Page 63 - WTPVol.XI#4

closely surrounded by trees. We find suitable land in the West Virginia Appalachian forest. All but 15 acres of our hillside farm is woods. I feel my anxiety dimin- ish. I explore on foot without fear the dense 2nd- generation wood lot on trails cut forty years ago for logging. At apparently odd moments, in the newness of our farm adventure, the oddity of Rich’s husband’s death pops into my mind. I don’t recall her saying,
he drowned. He is found dead in a river, no explana- tion. The mystery unnerves me. I instinctively think, murder, then realize I’ve read too many Los Angeles noir novels. Corpses floating in Pasadena pools, that sort of thing.
A neighbor up the hollow is an apiarist. His hives are repeatedly raided by black bears. A bear also breaks into his garage. He calls the county Natural Resources officer for permission, given, to kill them. There are, apparently, rules of engagement for wildlife encoun- ters. I am relieved my neighbor gives up making honey. I’m not prepared to fight a bear with only a pocket knife, as does a West Virginian woodsman in
a local legend, their struggle ending in a creek with a dead bear.
As an adult living in cities, bears are far from my mind. I like them, a child’s vague attitude obtained from reading the Golden Book edition of the Disney movie, Bongo, given to me by my mother. Bears raid- ing hives near houses transformed innocent affec- tion. Now I am fearful in the woods. There is a large population of black bears in West Virginia. Should I carry our Glock 19 when I embark on a poetic fugue among the trees?
Last winter, I have four encounters of the second kind with animals on Oak Alley, a tractor road through the woods from our barn to our ridgetop fields. I walk
the road daily to take care of pastures and fences and move steers and horses around. I see, through a maze of trees, a small black bear sitting on its haunches about 40 feet from me. I do not want to investigate.
I assume it will go away eventually, but it is there several days. I shudder each time. Seeing its pose unchanged, I conclude it is probably not a live bear.
I walk into the woods to get a closer look. It is the stump, now black with decay, of an ancient tree, cut down by loggers. A neighbor agrees, from a distance, the stump looks like the profile of a bear.
In January, when my sister and her husband are visit- ing to help me care for my disabled wife, I find an alligator on a tractor rut in Oak Alley. There are no wild alligators ever reported in West Virginia, but something makes me believe it is the real thing. When we are kids, my cousin in north New Hampshire, a budding naturalist, buys live alligators and snakes from a Florida farm. Keeps them in the basement
of his family’s home. His father is a mortician and funeral director. A corpse is on a dissecting table in a locked room, where his father prepares it for funeral service and burial. My cousin sneaks me in one day and shows me the dead old man. The room smells of embalming fluid. Creeps me out. He also feeds frogs and other small animals to the alligator and snakes in their basement containers. Also creeps me out.
I show my brother-in-law the alligator in Oak Alley. He says, it’s not real, he gets close, bends over to ex- amine it, pronounces it’s a slab of tree bark. I shud- der. I don’t believe it. I get a stick and poke the thing. It moves. We both jump back reflexively. That’s David Hume’s test for reality and it convinces me. My brother-in-law picks it up and throws it away into the woods.
In late Winter I also glimpse a small fawn in woods off the Alley. It is curled up, legs under it, head tucked into the front legs, a position I have seen many times. Deer often leave their new-born fawns in our fields. Several years ago, does park a dozen newborns in the high grass of a field near our barn. We do not mow
the field for over a month, so as not to disturb the small creatures. It is, not virtually, but in actuality,
a nursery. The dying fawn is located near Oak Alley. Over several days, it does not move. I worry it is dead, nonetheless, I do not disturb it to find out. I show the scene to my sister, a practical woman. It’s not a fawn, she says, walks me to the site to show me that the apparition is just a montage of fallen branches and brown autumn leaves. I am relieved.
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