The full moon reflected
in the floodwaters of Stone Shoulder Creek
The cat was in the hayloft, hungry as Hell
How soon he could resume
his mousing and carousing
It was impossible to tell
Bedding down in the hay on an old flannel shirt
Soft black pads and paws caked with dirt
He knew nothing of pain
just a cold wet truth
As thunder and pounding rain beat Hell upon the roof

~ from "Muddy Gravel" by Clifford Benjamin Oversink




I had a dream that I was writing a short story about a town called Signal, Ohio. I was walking down the sidewalk of a small rivertown that was not Signal but eerily similar to what I had in mind. Main Street sloped down to the Ohio River. I was south of Athens, maybe not far from Portsmouth. In my mind, I conceived of an old tavern near the waterfront. Back around the turn of the century when riverboats delivered goods, thirsty sailors would hit the first watering hole they saw on dry land. The Bent Speck Tavern was conveniently located just a few yards from the water's edge. Whenever the river flooded everyone would head for higher ground, the riff raff regulars from the Speck wreaking havoc all over town, eventually receding with the floodwaters back to the riverbanks and downstream.

I wandered into a storefront radio station where one old man was on the air talking and another was an historian who launched into an impromptu dissertation about the trials and tribulations, rumors and legends and folklore about the people who lived in this small rivertown. All the electronics and the DJ console seemed totally incongruous to the setting. The surrounding area was largely unchanged since the late 1800s. The walls of the station were covered with historical artifacts. Picture frames and proclamations. License plates. Street signs.

There was something in the dream about a smaller tributary that broke away from the Ohio River and wove around the village back to the river, making the town of Signal a sort of island in that it was surrounded by water on all sides and you could only get there or leave there by taking one bridge or another. This smaller river was well known to the indigenous peoples of the area. But largely forgotten and unknown to generations of white settlers and their families. Much of the smaller river wound through thick woods, steep rocky cliff shoulders over rushing water in some places, while flat and full of stones in other areas where the current barely constituted a creek. Again we see where heavy rains would cause the water to rise and Signal was an almost unreachable outpost until the flooding subsided.

The predominant means of support in Signal was farming. Provincial and puritanical, the citizens nonetheless turned a blind eye on the many moonshiners and bootleggers who operated more or less out in the open. Very little in the way of modern industry or commerce had ever even grazed the small village. The parochial mindset was the only one in town. Very few people ever left. Those that did were never heard from again. A totally self-contained local economy meant that the residents of Signal seldom had reason to venture out of the community. Occasionally a new used car would appear in town, purchased from a family member or acquaintance in Parkersburg or Chillicothe. Brand new vehicles were almost unheard of in the region. All the men and boys were mechanics, rebuilding and repairing the same family vehicles sometimes for decades. Signal wasn't big enough to field even a single little league team. The nearest town was sixty miles away. Too far to be considered for division play anyway. Kids played stickball in the fields and hockey in the streets with makeshift sticks and a paw paw for a puck. Girls learned to cook and sew from their mothers and grandmothers.

Mostly everyone in Signal had heard the legend of the Ghost Bear. Very few of them could truthfully say they'd seen the creature. Some of the old folks in town claimed that a riverboat carrying circus animals had inadvertently taken a wrong turn upstream on Stone Shoulder Creek many years earlier during a torrential rainstorm. Claiming the ship capsized when it hit shallow waters, it was said that more than one polar bear survived the crash. But no remnants of the wreckage had ever been discovered, much less any other exotic animals or their remains. Nor did this story account for the Indian legend of the same Ghost Bear that dated back for generations, long before the arrival of the white man. Back in the 1920s a group of kids from the local church were painting a covered bridge over the river when they spotted the bear below. One little girl was so frightened she fell into the water, landing so close to the bear she struck the beast with a paintbrush she was clutching in her hand. The bear ran off startled, disappearing into the woods. The girl was uninjured but lightly traumatized by the incident. Legend has it she didn't speak for a year after the fall. Some of the other children claimed there were white hairs stuck to her paintbrush when they pulled her from the creek.

In early April of 1974 what is now categorized as a superoutbreak of tornadoes ravaged several states from Arkansas to Michigan. Swarms of massive funnel clouds numbering anywhere from 10 to 15 at a time touched down throughout the southern states and into the midwest, destroying all in their path. Hundreds of buildings leveled. Doors and windows blown off and shattered all across the country. Vehicles tossed like toys into cornfields. Several families in Signal lost their homes. Many farmers reported missing livestock that was never recovered. The chimney of one home fell through the roof and killed all four people who lived in the house. Damages to the schoolhouse delayed the graduation ceremony for the class of 1974. Churches in Signal became triage centers and temporary soup kitchens. The grocery store lost power for two weeks. Facing the prospect of a total loss of their entire inventory of refrigerated and frozen food, the grocery store donated it to the citizens of Signal who otherwise were not able to cash their checks to buy groceries anyway because the town’s only bank was badly damaged in the storm.

On the day the tornadoes struck, no one in Signal had even spoken about the ghost bear for many years. And so several days later when volunteer workers were cleaning up debris behind the Full Gospel Tabernacle, it is safe to assume that it was the last thing they expected to uncover when they flipped over a large aluminum wash basin lodged in the mud.

Spooked by the unexpected confrontation, the great white bear stood upright on its hind legs, let out an earth-shaking roar and ran for the nearest treeline. Bolting through the school yard it took out a chain link fence and got caught on a swing set. Without slowing the beast for even a second the swing set was ripped from the ground like dry roots of a dead plant as the bear dragged it all the way to the river. On the way she got caught once or twice on a parked car here and there, the swings and poles and rusty chains tearing great long gashes in the vehicles. Eyewitnesses say the bear leapt over a pick up truck parked on Main Street with the stunned driver behind the wheel. After the bear and swing set tandem ripped a fire hydrant out of the ground they tumbled through the plate glass window of the Bent Speck. Like many drunken patrons in countless bar fights over the years before this, her unexpected debut at the tavern, the bear simply rolled over and tumbled back out onto the sidewalk.

The previous week's tornadoes came with a pounding rain and a lingering drizzle left a light foggy glaze over the streets of the town. A crowd of curious onlookers had begun to gather and follow the ghost bear as her awkward progress through Signal continued at a pace that was not beyond their keeping up with her at a safe distance. Bedraggled and dazed by the traumatic and tumultuous events of the last few days, there were very few in the crowd that could believe what they were seeing could actually be true. It seemed to some more likely just part of a bad dream they were yet to wake from. Shots rang out. Off duty but ever alert, Officer Ross Preston had drawn his service pistol and shot at the bear as she jumped into the churning muddy brown waters of the Ohio River. The crowd watched as the bear's massive white frame went under. After several tense minutes of watching and waiting in shocked silence, someone in the crowd mumbled, "She ain't comin' up." Most of the witnesses assumed the bear was killed. Either drowned or struck by a bullet, or some combination of the two.

Downstream a mile or two, a young native American boy is fishing in the river. He sees the bear emerge on the opposite bank. He watches in silent reverence as it shakes off the water and leaps into thick tree cover in one swift motion. Gone in the instant after it appeared. But not before the boy spies a swath of red on the white bear's hide. Though it's not quite blood red. More like the color of the covered bridge over Stone Shoulder Creek.