Samantha and the Bear

By Jay Greenstein

Samantha Hanover has survived a brutal winter on the North Dakota Plain. Now, with spring in the air, she hopes to put her past behind her—until she meets Rob Reiker, a cowboy surgeon, who somehow triggers a connection between Samantha and Teal-Eye, a woman of times long past.

Teal-Eye, is in trouble. She is far from her home and her people, forever the outsider among the High Mountain Clan, forever lonely. Now, her one chance at happiness, marrying the man she calls Bear, is about to be taken from her, unless she can help Samantha escape from those who would kill her.

Together, Samantha and Teal-Eye, though separated by the immensity of time, must unravel a problem as old as humanity, one of childhood and maturity, one involving a chain of frightened woman reaching from the far distant past into our present.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Jay Greenstein
• Release date: Jul 15, 2011
• ISBN: 9781465884602

Jay Greenstein

I'm a storyteller. My skills at writing are subject to opinion, my punctuation has been called interesting, at best—but I am a storyteller. I am, of course, many other things. In seven decades of living, there are great numbers of things that have attracted my attention. I am, for example, an electrician. I can also design, build, and install a range of things from stairs and railings to flooring, and tile backsplashes. I can even giftwrap a box from the inside, so to speak, by wallpapering the house. I'm an engineer, one who has designed computers and computer systems; one of which—during the bad old days of the cold war—flew in the plane designated as the American President's Airborne Command Post: The Doomsday Jet. I've spent seven years as the chief-engineer of a company that built bar-code readers. I spent thirteen of the most enjoyable years of my life as a scoutmaster, and three, nearly as good, as a cubmaster. I joined the Air Force to learn jet engine mechanics, but ended up working in broadcast and closed circuit television, serving in such unlikely locations as the War Room of the Strategic Air Command, and a television station on the island of Okinawa. I have been involved in sports car racing, scuba diving, sailing, and anything else that sounded like fun. I can fix most things that break, sew a fairly neat seam, and have raised three pretty nice kids, all of who are smarter and prettier than I am—more talented, too, thanks to the genes my wife kindly provided. Once, while camping with a group of cubs and their families, one of the dads announced, "You guys better make up crosses to keep the Purple Bishop away." When I asked for more information, the man shrugged and said, "I don't really know much about the story. It's some kind of a local thing that was mentioned on my last camping trip." Intrigued, I wondered if I could come up with something to go with his comment about the crosses; something to provide a gentle terror-of-the-night to entertain the boys. The result was a virtual forest of crosses outside the boys' tents. That was the event that switched on something within me that, now, more than twenty-five years later, I can't seem to switch off. Stories came and came… so easily it was sometimes frightening. Stories so frightening that one boy swore he watched my eyes begin to glow with a dim red light as I told them (it was the campfire reflecting from my ...

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March 11

It was the kind of cold that bit at her face like tiny rodent teeth—so intense that the moisture in her nostrils froze each time she inhaled.

As the night deepened Samantha worked her way deeper and deeper into the blankets. But now, there was no place left to go. She woke to find herself huddled into a heat-conserving ball, shivering.

The breeze huffing around the building at dusk was now the angry hiss of wind overlaid with ice crystals. The cold inside the cabin, unbearable at dusk, was now beyond anything she could have imagined, even wrapped in layers of bedding.

Until tonight, spending her time bundled up in layer after layer of clothing was an annoyance. Now, it was a matter of survival, and there was nothing left to add. As she gathered her courage to leave the bedding discomfort curdled into fear.

The van? The road was impassible, but its heater would still provide warmth, at least till daylight made a try to reach help possible.

But she had no confidence in its ancient battery, and if the engine didn’t start there was little chance of surviving the trip back to the house.

Bracing herself, she pulled the covers from her face, opening her eyes to near darkness. The lantern had gone out, so the only light came from the burners of the stove, their flames reduced to half their normal length by the chilled propane in the tank behind the house. A glance at the windows showed drifted snow covering half the glass. Sometime during the night, a storm-front must have passed through, bringing new snow and arctic cold.

With an effort, she slid from her bedding, wrapped it around her, and shuffled her way to the stove, to warm her hands enough to change the tank on the lantern. As she waited for dexterity to return she shook her head in frustration. Unlike her Chicago apartment, this house had no functioning heater, which raised the question: How can anyone live in such a house? And why had the man not mentioned the problem when he handed her the key? The answer was that he probably didn’t know. And as far as survival without a heater, it appeared that the answer was that you can’t, not this close to North Dakota’s Canadian border, during a late winter storm such as this one.

Stupid to have thought that sleeping in the kitchen, with the stove as a heater, would substitute. Its two small burners had helped only a little—now not at all. There was too much house and too little flame to make much of a difference, even with the doorway blocked with a sheet to reduce air movement.

Stupid, Samantha, really stupid.

But that was self-pity speaking and she rejected it. As late as yesterday afternoon the cold in the house was annoying, but bearable, as it had been in the week since moving in. Better to focus on how to live through this than whine about what she might have done.

There wasn’t enough light to read the thermometer mounted outside the window. It didn’t matter, though. It was cold enough to kill. Nearly fifteen below when she crawled into the blankets, it must be well beyond that, now.

Ten minutes later she was trying to hold back tears. The new gas cylinder was in place, but the cold was so great that the lantern refused to light. Back at the stove once more she huddled as close to the burners as possible without setting the blanket alight, listening to the wind and assessing her chance of survival.

Not good. Definitely not good. There was little feeling in her feet, so unless she found a way to warm them she’d soon be unable to stand. And if she fell and couldn’t get up she’d die. That was a given. At a guess, there was, maybe a half-hour before that occurred.

If I could curl up in a frying pan like a strip of bacon that would be heaven.

She blinked then, as something tickled at her cold-fogged brain. It was a stupid idea—a desperate solution to a problem that had no solution.

But, if it works...

Praying she wasn’t simply hurrying her death, she extinguished the second burner, for safety. Then, on legs that were numb, and as responsive as stilts, she hobbled to the table for a chair, one with arms that would support her in sleep.

It took much of her remaining strength to lift the chair to the countertop and place it over the stove’s burner area. Most of the rest she spent wrapping aluminum foil around the periphery of the chair’s legs to keep her blankets from the flame.

Dragging a second chair to use as a step-stool was a task she could never quite recall. But in the end, she sat enthroned, high over the kitchen floor, eyes and nose the only thing uncovered, the burner beneath her set to low, and warming the compartment formed by her tented bedding.

It took nearly fifteen minutes, but it finally came: first the jangling pain that heralded a resumption of feeling in fingers and toes, then blessed, life-restoring heat. Not just warmth, but true heat, spreading through her like a balm, thawing her bones and restoring her soul.

It was an uncomfortable place to sit and a worse place to sleep, but she didn’t care, she was warm, and nothing else mattered. Slowly, her chattering jaw unclenched, and slowly the shivering of her body subsided. Slowly, she came back to life.

Just before she drifted off to sleep she imagined a snow sprite peering through the window, its whiskers quivering in surprise to see the queen of winter holding court in a frozen North Dakota kitchen. The thought pleased. I may look like an idiot, Mr. Sprite, but I won for a change. This time I won!

° ° ° °

May 19

Don’t forget the newspaper, Miss Hanover.

I won’t, Samantha called as she scanned the selection of canned goods. One of the advantages of living in a small town, and shopping in its even smaller grocery store, was that it was hard to forget an item once the shopkeeper learned your habits. The disadvantage was that the choice of brands was limited, especially to someone used to the supermarkets of the big city.

She turned to look longingly at the battered old frozen food box, nestled against the wall and humming noisily to itself. The idea that she’d never thought of frozen, or even refrigerated food, as a luxury before living in a house without electrical power brought a smile.

But longing changed nothing, so with a sigh for what couldn’t be, and a shrug for what was, she turned her attention back to the canned-goods rack, made her selection, and put them in her basket before turning to the rack of reading materials.

Are you expecting any new books? she asked, hopefully, frowning at titles she’d rejected on previous visits.

Repeating his promise of previous weeks, he said, Any day now, Miss Hanover. Any day now.

Another disadvantage of small-town life.

The idea that she might think of Solomons Choice as a small town brought a smile. It could hardly be called a town, since it consisted of nothing more than a gas station, a general store that doubled as a post office, a restaurant, a bar, and a dilapidated feed store. All were tiredly gathered around the tongue of dust-covered asphalt that formed a tee with the passing highway. At the end of the paving, a dirt road took over, and began its bumpy branching path, bisecting the valley and connecting the local ranches to the outside world.

Lifting her basket onto the counter, she began to empty it in front of the adding machine that served in place of a cash register.

Charge me for a paper, Henry, and I’ll pick it up on the way out.

Must be lonely out there at night, with no one to talk to, the storekeeper ventured, as he prepared to total her order.

Not so much now, with full dark coming close to nine, but during the winter it certainly was.

Cold out there, too.

Still is, at night. What was he leading up to?

Uh-huh. Should have a man to talk to—a pretty woman like yourself.

Why, Henry, she said, with a smile. Are you asking me to marry you?

Henry Johanson was nearly eighty years old, and behaved with an old-fashioned formality that often brought a hidden smile. His style of dress was decades out of date, as was the neatly trimmed white mustache, little more than a pencil line thick. A suggestion, on her part, that he was offering anything more than friendship to an unmarried woman would probably have shocked him.

He didn’t return her smile, however. Instead, he pointed toward the door, as he said, I might surprise you and say yes, were you serious, but you’d do better with someone a bit younger, like Rob Reiker, there.

Turning to follow his pointed finger, she peered through the dusty shop window. A man was striding toward the front door of the store, a big man. Although his hat brim placed his face in shadow, he had the look of someone to whom one did not say no—a frightening man, one who reminded her of the past. Behind and above him rose the mountains that served to lock Solomons Choice away from the rest of North Dakota. It seemed a fitting backdrop for such a man.

Then, something about the shape of the mountain, and the way the man in the window fit into the landscape struck a chord within her. A feeling of impending danger caused a chill to run through her, as she whispered, The Bear. He’s here for me.

What brought such an absurd thought was unknown, but before she could think about that, the door opened and the man came into the shop, only to stop abruptly, as if surprised to see her there.

She wanted to turn and run—needed to do so almost more than she needed to breathe. Meeting a man, especially one who reminded her so strongly of the past, was something she did not want to do. She tried, desperately, to move, but no longer had control of her body. She could only stare, held rigidly immobile by her own body’s refusal to respond, a doe captured by the headlights of a truck.

A bolt of unreasoning fear shot through her as his dark eyes studied her, pinning her in place as surely as though his gaze had physical substance. His lips were pursed in thought, as if he was having difficulty deciding how he’d begin his attack.

Somewhere in the back of her mind, she fought a desperate battle to escape this strange paralysis. He was a man, only a man, dressed in faded and dusty jeans. Her argument melted, however, in the face of his continuing domination of her mind and body. His face, visible now in the artificial lighting of the store, should not have frightened her, but it did. It frightened her terribly, and the words, The Bear, echoed over and over in her head.

They might have stood looking at each other for hours or it might have been seconds. She only knew that after an endless time, a time of certainty that she was about to die, he moved, and a voice—not her voice, but that of another, equally terrified woman—cried out in her head.

Help me! Please help me!

Then, there was darkness.

° ° ° °

Chapter 2

Samantha woke to find a strange man bending over her, frowning. A momentary flash of terror brought the beginnings of a scream, as the thought that she was back in Chicago flickered through her mind. Then, she was in Solomons Choice, and all that had happened returned with a rush, strangely, without the fear that had caused her to slump to the floor. The man’s face, which caused such unreasoning dread only moments before, was just a face. A pleasant face were it not showing concern. Even his eyes, which had seemed to bore into her very soul, were now no more than a pair of brown eyes—a man’s, not those of a bear. They were actually fairly nice-looking eyes.

Are you all right? His voice was a comfortable baritone. About to respond she realized that he was holding her hand, fingertips lightly pressing her wrist and taking her pulse. Before she answered, his eyes flicked to his watch. He nodded, then turned his attention back to her.

Angry at herself, she pulled her hand free and struggled to her feet, ignoring his attempt to assist, embarrassed to have looked so foolish.

I’m all right. For a moment, she had to steady herself against the edge of the counter, but then she straightened, a trifle dizzy. That was fading, rapidly though, so she assumed that what happened was, in some way, a flashback triggered by the similarity in size and build of the man before her to those who’d invaded her mother’s house.

As she gathered her wits she glanced toward Henry, still behind the counter, a look of concern on his face. She tried to turn to him, to say something reassuring, but that proved impossible. She was held in place by gentle but immovable fingers, their callused tips cradling her chin and shoulder.

The man seemed unaware she’d even attempted the motion, and peered into her eyes as though seeking some abnormal dilation of her pupils.

Have you had something like this happen before?

No! Never.

And you’re not...pregnant?

About to make a sharp reply, she stopped. Obviously, the remark was made out of concern, not curiosity.

No. Are you a doctor?

He dropped his hand.

Well, I guess it might have been caused by something inconsequential like skipping breakfast, or not drinking enough liquids, but I’d get myself checked out, were I you. Certainly, if anything like this happens again, I wouldn’t ignore it.

He started to turn away. Then, as though remembering his manners, turned back and said, I’m Rob Reiker, by the way.

Samantha Hanover, she said, after a moment.

I know. We’re sort of neighbors. I’ve seen you exploring out by Dead-End canyon, and asked around. You’re living in the old Z-Bar ranch house, aren’t you?

For the next few months. For the past four months, she kept to herself as much as possible, as she tried to bring her life back into focus. The writing helped, but it had been a lonely time. Now, she wondered exactly what he’d been asking, and of whom. Other than Henry and Nelson Bobblet, the man who ran the gas station, there were few people in the area that she knew by name. Thinking about it, though, that was reason enough for backcountry gossip.

He thought about her words. Mmm.... Well if you’re going to be out there for a while, I live on the other side of the development, at the opening into White Horse canyon. If you ever need help, or someone other than the coyotes to talk to, just follow the cut-off with the Lazy Eight sign. It’s about a mile from your place if you short-cut through the development—a half-mile more if you follow the road.

The development he mentioned was one of many retirement communities that had been sold, primarily by mail, at the end of the last century. The brochures extolled the benefits of rural living. They failed to mention that you were buying a tiny and undeveloped lot on North Dakota, land suitable only for grazing cattle. There was no running water, no power, no sewers and, it turned out, no one willing to live there.

With a noncommittal, Thank you, for the offer of help, she turned to the counter and motioned for Henry to finish with her order. In the corner of her eye, Reiker shrugged, and thankfully, made no further attempt to continue the conversation.

As usual, Henry would not hear of her helping to bag the groceries. Also, as usual, he took an unending time about his business. So much time that though there was no return of the feeling which gripped her earlier, she was on the verge of running from the store by the time the old man bagged the last item. Thanking him, she clutched the bags to her, refusing Reiker’s offer to help, and all but ran from the store.

Outside, the bright sunlight struck like a blow, and she wished she’d remembered to put on her sunglasses. After living in the area for months the sheer intensity of light still surprised, each time she ventured out.

With shaking fingers she opened the van’s passenger door and placed the shopping bags between the seats, where she could reach over and steady them as she drove the bumpy access road to the ranch house. Then, with a deliberate effort of will, she walked to the driver’s door as though the events in the store weren’t still echoing through her being.

She had to slam the driver’s door three times before the balky door-latch caught. In Chicago, the thing would probably have rusted itself into a pile of scrap long ago, but here, in nearly desert-dry air, it had somehow survived an endless succession of owners, and now was the best she could afford, given her lack of income. For the same money she might have purchased something a little more comfortable, but the high ground clearance of a van, or some other similar vehicle, was a necessity, given the condition of the road that led to the ranch. Still, as usual, the engine caught on the first turn of the starter. She waited a moment before starting out, replaying the past few minutes, seeking sense and reasonability. There was none. A trick of the mountain view, one that triggered an especially intense fantasy, then? Unlikely. Nor had she skipped meals or allowed herself to become dehydrated.

Probably, she decided, as she put the van in gear, it was a flashback of some sort, to what had happened at her mother’s house—nothing more than a reminder from her subconscious that she couldn’t let down her guard for an instant. Still, the voice asking for help had been real, or seemed so. And the feeling of dread was centered, not on what was happening to her, but on the fear felt by the owner of the voice—the woman who was terrified of the bear.

As she drove past the store, she glanced toward its window. He was watching.

° ° °

That is one fine-looking woman, Rob. What do you suppose made her faint that way?

The van passed over the hilltop and was gone, so he turned back to the counter.

I’m sorry, Henry. Did you say something?

I said she’s a fine-looking woman.

Uh-huh.... What do you suppose caused her to faint that way? Has she ever done it before, or acted strangely while she was in the store?

Not that I can say.

He frowned at the empty vista presented by the window. The man was right. Samantha Hanover was pleasant to the eye. Very much so. What would she look like wearing a dress, and with her hair in something more formal than a ponytail? Something troubling about her, though—a vulnerability, and a feeling that she was more than what she appeared to be, brought the urge to know more.

His reflections were interrupted by Henry’s voice, close by his ear.

Might just be good-looking enough to warrant a neighborly visit, I’d guess.

... Maybe.

So, why didn’t you tell her when she asked? Some girls might be impressed to know you were a big city doctor.

Not her, he said, absently. Besides, that’s over. Now, I’m just a rancher.

That brought a snort of laughter in response.

° ° ° °

Chapter 3

Samantha eased the van over the last few feet of road, letting the front wheels settle into the rut that defined its usual parking space. The engine died, and for a moment she sat, thinking of nothing and doing nothing. The events at the store were excluded from her thoughts—deliberately. They were something to think about later—maybe tomorrow, after time had rounded the rough edges a bit. For now, she needed no more worries and no more wondering. There’d been too much of both in her life. For now, best to just be content, and live one more day exactly as she’d been living each day thus far: leaving yesterday to the past. Certainly, there were more than enough things seeking attention; mundane things like cooking dinner and dusting; important things like deciding what to do with the rest of her life. But still, despite the voice that whispered that she should begin those tasks, she sat with closed eyes, ignoring everything and forcing herself to relax—to do nothing—to stop thinking and simply be.

For a time that was enough. Then, the thought came that there was a surprisingly strong feeling of coming home, though the house was too little a home and too much a hole in which to hide, when she carried her bag through the sagging front door. Now, however, with summer close at hand and the darkest part of the year—and hopefully, her life as well—behind her, it might be time to think of having a place to call home.

That decided, she pushed open the door and slid from the van, intent on getting her packages into the house and using some of the remaining daylight to edit a chapter or two—betraying her decision to not work.

But that was before the sunshine embraced her, before she took a deep breath of spring-scented air, and before the breeze began playing across her face in gentle welcome, whispering, Come and dance with me, into her ear. Then, resolve forgotten, she raised her arms far above her head, stretching, and feeling freer than she had in months. With a cry of, Yes! that came from deep in her soul she whirled around in the sheer joy of being alive on such a day. Finally, too dizzy to stand, she allowed herself to fall onto the carpet of range grass, spreading its fresh spears of green in the bright spring sunshine.

For a long time she lay in her bed of grass, eyes closed and listening to the hum of insects, they, far too busy with their never-ending work to enjoy the day as she was. Then, she laughed aloud at their foolishness. So brief a life they led, with so little time for enjoyment. For the barest moment she felt pity for those creatures who would never stop to know the glory of this day. But then, she laughed again, this time at her own foolishness, refusing to let the sadness of such short lives destroy the mood that, for now, filled her dark places with light.

Finally, after a long and drowsy time in which she thought not at all, and very nearly fell asleep, she yawned and got to her feet, pulling the band from her ponytail as she did so, finger combing the grass from her hair. She glanced in the direction of the house and thought over what she’d been planning, then smiled and turned away, tucking her hair band into a pocket and heading for a spot more suited to such a beautiful day. There would be plenty of time for work later. Work was for tomorrow. Work was for days when it rained. Springtime was for living, and for enjoying, and this day cried out to her that she’d been ignoring the season for far too long. It fairly shouted its demand that she spend the remainder of the daylight hours outdoors. In fact, a ramble to the pond might be exactly what she needed to divert her mind from its determination to explain the unexplainable

° ° °

Settling onto the pond’s bank she leaned over the water, seeking her reflection. But the breeze that summoned her there was riffling the surface, fragmenting the image into sparkles of light.

Turning away from the water, hands clasped around her knee, she looked around the tiny glen, taking in its beauty. Desolate rangeland surrounded the house, windblown and bare of trees. A quarter-mile from the house, however, a tiny spring had found its way to the surface, in a small depression that, but for that spring, might have been wet only after a rain. Instead, a small copse of trees gathered around an oval pool, like palms at an oasis, shading it and making it into a tiny jewel. Drawn to the pool by its audience of trees, it was the first place explored.

In winter, with the bare and skeletal branches as a backdrop, it had had a foreboding air that went with her dark mood. As the weather lightened, however, and with their leaves unfolding into the sunshine, the place brought a feeling of peace that made it a retreat—a refuge from the demons of the past.

Now, with the afternoon sunshine peering through slatted courses of new leaves, the place appeared almost magical. Each slanting sunray was marked by whirling motes of dust stirred up by the playful breeze, while dancing reflections from the water teased her eyes with diamonds.

Idly, she dipped a hand into the water, only to pull back in surprise. It was surprisingly warm. Apparently, a hot spring supplied the water.

Whatever the reason, though, the warmth brought a smile, as her fancy took flight. Acting on impulse, she stood and looked around. She was alone. Good. Then she chuckled over the idea that there might be someone else within miles