The Land of the Dancing Rabbits

Harlan picked his way down the boulder field that lined the deep V of the cove. It was late afternoon, and his view of the sky through the naked treetops told him more snow or freezing rain was on the way. All the usual kit that came with him on his trips into the hills was still with the Harley—maybe—so making easy fire was out of the question, and his fingers were so stiff with cold that building a fire primitive style wasn’t likely, regardless of his desperate situation. He crawled on.

Thoughts of Jennifer came more frequently now. Eight months earlier, Harlan slammed her front door for the last time on his way out of their lives. He’d slammed a lot of doors in their lives over the years, disappearing as his own emotional attachment to her became more than he was equipped to handle. It was the reason they lived apart; he needed a convenient bolt hole when the need arose, and he rationalized that, since she was such an independent woman, she preferred her own space anyway, although he never asked and she didn’t volunteer. Clever woman.

There was a lot about Jenn he thought was clever, especially when it came to how she managed him. She ignored his outbursts, argued with his opinions when the spirit moved her, yet continued to open her door to him once he was over his snits and returned, sometimes weeks later. He’d find her vacuuming or putting away groceries or medicating the cat for its recurring bladder issue, always mundane life affairs he considered out of keeping with his imagined grand reentries. Her life seemed to go on uninterrupted, as though his being there or not made little difference to her. Secretly, even from himself, he wanted it to make a difference.

But Jennifer was a long way from where Harlan now crawled backward on his belly over one frozen boulder after another. The rounded stones told him water had rubbed them smooth and likely still did during summer cloudbursts or the spring runoff. Between them, he saw shy green mosses shining through the ice film that glazed the depressions where they huddled. Winter green, especially something looking so fragile as moss, amazed him. How could they survive making soil out of barren rock? His mind wandered between Jennifer and rock-eating mosses.

Harlan liked his dramas. He thought they were widely spaced, although they weren’t, but they were regular, and if a reason wasn’t ready at hand when the time came, he’d create one. It was his style, and he liked his style, even needed it. He liked how he felt when his anger erupted white hot over some offense, real or imagined, although to him they were always real. His take on the world was the only valid one around, and when it was questioned, it meant he was questioned—existentially questioned—and for a man whose right to exist was constantly under threat, his mental and emotional castle had to be impregnable. And Harlan had built an impregnable castle.

Suddenly his boot slipped, and he slammed down hard on his knee. Being fresh with irritation from the Jennifer memory and the insult of the new pain shooting up his leg, Harlan had what he needed to cast about for somebody to blame for his predicament. Since there was no one within earshot to bawl out, God looked to be the only option.

As he wrenched himself off his current rock, he decided this latest drama had to be God’s doing, because Harlan certainly wasn’t enjoying it. And so God was granted existence long enough to take the fall, only God didn’t rise to the challenge. That was one of Harlan’s pet peeves with God; he never took you seriously when you wanted him to.

He had worked himself into a ball of fuming human disorientation when he tumbled over one more boulder and rolled up hard against the forward lip of a crack in the mountainside. After the shocking pain of impact subsided and his breath returned, he realized this was more than a crack in the rock. This was an opening, maybe one large and deep enough to offer some protection from the cold.

With the afternoon light nearly gone and freezing rain now a certainty, this first sign of shelter struck him as a happy alternative, even if far from what he’d hoped for. He recalled something about a survivable temperature below ground, but what temperature or how far down that was he neither recalled nor cared about. He knelt gingerly and wedged himself in.

Harlan was disappointed it felt no warmer inside, and he didn’t like the way it smelled. Regardless, he squeezed further in until the pressure of his numbed hands against the gritty stone told him more about his surroundings than his eyes did. When the headroom expanded, he hauled himself to a low crouch that set off the pain in his ribs again and threw him off balance. He cried out, startled and uncomprehending, as he pitched forward into empty air.

The drop was short but shocking, and he tumbled forward, plowing face first into a wall of rank, hot fur. Jeeziz, it’s a bear! Damn if his saving cave wasn’t already taken. A thick, musky animal smell gagged him, and the rest of his body went rigid with fear.

The jostled fur shifted heavily as the she-bear raised her head to regard him through the gloom.

“You’re late,” she stated flatly.

Harlan promptly fainted.