Fear

A knife. He took a freaking knife. Haris shook his head while panting uphill. The knife, suspended from a string on his backpack, slapped his side, spurring him on.

“Who are you kidding? You buy your bread pre-sliced,” he said to himself. He did it loudly, just as the articles on hiking in the wild advised. This dark forest shaded too many rocks that looked bear-shaped. “You, poser,” he said. His voice scared a jay off a tree. Haris stopped and stared at the bouncing branch.

“I’ll be all right,” he said, nodding. He traced the sheath, closing his eyes. What would it look like? Would he be fast enough? Would the bear be faster?

Haris winced. He couldn’t even watch that movie where a bear was stabbed to death. He shuddered, glanced at the shimmering leaves above, and continued pushing uphill toward the blinding light.

“Only a mother bear is dangerous,” he said and had to stop to catch his breath. “She’s dangerous…only when she protects her cubs.” He had researched that. The other articles popped up too. One told of a tourist rescued from the top of a fir tree. She believed she had seen a bear. Haris chuckled. A bear would have climbed that tree in no time. He had researched that too.

Another article showed demolished beehives in a meadow, the wood of the boxes cracked, their metal lids crumpled like paper.

“Anyone could have done that,” Haris said. But then he remembered the photo from a farmer whose cattle had been mauled at night. Haris shut his eyes.

And the funny thing was he loved all animals. Neighborhood cats waited for him at his door. He gave away the only sandwich that he had packed for the hike to a village dog he met at the beginning of the trail. She begged him with her eyes. Haris could always read their eyes, their body language. It was the easiest task on earth to understand a dog, to talk to one. He showed them his hands, palms up, and they knew he was no danger. He doubted it would be that easy with a bear. And if the bear failed to understand him, would Haris be able to hurt the creature with a knife?

“I’ll have to,” he said, gripping the dangling sheath. “I’ll have to be strong enough.”

When Haris stepped into the clearing on the clifftop, the sunlight lit his face. He smiled; the fear now seemed worlds away. He breathed in deeply for the first time since he started the climb. Below him, hills rolled, green, speckled with blossoms, buzzing. He looked at the trail ahead and saw it. Just a few steps away, right in the middle of the path, lay, dark and obvious, a pile of dung.

“It could be from a cow,” he said, stepping closer for a better look, and groaning. Cows didn’t drop piles of undigested berries and stems.

He stopped talking. If only he could become a bee, and zoom through the next patch of trees toward the safety of that hill below. There was a monastery at the foot of the hill. When Haris had been researching this route, the monastery seemed such an unfortunate interruption – the man-made walls among the wilderness. Now it was his beacon, the reminder of safety that only human presence could provide.

His muscles burned as his legs rushed him toward the hill. Never before had Haris run so fast. The sheath slapped painfully at his back and side, and he let it. He focused on the end of that green tunnel, as leaves and branches turned to blur.

The moment he burst onto the hilltop, he jumped and shouted, punching the air.

He scared the puppies.

He hadn’t noticed them; they were so tiny, playing in the waving grass. Now they were racing down the hill, toward the monastery, squealing.

Higher on the slope their mom was taking a dump. Haris knew, before she even moved a muscle, that he was done for. The outline of her shoulders, the way she held her head told him, “Hold on a moment. I’ll finish here and you’re dead.”

She was a mastiff mix, the way they bred them in the mountains: skinny, tall, and with a head angled and heavy like a boulder. She was a dog raised to protect, to fight.

Her underbelly swayed left and right as she was speeding toward him. She wasn’t even barking. Why waste the energy?

Two thoughts flashed through his mind: that he still had his knife, and that he wouldn’t use it. He failed. He wasn’t strong enough. He couldn’t hurt that dog.

He didn’t even try to reach for the sheath. Instead, he did what he had always done. He showed her his hands, palms up.

“I didn’t hurt them,” he said, his voice steady, just loud enough for her to hear him. She didn’t stop, of course. She galloped on. “Your puppies are okay,” he said, now quieter – a confession. “I startled them, but they’ll be all right.”

In the mountains, sound travels in peculiar ways. A voice comes first, and only later you might see the person.

Someone at the monastery heard Haris and realized what had happened. A voice reached the top of the hill. “Nora, stop it. Quit it, you numbskull. Don’t.”

The dog froze, just a few leaps away. Her ribs poked out with each short breath. Her body told him, “I don’t like you. I’ll finish you as soon as they change their minds.”

The owner didn’t speak again and didn’t come to get the dog. It might have been because the hill was steep, but Haris suspected that was not the reason. There was something important in the owner’s voice, something that he hoped Nora had missed – there was fear. The person in the monastery knew what Nora could do, and they were unsure they could stop her.

Nora placed herself directly on the path in front of him, her eyes daring him to try and walk that way.

“I’ll step around you,” he told her. His hand drew a semicircle as if in slow motion. He kept his voice low. “I’ll go away.”

As he edged sideways, he knew people below were watching. Even the buzzing in the field seemed to have stopped. The giant head moved after him like a compass needle.

He kept his eyes on the dog. When his feet traced the dirt road, he knew he was on the path again. He walked away backward.

She sat there on the path, half-turned to him, back strong and shoulders straight – an ancient statue. She didn’t look in his direction anymore, but she stayed to make sure he was disappearing, becoming a bright dot among the trees.

Only when Haris dove into the forest did he turn away from the dog and run, yelling. He didn’t stop until his voice gave way and there was no breath left in him. He dropped to the ground, threw his backpack off, untied the stupid knife and stuffed it under all the other things. He laughed, breathed, laughed some more, and then he wiped away his tears. He got to his feet, adjusted his backpack straps, and continued running, fearless.