she toyed with table runners that had the geometric designs of Navajo in reds, blues, turquoise, and tan.

Still toying with the patterns of the runners, she didn't look up when she asked, "Did he tell you I was here last week?"

"Yes, he mentioned it", I responded. It was an understatement.

"I wasn't very nice. Would you mind telling him that I'm sorry?" She still didn't look up. She seemed on the verge of explosion and implosion. The rage inside her remained. Yet for now, she had it in check.

The previous week Manny visited the ranch. Convinced that she was either being ripped off out right or taken advantage of by one of our neighbors, she appeared on our doorstep angry and in need of answers. The neighbor in charge of logging our property seemed to be misleading Manny. When Dallas informed her that he had just returned home after being gone for several weeks, Manny lost her self control as her frustration boiled over onto the back porch.

Dallas knew nothing of the details of the operation and although he tried to reassure her that he was sure that I could help straighten things out once I returned, it did not appease her. Dallas tried calm reason. It failed. Then came stubborn. Manny got angrier. It was a match of wills and explanations and impossible attempts to explain that there was nothing he could explain. All of which failed. Dallas finally told her that she had to leave and Manny left angrier than when she'd arrived. Dallas told me later that it was the closest he'd come to decking a woman in a long time.

Logging and the people of the woods are a study in try and tough, and their tender appreciation for a way of life that is quickly turning the small hamlets scattered at the entrances of Northwest forests into a modern version of depression Appalachia style. Mills close followed by the businesses they supported. Towns overflow with unemployed, angry workers who find themselves short on options and facing not only extended unemployment but poverty and depression. Local generational histories end in suicide, relocation, and disillusionment. The massive timber corporations move on and those residents that remain to clean up the mess find themselves facing a no win proposition.

Although at first glance, Manny did not fit the typical logger profile, I knew that Manny was quite capable with a chainsaw. Tougher than steel, she easily handled a saw that was nearly half her weight. She could 'buck' a log faster than any of the men working with her and when she brought down a tree it always landed where she wanted it to. Precise and fast, she worked with an intensity that put the men to shame. Her work never created 'widowmakers', trees which get caught up and tangled in still standing timber. Widow makers stand just waiting for the right breeze to come along, free them up and bring the timber down on top of the unsuspecting people below.

When Manny 'bucked' a log, the limbs were cut close. Her logs were never discounted by the mills for blemishes or flaws resulting from careless bucking. The logs were always cut perfect and precise. She felled the trees and lined the logs up with ease on the forest floor where they waited ready to be skidded to the landing. The 'stick haulers' (log trucks) would arrive with hydraulic cranes, courage, and trucks which had seen their share of adreneline rush logging roads, near brakeless descents, and loads which if scaled would have pushed even the most generous of weight laws. The trucks, piloted by fierce men who were born without the fear gene, saw duty which is tougher than almost any other application. In short, Manny was like the men who drove the log trucks, worth her weight in gold when she worked in the woods.

Studying her as she toyed with the long table runner I spoke quietly, "I know why you are here. I understand that you haven't been paid."

She nodded.

I continued. "Well you know that I didn't hire you. My neighbor did. What you are making off the job is between you and him. I don't even know what he's told you but I will be straight with you and let you know what I am paying them. That way you can keep them honest."

She visibly relaxed and listened intently as I tried to explain just how a non profit logging operation works. Although tough on the exterior, I suddenly realized that behind those fiery eyes was a tenderness and vulnerability that was disarming. I could easily imagine her adversaries caught between the notion of grabbing a Colt 45 and offering a hug. It had to be the eyes, which in spite of the fury there, revealed vulnerability and a history of pain. Big and open and full of gentle question and obvious mistrust, they stared back at you tugging at something deep inside.

The logging operation was a disaster from the get go. Timber prices were down and jumping through the regulatory hoops and permitting processes was a difficult immersion into politics, environmental doublespeak and the individual policies of five different timber mills and the laws of two states. Some mills would only take certain lengths and certain diameter logs. Other mills were particular to specific species. All of the mills were in Idaho. All of the mills were paying different amounts per thousand board feet and all of the mills were hesitant to accept Washington timber harvested off of private lands.

Manny nodded as I paused to see if she was still with me.

I continued and explained that I was footing all the costs of the harvest with the exception of the costs of the chainsaws and the fuel needed to operate them. Everything else was on me. The log trucks at nearly $200 a trip. The permits. The fuel to burn the slash piles. The clean up.

The neighbor was paid $175 per thousand dollars of revenue and in addition to this compensation he took everything that was too small to be acceptable to the big timber mills and he sold it to the smaller post mills in the area. Each load of logs loaded into that beat up old pick up truck provided extra revenue. By the time the job was completed we took out over 15,000 board feet of timber not including what went to the post mills. I went "in the hole".

"Not everyone can turn every business venture into a non profit poster child. That takes real skill and talent..." I told her shrugging. "At least we finally got rid of the fire danger and that is worth a whole lot in peace of mind alone."

She smiled. It was a shy smile that started slow and uneasy. Almost like it hurt her to smile. From her body language it seemed that she was completely satisfied that I wasn't the source of her difficulties. "My neighbor will pay you. I'll see to that, I promise"' I told her.

I was aware that she had her own history of non profit business ventures. My neighbor told me that Manny and a business partner set out to make log home kits. With Manny’s chainsaw skills, her true grit and determination coupled with her business partner’s marketing skills, they launched into the log home manufacturing venture to make their fortunes. Manny felled the trees from her land, bucked, skidded, and peeled the logs. She notched corners, hoisted support beams and cut out the windows. She constructed grand doorways, breakfast nooks, and her soul sweated on the wood was absorbed and then disappeared into her the craftsmanship of her work.

Unfortunately, after finishing the shell of their first, huge, masterpiece log home model the two of them came to a business disagreement. Manny was furious. Convinced she was on the verge of becoming the victim of another rip off artist, she prematurely took the same chainsaw with which she had painstakingly constructed the home and went to work on the house. Within hours it was nothing more than a pile of firewood.

In a small county, actions like this do not go unnoticed and her reputation as a hothead was confirmed. Unfortunately, as a result of the home to firewood exhibition, her talents in the log home building industry were not further explored.

I refilled her coffee cup and again I sat down across from her. I don't know why but the conversation came on strong and true. Her words flowed with a patterned reassurance; almost in the same tones as the sound some high mountain stream creates as it cascades down across the rocks and through the rapids. A defined white noise constant and steady with rhythm but also bearing a marked sameness that varies only to the most careful listener. She began to mark the trails of life. Originally from rural east central Tennessee, her deep woods voice spoke in slang and soft accents that blanketed the silences around us like the Smokey mountain fog. Settling in places rarely disturbed by the wind, her gentle words hung across the table as if they had not stirred in a long time. Occasionally she paused to listen to the sound of an owl coming from deep with in the woods or the piercing cry of the bald eagles as they attempted to ignore the dog fights launched in their direction by the ospreys protecting their nests. These sounds seem to give her comfort and then she would continue to mark the directions of her life.

Marriage and children all seemed to have failed her. Still bewildered by the movement of her emotions, she acknowledged the sudden rage which sometimes came over her with violent suddenness and unpredictability. Manny had loved and trusted and gotten burned. She did not offer any explanation as to how these things came to be. They just had and she seemed resigned to accept all as it was. Cold, hard, and the here and now of her existence.

She seemed heartbroken and alone. And perfectly content to stay that way rather than risk being taken for a fool again. Choosing isolation and the quiet comfort of the north Washington woods over contact with people at least kept things simple. A person could only take so much and her cup was full enough already.

Occasionally, she would stop the words which marked the boundaries of her life, look quietly up from behind the curly brown bangs of hair which tangled down from her forehead. She wasn't looking for sympathy and in spite of the pain of her story, she told it matter of fact as if this was just the way things were and the way they were meant to be. Predestination backwoods style with a lot of poverty, tears and anguish thrown in. All these sentences spilling out from quiet lips and unseeing unfocused eyes lost in pinewood grains were the narratives and collected phrases of Manny’s life. Good or bad she felt destined to live it out in spite of whatever actions she took. The order of things seemed impossibly set.

As she and I stared at her life as it had been arranged on the table, her voice flowed and as she set it up and displayed this history all across the honey pine table it seemed pretty much mostly bad. Every nook and cranny had something in it. Some terrible event, some disillusionment, some heartache. She wasn't negative. Just a lightening rod for troubles. She tried to sound optimistic at times. Pieces could be moved around and looked at from different angles but they still stood there stark honest and naked. She wasn't one to sugar coat anything.

Manny sighed after a long silence and continued onto the subject of a son who troubled her. Quiet pain and sorrow followed each sentence as Manny told of their ups and downs, unresolved conflicts and the final result, her decision to exile her own flesh and blood. "I told him he couldn't comeback for a year. After our last go 'round. No, I won't see him"

She paused then resumed. "Not the way he treats me. I don't deserve it and I won't have him be that way."

Halfway through her thoughts, she swallowed hard, then finished. "But that don't mean I don't love him. Still do. Always will."

She looked up and her gaze settled once again on the white wolf print on the wall above us. The print displayed the wet animal jumping from ice flow to ice flow against a brilliant tranquil rose sky. Mentally she was no longer with me. Her eyes were chasing that wolf. She was dangling in the rush of uncomplicated freedom represented by the solitary drenched white animal deep in flight. The appeal of following the animal as it chased and was chased by the impossible harshness of nature and the coldness of winter waters was evident in the look in her eyes which were lost in a far away place. Manny could identify with the flight of the wolf. Running towards something better although from the print it appeared that the wolf was instead almost out of ice and facing the dead end of cold still arctic water. The perfect, proud, flight of freedom captivated her even if it was to a dead end. She could ignore the dead end if she at least felt like she was getting somewhere. She would live an illusion if it at least gave comfort.

Eventually her gaze returned to the table and for a minute it seemed that she suddenly realized that she was naked and exposed and it appeared that she was on the verge of gathering up all the pieces of her life that she had scattered there on the warm table surface. I imagined her placing each subject back up on some dusty mental shelf in some dark isolated closet kept from close contact with her feelings. Then for some unknown reason she paused and reversed course. Manny continued to tell more of the wandering and bitter trails of her life. The white noise, consistent and true, gurgled on as I listened.

Manny disclosed that her property was in foreclosure. Back taxes and trouble with the county put off again and again because it was just too impossible to face. The place of her escape to sanity nestled deep in the woods isolated from people, pure in its hushed wind protected silence and dark with the shade of tall pines and sometimes snow covered cedars was soon to be taken from her. On one hand it mattered to her but on the other it didn't. She wasn't sure how to fight this one and though she admitted that it was her situation to have messed up, she was short on solutions and even shorter on things that could have been done different.

Her heart was in that land. But her heart had already died there a few times there too. She began talking about her bear. He was a small cub when she originally found him. Assuming him to be orphaned, she began feeding the small black mass of fur and whines and playfulness. Her attentions were diverted and her life had purpose and the bear responded unconditionally. He didn't speak anything but the simple languages and for some reason as he grew, he stayed. Manny fed him diligently and wrestled with him and fed him some more. He continued growing and in spite of the better judgment for her safety that I am sure she must have had, she raised the cub and took after his needs. He became hers.

Though as he matured he drifted off on long solitary journeys into broad territory that surround the Mystery Mountains and the valleys that form small lakes and quiet meadows. The type of journeys bears must make. And Manny would wait for his return. Which he always did. Even after he fully matured he continued to pay her visits and Manny spoke warmly of her walks through her woods accompanied by the unlikely companionship of a full grown bear who, by this time, was more than twice her size. Manny took a sip of coffee then swallowed hard before she continued.

"My neighbor seen me and that bear. He seen us together and he told me that 'Manny someday that bear meat is gonna taste really good'. I told him to leave him be, that he was mine. But one day that guy called me back. He was telling me how good he tasted. He shot him. I guess my bear wandered over there or something."

Manny wasn't sad, or crying or anything. The words just numbly descended onto the table hollow soft and steady and as we looked at them through the white noise and saw them and all that they meant and all that they didn't mean. The words remained there, simple, objective, harsh, and very real. I wondered if she felt what she felt and the sad shock that she probably didn't, because to do so was most likely just too much for one person to feel.

"Now, I just want to be by myself" she said matter of factly. No quest for sympathy just a solemn statement.

I asked her if she had ever considered driving truck and she said no. I explained that she might like it. "Think so?" she asked a trace of doubt in her voice.

I nodded.

Trucking is the profession of the emotionally shell shocked. Isolated from the threat people and relationships pose and driven by the uncertain rewards of wanderlust, I have often called it the prison of my escape. All those miles and all that motion surrounded by openness and the freedom of blacktop and people that you won't see long enough to ever have a chance of hurting you. It all rolls together and eventually during some quiet sunset the tears might come, the healing of memories might start and no one will be there to see it and hold it against you.

But it also becomes addictive. It gets 'in your blood' as my dad once said. He got out while he still could. He formed a complete life with nightly plans and schedules and close relationships. There is a cost to complete freedom. Sometimes it is great.

Manny and I talked of trucking. The good, the bad and the undecided. I told her that the money was consistent. Not enough for all you put up with, but too much to risk anything else. That everyone was treated just as bad regardless if they were male or female. I told her that Wyoming was pretty one day out of the year and that you held onto that memory because it would get you through all the rest of the days where the wind howled cold, the white snow was blinding and the ditch seemed to have magnetic properties. I told her that it would make her tougher and soften her heart. All of these things she considered carefully.

After a long period of silence the white cascading noise stopped. Our time was over. Some silent voice prodded her to stand and it seemed to beckon to her that it was time for her to leave. The shell closed back up around her. She gathered the contents of her life from the support of the pine table and she thanked me for the coffee, the explanation of the timber fiasco and finally the information on trucking careers. I accompanied her to the front porch and together we silently surveyed the land which she helped to clear. She stepped down from the porch and looking down at her I told her, "You did a really nice job."

"Thanks", she replied not looking back up at but instead back into the deep green woods. She took a long drag from her cigarette and took a final look toward the river. Then silently she started walking down the long drive until her small figure was swallowed up into the bull pines and firs and in the huge stillness that replaced her presence I thought that it is in the ordinary that you find the extraordinary.

My neighbor did eventually pay her. But, I never saw her again.