Drop City

information. “It's a bear!” somebody shouted.
    The white of the goats, the yellow of the dog, the wild shifting raging _brownness__ of this thing that didn't belong there in the pen, that didn't compute, that was no bear at all but something else entirely, claws, teeth and fur in a fury of grinding perpetual motion and a keening sharpedged growl that never faltered, and by the time Marco and Alfredo waded in on it with their clubs the goats were dead and gutted and Frodo was lying there in the dirt with his throat torn out and this thing, this emanation of the deepest hole in the blackest part of the last and wildest stronghold of the hills that bristled round her like breastworks, faced them down and in one leap was gone, a dark rumor in the high weed out beyond the silent pen. And later, even when she knew what it was--_Gulo luscus,__ the glutton, the wolverine, the big buffed-up weasel that was so blood-crazed it had been known to drive grizzlies off their kills, she still didn't understand. All she knew was that Ronnie had the guns downriver--all three of them--and that there would be no goats to tend, not anymore, and no milk, no yogurt, no cheese. There was a party, led by Weird George, Mendocino Bill and Norm himself, that wanted to butcher the goats and make use of the meat--the whole business regrettable, sure, a real bummer, but why let the meat go to waste, that was their thinking--but she came at them like that thing itself, raging, absolutely raging, and “Why not skin Frodo, then,” she said. “Why not eat him?”
    She dug the holes herself. Marco stood off at a distance with a solemn face and two empty dangling hands, but she wouldn't let him help. The ground was like rock. The mosquitoes drained her. Sweating till her eyes stung and the ends of her hair clung like tentacles at her throat, she dragged the carcasses of the goats--of Amanda and Dewlap, and yes, she could tell them apart now, even at this late hour when it no longer mattered and their eyes were closed on the world--dragged them across the yard and buried them.
    In the morning, when she went out there in the tall weed amidst the stumps to lay a few flowers on the raw earth and gather her strength and maybe think some consoling thoughts and tell herself it was all for the best, all part of the plan, the _flow,__ there was nothing to see but two empty holes and the naked long gashes that claws make in the dug-up dirt.
    Ronnie and Verbie didn't come back on Thursday night as planned, and they didn't show up on Friday either. People began to wonder, and then they began to worry. This was a slippery place, wild, unbridled, full of surprises--and if they hadn't fully appreciated that because they were so wrapped up in themselves, so focused on their hands and feet and the planing of logs and scooping salmon from the river and berries from the hills, then that thing out of the woods had served them notice. This wasn't California. This wasn't Indiana or Texas or New Jersey. They were here in this country and they were going to stick it out, no question about it, and it was beautiful here, paradise almost, but it was a whole lot _dicier__ than any of them could have dreamed in their infancy back in California when there was nothing more to fret over than is there gas in the car and do they have cassava and artichokes down at the supermarket yet? They'd been lulled by the sun, by the breath of the river and the scent of the trees and the syrupy warm days that went on forever. But now there was an edge. Now they knew.
    Star went out on Friday night and stared down the length of the river till her eyes felt the strain. She was worried for him, of course she was. Ronnie was the closest person in the world to her besides Marco, and she didn't know what she'd do if anything happened to him. He was her link--her only link--to all that past history, to Mr. Boscovich and the yearbook and her parents even, and though she'd never go back to that, though she'd hated it all then and hated it now, the farther she got from it the more important it became--it was as much a part of who she was as the atoms that composed her cells and the _blood material__ that flowed through her veins and she needed that. Everybody did. She talked about it with Marco all the time, and with Merry and Maya. To come here, to be part of this, to do what they were trying to do at Drop City, you had to sever the ties no matter how painful that might be--but that didn't mean you