Free The Bear Went Over the Mountain by William Kotzwinkle

don’t have to worry about.”
    Pinette took the jug and poured some of the grease on his finger and rubbed it into his boot. “The very best substance there is for turning water. Try ’er, Art.”
    Bramhall dipped a finger in the thick grease and rubbed it into his own boots, over the toes and into the seams. The smell filled the shack now and was somehow familiar to him, as if he’d known it for years.
    Gummersong put the lid back on the bear grease bottle and held it up to a shaft of sunlight that came through his tiny window. Then he turned to Bramhall. “Here, you take ’er.”
    “I couldn’t do that,” said Bramhall, reluctant to reduce the few possessions of this hermit.
    “You take ’er,” chimed in Pinette. “There’s all kinds of uses for bear grease.”
    Bramhall accepted the bear grease, cradling the jug in his lap. “Thank you, Gus.”
    “Don’t mention it. Jug was taking up valuable space.”
    “As I was saying,” said Pinette, “we’re gathering stories for our book.”
    “Any money in the job?” Gummersong leaned forward keenly.
    “Down the road,” said Pinette.
    Gummersong reached for the stick with which he speared empty cans and bottles. “It’s al’uz down the road, ain’t it.”
    “What I’m thinking,” resumed Pinette, “is that we should write us a love story.”
    “In that case,” said Gummersong, “you come to more or less an expert.”
    Pinette’s bushy eyebrows went up and down several times expectantly, and he glanced at Bramhall to be sure he was paying attention.
    “The love of my life,” said Gummersong, “was a woman who bred guard dogs.” He sighed and cradled his stick dejectedly. “She were easy on the eyes for a woman her age, and she set out a good feed for a man. But after awhile I noticed she took a few drops of something in her tea each night. I asked her what ’twas and she says arsenic. Claimed it settled her nerves, which it very well may have done, I never tried it meself.”
    “You told me,” said Pinette, “it lent an air of tranquillity to the evenings.”
    “Well, it did,” said Gummersong. “But she carried it too far. Started taking drops all day long and stiffened up at the dinner table one night. Knife in one hand, fork in the other. Couldn’t move a muscle for over an hour. I told her the arsenic was having an adverse effect on her, and that she’d have to give it up. She knew better’n me, of course.”
    “Strong-willed,” nodded Pinette.
    “She had to be, in her line of work,” said Gummersong. “Them guard dogs was mean sons-of-bitches.Anyway, she said she had a nice income, and who was a damn fool man to tell her what to put in her tea?” Gummersong tapped the end of his stick thoughtfully on the rough board floor of the shack before resuming. “Well, a week later I found her facedown in the dog pen, and her nerves was more’n settled, she was croaked.”
    “Then Gus made his big mistake,” said Pinette. “Any one of us mighta done the same.”
    “I lit out,” said Gus, “and never asked myself what them dogs were gonna do when they got hungry. Course they et her.”
    “A hungry dog ain’t particular,” said Pinette.
    “But they wasn’t used to arsenic in their feed, and they keeled over dead themselves.”
    “When Gus come back here, the police wasn’t far behind him.”
    “Said I’d poisoned her.”
    “Got into the papers and all,” said Pinette admiringly. “ ’Tain’t every day a woman gets et by her dogs, with her boyfriend implicated.”
    “It took all the money I had to get clear of that case,” said Gus. “Had to sell the farm. Even so, my reputation was tarnished.”
    “Well, you didn’t have much of a reputation to begin with.”
    “True enough,” said Gummersong. “Well, sir, whenall was said and done and the judge was bribed, I come out of it with barely the shirt on my back. I thrashed about for awhile, till I found my present line of work.” Gummersong raised his stick