Page 39 of Bear's Heart

For a moment he didn’t think she was going to answer.

“Early January.I’m fifteen weeks.”Then she was crying, crying hard.

Bear said nothing, because what could he possibly say?

After a minute, the sobs eased and her breathing steadied enough for her to whisper, “They say karma’s a bitch, and now I know what they mean.”

*

The rest ofthe afternoon was a struggle, and it didn’t get easier for Bear.He thought of little besides Noah, and what a good friend Noah had been to him following Bear’s accident.Noah had come to visit him daily in the beginning, and then weekly between Noah’s travel schedule.

When Bear hadn’t wanted to continue the painful rehab, Noah had got into his face and told him to man up and do what needed to be done, reminding Bear that he had a fiancé and a future, and it wasn’t fair to Savannah to just give up.

Bear’s sister Susie had also come from Australia and said much of the same thing.But there was something powerful in Noah’s reminder that real men didn’t quit, which stayed with Bear, focusing him.

Noah might have gotten Bear back to his physical and occupational therapy, but it was Susie who provided TLC since Savannah had her music and couldn’t make it to the hospital daily.

Susie, staying in one of those Residence Inns with little kitchens, would make Bear’s favorite chocolate chip cookies, or a berry crisp, substituting their Montana huckleberries for blackberries and boysenberries.

Susie had hand after hand of cards with him, and while they played, she told him her favorite stories of when they were growing up, and not the grizzly story, but what it was like growing up as kids living in a national park, thanks to their dad’s job as a US Park Ranger.They’d spent most of their years in Yellowstone and the Grand Tetons, but there had also been a stint in the Badlands, and Glacier National Park.

They reminisced about their different schools, and how their mom had tried to homeschool them one year, but Bear had ordered copies of the teacher’s edition and used it for his homework and reviewing before tests.He got the best grades of his life that year and the only one who knew what he was doing was Susie, and she never told.

Susie and Noah were the ones who got him through that first year.Savannah put in appearances, but she didn’t know how to handle the accident, and his paralysis, particularly the mishaps that came with learning how to transfer, how and when to use the bathroom, how to even dress.

In one of their terrible fights when he demanded to know why she just kept disappearing on him, she cried and blurted that she didn’t know how to cope anymore.It wasn’t personal.She just needed a strong man.

*

The next fewdays were some of the worst in Bear’s memory—at least since he’d woken up in the hospital from his coma to discover his world was forever altered.Everyone asked Bear if he’d known Noah Kamp.Strangers on the street offered him sympathy for the loss of his friend.Friends from his days on the rodeo and PBR circuits reached out to him, wanting to grieve with someone.

It was a lot.And he wasn’t handling his own grief well.

Bear retreated to his ranch in Clyde Park and was grateful when his phone rang and it was Cormac Sheenan calling to ask if Bear had leased his ranch property yet as he knew of someone looking for a place like Bear’s.It was a young family, and they’d be in town for just another few days, and they were hoping to test out living on a ranch before buying.

Bear hadn’t yet had time to advertise his ranch and told Cormac to pass his contact info on to the couple, and that he’d be more than happy to have them come out and look around.

The couple followed up almost immediately and, grateful for the distraction, Bear invited them out for the next day.They settled on a morning time so that the family could still make their flights back to Los Angeles.

Aware that he hadn’t been upstairs in years, he had no idea how the bedrooms and bathrooms looked.He called Josie to ask if she’d do him a huge favor and come over to the big house and walk through the rooms upstairs and downstairs, checking to see if everything looked and smelled fresh.He had a personal pet peeve about closed, stuffy rooms and didn’t want the family to troop upstairs to be overwhelmed by claustrophobic heat.

Josie agreed and arrived with takeout from the Chinese restaurant in Marietta that was next door to the theater.While she dished the Kung Pao chicken, fried rice, and chow mein, Bear opened two beers and they ate on the front porch with the warm breeze blowing and the temperatures slowly dropping.

“This is sure pretty out here,” Josie said, comfortable in a folding chair that she’d found in the garage, her gaze fixed on the rugged mountain range before them.“But these mountains aren’t part of the Absaroka or Gallatin ranges, are they?”

Bear shook his head.“No, the Crazy Mountains are their own distinct range.They’re nearly completely surrounded by private lands, which makes public access to the mountains difficult.”

“I read somewhere that the Crazies, or Crazy Mountains, comes from a Crow name, but wasn’t sure if that was true or not.”

“I’ve heard two different stories, and both relate to the Crows.In the first, the Crazy Mountains is apparently a shorter name from the original, Crazy Woman Mountains, after a Crow woman who lost her mind, after losing her entire family in the westward expansion.Heartbroken, she disappeared into the mountains to live out the rest of her days alone.”

“That’s very sad.What is the other story?”

“The Crow people called these Ominous Mountains, with the English translation roughly being Crazy Mountains.Apparently, the mountains were known to have metaphysical powers and a place used for vision quests.”

“I’m glad you’re not in a hurry to sell your place.I worry that you might one day regret it.”

“You know this house isn’t my favorite.”

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