un finished bear

We saw it coming as
it ambled up the path toward
the bridge we were to cross. I stopped, almost
tripped on the granite boulder buried in
the path (the path, after
all, was only a thin dirt cover on
the blank rock we

climbed.) "Bear," I said and the others laughed until
they too saw it. It still not noticing us until
it looked up with
half-interest, and it, too, stopped dead in
its tracks. We

should know what to do. We had prepared for
this climb for
months, but now, face to
face with the grunting, dead-eyed juvenile, my mind slipped: