Sugar

FICTION Sugar_____________________________ R.T. Smith THEY HAD HEARD THE HOUNDS BELL OUT, striking scent just at the twilight hour between hawk and owl, and after a hundred minutes of hot pursuit, the black bear had led them back to their own campsite where the coffee had burned down to a black scorch, the applewood fire was smoking, and the lantern still hissed from its hickory limb. When they emerged from the thicket, the bear had already lit into the orange tent and ripped it, then smashed the grub box, which they had not hoisted in their haste to overtake the song of dogs hot and spoiling for blood. He was not a bear they knew much about, but already they had christened him "Sugar" because he had mauled Jim Braxton's Molly for the sack of peppermint candy she was eating from when she crossed over Lick Log Creek. Though the creature was new to the region, probably on a scout for spring forage and a sow, the hounds behaved as if some feud of longstanding were now escalating from a dull smolder to full flame. Soul and Scar, the Karelian twins, were the first to hit him, then Big Jimmy, Pearl Girl and Whip, short for Whippersnapper. Sugar reared on his hinders and roared like a dragon, his stench like a witch cave. There was no bluff or teeth-clacking fear to him, but the bear fought with a strange, lazy rhythm, as if tranced, though the dogs were a whirlwind about him - Grendel and Salvo now, One-Eye the redbone who had been Sabre when he had two good eyes in him, Cherokee and the black-and-tans Pulley and Clink heel-snapping, counting coup with their old dart-and-dash method. Despite their ferocity, the dogs, one by one, were flung free of the melee, yelping, as every swatted paw seemed to connect with flesh - Salvo back-pedaling with half an ear left underfoot in the fray, Clink air-borne and smashing into the fire ring, Cherokee wobbling off, dazed, the claw rakings across his flank more even than the furrows of any field. The rest of the dogs came on again, fearsome, wild as their prey. They did not resemble the previous week's yard-dozing fawners, and they were now beautiful in their lathered fury. Having downed a dozen bears together, not to mention possum, 56 hightailing whitetails, numerous coons and bobcats, Hank and Rymen were not astounded, and when Hank offered, "This must be what's meant by tarnation," Rymen blew his hollow bull horn, and the dogs all leaped back like they'd hit an electric fence. When the two guns went off as one, the slug-loaded ten gauge and the bolt Enfield, the bear bucked, shuddered and went momentarily still, stunned and frustrated but still savage of eye and posture. Then the dogs were on him again as he lumbered toward the laurel hell he would never reach. Now Grendel was on his back, usually a killing move, and the black-and-tans had him staggering and nearly tripped up. Soul locked onto the bear's groin, and Scar hurled himself at a leg. Big Jimmy dodged and feinted, her cry an eerie warble, bewildering, occupying much of the bear's attention. Still,Sugar wrought his damage. Thrust and parry. He snarled, an infernal creature, a fallen angel still outraged anddeadly. Swinging a foreleg upward as he reared again, he caught Salvo along the brisket and throat, and the spray fanning out was discernible in the moonlight as scarlet. There was a kind of vile beauty in the scene, and the men paused, as if to appreciate it, but Cherokee had fallen, too, and would not rise. Pearl Girl was no longer game, nursing her leg where pointed bone shone 57 out in the lantern light. Even seeing the dogs so beset, other men would have made other choices, but this pair, driven by the secret reasons knotting their spirits, was sworn to the hard hunt and drew their blades. Earlier in the evening they'd squatted over the lighterwood, split poplar and the remnants of a wind-struck apple tree...