It was a scary, scary night.  Dark and scary.  Dark as dark.  Scary.  

The bonfire at the camp was long gone, flickering low on simmering embers, children tucked in their sleeping bags in the back of a station wagon.

Three little girls, maybe ten, maybe eleven or twelve.  Three little girls.

Parents had finished the last of the scary stories, and the hot cocoa, and washed up by the light of kerosene lanterns and headed to bed, in the comfort of campers and trailers.  No backs of station wagons for them, no sirreeee.  Creature comforts in a real recreational vehicle.

*********

Rhonda was known for tall tales.  Famous for them.  She was the grandmother of all boys who cried wolf, loved to torture her friends until they peed their pants in bathtubs with scary or silly stories, oh so rarely true.

Rhonda snuggled into her sleeping bag with the two other little girls in the back of the station wagon and looked out into the pitch black, the starless sky, the Wyoming pines, the empty night, where all fires go cold.

"Hey, our moms have just gone across the street to the outhouse," she volunteered.

"Great," we replied in unison. 

"Go to bed," we added.

 ********

"Wait, they've just come out of the outhouse, and there's a big bear behind it."

"Go to bed, Rhonda!  and shut up!" we grrrrrrr.

*******

"OOOOOOooooooh, the bear is coming across the street to the car.  Look out!"

We dove under the covers, hoping the flannel of the sleeping bag would block the Rhonda effect.

No good.

*******

The sound of scratching on the side of a car in the hours bordering midnight is terrifying to anyone, most of all young girls who are trapped with a tall tale teller.

Scratccccchhhhhhhhhhh.......  Screeeeeeeeeeeeeeetch......  Sccccccrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr.....................

We let out blood curdling screams, and dashed over the seat to the steering wheel to throw the entire weight of our small bodies on the horn.

*******

Parents don't like to come out in pj's in the middle of the night in the woods to answer the call of the tall tale tellers.

Flashlights.  Hands on hips.  Fingers shaking in unison.  Scold scold scold.  

"Rhonda, how dare you scare these girls?  Now, go back to bed, all of you, and be good girls, and don't make up stories." 

******* 

We dove under the covers again.  Nice, warm, flannel sleeping bags.

*******

Scratccccchhhhhhhhhhh.......  Screeeeeeeeeeeeeeetch......  Sccccccrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr..................... 

*******

Becky threw up next to me, all over the sleeping bag.  Rhonda screamed.

"The bear is back!"

She jumped over the front seat again and started honking the horn frantically.

Out came the parents again.  Scold scold scold.  Bad girls.  Bad.  Quit bothering your parents and go to sleep.  There are no bears.

*******

It was a long and sleepless night.  Long.  Sleepless.

*******

Dawn came none too soon, along with the park ranger.

 "Are you guys all right?" he asked.  "There was a big grizzly sow here last night with her cub."

We took a look at the picnic table.   Our metal cooler, which had been left alongside (by the adults) was ripped cleanly in half.  A trail of bacon, and grizzly prints, went all the way down to the lake.

Our stationwagon had scratches all up and down below the side windows.

*******

The parents were very nice to us after that.  Very nice.  Good girls.  

Lots of hot cocoa.  With marshmallows.

And nice soft beds. 

I returned to the scene of the crime this summer and snapped these photos of the campsite where the bear came to visit three little girls in the 1960's--me, Rhonda and Becky.  Fremont Lake Upper Loop Campground, above Pinedale, Sublette County, Wyoming.   Near the end of the road.  If you're ever there, warn the parents, like I did, to hold their children close.  And believe them.  Even if they occasionally tell tale tales.

Grizzly bear in Wyoming.  Ursus arctos horribilis.