Made of shingles it was
with moss and lichen covering
the weathered walls
Wind, rain and drifting snow
had taken toll
even the spiders moved away
Next to a lake it stood
it used to store the trappers gear
ready for the Fall and Winter.
Beaver and bear had fine pelts then…
nothing’s as soft as beaver fur
against a human skin.
Old Charley crawled there
one freezing night…
after breaking his leg in a fall.
A cougar tracked him
down the draw and watched
then settled down to wait.
Cougar, it screamed like a soul in hell
so Charlie lit a blaze to
make it feel at home
if it dared to venture nearer.
Then he wrapped himself in the skin
of a bear, he’d left there two weeks before.
In delirium he tossed and turned
and the cougar he slunk closer
until it poked its head in through the door
and saw the fire and smelt a bear.
Charlie, staggered to his one good leg
let out a mighty howl and the cougar fled.
Five days later, two travelling Sioux
passed by the trappers shed
They found old Charlie wrapped in bear
near starved and close to death.
A travois out of saplings they made and
dragged him back to Santa Fe.
The say old houses hold a tale
of all whom they have housed
but that old shed a legend told
of the Bear Man from Sangre de Cristo
a man to ornery to die
old Charlie James the trapper.
His fat wife Sally heard the tale
and laughed until she cried
He didn’t need to shout or roar
she uttered through her tears
the cougar would have died of fright
if it had heard my Charlie snore!