Bearstone

“Cloyd slipped through the orchard and vanished among the tall trees, then began to climb. He didn’t know he was climbing toward a treasure and a turning point. He wanted only to reach that piece of desert in the sky.”

Something calls Cloyd into the mountains. He senses that his life’s purpose lies there. It can’t be found amid the meaningless boredom of his life in a group house or at a dull school whose knowledge means nothing to him. His future lies somewhere else—higher up, above this canyon.

“All winter in Durango as Cloyd sat in one classroom, then passed like a sleepwalker at the bell to the next, his spirit roamed the canyons with the flock. He put out of his mind now his other dream, the one he used to live for, the one that had turned into the man in the hospital bed in Window Rock. White Mesa was his whole world now.”

Cloyd hates his life and instead dreams of the happy times with his grandmother and the world of canyons near his ancestral home. Cloyd’s soul rebels at dreary modern life; it yearns to find something meaningful and deeper from his people’s past that still echoes in his heart. He’s on his own but doesn’t know how to be himself. Instead, he knows only how to run away from what adults think he should be.

“His grandmother had told him about bears. The most important of all animals to the Utes, she’d said—friend and relative of man, bringer of strength and luck. If you could make a bear your personal guardian, you would be a strong man and lucky.”

Cloyd’s hike up the canyon and his discovery of the bearstone renew his sense of purpose. He knows his task is to be a worthy member of his people and their ancient traditions. The bearstone is an omen of good fortune and a promise that his life has new meaning.

“‘How come you call it a farm? This place is a ranch.’ ‘Well, my wife came from farm country in Missouri, and she always said a ranch was like a house, but a farm was a home.’”

The boy’s great quest is to find a life where he feels at home. Walter's comment about farms versus ranches contains clues that might help Cloyd in his search for real value in a world he finds otherwise meaningless. To Walter and his wife, a ranch is where one works, but a farm is where one belongs. In the same sense, a house is a building, but a home contains family. Cloyd, an outsider, still sees only the buildings.

“Cloyd admired the roan’s lines, the way it carried itself. At every moment it seemed about to bolt, yet never did. The horse wasn’t giving up its freedom, he thought. We chose each other.”

Somehow, Cloyd recognizes himself in the blue roan. They both want their freedom but hesitate because they’re captivated by the hope of connection and adventure. They both dream of vast realms beyond the horizon. Boy and horse want similar things and thus can make a great team.

“[…] he caught a glimpse of the river again, all white, in a gorge so deep and narrow it stirred his heart to beating loud. Like thousands of knives, the dark walls were flinty and jagged, so unlike the smooth sandstones of home. Cloyd remembered the snowy peaks he’d seen towering over the mountains. This gorge, he realized, was only the beginning of that higher country. He took the blue stone from his pocket and turned it slowly in his hand. Someday, he vowed, he’d see those peaks up close. He would see the home of the Utes.”

The river canyon thrills Cloyd with its different shapes and promise of freedom and spirit. On horseback there, Cloyd feels at home. He senses the power of the place and how it pulls his spirit upward toward the highlands beyond. His journey to wholeness will take place above the canyon, in the mountains.

“There was a little flame of anger in him that was starting to grow. The old man was saying he should give up. Walter didn’t really expect anything from him. Walter had heard all about school, how he’d failed everything. Now Walter expected him to fail here too. Well, they were all wrong about him, wrong to say he was lazy. He wanted to show the old man.”

Cloyd is so intent on proving himself and thereby earning a ride up into the high country that he’s sensitive to anything that might get in the way. He begins to feel paranoid and assumes that Walter doesn’t trust him or respect his efforts and hard work. One problem the boy doesn’t understand is that he’s so secretive that Walter has no idea of his plan. Cloyd’s decision to work hard and thereby receive Walter’s support for a trip to the mountains is an agreement he’s made only with himself. In that respect, it’s he who doesn’t trust Walter and not the other way around.

“Walter wished he understood Cloyd better. […] Cloyd was working relentlessly, harder every day, for reasons of his own. To whatever end, their course was set. Cloyd couldn’t be turned now. The only time he’d take for himself was a short visit mornings and evenings with the big roan. He’d work the currycomb and talk, talk, talk with the horse. If I could interview that horse, Walter mused, I’d know the boy a whole lot better.”

Though a good and patient man, Walter isn’t a trained child psychologist, and he never raised children, so Cloyd—who’s self-contained and rebellious—remains a mystery. The boy’s obsessive work ethic points to some sort of goal that Walter can’t fathom. The old man senses storm clouds gathering between them, but he doesn’t know when or where the lightning will come.

“In a sudden burst of awareness he felt like he was the bear the man was after, and he could feel what it would be like to be chased by barking dogs and men on horses. He knew with awful certainty that the bear would be run down, cornered, and killed. Maybe it would be the mother bear, the one he’d seen with the cub. It was the old man’s fault, he decided bitterly—he’d given his permission. If they killed a bear, the old man would have to pay. The old man never cared about me, he thought, these are his real friends.”

Cloyd hates the hunters and resents Walter for letting them kill bears. The boy’s fragile self-confidence collapses as he sees himself as a helpless victim of the arrogant white men. Afraid to say what he wants and feels, Cloyd aims his frustration at Walter. He’s had enough of this ranch life and wants to go home.

“‘Good luck, Cloyd. Let’s don’t say good-bye with no hard feelin’s….’ Cloyd nodded, but it was all happening too fast, his feelings were too deep to be reached. He found no words at all, only waved slightly as the old man turned the truck around and drove away. The pickup was small in the distance by the time he realized he’d lost something of priceless value. He waved forlornly, then furiously, as the truck vanished. With the suddenness of a cloudburst in the desert, tears ran down his face.”

Cloyd knows he has lost a dear friend. He let Walter down badly, but he also let himself down. Walter’s parting gesture is to bring Cloyd back to his family home, to give the boy a week or two of freedom before the school world pulls him back into its cloying clutches. Cloyd must face the fact that he has let anger and resentment squander a priceless opportunity and a friend who only wishes him well.

“‘This man you work for, he lives in a good way?’ ‘He’s the best man I ever knew,’ Cloyd heard himself saying. ‘He’s old—older than you. His wife died. He’s all alone.’ Suddenly he knew he had no desire to hide out in the canyons. But what was he to do?”

Cloyd begins to understand that his future lies not in his wild, truant canyon life but with Walter. To regain what he just threw away will take hard work, which he can do, and patience, of which he has little. The challenge looms over him like the mountains he yearns to climb.

“On the surface, he and Cloyd had succeeded. But a farm isn’t land and fenceposts and hay in the barn. As his wife always said, ‘A farm is a home.’ He’d failed the boy. When he’d had the chance to give him a home, he’d given him only work. But work for work’s sake can’t keep a soul going, Walter told himself. That’s like pounding rocks in a prison yard. It’s not the work that’s awful, it’s the lack of purpose.”

Walter searches his soul for the mistakes he made while trying to help Cloyd. He decides he failed to offer a sense of home life to the boy, whose most pressing need is to belong. Now that the boy is gone, only thoughts of his dead wife accompany him around the farm. Lacking them both, the ranch seems purposeless. Walter found what he needs to continue his life as a rancher, but he let it slip away. Neither knows it, but Walter and Cloyd have arrived at the same need—a family for both of them.

“‘Are people still alive after they die—like they say?’ ‘I don’t know, really. Lots of folks believe there’s life after death, but nobody knows for sure. Maybe your life is all there is. But that’s plenty, ain’t it? Make it good while you have it, is what I think, in case there ain’t nothin’ extra.’ ‘Live in a good way. That’s what my grandmother says.’ ‘That’s a fine way to put it.’”

Cloyd permits himself to share his deepest feelings with Walter. They both want the same thing: to live a worthwhile life. As each grapples with the mysteries of existence, they take heart in their friendship and the knowledge that a person they care about shares this life and its challenges with them.

“‘How come you stopped here—to talk to your wife?’ ‘Well, in a way. To tell her I’m goin’ back to the mine, I guess.’ ‘But she can’t hear you.’ ‘Prob’ly not, but it’s more a matter of respect.’ ‘How do you mean?’ ‘Showin’ honor for her. I wouldn’t do something this important without consulting her if she was alive. Matter of fact,’ he chuckled, ‘I wouldn’t be doing it at all. But seeing the circumstances, she won’t mind. She’d say, ‘You go up there with Cloyd to that mine of yours and find your gold.’”

Walter’s wife still exists, if only in his heart. He feels the same loving obligation he shared with her when she was alive—to express what each yearns for, to ask for the other person’s support, and to respect the other’s choices. Cloyd listens closely: He cares about Walter, and he’s learning from the old man that life isn’t always about oneself but also about the hopes and dreams of the people one loves.

“‘Somehow, as long as I’m alive, she is too.’ ‘Like she’s a part of you?’ ‘People get like that, Cloyd. That’s what’s special about people.’”

Even after they’re gone, loved ones persist as a presence that echoes in people’s hearts and minds. The dead continue to affect the living, who talk to them in their thoughts, and who often continue to make decisions that take the departed into account. Every such thought is a reminder of how important the dead are to those they left behind. Cloyd, who has felt isolated from others for most of his young life, begins to see his connections to the people who matter to him, and that those relationships last a lifetime and beyond.

“First the white men promised the Utes they could keep the mountains forever, but that was before gold was discovered and the miners came pouring in. The white men forgot all about their promise. The Utes were told to stay out of the mountains. They couldn’t roam around anymore and live in the old way. They were given tiny reservations in the low country and told to stay there and grow corn.”

Cloyd recalls how his people lost their lands to greedy gold miners. He listens to Walter talk eagerly about his gold stake and begins to feel awkward about being up in the mountains with someone whose grand quest brings to mind the tragedy of the Utes.

“‘Let’s run, Blue, I mean really run.’ And then they ran streaming through the meadows of the Pine. Cloyd and the horse were one, and they were flying through the wind and the light, while all around him shone the mountains and the trees and the river. Cloyd grinned as they ran, and then he broke into a smile. His teeth caught the wind. He couldn’t stop smiling all the way up the meadow. This day was different. It was as if he was coming into a new world all bright and shining, and it was made for him.”

All his life, Cloyd has been searching for this moment—to race through the mountain air on a beautiful horse, to feel free, his spirit soaring. It’s the culmination of his summer with Walter, a season of trials, regrets, and redemption. He has earned this moment; it has cost him, but the costs taught him many lessons, and now it’s all worthwhile.

“He seemed to float up the last little bit and stepped to the very tip of the Pyramid. Peaks on all sides were riding in the blue sky. Peaks everywhere, dancing, jutting up, all in motion. He had to sit down and grip the rock. Peaks, as far as he could see, peaks, rock and green tundra, snow banks, spruce forests, river canyons.”

Cloyd reaches the top of the Rio Grande Pyramid, one of the tallest peaks in Colorado. From the summit, he can see the hills near White Mesa. The view is breathtaking, and he feels serene and free. He has reached his goal.

“He wished the old man could have stood here with him. He wanted to tell him this is the heart of the mountains, up here in the light where you can see forever. Where you feel like you’re a part of it all, like the beating heart of the mountains is your own heart. He’d never felt this way before, free and peaceful at the same time. If only there was a way to show the old man how thankful he was, for this, for Blueboy, for everything. He could show he cared for Walter like a son for a father.”

Having reached his goal, Cloyd also attains a new understanding of himself and Walter. They have become like father and son, and Cloyd’s respect for the old man changes the boy from a brooding teen to a caring and compassionate young man. His love of the high wilderness blends with his appreciation for Walter’s kindness and concern. Love and spirit become one.

“Cloyd’s grown, Walter reflected. He’s stronger, more like a young man than a boy. Because of how it went with Rusty, he’d have to wait awhile before asking Cloyd about the ride. They should’ve shared the ride in the first place. On the other hand, sometimes it was better to be out there on your own. That’s when you really see things and learn something. Cloyd got to have the whole country to himself.”

Walter is learning how to navigate Cloyd’s complex moods, and the old man also notices that the boy is rapidly becoming a man. As much as Cloyd has changed and grown, so has Walter’s wisdom and understanding about a young person who’s fast becoming a part of his family. They’re beginning to fall into sync with one another.

“He saw himself standing at the door to a hospital room, discovering the shell of his father hooked up to a machine, and realizing finally that he didn’t have a father. He saw himself finding the bearstone and killing the peach trees and following the old man up the Pine River to the mine. He saw himself standing alone atop the Rio Grande Pyramid and realizing a father had come into his life after all. He remembered the look in Blueboy’s eye right before he tumbled down the mountain, and he recalled the bear. He’d never forget the bear... The hurt you get over makes you stronger. It was all moving in a direction, he decided, making a pattern. And he had to know where it was all leading. If he went home now, he’d never know. It was all part of learning what it meant to live in a good way.”

Cloyd’s summer comes full circle as he realizes his search for a father led him to a new perspective on life, a deep appreciation for nature, a heightened awareness of spirit, and an old rancher with whom he can share family bonds. His experience with Walter has set him on a new path, a better one that makes worthy his life and efforts.

“He was happy taking care of the old man. He’d grown so used to wandering alone in the canyons, wandering alone in the school corridors, having his own private world. Now he wasn’t alone anymore.”

From a lonely, troubled boy to a concerned and caring man, Cloyd has grown by leaps and bounds during his time with Walter. Their friendship makes meaningful Cloyd’s life. Its lessons teach the immense power of love and respect. When people truly care about each other, resentments melt away, mistakes get corrected, wounds quickly heal, and miracles of happiness unfold. Instead of holding others at a distance, those who welcome loved ones into their life reap the rewards of community, even if it’s only two people together.

“If he ever had any children, he was going to care about them, the way Walter cared. If he ever had a son, he was going to name him Walter. The old man would be dead and buried by then, he realized. It wouldn’t matter. He would show them Walter’s picture, and one day he would take them up to the meadows of the Pine River.”

Cloyd’s newborn sense of family is already growing with the promise of its continuation into the future. He'll pass the lessons he has learned to his own kids—who, with luck and caring, won’t have to suffer Cloyd’s childhood loneliness. Instead, they’ll know from the start that they’re loved and wanted and have a father who cares about them. Cloyd will pay forward some of the debt of gratitude that he owes to Walter. The old man would want it that way.