Excerpt
EXCERPT TWO FROM FOURTH DAY About three o'clock it began to lighten. Frost silvered the grass around us and glinted on the canvas. Our breaths steamed. The bay was emptying. Rivulets ran out over the sand past the blocky buttes and trickled into puddles, and then on past the kelp litter and clam shells to catch up with the fast ebbing tide. With the coming of light, the tidal flat awakened. A few gulls sailed their patrols, while crowds of them waded in the shallow puddles that shimmered among the islands. A shabby fox moped along the beach edge, nosing here and there. Loud whistles shattered the air with a piercing abruptness. A pair of blackish birds, smaller than crows, teetered on a rock pile. Their long red bills and bright red eyes demanded a closer scrutiny. They walked over the rocks as if they wore flapping overshoes. I recognized them as oystercatchers, but I was too chilled to be excited. I looked again at a margin of brush I had looked at only seconds before. A bear was growing out of it! He moved massively, like a monstrous raised turtle, slinging his forepaws in looping, pigeon-toed strides. His sloping hind quarters shuffled along behind as if they had difficulty keeping up with the rest of him. His shoulders bulged with crawling movements, and he swung his grizzled head from side to side as he came. Now he stopped to turn at a driftwood log with a raking of claws, examined it as if not really interested, and came on tiredly, leaving his crooked trail in the silt. "Mac. Mac," I whispered, "look . . . " The bear was less than two hundred yards away and drawing closer. "God! God Almighty," breathed Mac. "Take him," Dick hissed, "take him now." "I got to--get rid--get rid of these goddamn shakes," quavered Mac. "I got to--" "Down on your belly and bust 'im." "I'll miss him. Christ, I'm shaking so much that the rifle's got joints in it." In desperation, Mac crawled back from the bluff edge. He was doing deep-knee bends, swinging his arms across his chest, and jogging his legs up and down. "C'mon," Dick whispered sharply. "This ain't no gym." "A little closer," begged Mac. "I don't want to miss. Christ, even my words are shaking." The night chill not only shook his body; it had shaken his confidence. The rifle trembled in his hands as he crawled like an infantryman through the frost to the birch clump. "Now. Now," urged Dick. I waited for the shot to crash. It never came. Suddenly the bear swerved and with an incredibly quick motion crashed into the brush. Mac whimpered and cursed. Dick looked at me. He took a deep breath and swelled his cheeks as he blew it out. "That's one lucky bear," Dick said. I thought Mac was going to cry.