Part 5: Can You Bear It?


Handsome Lake campsite
Saturday, Sept. 23
0600 (local)

The sun has yet to break the horizon, but what Homer (no, not Simpson) immortalized as ‘rosy fingered dawn’ is caressing the sky with the palest of pinks. My handsome is still asleep in our tent, but it sure is handsome out here anyway.

On my way back from ‘visiting the woods’ I gather more firewood. After clearing out the fire ring from last night’s fire, I busy myself building a classic log house fire structure.

I always know where he is. He’s right behind me.

“Gee, Mac. I didn’t know you’d been a Girl Scout.”

“Maybe ‘cause I never was. The group I ran with at that age was more like Girls Scouting for Trouble.”

I watch him mull that over and decide not to pursue it. “But that’s a classic Girl Scout fire structure.”

“Yeah, well, the Marines must have borrowed it from them.”

We both chuckle at the thought of Marines admitting they got anything from the Girl Scouts. Nevertheless, with one match it’s nicely lit.

Together we lower the food locker and start coffee.

He sits on a log and I sit on the ground in front of him. He straddles me with his legs, his thighs becoming the most perfect armrests ever invented, his chest the most comfortable backrest on the planet. Damn, if for no other reason, I’d love him for being the best recliner I’ve ever had the pleasure to sit in.

“I missed making love to you last night, and this morning,” I whisper. “I know why we didn’t, but that doesn’t mean I have to like it.”

He rubs my arms. “Me too, Mac, but unfortunately bears like the way we smell when we make love just as much as we do.”

We quietly watch the dawn raise its light, bringing along with it the sound of birds greeting the day. God this is good. I must remember to thank Keeter for this.
Speaking of whom, here he comes.

“Leave it to the Marines to hit the beach first,” he says appreciatively.

“You squids always do,” is my natural reply.

“OK, now that we have the standard service rivalry taken care of for the day, is the coffee ready?” Ya just gotta love a guy like Keeter.

Harm pours us each a mug. “Heather still asleep?” he asks.

“Naa. She’s fussing with her hair, trying to figure out how to deal with it without using any spray, mousse, gel, foam, whatever else.”

“Maybe I should go lend a hand,” I offer.

“It’s up to you, but I gotta warn you, she’s kinda peeved about this whole ‘no lotions or potions’ thing.”

Yeah, but struggling with a bad hair day is a tad better than getting mauled by a bear, isn’t it? Surely she agrees with that. But then again, she is from New York City.

I gird myself and call out to her from the tent entrance.

“Heather, it’s Mac, can I come in?”

“Sure.”

I crawl in and sure enough, she’s got a mirror set up and is surrounded by pins, bands, bows and some things I can’t identify.

“Jack said you’re having trouble with your hair.” God, that sounds so lame. Trouble in the Mideast, trouble with the deficit, trouble with meeting enlistment quotas all sound like trouble. ‘Trouble with your hair’ sounds, well, shallow.

“I can’t do anything with it without my products. Jack knows that, too. Do you know he actually searched my gear and confiscated my deodorant, perfume, hairspray, mousse, even my body lotion!”

Thank you, Keeter. I’ll sleep more soundly tonight knowing that you made sure your wife didn’t bring any bear-magnets with her.

“Well Heather, this area has a lot of black bears, and all those things, anything with a scent, attracts them. That’s why we were careful to cook downwind of our tents and hung the food in a tree. A less-than-perfect hair day is a small price to pay to avoid a close encounter with a bear.” Tell me she’s not this much of a twit; I was starting to like her.

She sighs deeply. “Of course. But what am I gonna do with this?” She gestures to her head. “I look like Medusa!”

OK, she just regained some of my respect. Joking about bad hair by referring to a Greek myth scores significant points.

“Let me help. Marine women have to always have their hair above their collar while in uniform, so I know a few tricks.” In a couple minutes her hair is tamed, she’s happy and we’re drinking coffee with the guys.

Jack leans over to me and says “thanks” in a heartfelt tone that seems way too serious for the situation, but what do I know.

Harm’s got eggs scrambling, Heather’s got sausage frying and I’ve got a stomach ready for both.

After we clean up our breakfast stuff and rehang the food locker, Keeter suggests a morning hike.

“We can pick up a spur of the Tracy Ridge hiking trail called Johnnycake Run not far from here and hike to the top of the rise over there,” he indicates a well-forested ridge above the lake. “Up and back’s about four and half miles altogether, according to the map,” which he hands to Harm and me.

We look at each other. He really did plan this all out, didn’t he? Man, he must *really* feel guilty about Bitsey.

“Sounds great!” we chorus.

Loading up with water bottles and some trail mix, we set off for a morning adventure.

A half-hour into our hike I’m more impressed than ever with Keeter’s vacation planning skills.

“How’d you come to pick this Forest, this campsite, this trail?” I ask.

“Mac, it’s amazing what you can find out in a few hours on the Internet. This forest is the largest National Forest in comfortable flying time from DC for our plane heading north-west, which is where the best colors were predicted for this weekend. Plus it’s situated so we could route over a string of State Forests, not to mention Harm’s Gran’s farm. The campsite is one of the few primitive ones that are on the water and have potable water available. This trail, which conveniently links up to the campsite, is part of the trail system that’s in the Allegheny National Recreation Area, one of the few roadless areas in the Forest. It’s heavily treed in second growth timber; mostly oak but with beech, black cherry, hickory even some hemlock and really old white pines. It’s considered one of the best, but less used parts of the trail system ‘cause it’s a little steep. I figured it’d be perfect. And, if it got too tough, we could always turn back.”
He grins.

“You got all that on the Internet?” Harm asks.

“Yeah, man, it’s good for more than just e-mailing ya know.”

The trail is well marked, the views astounding, the climb just challenging enough to make it interesting. At the top we rest, drink deeply from our water bottles, munch on some trail mix and gawk at the vista.

“Wow.” I think all four of us said that at once.

Harm claps Keeter on the back. “Man, you did good, real good. Thanks so much for this. You and Heather had a brilliant idea and your execution has been flawless.” He jumps up, grabs me with him and spins me around, laughing with the full blown mirth I have never heard from him outside of ‘Sarah’.

I shriek a bit, giggle a little and wiggle a lot against him.

He puts me down and we touch foreheads together in a moment of thanks for the wonder of this day, this weekend, this ‘us’.

As we begin to head back down the trail Heather grabs me. “Mac, if you two don’t figure out how to get rid of the ‘complications’, you need to have your heads examined.”


Approaching Handsome Lake campsite
1100 (local)

We’re coming in downwind of our campsite. Eeouw, what is that smell?

Harm raises his hand in the traditional military ‘halt’ sign. We all stop, looking at each other. He motions us closer together, while keeping us facing outward. The hair on the back of my arms and neck is at full attention.

“Keeter?” he asks.

“’Fraid so,” Jack answers.

“Mac, stay here with Heather. Keeter and I are going to check out our campsite.” He knows I want to protest, he also knows I know I need to protect Heather.

“OK, be careful.”
Harm and Keeter get about 10 yards away from us and start clapping their hands, shouting loudly, letting off ear-shattering whistles and generally making as much noise as possible.

They round the bend to our campsite and I brace myself. After another thirty seconds their noise stops and I hear Harm shout, “all clear, come on in.”

Heather and I walk into a smelly and trashed campsite. The food locker’s been pulled down and somehow burst open (probably as a result of falling 10 feet from its tree top perch). Food is strewn all over. Our tents are ripped, the rest of our gear doing a great imitation of an outdoor rummage sale.

You don’t need to be Ranger Rick to figure this one out: bear.

I don’t get it. We policed our food, the locker was secured, what attracted the bear?

I watch Harm and Keeter eye each other.

“Is Mac?”

“No. Is Heather?”

“No. Did you two?”

“No. Did you guys?”

“No. You know me better than that, Harm.”

“Yeah, but you’re newlyweds.”

“Yeah, and I’d like to live to my first anniversary.”

“Is it possible she wasn’t yesterday, and is now?”

“Maybe, how ‘bout Mac?”

“Don’t think so, but maybe.”

OK, I’ve had all I can take of the cryptic twins. “What the hell are you two talking about? And how could Heather or I have anything to do with this? I know for a fact Jack confiscated all of Heather’s lotions and potions. You know I would never bring any.”

Harm and Keeter shuffle a little, glance at each other, clearly trying to decide who’s gonna speak next. Harm takes the bait.

“It’s just that sometimes women attract bears just by being women.”
“So just ‘cause we are women it’s our fault that bears came into our camp and trashed our food?”

“Well, yeah. Oh, NO! Ah, shit.” My god, they say it in unison. Same words, same pauses, same chagrined look.

Just like riding a bike, I see Harm and Keeter haven’t lost their skills at defending their own idiocy. Bet they perfected this performance at the Academy.

I turn to Heather. “Are you on your period?”

She blinks, swallows and then manages to squeak “no.”

“Me neither. OK hotshots, any other ideas? Like maybe your combined testosterone level sent some message on the wind to Yogi and BooBoo.”

“More like a local trouble maker who’s gotten way too good at getting food lockers down,” comes a new voice into the mix. We turn to the green-clad Park Ranger striding into view.

“Boy, he really got you,” he notes as he surveys the chaos that was our campsite.

“The good news is that we shot him about an hour ago.”

“You shot him?” Heather’s clearly distressed.

“Tranquilizer dart, ma’am. We’ll transport him deep into the area of the Forest people don’t go in. But he’s been tagged twice. He does this again and it’s bye bye BooBoo. Unfortunate, but we can’t have him doing this kind of stuff.” He shakes his head.

Harm’s inspecting the food locker tie down (or is it a tie up?). “It looks like he gnawed through the rope, bringing the locker crashing down, which broke it open. That’s pretty sophisticated thinking for a bear, are you sure he doesn’t have an accomplice?”

I can’t stifle the laughter and neither can the Ranger.

“Who or what did you have in mind?” he asks. “Smokey’s on our side and Yogi went to animation heaven quite a few years ago.”

I can see my ace JAG investigator isn’t happy that he can’t solve the crime, but sometimes we all have to live with a little disappointment.

The Ranger consults a notebook he’s pulled from his chest pocket. “It says here you’re scheduled to stay tonight and leave tomorrow. What do you folks wanna do? Stay or go? I can tell you that the weather forecast is clear, with an expected overnight low of 45, so if your sleeping bags are intact you shouldn’t have a problem even though your tents are ripped.”
He walks around the food strewn site. “Of course all the open food needs to be properly disposed of. I see you have a few canned things and they'll be fine, just wash the outside of the can carefully before you open it. Fishing's good this weekend if you have equipment, and if you have any survival training, there’s plenty of things to forage in the forest.”

Survival training? I jump right in. “Sir, I’m a Lt. Colonel in the Marines, these two are Naval aviators (kinda glossing over the fact Jack resigned his commission six years ago), among us we have more than adequate survival skills.”

He looks at us with new respect. “I’d say so. OK then, shall I assume you’re staying?”

We all exchange glances and nods. “Yes,” one word, four voices.

He reaches into the backpack he has slung over his shoulder and tosses two packets to Harm and two to Keeter. “Have a good lunch, courtesy the Forest Service. Enjoy the rest of your weekend.” He touches the brim of his hat, turns and strides back down the trail.

“Damn,” I hear Keeter swear. “I thought I was done with MREs.”


Handsome Lake campsite
1230 (local)

We’ve cleaned up the campsite, taken all appropriate precautions with spoiled food disposal and we’re ready for the next part of our day, which has been bear-determined for us. I don’t know what Keeter had originally planned, but gathering food has become the priority for the afternoon.

“Hey, guys, this isn’t so bad. I was gonna suggest we go fishing this afternoon anyway. The North Branch of the Sugar Run is only a couple miles down the road from here and it’s got trout. Brown, spotted and rainbow trout.” Keeter’s rubbing his hands together and wiggling his eyebrows.

I see Harm’s on board with that idea.

“Heather, do you want to go fishing?” I ask her.

She wrinkles her nose. “I love to eat them, but I’d just as soon skip the process of bait, catch and gut.”

“OK guys, here’s the challenge,” I see the startled looks on their faces. “Heather and me against you two. We’ll forage in the forest for edibles, you fish for them. Whoever gets the most, or the best, by popular acclaim, wins.”

“Oh yeah, Mac, and what’s the prize?” Harm throws back at me.
“Well, if we win, we get you two. If you win, you get us. Seeing how it’s our dinner, those good enough stakes for you?

It’s a four-way eyebrow wiggling contest as we leer at our respective partners.

“You’re the only steak I’ll ever want to eat, Mac.”