Touching Spirit Bear

Cole is within 10 feet of the Spirit Bear and throws his spear. The bear lunges at Cole, pawing at him as Cole scrambles to get away. He gets up to run but the Spirit Bear pulls him down again. He desperately tugs at some devil’s club, lodging hundreds of thistles in his skin. The bear begins biting Cole, dragging him up and down and clawing his chest. Cole’s right arm breaks under the pressure, and the bear crushes Cole’s ribs. After what seems like forever, the bear gets off and walks away. Cole feels as if he is dying. In horror, he realizes that some nearby seagulls are “fighting over bits of his own torn flesh” and feels disgusted that they are treating him like an animal (53). However, he is proud to have pulled a chunk of the bear’s fur out during the brawl. A bone sticks out of his elbow, but his pride remains.

Cole looks around: “All of the landscape, the air, the trees, the animals, the water, the rain, all seemed to be part of something bigger. They moved in harmony, bending and flowing, twisting and breathing, as if connected. But Cole felt alone and apart” (55). He believes he should be at home, warm, safe, and in control. He wonders if he will die and, even worse, if he will die slowly. Cole has been haunted by nightmares of feeling helpless and vulnerable all of his life, and “now he [is] living his worst nightmare” (56).

Cole lies on the ground, thinking of death as rain pours down on him. He relinquishes all concern for himself and falls into despair. He looks up into the trees and sees a sparrow nest “protected from both the wind and the rain” (58). The sparrow flies off and returns with a bug in its beak for its young. Cole can see their heads poking out of the nest and feels resentful and jealous of the baby birds, knowing his own parents never took care of him that way. When he falls asleep, Cole dreams of the at.óow and grasps at it in his sleep: “[T]he imaginary blanket shielded him from the cold as it had protected many generations before him” (59).

When he awakes later in the night to thunder, he thinks he sees the Spirit Bear watching him through the rain. Lightning crashes, shocking his body and causing him to feel “so exposed, so vulnerable, so helpless” (60). Finally, Cole realizes that this is not new: “[H]e [has] always been this weak. How could he have ever thought he truly controlled anything?” (60). He drifts off again, waking to find the circular moon has risen in a cloudless sky. Cole stares at it, knowing that its shape holds some meaning, but in his pain and shock he cannot remember what that meaning is. He sees that the tree that held the baby sparrows was struck down, and he gets up and begins looking for them.

Cole lies on the grass, edging away from consciousness. Pain engulfs his bowels until he lets go, unable to hold it in any longer. He feels “like a helpless baby, not able to roll away from its own filth” (63). He searches for something to blame but finds nothing and no one but his own anger. Remembering the sparrow nest, he finds the baby sparrows dead, “scattered in the short grass where they had been thrown from their nest” (64). They look as though they were trying to get home to safety but failed. He wonders if the birds’ lives held meaning (or if his own does) and whether the circle of life that Edwin spoke of is just a cycle of living, dying, and rotting.

Cole sees the tree on the ground and watches as ants begin to use it as their new home. He thinks about the nature of life and death, and the cycle that he himself is a part of, and he resolves to live rather than die. Cole wants to make himself useful to the world; he no longer wants to just exist and then rot, and he realizes that being alive means he has choices. He realizes he has hurt himself more than anyone else and is responsible for finding his own meaning. Cole thinks of the sparrows, begging for food and for life, and realizes he needs to find food of his own. He begins to chew on grass but chokes, moving on to worms instead. He starts eating every bug he can find, and “with each insect, he [closes] his eyes and [imagines] a baby sparrow reaching upward with an opened beak” (66). After he feels as if he has had enough, he lies down again, allowing the mosquitoes and horseflies to prick at him as he drifts out of consciousness. He wakes later to find a mouse crawling on him and tries to catch and eat it.

Cole manages to get the mouse into his mouth while it is still alive and crushes it between his teeth, reminding himself of the baby sparrow and the fact that “food was energy, and energy was life” (69). Doing so tires him out, and he lies exhausted in the dirt. Mosquitoes continue biting Cole as he watches two seagulls pick through his own vomit. He realizes that if they are eating it, it must contain food remnants, so he mimics the gulls. Next, he scoops some mud out to make a hole to collect rainwater, which he drinks. Suddenly, a twig snaps and the Spirit Bear reappears. Cole once again feels helpless and resigns himself to the possibility of dying in this moment. He musters every ounce of strength and moisture he has left to spit at it, and the Spirit Bear walks toward him.

The Spirit Bear inches forward “with a slow lazy stride, its head held low” (73), inspects and licks Cole’s spit, and then turns and leaves. Cole is overcome with emotion and frustration, wishing for a quick and easy death rather than this drawn-out, lonely, and painful one. Once the bear is out of sight, Cole cries. He then slips into a dream in which he is a baby bird struggling to escape its nest in a violent storm: “[A]ll he could do was open his beak wide and raise it upward toward the sky, the action a simple admission that he was powerless” (73).

Cole wakes to find the bear directly over him. Believing he is going to die, he closes his eyes and musters up more spit. However, instead of spitting at the bear, he instead instinctively and without knowing why reaches his hand out. The bear seems to understand what Cole is doing, as he carefully puts his hand on its fur. Cole cannot comprehend why the bear would trust him after he tried to kill it. He grabs the fur and takes a tuft of it, placing it in his pocket. Cole lowers his arm, and the Spirit Bear appears to nod in approval before calmly walking away. Cole watches as the bear dips into the bay and heads out toward the open ocean. Cole has another epiphany, seeing the beauty of life around him in even the simplest things. It is “the most alive he [has] ever felt” (75). He feels satisfied that he has come to this realization and accepts the possibility of dying because “before the end of life he had seen beauty. He had trusted and been trusted. That was enough” (75).

Cole drifts out of consciousness as seagulls begin pecking at his arms and legs. He is sure he is going die. He hazily perceives someone lifting him and pouring warm liquid in his mouth. When Cole finally wakes, he is on the boat with Edwin and Garvey. He can vaguely sense the boat docking, people crowding around him, and being loaded into some kind of vehicle on a stretcher. He feels a blanket around him, but it is not the at.óow, and he continuously wonders where that particular blanket is. Next, he is in a warm bed, surrounded by Garvey, Edwin, and “a short round-faced Tlingit woman” (78). She knows that the wounds on Cole are from a bear attack, and Cole nods, confirming her suspicions.

Cole starts to regain awareness and finds out that he will be staying overnight with Rosey, the only nurse in the town of Drake. Garvey hands Cole the at.óow, and Cole instantly feels warm upon seeing it. It is damp, however, so Edwin hands him a dry blanket and stands back to watch. Garvey assures Cole that he and Rosey will stay all night, and Cole softly thanks him. Garvey feeds Cole some soup, apologizing for bringing him to the island, but Cole shakes his head and whispers, “My fault!” (81). Edwin is skeptical that Cole has changed and says quietly, “He’ll be okay if he ever finds a reason to live” (81). Cole falls asleep and has a nightmare that everyone he knows tries to help him but turns into a monster eventually. When he awakes, he asks Garvey why he wanted to help. Garvey admits that he sees himself in Cole and wanted to help him because he “was never able to help those [he] hurt” (82).

The next morning, Garvey brings Cole breakfast and Rosey dresses his wounds. Later, Cole is taken to the dock on a stretcher to head for Ketchikan and a hospital. He has a moment alone with Edwin and Garvey and explains everything that happened, including the attempted escape, the Spirit Bear, and the storm. He realizes he will be facing jail time and will be not allowed to return to the island, but he accepts this: “Whatever happens now, I’m done being mad” (84). Edwin is skeptical that Cole saw a Spirit Bear since they do not live in Alaska, and he believes Cole might have imagined it instead. Cole considers showing the wad of fur he took off the bear but refrains, deciding that he does not need to prove himself to anyone. When Edwin and Garvey leave, Cole finds the fur in the pocket of his jeans, just as he thought. He tosses it into the water, knowing that as long as he knows the truth, that is all that matters. He resolves to tell the truth going forward, regardless of its consequences. The tuft of fur drifts away as Cole watches. Cole knows he will never forget the Spirit Bear.