The Bear Who Haunted Garnet

by ciliverde

The Bear Who Haunted Garnet, Montana

The huge, old bear ambled
down First Chance Gulch one evening,
following an old creek bed
as late October light poured
through the lodgepoles.

She wasn't in a hurry.

Her belly full from recent feeding,
she was content.
She'd seen the wolves scatter
like starlings from their carcass
when she roared, and they
waited, circling and howling
while she tore into the meat.

She shuffled with soft footfalls
crackling in yellow leaves,
snout snuffing the mead of fresh decay
and the blood still streaked
on her fur; felt in her bones
the lowering light of fall,
the snow that would soon
pelt down in smothering drifts;
sensed the long sleep coming
and the tiny cubs already growing
in her belly.

Clouds blew around her, like scudding sea foam,
as if the first breath of winter
blew into the fading daylight.

Close ahead the town glowed like coals
in the almost-night.
Cooking-smoke scent drifted,
and a dull buzz of voices
emerged through silence.

She was not afraid.

Habit, more than hunger,
drew her here.
She knew the taste
of their chickens; the aromatic garbage
tossed carelessly behind saloons.
The miners had seen
her paw-prints, big as dinner plates,
outside their cabins,
claw marks dug deep into damp soil.
They'd seen slabs of bark
torn off the trunks of fir-trees.
Their whiskey-soaked voices
whispered tales about a giant bear -
the grizzly who haunted
their tiny town.

No one had seen her,
they said. Only the men
she had killed and dragged
into the brush.
They were afraid; she eluded
even the best hunters.
She was an old bear and she'd grown
wise to the ways of men.

The legends grew,
even as gold dried up in Garnet,
and only the most desperate
remained: the old timers, the outlaws;
drunkards who lacked the will
to move on.

The old she-bear stood, curious;
small eyes squinting into the night.
Her nose caught a scent,
and she approached,
sensing the sleeping human, slayed already
by drunkenness and despair.
She slashed a cheek with razor claws,
as if to anoint the sleeping man
with blood, or sorely-needed luck.

Then she lumbered back into
the pines, with that peculiar
shuffling gait that grizzlies have.
She could run like the wind
if she needed to, but not now;
now she wanted sleep.

She'd ascend the mountain,
by scent, for her vision was poor,
and sleep beneath the larches
in all their golden glory.
Then the north winds would blow,
and the last birds would wing south
for the winter,
and the old moon would rise
to gild her frosted fur.

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Garnet is a ghost town in Granite County, Montana. It is an abandoned mining town that dates from the 1860s, located in First Chance Gulch.

Garnet was originally named Mitchell in 1895 and had ten buildings. The main part of the town was built on the Garnet Lode. Later changing its name to Garnet, it was a rich gold mining area. In 1898, as many as 1,000 people lived here; it was abandoned 20 years later when the gold ran out.

During the 1890s, it had close to thirteen saloons (bars), as well as food stores, a barber shop, mercantile store, and three hotels. Garnet was famous for its saloons; at its peak, the saloons were one of the hottest spots in Garnet.

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The Bear Who Haunted Garnet

by ciliverde

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