A Time in Heaven (15 page)

“Far out,” Katie said softly.  Then she snickered a little for saying it. 

She had to tell Jesse about Bear.  She ran out the back door.  Sadie was lay
ing on the stoop, soaking up any warmth from
the sunny day. Katie heard Jesse chopping wood up the hill.  She patted Sadie on the head and they both headed for the wood chopping noise. 

Katie hiked up the hill until she could just see Jesse.  She hollered, “Jesse. Bear is back!!  You’ll never believe where she is right now!”

Jesse looked around, half expecting to see the grizzly following Katie.  “Where is she?” he
loudly
answered.

Katie kept moving toward him, almost completely out of breath. “She’s in the pantry
,
sleeping!”

No, he couldn’t have heard her say that there is a bear in the pantry. “What?” He asked as Katie finally arrived.

Katie explained about hearing the snoring from behind the pantry door. When she told him about opening the door, Jesse
angrily
asked, “What were you thinking woman?”

He had already started getting his equipment together when Katie told him to come see Bear.  He led the way back down the hill.  He was even ahead of Sadie.  When they got to the
doors of the lodge, he told Katie
to keep Sadie in the lobby, and walked softly toward the pantry.

“Jesse, Sadie already knows that Bear’s in there.  And besides the sow is sound asleep.”

“And what if she wakes up?!” Jesse said with concern in his voice. “It’s not cold enough for her to be hibernating.”

He slightly opened the pantry door.  There she was; a great grizzly bear snoring loudly in their pantry. In the pantry!  How were they going to get to the food
that was i
n there? He decided that the bear had to get out of the pantry.  But how?  He had an idea.

“Katie, we have to scare her out of
t
here.  You take Sadie upstairs.  I’m going to get the garbage can lids from out back.  When you come back
,
I’ll have you open the pantry door and I’ll start banging the lids together.  You have to
slam the door
shut before she tries to run this way.”

The
vision in his head looked like the plan would work.
He gave a confident nod.

All was ready.  The door was opened. The garbage can lids were banged together.  The
pantry
door was slammed shut.

“Did it w
ork?  Is she gone?” Katie asked anxiously.

“Sshh. Listen.”  Jesse whispered. They both put their ears to the door.  Bear was still snoring.

“Jesse, she has to be hibernating
in there.  She won’t wake up
until it gets warmer.”

“She has to leave.  How will we get
our
food from the pantry?” Jesse was trying to put together plan
B
.  “What if we prop open the outside door?  She
won’t feel so protected and she’ll
go find a more comfy place to hibernate.”

“Worth a try I suppose.” Katie tried to sound supportive but she knew if Bear was indeed hibernating, she wouldn’t be leaving the pantry until the temperature outside warmed
in the spring
.

They went
around to the outside door of the pantry.  It was connected to the nearby smokehouse by a stone path
.  Jesse looked through
the window of the
pantry
door.
The big grizzly was sleeping smack in the middle of the small room.  Jesse turned to Katie shaking his head.
He slowly
turned the door knob and
started to open the door.  It squeaked, so he abruptly stopped, then he tried again.  He looked at the bear, and she was still sleeping.  With the door finally open, he propped a log against it to keep it open.  He signaled for Katie to go around the building, and he quickly followed.

“Now we wait,” he told Katie.  They heard Sadie whining.  “She’ll have to stay inside for a while.”

The next morning the temperature had dropped below zero. A fresh snow fall blanketed everything.  The morning sunshine made the landscape twinkle in the cold.

Katie was up making coffee while Jesse showered.  The upstairs
was
cold but the big fireplace in the lobby had kept the bedroom warm enough all night to be comfortable.  Still Katie decided to wait a while before showering.  A nice hot cup of coffee sounded much better than a cold shower.  She shivered just thinking about it.

Jesse came downstairs followed by Sadie.  “I’m going to take her out before breakfast,” he said taking a big gulp of coffee.  He kissed her and left with the lab prancing beside him.
He cautiously led her toward the dock.
He thought for sure the grizzly had left the pantry.
He would check when he came back.  Taking Sadie around the corner to see if the bear was gone was just too risky.

Katie wondered if the big grizzly was still in the pantry.  She peeked through the smallest opening of the door into the pantry.  She also got a whiff of bear that made her take a step back.  She looked again.  Bear was
still
curled up in the middle of the small room.

“She’s hibernating,” Katie said to herself. “She’s not waking up anytime soon.”

Katie had a plan on how to get the food out of the pantry.  Jesse wouldn’t like it, but she decided to do it before he
and Sadie
got back from their walk. She didn’t realize it at the moment, but that independent woman was back.  She carefully looked through the crack of the door to see if Bear was indeed asleep, and to make sure the outside door was open.  If the bear did wake up, there needed to be another exit other than through the dining room.

Katie gathered a couple of boxes from the store to carry the food. She, then, cautiously started to open the pantry door when it creaked. 
She froze and looked at the bear.  “Still asleep,” she said to herself.  “Now to get the food out.”

She stepped gingerly around the big mound of bear, carrying as much food as she could. 
It was cold work but i
t didn’t take long to empty the pantry. 
Katie had one more trip before all of the supplies would be out of the pantry and in the dining room.  She had made her way around the bear and was filling the box with the last of the food.  There was a noise behind her.  Katie quickly looked to see that Bear was awake.  Terror rushed through Katie.  There was nowhere to run.  Bear and Katie stared at each other for a moment, then the bear curled up and went back to sleep.  Katie quickly gathered up her box and left the pantry. 

As Katie took a deep breath, she thought how Jesse must never know about Bear waking up.  She was just glad that a
ll the food and supplies were now in the dining room.  Katie took one more look at Bear.  “Sleep well, girl.  See ya in the spring.” She closed the door and pushed
a
table in front of it.

Katie stepped back and looked at the piles of food on the tables.  She was pleased with herself and what she had accomplished.  She heard the lobby doors being closed as Jesse and Sadie returned.

Jesse took one look at the food stacked on the tables in the dining room.  “What the hell did you do?” He yelled at Katie.  He kicked a chair ranting, “How in God’s name did you get this stuff
out of the pantry
and
in here?  He looked at Katie, “There’s a damn bear in there.” He pointed toward the pantry. “You could have gotten yourself killed!”

“She’s hibernating.  Do you know what that means?” She yelled back at Jesse.  “It means she’s out cold and not going to hurt anybody!”  Katie picked up some of the food to take it into the store.  “I did a good thing and
all
you can do is yell
at me
.  Is this some kind of macho thing?  Because if it is,” she looked at Jesse, “It’s not very appealing.” She took off with her box of food.  “I knew what I was doing.”

Jesse stopped her, and turned her around.  “Don’t you see?  I could have lost you here this morning!  You should have waited for me.”

“Would you have helped me get
all
this stuff out of the pantry?”  She looked into Jesse’s eyes. “No you wouldn’t have.  We’d still be arguing about it.  Well, it’s done.  No one got hurt including Bear.
” Katie remembered the grizzly looking directly at her and going back to sleep.
“It’s
done.  Get over it.”

Jesse spun around and stomped up
the
stairs.  Katie went about organizing the supplies on some empty shelves in the store.  This was their first
time of really butting heads
and both of them felt like no
thing was won. 
Neither of them was going to concede
. Jesse saw it as needing to protect Katie.  Katie saw it as Jesse trying to control her.  S
o t
hey spent the rest of the day avoiding each other.

S
unrise
the next day
found Jesse and Sadie sleeping in the upstairs bedroom
.
  Katie
had
slept on one of the couches in the lobby.  At least she was warm by the fire
.
Before falling asleep, s
he thought of
Jesse shivering in his empty bed.
She found no pleasure in imagining him that way. 
Tears came to her eyes.

When he woke
the next morning
, Jesse realized that he was sleeping alone. Something he had promised himself he would never do again.
The temperature in the upstairs had dropped so that Jesse could see his breath as he got out from beneath his warm blankets.
It wasn’t the cold that bothered him but the absence of Katie next to him.  He dressed and went downstairs to find Katie
. He was determined to
make things right between him.

As he got halfway down the stairs he felt a cold draft and saw that one of the
double
doors was open. He then saw
the
five wolves sleeping in front of the fire.  Katie wasn’
t five feet from the big white male
.  He froze, but
the
black
female alpha
wolf looked up a
t him.  The others saw him too. T
hey all ran out the
open
door.

Jesse hurried
to shut the doors.  The slam woke up Katie
.  “What’s going on?” She asked as she quickly sat up.

You didn’t see those wolves?” He said with panic in his voice.

Katie jumped up off the couch and ran to the door.  “Are they outside?”

Jesse, with his voice a couple of octaves higher than normal, exclaimed, “Not outside.  They were here! They were sleeping – two by the fireplace, two by the chair and one was sleeping not five feet from you!” He pointed to the door. “
Did you
check the door
s
last night?”

Katie felt herself getting defensive again.  “Did you?”  Then, she looked at Jesse. She could see how upset he was with what had just happened.  Who would have thought wildlife could shake him like this?
She
looked at him and calmly said,
“I’m sorry.  Yes, the doors were closed when I went to sleep on the couch.”

Jesse
wanted this tension between him
and Katie to end.  “We need to talk, Babe.”  He took Katie by the hand
. She resisted but went with him to sit on the couch.
“We can’t go on bickering like this.  We have to work together if we are going to live through this
whole ordeal
.”  He paused. “Damn it Katie I
don’t want to sleep alone
.  I thought I would never have to face that again now with you in my life.
I need you there beside me.
” He kissed her.
“
I love you and I want us to be together all the time.  That’s why I was so out of control with the bear and now the wolves.  I could have lost you twice in the last day.  I couldn’t stand that!”

Katie’s demeanor changed as she looked into his eyes.
  “I love you too.  To be honest, I cried myself to sleep last night being down her
e without you.” She kissed him, and then looked at him with a great deal of intensity saying,
“But you have to trust me.  I’m a grown woman and I’ve been on my own for a very long time, taking care of myself.  I love that you want to totally protect me,
but you can’t smother me either, Jess.  If this relationship is to work, and it will
.” She lovingly touched his cheek. “W
e need to be there for each other.  You have to let me do my share.”

“I
’ll try
,
but I’ve come from a long line of gentlemen who protected their ladies.
” he said in almost a whisper.  He gently ran his hand along her cheek
, took a deep breath and
kissed her. 
“OK then, equal partners.
”
  Jesse took Katie in his arms kissed her deeply.
She wasn’t so sure that he wasn’t just trying to appease her.  She pulled away from him.
“
I’m serious Jesse. Sex isn’t going to make
me look at this any differently. We are either equal in this or we’re not going to survive.”  Then, Katie grabbed Jesse and kissed him even more passionately.
Their
appetite
for each other came crashing back like a wave against the rocks along the sea.  Their bodies communicated the
ir
desire to become one.