TWO BEAR STORIES

 

One: The Bear Stick

 

(Heard from Gene Fuzzell, High Sheriff of Idaho County, Idaho, winter of 1973.)

 

      “Word came down that Limpy Miller might be having trouble up on Marshall Mountain. He was doing a little hard-rock mining up there, minding his own business mostly, but he did receive Social Security, so every couple of months he would make it out to Riggins, cash his checks, buy a few rounds, and then go back up Carey Creek grade to his claim. Postmaster in Riggins called me and said she had six checks waiting for him, so I went up to look in on him.  

     “When I got to his cabin, it was pretty obvious that something was wrong. Out in front, in a peat bog area, was the remains of a little bitty black bear with its left front paw caught in a bear trap.  Laying twenty feet from the carcass was a pointed lodgepole stick the length of a tipi pole. Limpy Miller wasn’t anywhere to be seen.  Cabin door was open.  Inside was a mess.  

     “I’d been up there before and knew that the only firearm that Limpy owned was a pellet rifle, mainly because of the pack rats that those woods are full of. He claimed that he didn’t need anything more, that he was a friend of all the animals, except for packrats. I’d seen him tossing cornbread scraps to the birds with twenty chickadees sitting on the brim of his hat.

     “The pellet gun wasn’t in his shack. The bog was torn up pretty good, like quite a tussle had happened there, maybe three months earlier. There isn’t any broadleaf or tamarack up that high on Marshall Mountain to cover anything with duff, so the sign was still pretty easy to read.

     “A bear had been bothering Limpy, probably getting into his cabin. Door jam was looking like it had been torn to pieces. You can’t stop a determined big bear with a wooden door. I’ve seen a bear rip the whole rear end out of a camp trailer to get to the toilet tank… tin, wood, metal bracing and all. This bear must have been a little more than a nuisance to make Limpy abandon his kinship with all forest creatures and set up a steel trap.

     “I got to looking around and found a string of pellets leading off into the woods, probably from where Limpy had a box of them in his shirt pocket.  When he went to running for his life, a few spilled out at every step. There isn’t a tree big enough to climb within two miles of his claim.  Don’t know where he was headed, he probably didn’t either, but he didn’t make it. He ran about a hundred yards into the peckerpoles before the bear caught him.  

     “He’d been dead long enough for the little scavengers to get to him, laying there, busted to pieces, with the pellet gun ten feet away, and his right hand reaching down into his own rib cage like he was doing the Pledge of Allegiance with an exposed heart.

     “Here’s what I figure happened. Limpy had rounded up one big steel bear trap and a twenty foot log chain. I still don’t know where he got the trap.  He chained around a tree and set that trap for a bear that was making his life miserable, busting into his cabin, maybe even while he was in there, stealing his provisions. It’s a long ways to the grocery store from Marshall Mountain and Limpy wasn’t one to eat venison. 

     “He must have figured that if and when he caught the bear he was going to stab it to death with the pointed stick, wear it down with a pellet gun, or maybe just wait for it to starve to death.  Either way, it was a flawed plan.  

     “What happened was that he caught a bear cub instead, and having your cub caught in a trap is an awful big disappointment for a mama bear. Probably happened at night. When the screaming started, Limpy most likely came out of his cabin carrying the pellet gun to do whatever he was going to do and ran smack dab into Mom. He never had a chance to pick up the stick. No sign of blood or hair on it.  He tried to outrun her but wasn’t up to the task. Like his name suggests, he wasn’t too fast on his feet.

     “When she caught him, she made short work of him, grabbed him at the breast bone with both front feet and tore him open, shook him by the neck until it busted, then probably went back and fretted over her cub until it starved out.  

     “I followed the letter of the law and reported the bear to Fish and Game. We didn’t think that the bear was much of a threat of being a repeat offender. Almost justified homicide, considering the circumstances. Of course, it was a little late to ticket Limpy for hunting bear with a stick. I hauled the  pieces of him out of there, back down Carey Grade, and the citizens of Idaho County paid to bury him in Grangeville.  Never was able to locate a single relative.”

 

Two:  The Left-handed Bear

 

(Heard from Big Al the Kiddies’ Pal on the porch of the Lardo Saloon, McCall, Idaho, summer of 1973)

 

     “Don’t know whether you knew it or not, but most bears are left-handed.  I have good proof right here.

      “Last weekend a bunch of us went across the Wind River pack bridge and up the trail to the McMeekan Ranch to see Churdie.  There are some good fishing spots up high on the Wind, and we pretty much got our backcountry limits out of just one hole.

     “We built a big fire out by a rock in front of the cabin and had three frying pans full of good sized brook trout cooking in butter when this big old bear caught the scent, wandered into camp, stood on its hind legs and went to woofing at us.

     “Everybody but me scooted toward the cabin.  The bear was between me and the cabin, though, so I first tried the Daniel Boone approach, you know, staring it down. Didn’t work. Then I yelled at it.  Didn’t work. Threw the spatula at it. Didn’t work. The critter dropped to all fours and charged right at me, ignoring the fish and the grease and everything.

     “There is a big old yellow pine on that flat, and I beat feet for it as fast as I could.  The first big limb is pretty close to ten feet off the ground. Somehow I made the leap, got my hands around the limb, and just as I was hoisting myself up, the bear took a swipe at me, caught me in the butt crack with its claws, and tore up my right butt cheek real good.   

     “Had to have been left-handed to do that. Here, look. See what I mean?”

(Note:  As with many bear stories, this one grew a little with the telling. When the details were fully disclosed, it was determined that Big Al’s posterior had actually been mauled by a river rock, when he cannonballed into a swimming hole on the Wind River.)

     

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