SHE-BEAR

In the years after our sojourn in Spain, Ella flew up from L.A. to visit me de vez en cuando—oops—from time to time (I still sometimes remember the Spanish word or expression before the English), and together we’d drive north to Healdsburg to see Dale. Dale lived in a succession of rustic homes on the Russian River and taught Spanish and drama at the local junior high school. I remember us rock-hounding in the river, reading out loud excerpts from plays she was considering for her drama class, and baking squashes filled with breadcrumbs, cheese, and bacon. Ella recalls winery-hopping, hiking in the redwoods, and sipping kahlua and hot milk around the fireplace (actually, she isn’t sure about the fireplace but says it makes a nice picture).

One 4th of July we all smoked pot out on Dale’s deck (the second and last time I tried it), and I got so stoned after only a few tokes—that was all I could manage because the smoke burned my throat—I didn’t feel up to going to see the fireworks. They left me behind, and, all by myself, I had a very bad trip. I remember everything abrading my senses in a disagreeable way; when I danced, the wooden floor chafed my feet, when I listened to music, it grated on my ears, when I ate leftover cake, it tasted dry and ashy in my mouth. And the effects didn’t wear off after a few hours either, but lasted throughout most of the next day. My head didn’t clear until late afternoon, when, in the midst of Hendy Woods, Ella and Dale lit up another joint and nearly started a forest fire. A bit of ash or a dropped match must have ignited some needles or dry leaves, and, while Ella and Dale remained blissfully oblivious of the first telltale wisps of smoke, I leapt to my feet and stamped out the impending conflagration.

Eventually Dale earned a degree in geology from Sonoma State and got a job with the U.S. Geological Survey. On one of Ella’s visits, I picked her up at the airport and noticed during the drive home that she seemed oddly constrained. When I asked her if something was wrong, she said she would rather discuss it when we got to my apartment. Immediately I started imagining fatal diagnoses and horrible disasters, but nothing could have prepared me for her news. The next day we went to Stanford Hospital to visit Dale, who told us this story:

She’d flown to Alaska to do field work, and one morning, after being set down—alone—in the wilderness by helicopter, she’d been accosted by a black bear. She’d yelled and made a ruckus with some pots and pans to frighten it off, as she’d been instructed to do, but the she-bear, who had an overgrown cub with her, attacked her instead of fleeing. For what seemed like hours she played dead, while the bear gnawed on one of her arms and dragged her around, until she lost all hope of surviving the encounter. But when it eventually got distracted and wandered a short distance away, she took a desperate gamble. She reached into her pack as discretely as she could with her other arm and radioed the helicopter for help—or tried to; she didn’t know if she’d been heard. Not discretely enough, however, because the bear, apparently deciding she wasn’t dead after all, came back…and promptly started gnawing on her good arm. The helicopter’s arrival finally scared the bear off, but Dale’s deliverance came too late. At the hospital the surgeons told her the bear had done so much damage they would have to amputate both her arms.

One was cut off at the shoulder; the other was only a small stump.

I’d wondered how I’d feel seeing my friend mutilated, how I’d manage the shock, but it felt completely natural to put my arms around her, bandages and all, finding, to my surprise, that she still looked whole to me.