Crooked River: A Novel Read Free

Bear.
    I hopped over our sleeping bags and grabbed the jacket from Ollie, turning it over in my hands. Dirt streaked the back, and the collar was torn a little on one side. The cut was tight in the shoulders and narrow at the waist, and the buttons were fake pearl bordered by decorative brass. A dark stain covered the left shoulder, maybe oil or ink or mud or something else I didn’t want to say out loud. Still holding the jacket at arm’s length, I looked at Ollie.
    “This yours?” I asked, even though I already knew the answer.
    She shook her head and pointed to Bear’s satchel.
    “He probably found it in the woods,” I said. “It could belong to anybody.”
    Hikers often wandered into the area surrounding our meadow, and even more so in late summer when they veered off the main trail, seeking relief in the cool shade, chasing the sound of water tumbling over stones. This jacket could have slipped off any number of shoulders. A high school prom queen trying to keep up with her jock boyfriend; a twentysomething bird-watcher chasing the throaty call of a western tanager; a young mother bouncing one child on her hip and yelling at a second to watch out for rattlesnakes. There were any number of other possibilities.
    Ollie folded her arms across her chest and raised her eyebrows.
    “What?” I asked, lowering the jacket so it hung at my side. “You don’t think . . . ?”
    Ollie lifted her shoulders and let them drop again.
    “Come on, Oll. Say something.”
    She sucked on her bottom lip. She’d done this kind of thing before, four years ago after Aunt Charlotte died. Ollie didn’t talk to anyone for two weeks. Not a single word. And then, when she finally did start talking again and I asked her why she’d stopped in the first place, she’d said, “Aunt Charlotte’s ghost stole my words.”
    “You know ghosts aren’t real, right?” I’d told her.
    She’d cocked her head to one side and said, “Tell that to Aunt Charlotte.”
    I thought seeing a shrink and growing up a little would be enough to keep this from happening again, but it wasn’t. She’d stopped talking after Mom’s funeral and though I was trying to be patient, the way Mom had been the first time, her silence was finally starting to wear me thin.
    “Ollie,” I said. “If you know something . . . if you know where this jacket came from, then you have tell me. Talk to me. I won’t get mad. I promise.”
    She grabbed a pencil, reached for one of Bear’s sketchbooks lying open on the table, turned to a blank page, and started to draw something.
    I took the sketchbook from her and tossed it onto Bear’s cot. “You’re too old to act like this now. This silent treatment stuff? This drawing pictures instead of talking? It’s for babies. If you have something to say, use your words.”
    She glared at me. I waited another few seconds, but she stayed silent. I shrugged and said, “Fine,” and then folded the jacket over my arm and left the tent. Ollie followed, sticking close to me.
    In the apiary, Bear was working on an older and more established hive. Despite the smoke, the bees were darting quick circles around his head, filling the air with loud and angry buzzing. They were agitated, crawling on his hands and neck and around his nose and mouth, and I was sure by now he’d been stung a few times. Still, he never once flicked or swatted them away; he didn’t seem bothered by them at all.
    “They’re only defending their brood and stores,” he told me the first time I saw a hive upset like this. “You can’t get angry with them for that.” Later, when it was time to actually harvest and not just peek, Bear would use escape boards, forcing the bees into the lower boxes so he could remove the top ones and extract the honey. For now, he let them do as they pleased.
    He secured the top cover and patted it gently, whispering something only the bees heard. This was the last hive. He gathered his smoker and hive tool and walked toward