I was in pasture #1 and it was much bigger than ever and Dad was building a series of fences with small 5'x10' cage like sections with gates where you go open a gate, lock it behind you and then open another gate to go in another pasture, one of 3 or four that connected there. I wondered why this elaborate system, remembering the days where fences were fewer and farther between and could be jumped over on horseback at an old low spot, or one person could dismount and step on rusty barbed wire and lead their horse gingerly over it. But the fences he was building were serious; all perfectly level some had small hog wire, where a dog wouldn't be able to get through, and some were the kind we had for the horses, unbarbed wires strung about a foot apart.
Ellie was there with us. Dad was just finishing up and there were a few things in the "cage" he'd just built on the grass, a heavy and serious Colt .45 revolver under a denim jacket and I had my puny .38 with me as well. The "cage" didn't have a top and there were places you could climb over it, there was 2 1/2" dark orange metal tubing and where it ran horizontal you could climb it. At some point I had a discussion with Dad about how he may as well build steps at all these pasture junctures to climb up and get back on your horse since it seemed elaborate and time consuming and I could just picture the frustration that would come trying to get Whiskey to cooperate and pull up right where I wanted him and hold still long enough for me to work the various mechanisms. It'd be easier to hop off to do all that and a few horizontal rungs inside each pasture entrance would make getting back on easier.
He asked me if I had told Mom the story and I hugged him good bye saying I wanted him to tell her because I would screw it up by myself somehow. I guess we were talking about explaining the new fences.
Ellie was with us. Dad left, headed back to the house and it was just Ellie and me. Ellie was about 100 yards away off in the direction of the old haunted house (a real place) and about another 100 yards off in the opposite direction was the old cedar covered fence line (used to be a real place but has recently been sheered off and turned into more open pasture). A Grizzly bear appeared near Ellie was and I instructed her to come here to me in the new fence cage. She grabbed a huge blue pool float and carried it over her head. I thought maybe it was a good idea, maybe it would make her appear bigger to the bear. When I lived in New Mexico in a canyon there was a resident Mountain Lion who would quietly stalk you as you walked a long and dark mile to the turnaround to your car. We were told to carry stuff on your head to make you look bigger and he may think twice about "getting" you.
She made it back to me in the relative safety of the cage but before she did I saw the Grizzly stand up, all 9 feet of him in front of her only about 12 feet away, and fall over like he'd had a heart attack! It was so weird. But then as so often happens in the dreaming world, he reappeared 100 yards away in the trees at the old fence line. Ellie was asking me questions about him but my mind was singularly focused on only one thing now that she was behind me. This bear was going to rip the cage apart, reach in and knock our heads off our shoulders with one swat if I didn't get him first. I remembered reading about Grizzlies during my time out West; if you have to shoot one in self defense don't even bother with anything smaller than a .45, and even that is likely to simply piss the bear off. I read stories of Grizzlies running miles after being shot in the heart. This thought coursed through my veins as I braced my arms against the corner of the fence and got him in the iron sights. I had a few things going for me; he was at least 100 yards off so it would take him at least a precious few seconds to cover the ground between us, I had a clear view of him, he was only slowly ambling around, I had something to steady myself against and thank God most importantly I had the sheer luck of being in possession of a .45 revolver! Had it been an automatic I would likely have been too scared to remember the unfamiliar series of tasks required to shoot it.
In the waking world, the gun I'm most familiar with is a Smith & Wesson .38 Chief's Special, one of the easiest guns to shoot. The Colt in this dream was pretty much like this one above. The cylinders in these doesn't flop out to the side to load but there is a little thumb sized piece that swings open to drop the shells in and turn the cylinder each time to drop in another until it is full. This was was already fully loaded; I had 6 shots. I thought I could get all 6 in him before he reached me. I knew I had to shoot him because he was looking at us like we were lunch.
The most vivid part of my dream was the way he looked at me, right into my eyes. It was like he was reading my mind; no, he was reading my mind. I could feel him reading my thoughts, I knew he was aware that I was just waiting for the perfect moment to pull the trigger and it was terrifying. Finally I inhaled and slowly squeezed the trigger and I exhaled. "Tink", a squib! Son of a bitch, what are the odds? I fired again, same thing! I took out both squib loads and inspected them in the bright day light, there were tiny indentations in the primers where the firing pin had struck. Every once in a while this happens at the range, but it's rare. Dad has explained when we're shooting the "Hog Leg", a gorgeous Colt Officer's Model 10 that I dearly love, that sometimes, especially with hand loads because it's old the spring is weak and the firing pin doesn't always strike the primer hard enough.I looked dumbly at my cell phone which never works out there and in any case even if it did it would take too long for anyone to get to us. But I tried to call Dad anyway except I was so full of adrenaline I could neither remember the number nor push the tiny keys right. I have also read about trying to shoot in self defense and the terrible chain of events that takes place in your body when you go into fight or flight mode; adrenaline courses through your veins rendering you clumsy, and all the blood rushes to your head adding to the new sausage like quality of your fingers but also possibly protecting your hearing. That's why people sometimes report not hearing the gun go off in their own hands, or not knowing how many shots they fired; there is just too much going on and time changes just like when you're in a car accident or when you fall off your galloping horse.
Anyhow it was a terrible let down to say the least, especially since I had such a clear shot and I really should have been able to hit him right in eye or base of the skull. There was no guarantee that he would drop, not by a long shot, but I could hit him and at least disable him. I've never had any desire to kill a bear, I've never really had a desire to kill anything but I do love to shoot and I like to think I have a better chance at defending myself because of this.
Finally after a long stressful night of body aches and bad dreams I woke up in the dark and decided to write it down before I forgot too much of it. I'm sure I left some parts out, but you get the jist of it.
And it just now occurs to me that today is Ellie's real birthday. What does it mean that in the wee hours of her 11th birthday I dreamed we faced a Grizzly Bear together?...
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