When Drew Taylor arrived in Idaville, the influx from the west had already started. Software engineers from Seattle bought small parcels of land in the secluded former coal mining town on the east side of the mountains to escape the city. Charmed by stories of mama bears with their cubs in the woods, they grew heirloom tomatoes and exotic greens in their backyard gardens. They frequented the one bar and coffee shop in town that catered to day trippers while the locals met at The Chute, which had a rotating menu so that patrons knew what to expect to see on their plates depending on what day of the week it was. Soon after Drew traded in his hoodies for Carhartt shirts, he also sold his Honda Accord Hybrid and bought a Chevy truck so he could haul cords of wood that he split himself. He often drove too fast, thinking that on deserted county roads there was not much of a need to respect speed limits. Dog walkers veered as far off road as they could when they saw his truck coming, and Drew veered fully into the left lane in reply. His outings were becoming less frequent these days. Working from home three days a week, he spent most of his “work from home” time hiking or fixing up his third acre parcel with permission from his landlady. Huckleberry bushes that were native to the area were the first to go in the ground, and when the deer and elk ate the vegetable starts in his raised beds, he put in a tall enough fence so that they could not jump over it and get to the carrots, camas, and kale.

     In keeping with his new rural lifestyle, Drew adopted the habit of waking with the sun each morning. He endeavored to pattern his days according to nature, and instead of using a clock to tell him when it was lunchtime, he looked for the sun to be high in the sky before breaking his fast from the night before. After eating, he usually went for a hike in the community forest that surrounded the town. One path of the forest came very near to Drew’s back door, and within minutes of walking up its steep incline, he would find himself enveloped in looming pines and wondering at enormous granite boulders that looked as if they had been carelessly dropped by wandering giants long ago. 

     One afternoon, Drew was following a gully as it flowed through the woods. Broad shouldered and light on his feet, he began jogging next to the water. His hair was getting long and fell into his eyes as he watched for rocks and roots underfoot. When he did venture to look up now and then, he caught glimpses through clearings in the trees of hawks flying overhead in a bright blue sky.

     Before long, the gully widened where the land leveled out. Next to a thicket of ferns, an old man crouched over a fishing line at the still part of the water. He seemed to hear Drew approaching and looked in his direction, closing one blue eye as he squinted at the sun with the other. He had a pinched nose and graying beard, and he wore what most men wore in that area: work boots, work pants, and a t-shirt. 

     "Hello. Oh, hello Taylor," the man said. 

     Drew recognized the man as someone he had talked with several times while picking up his mail at the small post office in town. The narrow streets of Idaville were lined with houses that once were coal miner’s cabins, and they did not allow much room for mailboxes or the frequent stops of delivery vehicles. There was no money in the town budget for such things anyway, so instead of roadside mailboxes, all the townspeople had PO boxes at the post office. The post office was the size of a very large closet, and all day long, the door would open and shut from people picking up mail, saying “excuse me,” “pardon me,” “no, you go ahead.” If someone stopped to choose their favorite flavor sucker or mini chocolate bar from the candy bowl, the line would back up out the door. 

     “Hello, Rip," Drew said. "How are the fish biting?”

     “Not great,” Rip said. He spoke to Drew but he was looking down at the three meager crappie he had on a cord in the cold water. The line he had been crouching over was caught on some rocks, and Rip held the end of it taught. "I've been here since about 7 a.m. and not much to show for it."

     Drew didn’t need his Apple watch to know that it was well past noon. The sun was on its descent and shone with a bright light that was nearly white. Rip continued to squint in Drew’s direction with a serious expression.

     "You fish?" Rip asked. Drew felt instinctively that the right answer was yes. He was being weeded out, and he was disappointed for himself and for the old man that he was not going to make the cut.

     "No, I can't say that I do,” Drew replied, folding his arms and resting his back against a tree. “I follow some fishing channels on YouTube though," he added hopefully.

     "Uh huh." Rip’s face fell. He started gathering up his line.

     "Well, you have at least one good meal there," Drew offered.

     "They're not for me," Rip grunted.

     "Well, someone's got a good meal there," Drew said, pointing to the fish. 

     "Ha!" Rip smiled. "If you only knew.” Rip cut a hook off the line as Drew watched silently. 

     “You're new here," Rip said. It was more of a statement of fact than a question.

     "I’ve been here since May,” Drew protested. “I have to go back and forth to the city for a while, but I hope to be remote full time soon.” Drew was feeling well settled in his new life, having stored his wood for winter and tended his garden.

     Rip chuckled this time. "Anybody who has been here less than ten years is new. When you have children and grandchildren who call this home," Rip said gesturing all around him, "then you won't be new."

     "Fair enough," said Drew. It wasn't for him to challenge the beliefs of people whose families had lived in the town for generations. But ten years seemed a bit extreme, and Drew considered that the stipulation might be a superstitious way for locals to ward off unwelcome newcomers.

     "I'm going to tell you something," Rip continued. “I noticed you don't talk to many folks around here."

     Drew's face reddened slightly. He didn't like to be thought of as unsociable even if he did prefer to keep to himself.

     "This is between you and me," Rip explained. "Don't tell anyone here in town or anywhere else either, okay?"

      Drew nodded. Rip started packing up his gear and putting the fish in a small cooler as he talked.

      "Earlier this year, there was another young fella that moved out here from the city. His name's not important. You'd know him though. Another engineer type out of Seattle. He'd started one of those big companies. He had so much money, he'd helicopter in sometimes. A few times, news cameras came over here on the weekends trying to get a picture of him. He rented a place from Tina, just like you're doing now. A ramshackle thing a little further out of town. I never understood why he didn't just buy one of the big new houses over on the lake. 

      “At first, he came here every weekend, but nobody saw him. We might hear a helicopter or see a black Chevy Suburban with tinted windows rolling down First Street, but that was it. Nobody saw him, not even Tina. Well, about two weeks ago, someone comes knocking on my door, and when I opened it, he was standing there. He introduced himself, asked me if I knew about bears. I said yes. He started asking question after question, which I answered, but at some point I asked him why doesn’t he just google the answers. He says he can't. He can't use the internet. This has to be private. 

     “A few days later, he took me to a notch in the ridge just northwest up that trail. We were about three quarters of a mile up when he stepped off the trail, walked about fifty feet in and motioned toward some fallen boulders and thick bushes. Just beyond, there was a lame black bear. I could see him pacing a little and limping, and I could hear him huffing. He didn't look to be in terrible shape, but he wasn't fit for the wild either. So I tell the guy we’ve got to call Fish and Wildlife. But he said he was taking care of it. And by it, he meant the bear!

      “It turns out he’d been practicing with some new power archery gizmo on his property. That bear’d wandered down looking for food, but this guy didn’t see 'im soon enough, and he got the bear with a stray arrow. Then instead of calling Fish and Wildlife,  he decided he was going to try to keep that bear alive himself.  Next thing he shows me is this great big contraption that he’d built so he could feed the bear from a distance. It was ingenious, I’ll give 'im that! So I’m standing there with my mouth wide open and staring at it when he tells me that he has to go away for a few days, and he wants me to feed the bear for him.”

     Rip drew in a deep breath and tipped his head back to gaze at the tree tops. 

      “And you know what I said?” Rip was staring directly at Drew now, apparently waiting for an answer. Drew shrugged his shoulders and shook his head.

     “I said okay! Ha! I figured, okay, I’ll help this guy out for a few days. So I started feeding the bear. I try to keep the diet close to what nature offers. That's why I am out here catching fish. Three days go by, and the guy has not returned. That was about when you moved to town, actually. Don't look surprised! Everybody knows everybody's business around here. That's why you've got to be good at keeping secrets if you are going to live in a small town.

     “You probably want to know why I didn't call our engineering friend. The answer is that he didn’t go back west when he left. He went north and deeper into the woods. He had basecamp supplies and food with him when he took off. Yes, I saw it all. He disappeared over the north ridge. There's no cell reception out there. We're lucky to get any right here.

     “You should’ve seen his face when he left. Worn down. Looked like he hadn't slept in days. Kept saying that everything'd 'gone off the rails,' and then he gave me a list of the bear's top ten favorite foods. Ha! I thought he’d lost it for sure. Next he gave me a letter to send to his lawyer if he didn't come back. Well, I sent that letter when he did not come back on day four. I figured it was the end of the road with this ordeal. You know what happened after that? Nothing.”

    “He hasn’t come back?” Drew asked in disbelief.

     “Nope,” Rip replied emphatically. “And no reply from the lawyer. I tell you, moving between the city and country is not good for a person. Not good at all. It’s like it cuts your brain in two. Who can live like that? I don't know much, but I know there's no point in doing things by half measures.      

      “I knew a barber once who had apprentices who worked with him. He'd cut half the client's hair, and then an apprentice would finish the job. All the men in the town walked around with these lopsided haircuts. They didn't even know how foolish they looked. 

     “But who am I to talk? I am out here trying to feed a bear. I mean, what else can I do? I can’t kill it. How can I kill this bear after I’ve been feeding it?"  Rip's voice bristled with emotion and Drew shifted uncomfortably. "I wish he'd have just called Fish and Wildlife. Or put the poor thing down."     

     “You've got to know where you belong,” Rip started again, his voice quieter, as he pointed in Drew’s direction. “I am not trying to tell you what to do, but in my opinion, it's better not to go back to the city. Your brain'll get funny. I’ve seen it happen before. But nothing like this bear.”

    Drew rested one hiking boot on a nearby low rock as he watched Rip hoist his backpack on his shoulder and pick up the cooler. He could hear  magpies in the distance and a woodpecker overhead. The trees were casting longer shadows now and the time of day was approaching when it was harder to see the outlines of leaves and branches from a distance. It was a time of day when Drew preferred to be at home.

     “Well, I guess this is today's catch. I'll have to supplement it somehow. Only the best for the bear!" Rip smiled wearily as he wiped his brow. Drew felt a gnawing sense of responsibility for what the unknown man had done and wanted to take some action, but the path forward eluded him. 

     “What are you going to do?” he asked Rip. 

     “I’ll give it 'til the end of the week, I guess. Then we’ll see,” Rip replied. “I’ve got a buddy at Fish and Wildlife I can call. He’s going to be pretty mad. There’ll be a headache of paperwork. But I’m hoping he can smooth this over. It’s a real mess. You know your way back?”

     Drew nodded. Rip gave a half salute, and Drew smiled and waved in reply as Rip disappeared into a stand of massive inky pines. 

    The next morning Drew loaded up his truck and left his cabin keys on the hook outside the door. He knew that the landlady would find them and the house in order when she came to collect the next month’s rent.  As his Chevy winded down Salmon La Sac Road, he remembered the first time he saw the adjacent lake. A three mile wide crater that was all but drained by the nearby reservoirs. Forlorn shallow pools of water on the lake bottom reflected the sun’s rays. Trees growing up from the drier portions of the lake bottom stood innocent of the fact that they would be submerged by the next springtime snowmelt.

     On his way out of town, Drew stopped at the Warriors gas station to fill up the truck. A bus of high school kids in cross country uniforms were filing into the convenience store to stock up on snack food and neon slurpees.

    That same day, Rip returned to the place in the notch under the ridge with five largemouth bass. As he stepped off the path and approached the bear’s resting place, he dropped the fish in disbelief. The bear was gone.