The Bear Went Over the Mountain (27 page)

“That’s correct.”

“Would it interest you to know, Professor, that my client’s book,
Destiny and Desire
, is already required reading in hundreds of English classes around the country? That it has received critical acclaim from such authorities in the field as Kenneth Penrod of Columbia University and Samuel Ramsbotham of New York University, two of the most distinguished places of learning in America? Would you say that this is a powerful endorsement of the book’s merit?”

“Yes, I’d have to say so. Although Ramsbotham’s views on some things—”

“The point is, Professor, my client hasn’t written a copy of
Don’t, Mr. Drummond
, he’s written a highly original work, beloved by the American public and endorsed
by two of the greatest minds in the field of contemporary American literature. That doesn’t sound anything like the manuscript your colleague showed to you, does it?”

“No,” admitted Settlemire uncomfortably, for he’d hoped, in his peculiar way, to have done Bramhall some good here today. He couldn’t remember a word of Bramhall’s book, nor of
Don’t, Mr. Drummond
, for the cells of his memory were stuffed with
as ifs
.

“Professor, when did you see the portion of the novel your colleague showed you?”

“It must’ve been a year and a half ago.”

“And what happened to that novel subsequently?”

“Bramhall had a fire. The novel burned.”

“The novel burned? How unfortunate. Yet a year and a half later, your colleague enters this courtroom and claims someone
stole
his novel. Which was it, burned or stolen?” Warwick sent a sidelong glance toward the jury.

“Well,” said Settlemire, “Bramhall said it was burned and then stolen.”

“Burned
and
stolen?” Warwick looked at the jury again. “This manuscript of his has certainly undergone a harsh fate.”

“He rewrote it,” said Settlemire. “And then it was stolen.” Settlemire’s head cocked itself in a strange, sideways manner, rather like a mother baboon looking for
fleas; a man who spends his best hours looking for
as ifs
must expect this.

“He rewrote it and
then
it was stolen,” said Warwick in tones suggesting the ludicrousness of this idea, while all the time the bear was mimicking his lawyer’s gestures. It’s not difficult, really, he said to himself. You have to turn your head toward the jury and give them a big smile. You have to stab the air with your paw, then wave it in their faces a little in case they didn’t see it.

A passing breeze tucked in at the window and slipped up his nose with scents of the nearby riverbank, of forget-me-nots, golden bells, water hemlocks. He inhaled deeply, closed his eyes, and swayed in his chair. It was springtime in Maine, spring at its most beautiful. With a cry of jubilation, he rolled off his chair onto the floor and writhed around, scratching his back.

“Order in the court!” Judge Spurr’s gavel came down with a loud crack. “Counsel, control that man!”

“Hal, for god’s sake—” Warwick dropped to his knees beside his client and gave him a vigorous shake.

The bear opened his eyes and drew back his upper lip with a snarl. Judge Spurr brought his gavel down a second time. “Mr. Warwick, if you can’t restrain your client, I’m going to hold him in contempt.”

“Your honor, I believe he’s having some kind of seizure.”

“He looks remarkably like a man who’s scratching his back.”

Warwick took the carafe of water from his table and poured it on the bear, who let out an angry roar. Warwick drew back in fear and turned to the judge. “Your honor, my client is ill.”

“He does not appear ill to me, sir. He appears drunk and disorderly and I won’t have it.”

The jurors were leaning forward in their chairs, and Judge Spurr had risen from his, gavel in hand. Warwick knew that if it came down again it would be with a contempt citation. All of the sympathy they’d gained from judge and jury was going out the window. At that moment, Vinal Pinette’s dog, locked in Pinette’s truck outside the courtroom, decided he’d been left in the truck long enough and began to bark. He liked to project his bark as far as it would go, for the beauty of the thing. His barking reached the bear’s ear and the bear sat up, fully alert.

“Hal,” said Warwick, “are you all right?”

The bear’s nose was twitching with concern. Had they set their dogs after him? A few more sniffs convinced him the dog was alone and too far away to be a threat. He allowed Warwick to help him back into his chair, where he sat quietly sniffing the air.

Warwick turned toward the judge’s bench. “Your honor, Lord Overlook’s family has had, for some generations,
a rare neurological condition. This episode we’ve just witnessed is characteristic of the disease.”

“Runs in the family, does it?” Judge Spurr was already regretting having spoken so harshly to a lord of the realm. Eccentricity in the aristocracy was something you had to tolerate; the illustrious Overlook line must have thinned a little with inbreeding and produced the weakness he’d just witnessed. Judge Spurr was inclined to be tolerant, as he felt the Overlook family would appreciate such concern. “Is he well enough to continue? If you’d like to move for a recess—”

“We would, your honor.”

“This court will recess until tomorrow,” said Judge Spurr, and rose from his bench.

Warwick nodded to Magoon, indicating he wanted to talk to him outside the courtroom. The two men retired to a cloakroom and stood together beside an open window looking down into town. Warwick said, “Even though I know we’re going to win this case, for the sake of my client’s health, we’re ready to settle out of court.”

Magoon sat with his client in the diner on Main Street. The sound of the river could be heard from their table, along with the cries of a pair of ospreys circling overhead, looking for the glitter of a fish beneath the water. “Cavendish Press is offering us a half a million dollars.”

“But they keep the rights? I wouldn’t be the author?”

“That’s right, Arthur. But your financial problems would be over for the rest of your life.”

Arthur Bramhall ran a hand over his tortured, shaggy brow. He heard the cry of the osprey, and he understood its high-pitched sound. He felt the living presence of the river calling him to flow with it.

“Half a million, wisely invested …” said Magoon.

“I’m not giving them my book.”

“Don’t be a fool. The jury’s already against us.”

“I don’t care,” growled Bramhall. “I’m the author, and we’re going to prove it.”

“I no longer know if I can do that.”

“The answer is no.”

“This is a terrible mistake. Warwick’s going to tear you apart on the witness stand.”

“I’ll tear
him
apart,” said Bramhall with a savage growl.

Magoon moved back in his seat, startled by the animal ferocity in his client’s eyes.

Vinal Pinette sat with his dog in front of his kitchen stove. “I let him down,” said the old man, staring at the scarred wooden floor.

The dog looked up, hoping for a hunk of wiener to find its way to his patient snout. The boss tossed him a few every night around this time.

“I got all tangled up, y’see. That lawyer feller started ’sinuating things, and I went after it, like you after this wiener.” Pinette tossed one and the dog grabbed it midair with a fast snap of his jaws and swallowed it whole, as was his custom so no other dog could steal it from him, though there were no other dogs anywhere near, but it paid not to take any chances in the matter of wieners.

“I made Art Bramhall look like a crook, is what I done.” The old man’s head sank lower as he shook it slowly back and forth. “ ’Cause I ain’t got no more sense than this here wiener.” He shook the end of the wiener in the air, and the dog’s head went up and down.

“I’d like to go back in that there courtroom and set it right, but they got all the use
out of me they need.” Pinette tossed the wiener, and the dog’s head made a quick sweep sideways, catching the object and sending it to his stomach in one gulp.

“We ain’t never gonna get our book wrote now,” said Pinette sadly. The dog retired to his rug behind the stove for some moderate ball-washing. Literature was not one of his burning interests.
The Life of a Wiener
, yes, that might hold his attention, if it was boldly illustrated.

On the following day in court, Eaton Magoon gave proof of his client’s literary abilities, from his Ph.D. through the many scholarly essays he’d published in his academic years.

Warwick held up the jacket of
Destiny and Desire
and flourished numerous magazine and newspaper articles about his client. There was no need for him to show anything else, nor could he have if he wanted to, because there was nothing else.

The bear was gesturing in imitation of his lawyer. As Warwick talked, the bear mouthed the words. He’d practiced in his room last night and now he felt he had the pattern down. When Warwick returned to their table, the bear pointed at the witness box and said in a rough whisper,
“Put me up there.”

“No,” said Warwick.

The bear’s paw closed on Warwick’s knee, and a gusher of pain ran up the oil lawyer’s leg. He stood and said, “Your honor, I’d like to call my client to the witness box.”

The bear was sworn in. He took his oath with great solemnity, his right paw in the air.
He could feel the bright, bubbling words pooling up in him, ready to burst out in a colorful stream.

Warwick didn’t leave the area of his desk. “Is your name Hal Jam?”

“Yes.”

“Did you write
Destiny and Desire?
”

“Yes.”

“No further questions.”

The bear looked at Warwick, a hurt expression on his face. “I’ve got more to say.” He gestured like a lawyer toward the jury box.

“You can say it to me,” said Magoon as he approached the witness box. “What kind of person are you, Jam?”

“I’m a person,” said the bear quickly, glad that this key point had been addressed before anything else. If he was a person, they couldn’t put him in a zoo.

“I asked what
kind
of person are you? What kind of person is it, Mr. Jam, who steals another man’s hard-won work?”

The bear made the little gesture he’d been practicing, and it felt just like the gestures he’d been watching his lawyer make, but the words that were supposed to accompany it failed to come out. They were swirling around inside him like sparkling fish in a stream but when he tried to pull one from the stream it wriggled through
his grasp and slipped away. He turned to the window and sniffed at the air, filling his nose with the scent of the countryside.

Magoon was only inches from him now. “You stole Arthur Bramhall’s book. That’s who you are, sir. You’re a thief, plain and simple. What else can we call you?”

“The fields,” said the bear.

“Excuse me?”

“The river,” said the bear. “The flowers.” He looked toward the courtroom window. His confidence had vanished like a soap bubble. He was thinking of the river, and the pine forest beyond it. He couldn’t speak like a lawyer, couldn’t make the bright, bubbling sounds that were the true mark of a real person. “The springtime,” he said in desperation. “The new buds.”