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“You don’t have to leave,” she repeats.
“What do you mean?” I ask.
“Do you understand me?” she says, eyes pleading.
I realize then that I’m still my bear, and she can’t understand the query in my growl. I shift to human and ask, “What do you mean? Have you stopped the developers?”
She nods and says, “I’ve bought the land. I’ve dedicated it as a private nature preserve. It’s now illegal to develop the land and illegal for anyone to hunt or travel in this land without written permission from me.”
I stare at her in surprise. “You bought the land? How?”
She grins at me. “I’m very, very wealthy,” she says. “I never really mentioned it because money doesn’t mean much. You know, except when I get to be a superhero for the man I love.”
One of the bears growls a question, and I realize that they can’t all hear her. Her voice doesn’t carry like mine does.
I turn and project my voice so they can all hear me. I explain what’s happened and that we don’t need to leave our homes after all. The bears express surprise, then joy.
Melody is a little taken aback at first. I imagine that even though she knows she’s safe, the sight of nearly twenty tons of black bear lumbering at her and growling is probably a shocking sight.
Several of them shift, and she blushes a little as naked man, woman and children alike take turns wrapping her in bear hugs and thanking her. I smile at her through the crowd and she returns a grin of her own as she accepts the gratitude of those who now owe her their lives.
Chapter Ten
Duncan
Those who have never experienced the changes of the seasons are truly missing out on one of the great wonders of life. The forest comes alive slowly in Spring. The animals wake tentatively, peering out of their dens where they’ve wintered and waiting for signs of growth that will tell them they can leave their holes and enjoy a life in the sun again.
The first shoots of the flowering plants arrive later. Animals are more restless than plants due to their shorter lifecycles. There are several false starts before the animals can leave their dens finally.
The evergreens are truly evergreen. When spring comes, the pine leaves open slightly and the beginnings of the buds that will eventually become the cones and seeds begin, but the process is leisurely. The other plants move rapidly, shooting through the snow and quickly leaving, budding and flowering.
The insects are frenzied. Most will have only these few weeks of spring with which to grow, metamorphose, and mate before their exhausted bodies return to the soil. The mammals are less frenzied but still operate with urgency. Spring is the time of plenty, the time to fatten and recover from the leanness of winter. They quickly explore their world to ensure that the berries and seeds will grow where they’ve always grown. Those who graze will mark the paths that lead to safe ground. Those who prey on the primary consumers will note the size and health of the herds and decide how lean or fat a year this will be.
All predators have an instinctive sense of how much is enough and how much is too much. They know that just as the grazers and foragers owe their existence to a thriving flora, they owe their existence to an abundance of healthy prey. They will modify their own activities—mating, hunting, foraging, and roaming—to ensure that they do not use more energy than they can obtain.
The ecosystem remains in balance.
By summer, the urges of hunger and awakening have passed. The babies that have been kept close to their mothers are now allowed to play and explore, to discover the land that they will call their home for the rest of their lives. They scamper and flutter and slither about, answering the questions their senses ask them and so learning their place in this environment.
The pollinators are most active during this time. They build their nests and lay their eggs busily as they gather from the summer plants whose blooms shine brightly, advertising their succulence and vibrancy and promising to those who visit them the same vitality.
The smaller animals have already begun to think ahead to the winter. When times of leanness come, they are safer if they hide earlier before the stragglers among the predators become more desperate. They enjoy the sunshine and are not hurried, merely single-minded in their focus.
The evergreens are evergreen. They grow most during this time, but their growth is measured in inches. Most other living things will never notice the incremental changes in the trees over the years. Some of these trees have existed since before humans ever arrived in this forest. Some will exist long after the humans depart. They provide shelter and occasionally food for the small, flickering creatures that exist among them and in so doing anchor the food chain.
The ecosystem remains in balance.
Autumn is a time of change. The flowering plants shed their petals and their leaves and stems wither, providing mulch for new forms of insects and mammals who scour the recycled life for scraps that will fuel their own rapid lifecycles. The insects of spring and summer have long gone. Some have lain eggs that will awaken the next spring. Fungi extend their tendrils throughout the decaying mass of plant and animal life, recycling their mass and providing nutrients to the soil that the plants both evergreen and deciduous will use to fuel their bodies.
The larger animals succumb to the drive that all animals feel. They compete for mates and those that are old enough and wise enough and strong enough succeed. Those that are too young and not yet prepared to lick their wounds, endure their shame and remember their lessons for the following seasons.
When mating is over, the animals quickly prepare for winter. The predators are no longer patient and calculating. The grazers begin their long migrations. Those who don’t migrate protect their stockpiles and prepare to sleep through the winter, waking only occasionally to feed. The insects slow, their mission complete. Nothing left to do but to die and give life from their bodies to the soil for their descendants to subsist in the following season.
The ecosystem remains in balance.
The evergreens are evergreen. Their cones open and they provide the animals in their care with nuts and seeds that will keep them alive for the coming cold. As the animals forage, they will pass these seeds and though most will lie inert in the ground, enough will survive that over the coming centuries as the ancient trees finally succumb to age and rot, new, young, hardy trees will take their place.
When the snow falls, gravity overcomes the forest. The few remaining stalwarts of the annual plants realize their time is truly come. They shed their leaves and stems and their roots lie dormant until the sun reaches the soil again. The insects that will survive the winter retreat into burrows and lie similarly dormant, as do the squirrels and mice and beavers. Bears, contrary to popular belief, rarely hibernate, but those that do—usually the ones with child—roam for one final meal before their long rest. The grazers who choose to remain in the forest do not hibernate but slowly and remain huddled in herds, trusting the warmth and safety of their numbers to keep them safe through the long cold.
