ALONG THE WAY

Sitting in a Tree in the Sierra Anchas with the Ghost of Edward Abbey, Waiting for a Bear

Dubiously I gazed up at the tree leaning out over the brown-green waters of the wide stagnant pond that seemed so forlorn amid the huddled pines. Glancing back and forth from the tree to the pond, I mentally tallied the handholds and the length of the fall to the opaque surface of the brooding pond. "That's where I waited," said fire watcher Kevin Barnard, pointing toward a precarious perch in the slanted tree.

"Ah, huh," I muttered, noncommittally. I studied the tree trunk, wondering whether a large black bear could climb it more easily than a middleaged writer.

"He came right through there," Kevin added, gesturing back through the tangle of trees along the game trail we'd crossed on our way to this unprepossessing pond in the remote shadow of Aztec Peak.

I turned and stared back into the forest, half expecting to see the black bear I sought come lumbering through the trees to his own private watering hole. It could happen. Didn't this rugged, rarely visited Sierra Ancha Wilderness harbor one of the largest black bear populations in the state? Hadn't we just found fresh bear scat on the game trail? And hadn't writer, naturalist, and Southwestern icon Edward Abbey, himself, written about the bear at this particular pond during the season he spent in the tower watching for fires and dripping words like blood on his scribbled pages?

Besides, Kevin saw the bear last year. He said I could, too, although with the suggestion of a twinkle in his eye. I wondered if I'd been lured into a furry snipe hunt. Kevin, after all, qualified as an odd duck. Perhaps not as extravagantly, voraciously, insatiably odd as Abbey, but certainly capable of laughing for months at a gullible writer in a tree. A carpenter-writer turned fire watcher, Kevin now sat in the chair Abbey had occupied, scanning those same vast distances, savoring that same windswept solitude, and searching for words that would link arms and dance magically in the moonlight.

Despite my doubts, I couldn't resist the lure of the tree, the bear, and the chance to at least briefly sit in Abbey's shadow.

So I clambered ponderously into the tree, skinning my elbows, bruising my knee, and raining twigs down onto the pond's impassive surface. Kevin waited until I gained my perch, then with a knowing smile headed back toward his tower.

I sat uncomfortably in the knobby tree, shifting positions, peering through the leaves, and yearning for something to happen. Gradually the breeze across the surface of the pond, the whisper of the pine needles, and the languid birdcalls broke down my veneerof impatience. Minutes dragged into an hour, which blended into a second hour, which merged into a dreamy background of light and shadow.

I've spent my whole life in a hurry: I take books to the doctor's office, jiggle my foot while I eat dinner, and doodle while I talk on the phone. But sitting in that tree, I could do nothing but watch and listen and learn the texture of bark. At first I yearned for the bear. Then I worried about looking foolish. And finally I forgot all about the bear. Somewhere in the course of the afternoon, I dozed.

I awoke with a disorienteded start, hair prickling on my neck. I straightened, tottered, and nearly fell into the pond. Desperately grasping a branch, I stared wildly about.

Deep in the trees, a huge black form passed from trunk to trunk, a shambling shadow like something conjured in my dream and caught in the waking world by the shock of my awakening.

Breathless, I strained to disappear. It was too black. It swallowed light, refused to assume an outline, and moved with a silence that made a lie of its seeming bulk. In a blurry moment it vanished. I rubbed my eyes, shook my head, and strained to recapture the image.

Stiffly, I climbed out of the tree and hurried toward where I'd seen the bear. I could find no prints. But then bears rarely leave prints, moving noiselessly on their great cushioned paws.

So I sat on a fallen log and listened to the background sighs of the forest. I've heard that some Indians believe that dead warriors often returned as bears, working out some intricacy of karma. And if warriors could do that, then surely Abbey could, too a shaggy black bear, walking on shadow paws, laughing heartily at writers in trees.

The desert will still be here in the spring. And then comes another thought. When I return will it be the same? Will I be the same? Will anything ever be quite the same again? If I return. Edward Abbey (Desert Solitaire)