A Heart of Drunkness

Quite a few years back, my mother married a guy in Prince George, We’ll call him Ray. You have met Ray many times. He is the older guy, probably a mechanic or a truck driver, probably drunk when you meet him but so comfortable that way that you might not notice at first.

He seems to always have something experienced to say, about most any subject and, in fairness, he can often back up his opinion with real experience. He golfs, barbecues, builds stuff and fixes things but mostly, Ray has a gift of gab. He doesn’t just know his alcohol, but drinks Grapa- that he distilled himself. Doesn’t just know cars, but has a Model T that he built himself, milling his own parts when they can’t be found on the market. He doesn’t just golf, but keeps a golf cart of his own (with a beer cooler and a radio in it). And not finally Ray is no mere Hunter, but yes indeed, a bow-hunter.

He showed me his 60 lb compound bow made of graphite. I couldn’t pull it, of course. That seemed to please him.

I was in PG for the wedding at the time. Because he was drunk, he threw it out as a joke,

“Yeah, no, you should come hunting with us one time.”

“Oh would you?” my mom asked. Suddenly she was excited by the opportunity for us to get to know each other better, “I just think that would be great!”

The moment hung in the air. I looked at Ray as if to say, ‘why would you even offer?’

And he looked back briefly as if to reply, ‘I know. Totally fucked that up right there.’

“I, uh, sure. Okay.” I said. And then it was locked in. It’s not like she forgot about her wedding, but the subject came up enough for us to realize that it was actually happening. Mom clearly wanted us to get on famously, but we could both face facts without discussion: He was a drunk redneck- not even a real one but a northern BC barfly version. I was a nice and respectful doomed college kid. Now I really was doomed- additionally doomed- to go hunting with Ray and his tribe in a mistaken attempt at a rite of passage.

Fortunately that desperate, fateful ‘wet-op’ into the heart of drunkenness was still a long way off. I went back to Campbell River for a season before it could take place.

Obviously, I knew the closest thing to nothing about hunting. There was CORE class, in high school. A little bit of rifle shooting and some outdoors etiquette in between Trades Math and Textiles. I once could name a few species of duck, but that does not, a hunter, make. There was someone I could turn to for help though: Joseph.

Joseph was a Laplander, and enjoyed telling people about that. You have to know that most people, when he explained Lapland, figured Jo believed he was from outer space. Nobody blinked about that either. In Campbell River of the 1980’s, aliens weren’t the weirdest people you could find yourself talking to. Lapps are real, though. Anyone who does a crossword puzzle can tell you that Lapland is a region extending between Norway, Finland and Sweden. The Lapps have a treaty that allows them to migrate across all three countries with the Caribou herds they hunt. Jo had grown up as a hunter, and had been using a gun since he was seven years old. What exactly he was doing in Canada on welfare, drinking his face off the the Quinsam Hotel, is for bored anthropologists to explain. Jo had a rifle, and knew how to use it.

“How long until this infamous trip?” he asked.

“About three months.”

“Hm,” he said, “There is time. Come to my place on Saturday. And dress for bad weather.”

So I did.

He lived in town but drove us to a shack out past MacIvor lake.

He began by saying, “You will probably be killed by some idiot, who will say it was an accident and your fault. Make no mistake: It would be safer for you to walk into the Quinsam with a gun, than to go hunting with drunk “teeperah valkoinen”, stupid white guys. Jo was whiter than the local white people, but didn’t consider himself a “Gadaang”.

“So listen close, and I will show you how to live through this.” It turned out that Jo had plenty of experience as a hunting guide.

As a sober old man, he was impatient with my questions. He didn’t want to talk about growing up as a nomad. I got the sense that there was a great story in there, but he wasn’t telling it. I told him about Ray’s 60lb compound bow.

“60lbs you say? I had one as a child. Made it myself, the old way. Here is mine.” He pulled a smooth re-curved bow out of his closet and strung it up.

“This I made when I became a man. 110 lb Mongolian-style. I cannot now pull it, but as a young man, I could stop a truck with this.”

Naturally I tried to pull the bow.

“I can’t even budge it,” I said.

“Be surprised if you could. It takes twenty years to master this weapon, and only if you start as a very young child.”

He pulled a rifle out of the closet; what, to me, looked like an antique. It had initials on it, and a stamp of some kind, in Cyrillic.

“This is a Kalashnikov L5 Single-shot,” he said, “My uncle was a designer for the company many many years ago. He made this, one of perhaps five he ever made, for me personally. In my country I was a fair shot with this but, here? I am a magician with a gun. Come. Out back I have a target range. It will take you about a month to get good. Meantime, I show you other things. Every week, you come here with beer- I show you how not to get killed by ‘juopottelija’ (drunks).

Sounded good to me. There were a lot of juopottelija in BC to look out for.

Jo was a good teacher. Within a month, I was hitting targets at 1.5 miles with some accuracy. We talked about shit- a lot. There are clear differences in animal shit, and I was becoming an expert. Jo spent time showing me animal tracks and talking about animal behaviour as well. Finally he reviewed how to build simple shelters, and finding directions, and such.

“For the time when some teeperah valkoinen takes off with all of your gear as a joke, and then gets himself lost with all of the supplies,” Jo said.

The time came to fly back to PG. The visits with family. And then finally the morning came that Ray and I met up with ‘the boys’ at the local coffee shop.

Jeb, Billybob and Zeke were guys in their 40’s, dressed like hunters and had a bravado about them which contradicted the blank vacancy in their eyes; average guys, except that Zeke was in good shape. Jeb was a pear shaped fellow and Billy Bob was quite rotund. Then there was Rick, standing slightly apart from them, quietly alert and looking around him. Ray didn’t know Rick. Finally there was Rowdy Roddy Piper- not the real deal, which would have been interesting, but a watered-down, out of shape and very hung over version of the famed wrestler. Looking briefly at this group, I could almost hear Joseph chuckling at me.

RP, whose name was Dale, was loud and brash. Where Ray would at least try to have some facts to back up his bullshit story, RP just piled it on. RP always had the last word, and it was usually stupid.

We hadn’t even driven to the liquor store yet when I heard Ray stop and say,

“Dale! ‘Clash of the Titans’ did not happen in real life, already. Let it go.”

I stowed my gear, a nice tidy pile mostly made up of an old Russian rucksack Jo gave me. Ray had a similar outfit but with more stuff, more conveniences and lifestyle items like fishing shows were always selling. Some of it seemed unnecessary, but then, Ray had done this many times.

“I know,” he said, “Some of it is just for comfort, but honestly, that might be the only thing worthwhile on a trip like this.”

Rick was also prepped this way, compact and easy to carry, without any excess. The others were a hot mess. It took almost twenty minutes for them to load up.

Ray shrugged, as if to reply, “What do you want? An elephant and a fucking Mahout? Shut up.”

Then we met up at the liquor store. An hour later the boys had finished loading up 24 flats of beer- about 450 beers- a case of various liquors and an assortment of liqueurs they wanted to try.

Finally, it was time to drive to the camp. Six hours to Vanderhoof, and three hours north, and then two more hours east on well-maintained logging roads. Ray and I rode together and, after observing the loading procedure, Rick asked if he could ride with us.

It was late summer. Still warm, the evening lasted for awhile after we piled out of the trucks. Rick, Ray and I each had our tents up in about ten minutes. The others had been drinking the whole way up to this point, and struggled in predictable ways. Ray and Rick loaned their help to anyone except RP, which left me obligated. Dale was getting frustrated with the new technology of bendy-poles.

With the camp finally together, the fire roaring in the centre of the tents, the night falling now with gusto and the stars hard and real above us, the drinking began in earnest. RP, who still wasn’t sure what to make of me, had been inspecting me since we piled out of the trucks.

He finally nodded at me and said, “So you never been hunting, eh?”

I shook my head, no.

“Ray’s really going out on a limb for your mom, then, huh?”

“I suppose he is.”

“Don’t talk much, do ya boy?”

“Nope.”

“S’a matter? Cat gotcher tongue?” He and the boys laughed at that, a lot. I had time while they laughed to wonder how funny that could really be. Ray pinched the bridge of his nose and inspected the ground as they went on.

“He’s trying not to tell you you’re an idiot, Dale,” Ray said.

“Hmph!” said RP.

“Actually, I’m just a college kid,” I said quickly, a little bit worried about Ray’s blunt assessment, even if he was right, “And I’m not sure how to relate to you guys.”

“Well you just better not get in the way, hear?”

“Sure.”

Then he said, “Don’t worry, boy. I’ll learn ya.”

I couldn’t muster any confidence at the sentiment this time. Ray actually winced when he heard. I had been chosen by the gun-toting Foghorn Leghorn of drunk rednecks.

The average sized redneck, or any person if we’re being honest, can drink a 20 oz pint of beer in a couple seconds, if it’s an emergency, or if they feel like it, but mostly they take about thirty minutes. A 355 ml can is about 12 ounces, so you might expect it to take about 15 minutes to drink, but these boys took 5. There were silent stretches of up to ten minutes in which they sat pounding these cans of beer back, crushing them in a manly fashion, and then grabbing another.

The burping deserves to be drawn out a bit, in the fashion, perhaps, that a difficult birth does- which is to say, it doesn’t. Once it is understood that the matter is under way, there is little else to be said, except that a new life is expected to culminate from the traumatic experience. And, we could honestly admit that drawing out that trauma could be pivotal to an interesting plot. These guys were just releasing gas.

A grizzly bear emerged from the woods to inform us that we were vulgar, disrupting the ether with our noxious exclamations, and that we should go home.

“Look,” the bear said to us, “You filthy animals are fucking with my Chi. I’m outta here.” and then wandered off.

These people were carrying and potentially using firearms. It had crossed my mind again and again, and again, with Joseph’s pronouncements wafting through it all. Juopottelija Valkoinnen. Skwaklik Gadaang. Skwakwel Kwal Aten. Drunk White People. The Quinsam Hotel late Saturday night was safer than right here, right now.

As if to make that point, Rick, who hadn’t drank nearly as much as the others, parked on a foam mat in front of his tent and snuggled up closely with his rifle, and a shiny S&W 9mm visible. Ray did the same, but had a deluxe portable chair. Jeb, Billy, Zeke and RP began to sing badly. The belching was almost better. I decided to copy Ray and Rick.

In between songs could be heard snippets of conversation.

“Yeah, I’d fuck another man, if I had to.”

“Drove my truck into the liquor store last week.”

“Kids teacher caught me jerking off at her desk.”

“Well, yeah, but then there’s my other two wives and the seven kids. I can’t tell her about them!”

“I went to the store for milk one day, but walked into the court house by accident, on account I have a guilty conscience. Plead guilty to vehicular manslaughter, but got off on a technicality. I had a beer in the car while I thought about it, and then backed into a women with some groceries. I took the milk home and the wife made dinner.”

Earlier in the evening the boys had noticed the rifle I came with.

RP had a respectable Remington 798 that he said his daddy had raised him on. He traded the original scope in for a fancier one. Ray winced again as he heard this. Jeb and Zeke swore by their Sako 85’s, both .308’s, and both black and grey. I think they just liked saying the name, but Ray said they were both really great shots, even drunk as they were.

“They couldn’t find a tree in a forest, or tell a Muley from a fucking Giraffe,” he had said earlier, “But they could kill the hell out of all of ‘em.”

Billy had an original Winchester 54 bolt-action that everyone admitted was in immaculate condition. Rick had a 1969 model 700 Remington, no jewelling. He was proud of it in a quiet and modest way. Ray, naturally hadn’t brought a gun at all, but only his bow.

But the camp went silent when I pulled out Jo’s rifle. Nobody had seen anything like it, except Ray, who naturally knew the entire history of rifle making.

“That,” he said, “Is a Kalashnikov, but not like any of the regular models.” The boys were skeptical.

“No look,” Ray said, “The stock is shaped like a Sturmgewer 44, right? But it’s all gussied up with cherry wood. It’s got the sight on the nose of the barrel, but it’s a single bolt-action. Now that I think about it, a collector showed me something similar once at a show years ago.”

“Ever fired it?” he asked.

“Plenty,” I said.

“Hm. Better keep it close.”

“Who’d ya kill for it?” Rowdy Roddy said with a big guffaw. The others laughed as well.

“Whoever you got that from is either very rich, or very close to the maker,” Ray pronounced.

So I told them all about Joseph. Rick and Ray got it, since they knew no collector would loan out a gun like this one. It made sense. The others struggled with the idea of white people living like Indians or Eskimos.

“That’s bullshit!” RP said.

So it came time to turn in, and I made ready to perch myself where I could keep an eye on everyone else, well, on RP anyway. As I came out of my tent, though, RP was right there.

“I want to see that gun again,” he said.

“I’m afraid not,” I replied, “It’s time to turn in for the night.”

“Gimme a look at that gun, boy.”

“Nuh uh.”

Rowdy Roddy pulled a pistol out of his pants and pointed it at my face, but I could see clearly that the safety was on, so I remained calm. And anyway, this was about the fourth time now that someone had threatened me like this. It wasn’t getting old, but I felt like I had some practice at being cool.

Jeb, Billy and Zeke had all gotten up to plead with Roddy to put the gun down, to not kill the lad. I stepped calmly out of the way as Ray came up from behind him and slammed the butt of Rick’s rifle into his head. Unable to pull the trigger anyway, Dale slumped and face-planted at the foot of my tent. The boys looked at me.

“Well he’s your idiot,” I said, “You deal with him.”

Come morning, Rowdy Roddy didn’t remember a thing, so everyone thought it best to let it go, which meant that I was probably still stuck with him. After a quick breakfast of coffee, and a bacon and egg sandwich, we split up according to Ray’s plan.

Jeb and Zeke were taking a quadrant north and west of our camp, which was maybe twenty kilometres south of Mt McKinnon, and about 500 m west of some river. It was a stiff hike over the first ridge, for them, but after that it would be like walking in Westbank, if it still had lots of trees. Stan, Rick and Billy were heading north and east of camp, basically following the river to a fork, where they would take the east branch into a nice level valley.

Me and Roddy were heading south of camp. South and west was a giant marshland that eventually turned into a fairly small lake. All we had to do was keep the marsh in sight, and it would be impossible to get lost. Ray came over to coach us, but pointedly spoke directly to me,

“It’s impossible to get lost down there. Just keep the marsh on your left, and the mountain either behind you or directly in front because it is north. Anything else and you’re going the wrong way.”

Then he got serious, “Don’t let Dale go anywhere else. I’m counting on you to not let him get lost. Also, you have a license for a moose, which is why you are taking the marsh, but unless it’s as big as a fucking dinosaur, just admire it and let it go. We aren’t here to cull the herd. Here’s a two-way radio. Don’t talk into it because nobody will have the volume up. We are hunting, after all. The idea is to be quiet. It’s set on vibrate, so just key the mike a bunch of times if you kill anything. If you kill Dale of course, just drop the radio and disappear. I’ll console your mother.”

Then he turned to Dale, who had been saying, “I’m right here, you know.” and said to him,

“Dale,” he paused, and let it sit for a second or two, “Shut up.”

The stars had dimmed by then, the other guys had left, and dawn was not far off. I shouldered my shit and nodded at RP. We headed out.

Down at ground level, it was as dark as my sense of humour in those days, but I already had the route mapped out in my head. A well-worn animal trail followed the river south along the west bank. It would take us all the way around the small lake to the south of us. At the rate we were walking it would take about two hours to get to the marsh. The road we drove in on carried us back to the river, and from there we hit the trail through a huge grove of Birch which frothed up out of the pine forest for about five kilometres. I could hear the river nearby, so as long as we had that on our left, we were in fine shape.

RP kept up a non-stop stream of witless prattle, so I stopped worrying about bears- or catching anything. As light began to creep through the Birch canopy, even the cheerful Chickadees and Whippoorwills and Whiskeyjacks were swooping at him, saying,

“For Christ’s sake! Shut the fuck up!”

It was basically a nature walk from hell. Or perhaps a Twilight Zone version of “Of Mice and Men” in which Lenny was the one considered normal, and George was his hapless side-kick, always uttering futile smart stuff. And then Lenny would shoot George in the head, to protect him from the posse of normal people.

The Birch grove ended where the marsh began. The river had quieted as it spread out into a delta. The birds gratefully drowned out RP, and the sun had risen into a clear sky. Under the trees it was still dark enough to require care as I stepped over rough spots, roots and protruding rocks, but out on the lake, the sun’s first light was glorious.

I removed my pack and, gun strapped to my shoulder, because RP couldn’t be trusted, I quietly eased myself out past the edge of the trees into the Dogwood shrubs and other marshy plants. About ten paces out was a spot where I could get a clear view of the lake beyond the marsh.

“What are you doing?” RP asked.

“Time to be quiet, don’t you think?”

“I don’t need a rookie telling me how to hunt,” he said and glowered at me. He stopped talking though, and may have noticed how nice it was.

It wasn’t clear to me that getting a look at the marsh and the lake was of any use, but the truth was I needed a breathe of fresh air after listening to him for two hours. Anyway, it was still too dark under the trees to see any tracks on the ground. After stepping lightly onto some sturdy driftwood, and holding some Dogwood branches for stability, I caught a wide view of the marsh and the lake.

To the south, on my left, maybe a kilometre away, was a mother moose and a large calf grazing in the water. Beyond them a herd of deer, too big in the ears to be White Tail, meandered in and out of the woods. To the north, on my right, the marsh crept out and filled a small cove at the end of the lake and then opened up a long stretch of shore heading southeast for about five kilometres before it turned more southerly. Perhaps half way to there, a very large bear with a distinctive hump at the shoulders, was having a drink of water, and looked up to note the deer. Then it turned west and headed back into the pines.

I faded quietly into the woods myself, and went for my pack. It was gone. RP was gone. Teeperah Valkoinen! I thought briefly about making a large racket, to scare off the bear that I was certain was coming this way for breakfast, but didn’t. I followed RP’s tracks, which were not subtle. Carrying about two hundred pounds, on top of his own weight, now, his boots and their dramatic “Big Horn Mark VII” print might as well have been marked in neon signs. I didn’t catch up with him right away though. For all of his witless weight, he still must have moved fast, because I was sweating to maintain my 4 miles per hour pace.

And then, after maybe an hour of that, his tracks abruptly disappeared. I back-tracked until I found them again. RP had stopped for something, put down both packs, turned around twice, and moved off through a copse of Oregon Grape. He either took the packs with him, or came back for them and then went off in this new direction. I followed it to a new trail not thirty feet away which ran perpendicular to the other. Looking left, I found RP’s new tracks following the shore of the lake. And to the right was a massive and distinctive pile of bear shit. It’s the berries they eat, and the size and shape that give it away. This was the bear I had seen on the lake not long before. It had come this way just before we got here.

How urgently our new friend would pursue those deer was anyone’s guess. Bears are actually pretty smart animals, and that one, when he spotted the deer, didn’t just charge off toward them, but played it cool. I didn’t think he saw me, but he would smell us very soon. As I followed RP’s tracks again, I realized the bear would sense us even sooner than that, because RP had stopped to take a crap, himself, on the trail. That pile was also distinctive. I had cause to wonder just what the hell he had been eating, but I didn’t care to fathom it.

After a few more minutes of walking I caught up with him. He had stopped on the trail to make a quick camp. Eating a sandwich, he looked back over his shoulder at me with some surprise.

“Yes Dale, I found you. It wasn’t as hard as you think.”

“Oh,” he replied, “There you are. Good thing I looked after your pack for you. I had to backtrack to find you. Next time don’t wander off without saying anything.”

“I told you what I was doing, Dale. You just thought it was funny to take my stuff and bugger off.”

“Speaking of which,” I said, “Are you sure it’s a good idea to take a shit on the trail?”

“I didn’t. That was bear shit.”

“It wasn’t bear shit.”

“The fuck would you know? You’re-”

“The pile of shit not twenty feet from yours is bear shit, big guy. It was fresh, and the bear is heading back this way. You just told the bear where to find you.”

“Whatever, college-fag.”

I threw up my hands. Picking up my pack, I got off of the trail. To my left, through some loose Alders, was an outcropping of rocks. It seemed like a safe spot to watch the impending carnage. Maybe thirty meters away it was secluded behind a few other trees and huckleberry bushes. As I climbed in behind it, I was pleased to find a nice spot to sit that allowed me to watch the trail, but didn’t let Dale see me. Comfortably saddled in there, I pulled a sandwich out of my pack and waited.

The birds chirped. A breeze sprang up, lightly brushing the tree leaves. The sun was about seven o’clock. Since this area was unobscured by mountains, it was getting pretty warm. Dale had stood up to look around but, not finding me, sat back down and continued eating.

To myself I thought, Y’know, I may actually have to shoot something. I finished my sandwich, took a swig from my water bottle, and loaded the rifle. Dale was still facing the lake. He had pulled out a fancy, yellow Sony Walkman and plugged earphones in his ears.

I had shot this rifle a thousand times by then, so it was comfortable, but I never truly intended to shoot any animals. I had no intention of butchering one in the bush and then carrying it all the way back. It wasn’t part of my lifestyle and I wasn’t about to make it a part. I knew that both Rick and Ray would do so, and would eat all of what they caught. Hell, I was sure one day I would find Ray sewing his own moccasins with a bone-needle he fashioned himself, from hide he tanned himself in between beers. It was understood that some people took the hunting seriously, while others were just out for the excursion, and others were just drinking where the wife couldn’t see. None of those guys were images that I would fit into.

Whatever image I would fit, was beyond my ability to sense. Certainly that was true. Just exactly where the fuck I was going was not clear, but in this case, the universe, or these hunting buddies anyway, were telling me, ‘Not this way’ or ‘Obstruction Ahead- Detour’, or perhaps- OOPS! There’s a bear.

It was big, and it was very fast. Dale wouldn’t see it until it was too late. With each stride it gave a “Huff, Huff, Huff.” I reckoned that if it stood on its hind legs it would be twelve feet tall. Never had I seen an animal that big, and I almost admired it a tad too long.

I pulled the rifle, a short sharp shock into my shoulder, aimed and pulled the trigger without breathing. The bear’s head exploded and hit the ground, but its bulk kept going, until it had flopped over on to its back right in front of RP. He leapt and screamed for his life at the swift surprise, taking out his handgun and shooting wildly before focusing on the bear and shooting the hell out if it. Then he reloaded and started shooting at me- just not in my direction, since he didn’t know where I was. He emptied that clip into the forest and then settled down by taking out his two-way radio and loudly blaring into it that the college fag had almost killed him.

I stayed hidden, while RP verbally processed his situation. There were threats, and weak rationales for shooting at me. Several times he pleaded with me to come out, and once for me not to be dead. Several hours and a couple of sandwiches later the others showed up.

Ray and Rick arrived first. Rick frowned and looked around at the trees, commenting,

“Looks like the wild west up in this bitch.” Ray looked up, noticing the bullet holes in trees.

He snorted, “Dale.”

“I had no choice but to shoot back,” protested RP.

Rick started giggling, “Well, what? Was he riding a flying carpet or something?” This started Ray laughing, and then they noted the bear’s wounds.

“Well you sure killed the hell out of the bear,” Ray said, “One, two, three four five six shots at point blank, Dale. Brave of you to let him get so close.”

Then they noted the head. Rick and Ray wandered up to it, walked around, looked south and then west, and then their eyes followed the trajectory they had sussed out in their minds to where I was hiding from Dale.

Ray grinned and nodded up at me, “Hugh, you can come out now. We won’t let Dale shoot you.”

I gathered my pack and the rifle and climbed up on the outcropping. The sun was twelve o’clock by then, and so for a second I cut a dashing figure of manly hunter with that Kalashnikov on my hip, and then the moment was over. Nobody saw because they were humiliating Rowdy Roddy. When I joined them on the trail, Rick nodded at me,

“Hell of a shot,” he said.

Ray agreed, “Especially for Dale!” He clapped RP on the back,

“Nobody- and I really really mean nobody- thought you had it in you, Dale. Just a magnificent kill! Good thing you have that ticket for Grizzlies, eh? We’re still in a heap of trouble for this- did you notice the tag on his ear? This one is named, ‘Papa’. Seems he is being tracked by the University for research. We’ll have to inform the CO. Do you know Barb?” he asked Rick. He nodded.

“You probably should have let Papa eat Dale, is what she’ll say.”

And that is what the other guys said when they caught up to us. Dale got credit for shooting the bear, and was proud of it, but then he also got in all of the trouble for shooting it too. There was a fine, and RP had his guns taken away by the RCMP constable who came along with Barb the next day.

She looked at the scene with the same practiced eyes that Ray and Rick had, scoping out my shooting position.

“Hell of a shot, alright,” she said, but didn’t question our story. She seemed pleased to take Dale’s guns away.

Back home, Jo laughed and laughed about it, calling it “Bear-Justice”.

“Did you keep anything from the bear?” he asked.

“No,” I said, “It was kept for autopsy. I think they had it stuffed and put in the museum.”

“Mm. You should mark yourself for the bear, or the bear’s spirit may wander. You must keep it with you. Bad luck if you don’t. Look at me,” he said, “I, too, doubted. Don’t end up like me, young man.”

I didn’t mark myself, of course, but looking back, I think the reader will agree that, Jo may have been right.