Free Bearwalker by Joseph Bruchac Page A

that? Was it just this morning when she hugged me good-bye and I walked out the door of her trailer and heard its rattly aluminum door bang shut? Right now it feels as if it were weeks ago, or even in another lifetime. So much has happened in only eleven hours.
    But I am feeling very glad right now that she said those words, which were accompanied by her handing me a big plastic bag from the Double Discount Store. It held six flashlights of varying shapes and sizes and the batteries to go with them. One of them, a mini Maglite, has a band with a Velcro strip so I can put it around my forehead like a miner’s light. That small lightis in my left coat pocket, its weight balanced against the two cigarette-lighter-sized disposable flashlights in my right pocket. Two others, both medium-sized ones, are in my hip pockets. The black one is just a flashlight, but the red one has a laser pointer and a panic alarm in it.
    The last and biggest of my six flashlights, which is eighteen inches long and as heavy as a club, is in my right hand. It has some kind of high-intensity bulb in it. When I turned it on as I stepped out of the meeting hall, it shot out a beam like a searchlight as I pointed it toward the cloudy sky.
    â€œWhoa, Baron,” Mr. Wilbur said. “Turn that off, buddy. If those clouds weren’t up there you’d be blinding the astronauts in the international space station.”
    So I turned it off.
    â€œIf you turn your flashlight on while we are around the campfire, it will be confiscated,” Mr. Mack had then announced, smiling all the time. And he had kept smiling as, one after another, he had taken away the flashlights that had been flicked on by various campers who were either forgetful or testing the boundaries. Each flashlight had gone into the canvas bag behind the log where Mr. Mack sat. Finally, by my estimation, Iwas the only kid left with a flashlight. I could feel Mr. Mack just waiting to swoop down on me. No way. I was not about to have my light taken away, even if it did have to remain turned off.

    But I’m glad to have the solid feel of it in my hand, especially since the only visible illumination here is the campfire. The last light pole of the camp is back at the trailhead, which is around a little hill that cuts off the fire circle from sight of the buildings of Camp Chuckamuck.
    I’d feel better if my club flashlight were a gun of some kind. Preferably loaded with silver bullets. But the only gun in the whole of Camp Chuckamuck is Mr. Osgood’s old .22, and it’s not even here now because he took it with him.
    Mr. Philo has finished telling the story he was asked to share to start out the campfire gathering. I’ve been listening pretty close to it because it is one of my favorites and the very one I mentioned earlier. It’s the Mohawk tale of the boy who lived with the bears. The boy’s parents had died and the only one left to care for him was his uncle. But his uncle had a twisted mind and resented having to care for the boy. So he took him deep into the forest, tricked himinto crawling into a cave, wedged a stone into its mouth to trap him there, and then left. The animals of the forest rescued the boy, and because he was an orphan they offered to adopt him and allowed him to choose which animal family he would join. He chose the bears.
    Mr. Philo’s voice isn’t the voice of an old man. It’s rich and deep, and he tells the story so well that I forget there’s anyone telling it. It’s as if the story is just happening around me, as if I’m that boy safe in the security of the mother bear’s protective presence. It makes me remember what it was like when my family was strong and whole, when both my mom and my dad were there with their arms around me.
    I’m so close to the fire that it seems as if sweat is getting into my eyes, rolling down my cheeks. I wipe my face on my sleeve. I don’t want anyone to think that