Subtitle: ‘The Night of the Heavy Breathing.’
The Milky Way gave off the only light… other than our campfire. We watched the flames dance and we listened to the music of the forest. “Did you hear that?” I said. Grandma answered with a knowing smile. There was another ghostly wail. “How about that?”
“You mean the Eastern Screech Owl?”
“Yes,” I said, hiding my ignorance of wildlife sounds. “Does it have to screech like that? It’s rude.”
There were other sounds too. So, we retreated to our little orange and green tent. I drifted off and slept until… I felt the tapping on my forehead. It was Grandma. “Stop snoring.”
“I’ll do my best,” I said. And I went back to sleep.
More tapping. “Your snoring is making the tent vibrate.”
“I’ll do my best,” I said. And I went back to sleep. Except I was the one to wake up next. “Now you’re snoring,” I said to your Grandma.
“I don’t snore. I never snore,” she said. “Never.”
“I know that.” (Sometimes it’s not smart to disagree.) “And you don’t snort either.”
“Be quiet,” she whispered loudly. “Listen.”
“What are we listening for?” I whispered loudly back.
“That heavy breathing,” Grandma said. “And that’s not you?”
As a test, I held my breath. The heavy breathing got louder. “You sure it’s not you?” I said.
Grandma said, “Is the tent leaning?”
“Is it shaking?” I asked.
“What’s going on?” she said.
“Do you think it’s the screech owl?”
“Seriously?” she said. You’ll have to excuse Grandma’s sarcasm. She needs her sleep.
“It could be building a nest,” I suggested. The shaking got worse. “Yikes,” I said. “Could be a monster from the wild unknown. Let’s pretend we’re asleep.” Well, that didn’t work - whatever monster was breathing heavily and snorting like a pig at the trough and shaking our tent, well, he wasn’t falling for the ploy.
“Do we have any food in here?” Grandma asked. “We’re not supposed to have food in the tent.”
Before I could tell Grandma about the toothpaste, we heard these terrible words shouted… well screamed really, “Look at the size of that bear rubbing up against that little orange and green tent!” It was the young men who were camping in the only other tent at Rock Lake.
“Get out your Bowie knives.” I yelled. “Try stabbing him!” which is when the dogs took notice. Agitated dogs are louder than Howler monkeys. And these dogs were agitated. The monster, which of course we now knew was a bear acting like a monster, stopped snorting and wheezing. Instead, he made one long, loud huff. I mean, really, really loud. Because he spotted the dogs.
Our tent shifted and bulged inward. Was the bear planning to sit on my lap? But then when the tent straightened I said through the canvas, “Say bear… are you leaving?”
Before he could answer, I heard more shouting, “The dogs! They’re loose!” which words turned the whole world into a crashing, roaring, kabooming hullabaloo.
We didn’t peek outside… it was too dark to see anything anyway… but this is what we pictured: The bear, petrified of the dogs, went bananas. Not knowing left from right, up from down, doing hundred mile an hour circles, he flew off the edge of the cliff, somersaulting to the bottom… bringing rocks and branches and bushes and small rodents down with him. (You might have read about this in the Exeter Times-Advance… unless you weren’t born yet.)
A big thud marked the end to the awful episode. Or did it? No, the bear jumped up, the dogs hounding after him. There was much rustling and thrashing and crashing and howling until the racket faded into the wild unknown and we fell back to sleep, safe and sound thanks to two hounds and loose leashes.
Of course, this was not our last meeting with bears.
This is a picture of the monster/bear leaning on our orange and green tent.
Sweet dreams all. Love Grandpa.
