The Bear Went Over the Mountain by William Kotzwinkle Read Free Book Online Page A

respects to the vanished inventor’s dream.
    A weasel stuck its head up from beneath a corner of the building.
    “He’d eat us if he could,” said Pinette. “Fears nawthing on god’s earth, if he can get a neck bite.”
    The weasel examined Bramhall with what seemed to be disdain for one so clumsy, so slow, so hopelessly out of touch with the currents that shape a weasel to its purpose.
    “Comes from a long line of chicken killers,” said Pinette as the weasel vanished.
    Bramhall felt a lethal swiftness still quivering in the air, a sort of disturbance the weasel had left behind. Bramhall turned abruptly, sensing the direction of the invisible ripple as his gaze tracked over the high grass. Precisely where his gaze stopped, the weasel reappeared. The animal rose up on his back legs, and Bramhall could feel the little killer reassessing him, perhaps more favorably.

 
    “It’s so fortunate I happened to be in New York just now,” said Zou Zou Sharr to the bear over cocktails at Elaine’s bar. Before becoming an agent for the Creative Management Corporation, she’d directed the Bel Air Diet Doctor’s empire and maintained her slender shape with his naturally artificially flavored products. She had a fiery-red crown of power hair and a meltingly compassionate smile, which, when she was challenged by anyone, congealed to ice, as did her bright blue eyes. “It’s so much nicer to deal with an author in person,” she said to Jam. “I’m wild about the book, of course,” she added, having read the coverage on it written by her agency’s eighteen-year-old reader.
    The bear looked at Zou Zou Sharr from under the peak of his baseball cap. It was the first time he’d been this close to a human female for any length of time, and he liked the experience. If she had some fur on her face and the backs of her hands she might be good-looking.
    “We’ve already handled some of the biggest books of the season,” continued Zou Zou, “and I know we’ll be able to run with yours.”Zou Zou was genuinely enthusiastic despite not having read the book. In showbiz, books were always a question mark, because books were just books, but buzz you could trust. Zou Zou understood buzz, was a connoisseur of buzz, and went from buzz to buzz like a flower looking for bees. And the buzz on Hal Jam’s book was big.
    The bear adjusted his tail with a surreptitious move of the paw, getting himself more comfortable in the restaurant chair. He was in the mood for some soda pop. Fizz on the lips, little tingly bubbles up the nose, that was life in the fast lane for a bear. Why should he have any regrets? A bear lives in the moment. He ignores the tiny voice, like that of a flower, that whispers inside him,
There’s a stream below the wooded hill, there are fish in the pools, come back, come back
.
    “I’ve talked to your editor and your publicist,” said Zou Zou. “Your campaign is going to be tremendous.” Zou Zou leaned back in her chair and let her gaze wander momentarily around the tables at Elaine’s; she was glad to be out of L.A. She’d recently broken off a relationship with a young director who liked to make love while watching uncut footage of
The Battleship Potemkin
. Now whenever she thought of becoming intimate with a man her mind filled with the image of a baby carriage bouncing down a flight of stairs. She leaned closer to the bear and fixed him with her compassionate blue gaze. “You’ve got a great team going for you, and CMC wants to be part of it.My associates are standing by their telephones right now, waiting to hear that you’re going to sign with us.” In fact, she’d been remiss in not getting to Jam earlier, but she’d been too destroyed by the battleship
Potemkin
to focus on the buzz.
    Her perfume was curling past the bear’s nostrils, a light, delicate scent. He gave himself a strong reminder that he must not express his emotions by rolling around on the floor, although it’d be a good way to look