Setting Free the Bears Read online

  Keff would do it this way: I balanced on the trailer, and he drove through the tree rows of one orchard and then another. He'd stop at a bee box and I'd creep up to it easy. They had a little entrance the size of a letter slot in a door. There'd be a few sleepy bees on the ledge outside; I'd nudge them into their house, extra gently, and then I'd pull the screening down over their only entranceway, and exit.

  When you picked up the box, the hive woke up. They hummed inside; like distant electricity, they vibrated your arms.

  The boxes were very heavy; honey leaked between the bottom slats when I lifted them up to the flatbed.

  Keff said, 'If you drop one, smarty, it'll split for sure. If it splits, smarty, I'll drive off and leave you.'

  So I didn't drop any. When they were on the flatbed, six or so, I had to brace my back against them so they wouldn't slide. First they'd slide toward the tractor on a downhill pitch, then they'd slide to the rear end when we climbed.

  'Scramble, smarty,' said Keff.

  They fitted, fourteen on the flatbed floor, that was the first tier. Then I had to stack. With a second tier on, they didn't slide as easily; there was too much weighing them down. But I had to leave one space off the second tier so that I could load a third tier. I had to stand on a bee box with another bee box in my arms. Then I had to crawl over the second tier to fill out the corners.

  'Three tiers is enough, huh, Keff?'

  'Don't let your feet fall through,' said Keff. 'You'll be stuck, for sure.'

  'For sure I would, Keff.' Honey-mucked, knee-deep, a prowler crashed into the home at night.

  Keff would do this: I braced the hives and he crossed the road, working one side and then the other, moving down the mountain. He kept the orchards even on each side, but crossing the road was the problem. Coming up out of one ditch and down into the other, the flatbed would tilt enough to rock the second-tier boxes on edge. I braced, and Keff would do this: kill the engine, turn off the headlight, let all the groans and snaps of his tractor parts cease and be quiet. Then he listened for cars on the road; if he heard anything, he'd wait.

  Well, it took such a long time for the tractor and trailer to cross, and the road was too winding to be safely spotting headlights. So Keff would listen for engine sounds.

  'Is that a car, smarty?'

  'I don't hear anything, Keff.'

  'Listen,' he said. 'Do you want to get broadside in the road and have somebody drive through the hives?'

  So I'd listen. To the tractor's manifold singing its heat. To the talkative bees.

  I was stung just once. A bee I'd brushed off the door-stoop ledge, and who hadn't gone into the house, got caught in my shirt cuff and got my wrist. It made just a little burn, but my wrist got fat.

  And we were four or five bee boxes away from a full third tier, when Keff stopped the tractor to check the pressure in the trailer tires. 'I think they've got him by now, smarty,' he said.

  'Who?' I said.

  'Your queer friend, smarty. He got in to see you, but he won't get out.'

  'Just voices you were hearing, Keff. Just Gallen and I were in that room.'

  'Oh, smarty,' he said. 'There's footprints in the garden, and there's everyone who heard the yelling. See? It makes you dumb to be a queer, smarty.'

  He read his tire gauge. How many pounds of air does it take to hold a single-axle trailer, two tires a side, carrying what must be tons of honey and bees?

  Keff stooped near the space I'd left for standing on the second tier. I could have just hopped up and shoved a whole row of third-tier boxes on him; I hopped up on the second tier.

  'What were you doing with that little Gallen, smarty?' He wasn't looking up. 'I've been waiting for her to get old enough,' he said. 'And a little bigger.' And his squat, neckless head spun his face up to me, grinning.

  'What are you doing up there?' he said. And his feet moved back under his haunches, like a sprinter getting set.

  I said, 'Why don't we have bee suits, Keff? Why don't we have masks and all that?'

  But he was backing up, not taking his eyes off that third-tier row of hives.

  'Why don't we have what?' he said.

  'Bee suits,' I said. 'Protection, if there's an accident.'

  'Beekeeper's idea,' said Keff, standing up now. 'When you're protected, you're careless, smarty. When you're careless, you have accidents.'

  'Why doesn't the beekeeper get the hives himself, Keff?'

  But Keff was still ogling at the third-tier row. 'Third tier's almost full,' he said. 'Once more across the road, and we'll go back to the barns.'

  'Well, let's do it then,' I said.

  'Think he'll still be there, do you, smarty? We'll take another load after this one, and you think he'll still be around, fancy-free?'

  'Well, Keff,' I said, thinking: You almost weren't so fancy-free yourself, Keff - you almost weren't around any more. Eager bees are in those hives, Keff, and you were almost mired in honey-muck; with bee stings swelling your fat head fatter.

  Keff was listening for anything coming.

  Well no, of course, I thought. You were always there, safe all along, Keff. And don't you see, Siggy, how I'm drawing the line? And what in hell is it you expect of me, Siggy?

  'Someone's coming,' said Keff. He kept the engine killed.

  Well, even the bees were quieted, listening too.

  'Someone's running,' said Keff, and he opened the toolbox.

  I could hear the breathing down the road; gravel-scuff and the sounds of panting.

  'Someone you know, smarty?' said Keff, the open-end wrench in his paw.

  Then he twisted the housing round the headlight, opened the face of the light down the road; but he kept the light off. He was just getting ready.

  Hush, bees, I thought. Those are little, short steps; those are quick, little breaths.

  And Keff turned the light on my Gallen, hair loose, and fanning the night as she ran.

  How Many Bees Would Do for You?

  COMING WITH THE news, she was - rubber-legged from running uphill since Waidhofen. Gallen brought the news of Siggy's great return for his toothbrush, how he swung apelike from ivy vine to the window's grate to gain another entrance, how he bleated down the hall, rode the banister to the lobby, spoke the epitaphs for them all - for Auntie Tratt, who clucked like a tupping hen in her nook under the stairwell; and for my Gallen too, he gave some screaming metaphor of shattered maidenhood. And for me, he had also spoken for me - Gallen told - a diatribe, a prophecy of my eventual castration.

  'Oh, crazy!' she gasped. 'Oh he was, Graff. And he pawed up the garden, he threw mud on the castle walls!'

  Well, the bees heard it all; they hummed against her where she slumped against them - the bee boxes propping her up all along her long, slight back.

  'Don't let her lean too heavy,' said Keff. 'Don't have her tip a hive, smarty.'

  Oh, enough of you, Keff. Isn't it entirely enough now? I thought.

  'They'll get him for sure,' said Keff.

  'Oh, he's wild,' Gallen said. 'Graff, the whole town is out for him. I don't know where he's gone.'

  'They should box him in,' said Keff - and down the road behind him the crazy-twisted headlight startled the trees crouched against the switchbacks. The town blinked noiselessly beyond the dent-shapes and reliefs of round tree clumps balled against the night sky.

  'Oh, Graff,' said Gallen. 'I'm so sorry. Please, I am sorry, Graff - if he's your friend,' she said.

  'Listen,' said Keff, but I heard nothing. 'Listen, smarty' - down in the town, winding up our way but just a murmur yet - 'do you hear the car?'

  And some of the tree clumps caught the blinking-blue light, flashing above the road and changing sides with the turn of the switchbacks.

  'Listen,' said Keff. 'That's a Volkswagen. That's the police, for sure.'

  For sure. Sirenless and stealthy.

  There were two in the car, and they didn't stay long.

  'We're making a roadblock at the top!' said one
, and a black glove snapped its fingers.

  'At St Leonhard!' said the other. 'If he comes this way.'

  And the bees heard; the diminishing blue blinked away from their box houses; they stirred against my poor, propped Gallen, who for the second time this evening had been reduced to a heap on account of me.

  And I could only think: For sure, he's not going to try riding that bike out of town. Oh, for sure - at least - he won't be coming this way.

  And Keff said, 'Smarty, we can't just be gawking here all night. If the girl won't fall off, I'd like to get across the road.'

  'I'll be all right,' said Gallen, but her voice shivered as if some kind of wind down the mountains had blown all the way from the Raxalpe, all the way from last January, and caught her warm and precious and vulnerable, just waking up in the morning, coverless. She was so hurt, really, and there was nothing I could think clearly.

  'Let's listen, then,' said Keff, mounting the great spring-back seat, settling among his iron-clanking parts. We listened and he wrenched the housing for the headlight around, so we were pointed and lit straight across the road. Then he came up with a heavy foot on each wheel brake; he rocked and struggled the tractor out of gear. The trailer shifted; the bees sang.

  'I don't hear anything,' I said.

  'No, nothing,' said Keff, and he reached for the start-rod.

  He was reaching; I said, 'Keff?'

  'Smarty?' he said, and his hand stopped in air.

  'Listen,' I said. 'Do you hear?'

  And he froze himself still, not squeaking the tractor's parts, not gusting his own breath.

  'Oh yes,' he said.

  Maybe not even out of the town yet, but coming - and maybe not even coming our way. In those close arches, maybe - maybe that's what brought on the sound and then suddenly shut it off. Off and on again.

  'Why, smarty,' said Keff. 'That's real good listening.'

  And now it was out of the town; it took our road. A hoarse man clearing his throat, many closed rooms away - clearing a great hoarse throat, not momentarily but eternally; going on forever, coming toward us forever.

  'Oh yes!' said Keff.

  Oh yes, I would have known it from a million others. Oh, the good sounds of the throggy beast my Siggy rode!

  'Ha!' said Keff. 'It's him, smarty. It's him, the queer!'

  And, Keff, you were almost done then. A third-tier bee box for you, Keff, right where your neckless head looms almost level with the humming stack; right where you lurk on your high seat, Keff, a bee box for you. And perhaps another, perhaps a whole toppling row come down on you, thick Keff. If I dared, Keff, and if I thought it would make any difference or do any good.

  How many bees would do for you, Keff? A strapping fellow like yourself - how many bee stings could you take? What's your quota, rotten Keff?

  Uphill and Downhill, Hither and Yon

  AND WAS IT Gallen's cold hand that brought me back? That crouched me by the trailer end, thinking: What now, Siggy? How do I stop you from meeting the mountaintop with the blinking-blue Volkswagen, and the snapping, black-gloved fingers therein, therein?

  Up the mountain, where Keff and I had wound down from the gravelly switchbacks are sharper; three S-curves above the bee-wagon was the very best S-curve of them all. It was as sharp as a Z. Well, I thought, he'll have to slow down for that one - even Siggy, even the beast, will have to come down a gear or two for that one. Maybe even first gear; he'd be going slow enough to stop, or at least slow enough so he'd have to see me in the road.

  I ran, and I didn't decipher Keff's shouting; no, I didn't heed his woolly voice.

  You always think you run so fast at night, even uphill; you can't see how slowly the road slips under you or the trees come by. The old night-shapes loomed and hovered; I could hear the beast rage louder.

  Is it looking back that makes me fill in all the pieces, and make the facts come out so tight? Or did I really hear them then? The bees. Their million, double-, triple-million voices, urgent and impatient and abuzz.

  But this I'm sure of: it was three S-curves up the tumbling mountain, and then the Z. Was it so perfectly worked out that I saw the headlight hit the tree clumps around me, precisely when I turned the Z? Or was it really somewhere in the last S, approaching the Z? Or did I really have to wait in ambush, long before the throg and thump of valve and tire slap bent into the Z itself?

  At least I was there; I saw his rider shape come slithering out of the S below me - could hear that his gear was third - and saw the jerking headlight wash me a moon color and fix me forever to that spot on the road.

  Then, hearing the gears come down to first. Into the elbow of the Z - was he coming at me sideways? Was the headlight jogging along all by itself?

  'Frotting Graff!' he said, and the beast coughed itself out.

  'Oh, Siggy!' I said, and I could have kissed his shining helmet - only it wasn't his helmet. It was his bare dome, bald as the moon and bared for the night of his escape. Cold as a gun.

  'Frotting Graff!' he said, and he struggled to kick the bike out of gear. He lifted his foot for the kick starter.

  'Sig, they've a roadblock for you at St Leonhard!'

  'You've a roadblock in your brain,' he said. 'Let me go.'

  'Siggy, you can't drive out. You'll have to hide.'

  But he got his foot back again; I joggled him off balance so he needed both legs to hold the bike up.

  'Frotting Graff! Messing things up, you ninny-assed lover of that girl!'

  And he wrestled the bike up steady, kicked back with his starting foot. But I wouldn't let him.

  'Siggy, they're laying for you. You can't go.'

  'Have you a plan, Graff?' he said. 'I'd like to hear your plan, frotting Graff!'

  Why no, there wasn't any plan. Of course, there wasn't.

  But I said, 'You've got to stash the bike. Drive off in the orchards, lay low till the morning.'

  'Is that a plan?' he said. 'Is there any good plan coming from you, Graff? Until every maidenhead on earth is taken, will you ever have a worthwhile plan?'

  And he wrenched the handlebars out of my grip, but I pinned his legs against the bike and he couldn't kick.

  'Never a plan from you, frotting Graff! Never a scheme of any greatness from you - not while there are any young upright unfondled diddies left in the world!'

  And he shunted the bike around, jerking up on the handlebars, digging in with his heels. But I still had his starting foot trapped.

  'Small-minded, immediate Graff!' he roared. 'All the un-bounced boobies of the world are in your brain!'

  And he woggled the front wheel to point downhill. He started his beast rolling; I caught the vent-pocket of his duckjacket and ran close alongside.

  'Hysteria for hymen!' he shouted. 'You Graff, Graff you!'

  Oh, he was rare, he was gone by, all right. And the bike moved along now; he tried to find a gear, he was pulling in the clutch to jump-start his beast on the glide.

  'You'll always throw everything away, Graff,' he said, strangely gentle.

  And I couldn't keep up. I jockeyed on behind him, and the bike wobbled. I flung myself to his back, but he had folded up the foot pedals for the rear rider. He'd thoroughly planned this trip alone.

  I felt him find the gear with a chunk.

  But I did this: I leaned over his shoulder and dropped the heel of my hand on the kill button. The bike never caught. It made a muted, airy farting behind us, but the gear pull slowed us fast. I was slammed up against him, and he skipped over the gas tank astraddle, his knees wedging up under the handlebars; his feet came off his own foot pedals, and he couldn't reach back for the gears.

  And whatever gear we were in didn't hold. The old rampaging, momentum-bent beast slipped into neutral. We were wheeling free, the headlight jogging down the road in front of us; we floated engineless, coasting - the soft whir of gravel-mush sprayed out beside us: the whispering hum-slap of tires jounced us down. We weren't making a sound.

  Did even the bees
hear us coming?

  This S-curve and that one, blurring by faster than the night bolting alongside.

  'Move back on the seat!' said Siggy. 'I've got to get in gear.'

  But the pitch was too steep; my weight was fallen forward, on him, on the gas tank. And just when I tried to move, another S-curve was coming at us hard.

  'Shift, Graff!' he yelled. 'You can reach it, you ninny!'

  And he snapped in on the clutch handle; I dug my toes under the foreign little lever, but it wouldn't budge.

  The jostling headlight threw us pieces and juts of the broken road, a scare of tree clump and bottomless ditch - of cold, peaceful night sky and the shimmering angelic town, countless switchbacks below. Everything came at us on jagged mirror-sections set askew.

  Almost carelessly he said, 'Graff, you've got to work it.'

  My toes ground in pain, but the gear lever made a sudden, ratcheting sound; the engine blatted, cannonlike and horse-whinnying, and I felt myself pelting up Siggy's back, and clawing to get myself down. The front shocks hissed; the bike bent forward.

  Siggy's weight was too far front for good leaning: we lumbered heavily and wobbly round the top of an endless S, but we were slowing, a little.

  'That's second,' said Siggy. 'Find me first, slow us down.'

  The bottom of the S bent in front of us; the bike picked itself up and hopped the crown sideways, but we stayed with the road. We held, and Siggy said, 'First gear, Graff. Now first.' And my toes were digging again, prying the lever; I thought I could feel it begin to move. And Siggy said, 'Don't miss the gear, Graff. Get it all the way in, Graff.' And I thought: Almost now, it's almost over - we're coming clean out of this mad little ride. And we came shunting out of the S. I thought: That's it, it's all right, for sure.

  But what was Keff doing, just ahead? What were his tractor and bee-wagon doing there, broadside in the road?

  And didn't they look surprised? Keff holding the great steering wheel like a world slipping out of his grasp, and Gallen perched on the trailer end, steadying those third-tier bee boxes.

  Keff, the great listener, who of course hadn't heard the beginning of our engineless descent. And just what are you going to do, Keff, broadside and taking up all the life in the road?

  'Oh,' said Siggy, so softly it was either a whisper or a complaint spoken straight into the rush of the wind.