Summary

In “The Bear” (71), a first-person narrator cooks salmon cakes while her mother watches. The narrator's father and siblings enter, including Abner, who is 25 and has an intellectual disability. They pray over the food and discuss how the recent drought is affecting their farm. The narrator remembers seeing a bear recently, rolling around in a field. Her mother told her the bear was probably dehydrated. The narrator's brother Wayne says that someone shot the bear and its body is lying out in a field. She finds this distressing and begins thinking of something Abner once told her about Indians who “prayed to the bears for strength before big battles” (74). Abner begins singing a religious hymn. After the meal, the narrator goes outside to feed the barn cats. She sees Abner singing out in the field. He is raising...