Speaking of Contracts....

With a Quaker parrot the house, one becomes accustomed to odd noises. So when I heard an unusual sound, I looked around, saw Marley up to her usual antics and thought nothing more of it. Until I went into the garage to put something in the trash.

Someone had left the door open. The hard plastic container lay on its side, contents strewn across the floor. I won't mention what I said, but when I found the neatly punctured hole in the lid it was obvious how this had happened, and my next utterance was one of amazement. It could only have been a bear.

Then I looked around and found four or five 50-pound bags of grain for the alpacas ripped down the sides, contents spilling out like so many alluvial fans, virtual horns of plenty for those this might appeal to--except it did not appear to appeal to bears. But the extent of the damage was such that, given the relatively short time since the door had been left open, there must have been at least two, possibly more. I'm no expert on bears, but this shouted a female with cubs,

The Summer of 2002 was a particularly dry one in Colorado, with natural food sources for most wildlife stretched past the breaking point. It was so dry, more than 100,000 acres had burned in a single fire earlier that year, and there were other fires as well. It was so dry that I had taught two hummingbirds to drink from the cascade falling from the garden house when I noticed them hanging around as I sprayed the alpacas. The hummingbirds had migrated by this time, but bears don't have that option: they must build up fat reserves to live upon as they pass the winter in a secluded den, sleeping away much of the colder months, waking in spring when new life returns to the mountains.

So after I picked up the trash I used a piece of cardboard to scoop the grain back into the bags, or into plastic trash bags where the original was destroyed. I do not practice any particular religion, yet as I worked I tried to bear in mind a piece I had written for the newspaper some years earlier. It had come to me as I grew increasingly irritated about how difficult it was to remove the encircling bindweed stems from those of strawberries without ripping the berry plants out of the ground. I had concluded that we all have contracts with our Creator, whatever that may have been, and how inappropriate it is to judge harshly another creature who may inconvenience us the course of fulfilling that contract.

So I sent forth my good wishes and hopes for the bears' future and went back into the house.

*

A couple of days later, around midnight, the guard dog began to raise a fuss. He was most insistent, and there was a slightly different note to his barking than usual. It was not unusual for an unruly neighbor's horses to come to call in hopes of getting into the hay or alfalfa, or for a hundred or more elk to pass through, but a glance out the window showed no elk, and the motion sensor light nearest the hay was not on. Yet the dog continued.

I got dressed and went outside. First I walked over and chucked a couple of pretty good-sized rocks into the woods. This was usually enough to spook the horses. There was no sound besides the dog, but now I was close enough to see his attention was focused on something inside the pen. The alpacas were safely shut in for the night, but I could imagine they were uneasy at least. Gripping the handle of the flashlight in my left hand, I opened then latched the gate behind me. First I picked up a hay fork, but thought better of it as I considered how an animal of any sort becomes twice as dangerous when wounded. I put the fork back and grabbed a heavy shovel.

The dog barely looked around as I patted him and stroked his head, and continued to protest. Now I could see why. Three dim shapes were visible in the light of a sliver of moon, one larger than the others. "Great," I muttered, as I approached and saw the dog food box, the alpaca pellet box and the metal trash can that held 50 pounds of grain, all overturned. Then she saw me, and rushed forward.

Now the only time I'd ever been up close and personal with a bear before this had been when a large one crawled up on the back of my brother's Honda Civic at a wildlife park in South Dakota, but this time there was nothing between us. I didn't really want to run from her. So I backed up, slowly. She kept coming.

Reaching the gate between the girls' and boys' sides of the pen, I knew there was a large, flattish rock sticking up an inch or so out of the ground and decided to retreat no further: pretty much the last thing I wanted was to fall over backward with a bear in front of me and an Akbash behind! When I stopped, she stopped.

She was only about half the size of the dog, but armed with both claws and teeth and guided by a maternal instinct, I knew her size was no indication of how formidable she might be. I knew that the best defense against a bear is to hit them square in the nose, but she was a little to my left, and with the shovel in my right hand, that was not possible. So I spoke to her as quietly and calmly as I could, telling her I did not want to hurt her and that since her babies had gone up a fence post into a tree, there was no danger, she could leave. Especially since the tree her babies were in only overhung the pen. As I spoke she kept up a sort of moaning sound; I tapped, not struck her on the side of the jaw with the shovel..

I have no clear idea how long this went on. I don't recall whether the dog continued to bark. But eventually, she seemed to reach a decision. She stood on her hind legs. I remember thinking, "This is it," and raised the shovel like a baseball bat. I don't know if this made me look bigger or if she could see I was bigger anyway, but suddenly, she dropped to all fours, turned and soon swarmed up the same fence post into the tree.

Well, of course the dog charged after her. He stood, forepaws as high on the post as he could get, barking, barking, barking. In the light of the flashlight I could see them all climbing higher. Had they realized it, they could have come out of the tree and gone their merry way. But their Creator taught them nothing of fences, of man-made boundaries, so as long as there was a threat, they would stay in the tree. And as long as they stayed in the tree, the dog would bark. Catch-22.

I dragged the dog over to the girl's side and secured the gate. Shortly thereafter, seeming to think the threat lessened, they began to come down. That is, until this 80-pound dog either forced his way through the gap or climbed over the gate. They retreated. So I took him back to the girl's side and put him behind a corral panel and once again secured the gate. Once again, they started down, and once again he drove them back up. Finally, I put him in the shed where he slept, and threw my wight against the door. At double his weight, this proved effective.

Struggling, I suppose, with the warring desires for safety and for food, the bears finally came down. One by one, four (there was a third cub I had not noticed) dark shapes came out f the tree and crunched through the fallen scrub oak leaves and pine needles into the shadows.

I let the dog out, and he ran back and forth, sniffing and barking while I attempted to clean up. Having done the best I could, but fearful they might come back, I crawled into the dog's shed and tried to relax. But the dog kept barking, they did not come back (hardly a surprise) and when it began to snow I decided to go back to bed.

When they came back, I did not waken as they ripped the shed door off, dragging out and dumped everything I had restored. The saddest part of this tale is that aside from the garbage in the garage, nothing they found in their visits was the least bit like bear food, and it would not surprise me if some of those cubs did not survive their first winter.

This can be a harsh world, at times and not all dreams come to fruition, a bear's dream of a full belly and a quiet hibernation, an alpaca rancher's dream of more female crias than males. Sometimes one person's, one creature's dreams conflict with another's. Yet we are all bound by the same agreement, that contract we never signed but cannot escape. The bears have no choice: they know what they know, and deal with situation as their contract directs. We, on the other hand, have options, at least sometimes. I could have ignored the hummingbirds, so desperate for water they came close enough I could have grabbed them. I could have attacked the bear, instead of trying to reason with her. Each of us must, or should, I think, try to discover the wording of our contracts. I cannot be certain, of course, but I believe mine calls for tolerance of others, for an attempt to understand before I act, that I try to make sense of and tell the stories I encounter. I am certain it requires me to take the path with heart.