She Slept With Bears - a Prose Poem

She was taken by bears; that was the unlikely consensus - dragged off in her sleeping bag, tracks confirmed. She lodged with the grizzlies, growing sturdy, unusually hirsute for a human girl, but pretty in a wide-bottomed way. Eventually she mated. Frank Goddard and his buddy, mistaking her form, had her in his sights one winter. He almost pulled the trigger on his 30-06 Cal, but saw that she was with cubs, they were leaf-mossed bundles of mewing need. A calling wind demanded she leave to live by herself alone. She cried when she left the bear clan. Many lean years past, but she stayed in the wilderness. Her limbs lost their ursine strength, her body shrank, became twiggy and hollow. A party of campers from Cleveland claimed to have seen her buzzing through the tree's, humming. She grew wizened. No new leaf uncurled in her, then she died. Bob Turner found her remains as he led a group of Eagle Scouts over the 'Big Hole' mountain pass. She had kept the sleeping bag, and had made it something she wore like an animal spirit. Scavengers had eaten most of her, but the bears killed the animals, and brought them back to lay beside her scatterings. The Scouts took pictures and reported the find to Rangers, but the Chippewa Cree had removed all sign of her death by the time folks returned.