Chapter 2
On the other side of the lake, Annabella stopped hammering, shook out her tired shoulders and walked over to the colorful flowers near the path. She leaned down to look closely at a quarter-sized yellow flower with a green center. It stood solitary on a long stem with dark green leaves. She picked the subalpine buttercup, bringing it to her nose to see if it had a smell. Just when she was doing so, she heard a rustling in the bows of an evergreen tree a few feet away. A blue grouse poked her gray, brown, and black head out of the green foliage to investigate any threat to her nest on the ground near a tree, which was partially covered by a thick greyish-brown log.
“Aww, aren’t you lovely?” Annabella murmured out quietly, careful not to scare the grouse.
She legally owned Bear Lake, which was willed to her by her grandparents. She was intent on starting a camping site for tourists, with kitschy little cabins and fireside talks as a yuppie money making scheme to bring burnt-out city dwellers in droves to enjoy the peaceful wildlife around Bear Lake. She looked around her, seeing a flash of color behind the surveyed area for the first cabin of her grand plan.
She walked to the rear of the beginning structure of a weathered wooden cabin to see a silvery blue butterfly nectaring on a variety of flowers, basking in the sunshine and fluttering its wings to attract mates. This one appeared to be male, as the females were not usually as brightly colored. The tourists were going to love this place, from its peaceful lake, to the beauty of the wildlife, to the pristine and undisturbed nature trails.
She walked down the path, a bit more vigilant now that she had encountered that frightening grizzly bear this morning. The trail from her cabin site led directly down to a large rock called Bear Rock mentioned on her survey. Beyond it was a haphazard group of smaller rocks with female mergansers taking a moment to bathe and preen with their duck elegance. The waterbirds were flapping their gray and white wings, using their beaks to peck at their dull orange legs and the water between them to find small fish and bugs.
Annabella heard the sound of a vehicle coming closer. She looked down at her dirty jeans and stained, ripped shirt ruefully. That must be the tree clearing team, they were earlier than she had expected. She hurried up the path toward the pad and the sparse progress she had made on the cabin.
“Ye Annabella?” A large, beefy man with a happy, ruddy face and a wayward shock of red hair asked.
“You must be Liam, my architect Derek told me you would be out here around three in the afternoon,” Annabella replied.
“So'tiz tree in de afternoon, lass!” He said laughing, his cheeks filling with even more blush, making his whole face red for a few seconds.
She looked down at her watch in surprise. It was 3:05 pm exactly. She had lost all track of time today. She self-mockingly grimaced, knowing she looked a bit foolish to the handsome muscular man.
“Yeah, well, I guess the nap I took was a little longer than I intended!” She said, lying. She didn’t want him to know she had worked all day and gotten so little done by herself. The progress on the cabin was going amazingly slow, but she insisted on doing it herself as much as she was able.
“Oyt ter wha chucker yer want de trees cleared, jist gie me a shape an' oi 'ill mark it wi' dis blue paint for de team the-morra,” he said, his thick accent obscuring most of the words.
“Oh, I want to keep things as wild and pristine as possible. I don’t want the trees to be clear cut. Can we mark individual trees instead of a whole area?” She asked.
“Sure, lass. Yer jist say de ward an' oi 'ill mark dem,” Liam replied, rummaging through the back of his Jeep for a spray can of blue paint.
They wandered around a space about five hundred square feet, with her telling him her grand plans. Each time she would point out a tree, he would raise the paint can. Then she would wave him off. She only ended up marking about a dozen trees for removal, thinning the area and making a space for a fire pit in the back.
When they were almost done, her stomach grumbled and she looked over at him.
“I guess that means that it is dinner time,” Annabella said, laughing.
She had brought dried jerky, nuts, dried fruits, and other low-perishable foods. She had hoped to have some time to fish in the lake to get fresh fish to fry, just as she had done all her life with her father and grandpa, but had been too busy to do so as of yet.
“Oi 'ill 'av de team oyt 'ere the-morra bright an' early ter remove dees trees. Derek said his man wud be back oyt next week if yer needed any 'elp,” Liam replied, making his way back toward his Jeep.
When Anabella sat down behind her tent, having her meager dried foods and listening to her satellite radio. She looked up suddenly when she heard a rustle in the bushes, then a soft padding of footsteps to her left. Then she heard a whoosh of an exhale and the scratch of nails on the ground as the 190-pound bear launched itself at her with all of its fury. She lost her footing as the bear lunged and clawed at her, pushing her down. She struggled and slipped out from under him, gaining purchase to keep getting back up. During one brief break in the attack, where she was able to slide between the bear’s claws and under his soft belly, she ran up the driveway toward the cabin.
The bear rounded a corner to be greeted by her, heaving and panting with a nail gun in her hand. He was growling with his huge mouth open and shaking the ground with his angry steps. The nail gun was trembling in her hands as she let the first couple of small nails fly toward him. She heard a distinct ‘umph’ sound when they hit their mark in his thick hide. The large bear sidled quickly away, growling as he briskly stepped back into the forest to be camouflaged by the foliage.
She heaved a relieved sigh but stood there vigilant with her arms trembling in fright still holding the nail gun in front of her. Her heart was hammering in her chest, its thrumming drowning out all other sounds of the forest at dusk. The tree canopy above was slowly waning from green to dark green to gray shadows. Soon, it would be completely dark. All she had was a small, circular tent to protect her and suddenly she was truly frightened. She thought that it would be safer to sleep in her little Subaru until the log cabin was built. Wasting no more time, she decided that she would go ahead and get in the car now with all of her food since that was probably what had lured the massive bear to her camp.