The Bear Went Over the Mountain Read Free

his eyes ran over the labels on the containers.
    Half-and-Half Jam
    Very distinguished.
    Or is it too ethnic?
    With his paw, he blocked out some of the lettering on the half-and-half container.
    Half Jam
    Sounds too Nordic. But I feel I’m close. Let me just … a slight modification …
    With the tip of his shiny claw, he covered up the
f
in
Half
.
    That’s a name that will mean something to people.
    There was a pen in the briefcase, and a few blanksheets of paper. With great concentration, he laboriously wrote a new title page:
    DESTINY AND DESIRE
BY
H AL J AM

 
    Arthur Bramhall returned home that night and went across the field with a flashlight to retrieve his manuscript from beneath its tree. At first he thought he had the wrong tree. He ran from tree to tree, yanking back branches and shining his flashlight on the ground.
    “No,” he cried, “no, no.”
    He stared through the trees at the cold, pitiless moon rising through the branches, the moon of thieves and crossroads. He fell on his knees and beat his fists on the ground. Then he got up and ran through the fields screaming, “It’s gone! It’s gone!” He shook his fist at the trees and shouted, “Why? Why did you do this to me again?” When he came to his senses, he sought the help of Vinal Pinette, the old lumberjack who lived nearby. Vinal Pinette came and investigated the scene under the tree.
    “Bear.”
    “What?”
    “A bear’s got ’er.”
    “A bear’s got my briefcase?”
    The old lumberjack pointed to faint indentations in the ground. “Tracks are right there.”
    “Well, let’s follow him!”
    “A bear travels fast when he wants to. Could be in the next county by now.”
    Arthur Bramhall fell back against the trunk of the tree. He’d already spent what little resilience he had. Years of depression and uncertainty had plundered him, and now a bear had finished him. “My life is over.”
    “Had valuables in that suitcase?”
    “My novel.” Bramhall stared at Vinal Pinette. Much as he liked the old man, he knew Pinette couldn’t grasp the significance of what had been lost.
    “We kin go after him,” said Pinette, “but I don’t think it’ll amount to much. They al’uz say—if the bear sees you, you won’t see the bear.”
    “Yes,” said Bramhall woodenly, not wishing to cause any more inconvenience to his neighbor. He stumbled back through the field, his brain mixing up that killer cocktail he knew so well, the one that was going to result in him feeling like a corroded anchor at the bottom of the sea.

 
    “It’s a marvelous book,” said Chum Boykins of the Boykins Literary Agency, “but of course I don’t have to tell you that.”
    The bear nodded, and Chum Boykins smiled, tapping his finger on the face of the manuscript. “What I like best is how
fresh
it is. At the same time, it has a haunting familiarity, of something we’ve never fully appreciated.”
    The bear nodded again, modestly. His pants were no longer on backward, and his confidence was growing. Outside the office windows was the buzz of the great hive of humanity; its frenzied activity was difficult to fathom, but he soothed himself with candy bars, several of which were in his pockets right now.
    “I’ve got an editor in mind,” said Boykins. “Do you know Elliot Gadson at Cavendish Press? I think he’s our man. He’s got the clout, he’s the right age, and this is the kind of book he loves. I’m going to call him and get the wheels in motion.”
    Boykins pressed his intercom. “Margaret, get Elliot Gadson for me, would you, please?”He turned back to the bear. “Elliot knows I only call him when I’ve got something special. Do you want coffee?”
    “Sugar,” growled the bear, carefully pronouncing the most important word in his limited vocabulary.
    “Margaret, bring us a coffee, would you, please, lots of sugar. Thanks.” Boykins smiled at the bear. “Anybody ever tell you how much you resemble