Bear of Bad News

New Prompt:

Write a story or poem involving a neighborly dispute. Bold these words so the judge can find them easily: pet, surveillance, frisky, boundary. Remember your word/line counts!

Bear of Bad News

         Stephan stood over the dead bear with the last of the gun smoke rising from his 12 gauge shotgun. He couldn’t believe that not only had he stumbled onto the path of a live black bear in South Texas, but also witnessed the most frightening thing he had ever seen in his 29 years. He awkwardly worded a prayer to God, thankful for the buck-shot shells in his jacket from last year. Today he had been hunting pheasant and there was no reason to have the buck shot.

         The bear approached Stephan from his neighbor’s twelve foot fence marking the boundary between their two lands. John Walter, his ruthless and extremely wealthy neighbor, had a menagerie of exotic wild game. Mr. Walter was an expert game tracker and had made a name for himself in the wilds of Africa hunting lions. He owns nearly twelve thousand acres that he practically stole from the poorest farmers in the county. Every hunter in George West had seen the ads in the paper promoting his guided hunt for animals from around the world.

         The cool morning breeze had almost completely transitioned to the infamous Texas summer heat, causing sweat to bead up under Stephan’s cowboy hat and on the small of his back. Stephan stood in the narrow path trying to gain control over his racing heart. As he watched the large black bear stare into oblivion, he remembered an absurd rumor that Betty Smith had told him outside the grocery store. She had said that Mr. Walter trains his Mexican vaqueros to track his stock of wild animals. She also speculated that the reason they are so well trained is Mr. Walter sends them out into the surrounding land secretly capturing and collecting wild game for his ranch. If anyone in this little farm to market community would know, she would. As the town gossip and acclaimed rumor-mill, she has nothing better to do than formulate and regurgitate her wildly ingenious conspiracy theories. At the age of 85 she is, as folks say in George West, “crazier than a shit-house rat.”

         Stephan walked toward the dead bear giving it as wide of a berth as possible in the thorn covered scrub brush. He imagined it springing to life to finish what it had started. He followed the tracks of the bear back to the point where he first laid eyes on it. The tracks led an additional sixty yards south near the edge of the clearing that began Stephan’s paltry three hundred acres. Near the game fence he found a ravaged mesquite tree that the bear had used as a scratching post. Judging from the damage to the fence, the bear had been living on this section for weeks. Little tufts of hair and broken branches surrounded the ground on the Walter’s property line. Stephan was struck with a nauseating feeling that the little dead blob of hair lying in the dirt was going stir up a shit storm.

         Everyone that subscribed to the George West Weekly had read the story of Lil Bill Polzin. Late one night, Lil Bill had snuck into the Exotics Unlimited property and was caught poaching a Red Stag elk. He was arrested, and thanks to the Walter’s high-priced litigation team, served four years work release in Walter’s stable shoveling horse shit. Stephan had to find a way to get out of this mess. He knew he had to think fast because Walter’s Vaqueros would be out on their daily surveillance check of the fence line and would have heard his gun. Pacing around the bear he chewed nervously at his finger nails. He decided to make a phone call to his brother.

         Caleb worked for the Texas Department of Game wardens. The Game warden is the law out in the sticks. His brother, after only three years of service, was given the lead on the Polzin investigation. Stephan waited anxiously for the phone to ring six times before Caleb answered. Still scared out of his mind he was talking so fast that three separate times Caleb forced him to stop and breathe. Stephan explained that he had been hunting pheasants and that a bear had come out of the brush running full trot at him. He said he was terrified. But the weirdest part was when the bear got close it began to act strange. The bear stopped forty feet away, completed a forward summersault followed by a seamless transition into one-legged balancing stance. It began to hop on one leg and headed directly toward Stephan. Stephan said that while the bear was hopping towards him, he had time to think and he loaded the buck-shot into his shotgun. Next the bear paused twenty feet away and lowered his leg. The bear raised both its front claws high in the air and bellowed the loudest roar Stephan had ever heard. Scared out of his mind, Stephan immediately opened fire and emptied all three shells into the beast dropping it.

         Before Stephan could ask for help, Caleb began to laugh uncontrollably. The few words he squeezed out between sobs and gasps were unintelligible. Stephan tried his best to decipher the bits and pieces of the gibberish, but he couldn’t make out a complete thought. Caleb was laughing so hard he was crying and he dropped the phone as he fell off his chair. Stephan was immediately thrown into a rage only those with an older brother can appreciate. After what was the most obnoxious 20 minutes Stephan ever had to endure, Caleb was able to control himself enough to tell Stephan that the bear was Walter’s pet. Walter had rescued it from a traveling circus in Africa. Frisky’s grand finally was to complete a summersault, and a one legged hop followed by an ear shattering roar. Stephan soon realized he would rather shovel horse shit than listen to his brother tell this story at every family reunion for the rest of his life. Definitely a life sentence.





Word Count 1000