Sacrament

CHAPTER VI

Cornelius had spent the dregs of the afternoon with the Lauterbach brothers, and had a fine time of it, watching the wrestling flicks and smoking their weed. He'd left as darkness fell, intending to head back to the house for a couple of shots of vodka, but halfway along Main Street the prospect of dealing with Adrianna had loomed. He wasn't in the mood for apologies and justifications; they'd only bring him down. So instead of heading back he fished out the fat roach he'd connived from Gert, and wandered down towards the water to smoke it.

As he walked, weaving between the houses, the wind carried flecks of snow from across the Bay, grazing his face. He stopped beneath one of the lamps that illuminated the ground between the back of the houses and the water's edge and turned his face up to the light so as to watch the flakes spilling down. 'Pretty ...' he said to himself. So much prettier than bears. When he got back, he'd tell Will he should give up with animals and start photographing snowflakes instead. They were a lot more endangered, his gently befuddled wits decided. As soon as the sun came out they were gone, weren't they? All their perfection, melted away. It was tragic.

Will didn't get as far as the Lauterbach house. He'd trudged maybe a hundred yards down Main Street - the wind getting stronger with every gust, the snow it carried thickening - when he caught sight of Cornelius, reeling around, face to the sky. He was obviously high, which was no great surprise. It had always been Cornelius' way of dealing with life, and Will had far too many quirks of his own to be judgmental about it. But there was a time and a place for such excesses, and the Main Street of Balthazar in bear season was not one of them.

'Cornelius!' Will yelled. 'Cornelius? Can you hear me?'

The answer was apparently no. Cornelius just kept up his dervish dance under the lamp. Will started down the street in the man's direction, cursing him ripely as he went. He didn't waste his breath shouting, the wind was too strong, but part of the way down the street he regretted not doing so because without warning Cornelius gave up his spinning and slipped out of sight between the houses. Will picked up his pace, though he was tempted to head back to the house and arm himself before pursuing Cornelius any further. If he did so, however, he risked losing the man altogether, and to judge by his stumbling step Cornelius was in no fit state to be wandering alone in the dark. It wasn't so much the bears Will was concerned about, it was the Bay. Cornelius had headed in the direction of the shore. One slip on the icy rocks and he'd be in water so cold it would stop his heart.

He'd reached the spot where Cornelius had been dancing, and followed his tracks away from the comfort of the lamplight into the murky no-man's-land between the houses and the tidal flats. There he was pleased to discover Cornelius' phantom figure standing maybe fifty yards from him. He'd given up his spinning and his sky- watching, and he was standing stone-still, staring out towards the darkness of the shore.

'Hey, buddy!' Will called to him. 'You're going to get pneumonia.' Cornelius didn't turn. In fact he didn't move so much as a muscle. What kind of pills had he been popping?, Will wondered. 'Con!' he yelled again. He was no more than twenty yards from Cornelius' back. 'It's Will! Are you okay? Talk to me, man.' Finally, Cornelius spoke. One slurred word that stopped Will in his friend's tracks.

'Bear.'

There was a cloud of breath at Will's lips. He waited, as still as Cornelius, while the cloud cleared, then scanned the scene to the limit of his vision. First to the left. The shore was empty as far as he could see. Then to the right; the same.

He dared a one-word question.

'Where?'

'Ahead. Of. Me.' Cornelius replied.

Will took a very slow sideways step. Cornelius' drug-induced senses were not deceiving him. There was indeed a bear maybe sixteen or seventeen yards in front of him, its form barely visible to Will through the snow- flecked murk.

'Are you still there, Will?' Cornelius said.

'I'm here.'

'What the fuck do I do?'

'Back off. But, Con: very, very slowly.'

Cornelius glanced back over his shoulder, his stricken face suddenly sober.

'Don't look at me,' Will said. 'Keep your eyes on the animal.'

Cornelius looked back towards the bear, which had begun its implacable approach. This wasn't one of the playful adolescents from the dump; nor was it the blind old warrior Will had photographed. This was a fully grown female; a good six hundred pounds.

'Fuck...' Cornelius muttered.

'Just keep coming,' Will coaxed him. 'You're going to be okay. Just don't let her think you're anything worth chasing.'

Cornelius managed three tentative backward steps, but his equilibrium was poor after the dervish act, and on the fourth step his heel slid on the slick ground. He flailed for a moment, then recovered his balance, but the harm was done. Hissing her intentions, the bear gave up her plod and came bounding at him. Cornelius turned and ran, the bear roaring in pursuit, her body a blur. Weaponless, all Will could do was dodge out of Cornelius' path and yell himself hoarse in the hope of distracting the animal. But it was Cornelius she wanted. In two bounds she'd halved the distance between them, jaws wide in readiness

'Get down!'

Will threw a glance back in the direction of the voice and there, God save her, was Adrianna, rifle raised.

'Con!' she yelled. 'Get your fucking head down!'

He got the message, and flung himself to the frozen dirt, with the bear a body's length from his heels. Adrianna fired, and hit the animal's shoulder, checking her before she could catch up with her quarry. The animal rose up with an agonized roar, blood staining her fur. Cornelius was still within swatting distance, however, if she chose to take him out. Ducking to make himself as small a target as possible, Will scrambled towards him, and, grabbing his trembling torso, hauled him out of the bear's path. There was a sharp stink of shit off him.

He looked back at the bear. She wasn't finished; nowhere near. Roaring so loudly that the ground shook, she started towards Adrianna, who leveled her rifle and fired a second time, at no more than ten yards' range. The animal's roar ceased on the instant, and again she rose up, white and red and vast, teetering for a moment. Then she reeled back like a breaking wave, and limped away into the darkness.

The entire encounter - from the moment Cornelius had named his nemesis - had perhaps lasted a minute, but it was long enough for a kind of delirium to have taken hold of Will. He got to his feet, the snowflakes spiraling around him like giddy stars, and went to the place where the bear's blood had splashed on the ice.

'Are you all right?' Adrianna asked him.

'Yes,' he said.

It was only half the truth. He wasn't hurt, but he wasn't whole either. He felt as though some part of him had been torn out by what he'd just witnessed, and had fled into the darkness in pursuit of the bear. He had to go after it.

'Wait!' Adrianna yelled.

He looked back at her, trying his best to block out Cornelius' sobbing apologies, and the shouts of people on Main Street as they came sniffing after the bloodshed. Adrianna was staring straight at him, and he knew she was reading the thoughts on his face.

'Don't be a fuck-wit, Will,' she said.

'No choice.'

'Then at least take the rifle.'

He looked at it as though it had just pumped its bullets into him. 'I don't need it,' he said.

'Will-'

He turned his back on her, on the lights, on the people and their asinine questions. Then he loped off towards the shoreline, following the red trail the bear had left behind her.