Bearstone

CHAPTERS 1-4

Reading Check

1. “Cloyd knew just two things about his father—he was a Navajo, and he had disappeared after Cloyd was born.” (Chapter 1)

2. “H]alf-wild” (Chapter 2)

3. Peaches (Chapter 2)

4. Bears (Chapter 3)

5. “Lone Bear” (Chapter 3)

Short Answer

1. Determined to finally meet his father, Cloyd manages to track Leeno Atcitty to the Indian Health Service Hospital in Window Rock, Arizona. Pretending to be a flower delivery boy, he manages to convince the nurse to let him see the room, where he finds “a shriveled-up mummy attached to a bunch of tubes,” and learns that his father is officially “brain-dead.” (Chapter 1)

2. Cloyd’s mother, from the Ute tribe, died in childbirth, and his father, from the Navajo tribe, disappeared when he was young. Cloyd wishes he could live with his grandmother because she allows him freedom, but instead he is forced to live with his housemother in a school far from his family. (Chapter 2)

3. Walking through the ragged landscape, Cloyd reflects on the information that his grandmother told him: that the Weminuche Utes originally lived in Colorado, but they were forced out by European colonizers who were looking for gold. As a result, they resettled in Utah. (Chapter 3)

4. After scaling a rock and finding refuge in a cave, Cloyd comes across a sacred burial of an infant by the “Ancient Ones.” The infant is wrapped in a blanket and surrounded by various objects, including a clay pot and a turquoise stone in the shape of a bear. He decides to take the bearstone for himself. (Chapter 3)

CHAPTERS 4-10

Reading Check

1. Salt Lake City, Utah (Chapter 5)

2. A black bear with a cub (Chapter 5)

3. His horse, Blueboy (Chapter 6)

4. “The way Cloyd pointed with his lips” and “Cloyd looked away when he talked or was spoken to.” (Chapter 7)

5. That he does not have a high literacy rate (Chapter 7)

5. “Cloyd was amazed at how easily the old man got on with these people, laughing with them and having a good time.” (Chapter 8)

Short Answer

1. Cloyd returns from his adventure to find that Walter prepared a homemade dinner of porkchops and sliced peaches. Walter decides to not ask Cloyd too many questions, which puts Cloyd at ease as he reflects that “[t]his was a good place, Walter’s farm.” (Chapter 4)

2. “The Pride of the West” is a gold mine that Walter frequented before his wife made him give it up. After his wife’s passing, he considers visiting the mine again. (Chapter 5)

3. Walter’s first project for Cloyd is to help build a fence. Walter admits that this fence is to ward off a neighbor who drives hunting tours through his property. Overall, Cloyd is excited for the work and gets started immediately. (Chapter 6)

4. One Sunday, Cloyd realizes that he has “a little flame of anger in him” as a result of a feeling that he thinks people do not believe in him. Determined to show that he is a strong worker, he works on his day off to continue building the fence. (Chapter 7)

5. Rusty is a local bear hunter that Cloyd presumes is friends with Walter. He is angry with this man’s presence, as he feels that he is no longer Walter’s real friend. The following day, Rusty returns from a hunt with a bear carcass, bragging about the killing and what he will use the carcass for. Cloyd immediately decides to take revenge by sawing off both the branches of the peach trees as well as the wooden posts that he struggled to make. (Chapters 8-9)

6. After seeing the destruction of his trees, Walter makes the decision to drive Cloyd back to his grandmother’s house in White Mesa. After a brief visit with his grandmother, Cloyd realizes that Walter is a good man and he wants to continue working for him. (Chapter 10)

CHAPTERS 11-20

Reading Check

1. “[T]he hurt you get over” (Chapter 11)

2. The Weminuche are the Utes that live up the mountain; Weminuche is also the name of the specific Ute tribe to which Cloyd and his grandmother belong. (Chapter 13)

3. Gold fever (Chapter 15)

4. “That’s where […] rivers bound for different oceans started out within spitting distance of each other.” (Chapter 16)

5. Bowhunting (Chapter 17)

6. To have him airlifted by the helicopter from the mountain (Chapter 20)

Short Answer

1. On the way to the mine, the pair stop by the gravesite of Walter’s wife as a “matter of respect.” Cloyd then asks Walter about the afterlife, as well as Walter’s surviving family, before sharing with Walter the origins of bearstone and his name “Lone Bear.” (Chapter 12)

2. While out fishing on the mountain, Cloyd trips and injures himself. The weather turns, and Cloyd forces himself to make it back to the camp. He comes across a tent with a stranger who gets him warm, cleans his fish and nurses him back to health around the time that Walter returns. (Chapter 13)

3. Cloyd recalls his grandmother saying that mining for gold “made people crazy and dishonest,” and that the “white men” broke their promises that the Utes could stay in the mountains so they could start mining for riches. (Chapter 14)

4. Once they enter the mines, Cloyd and Walter spend their days in the mountain to dig and find gold. Tired from the nonstop work schedule and cold conditions, Cloyd is skeptical that their work will yield any results; however, he sees that Walter is happy and decides not to broach the subject. (Chapter 15)

5. Once Walter realizes that Cloyd is not as enthralled by the mining work, he makes up an excuse so Cloyd can go to the Pyramid mountain alone. He encounters some difficulty up the mountain with Blueboy, but he is grateful to make it to the top, where he performs a special ceremony to honor the Four Directions, Earth, and Sky. (Chapters 16-17)

6. After revealing to Rusty that he saw a bear, Cloyd decides to follow Rusty the following morning out of concern for the bear. He tracks Rusty through the mountain and sees him shoot the bear. He then observes Rusty and his companions discussing that his kill was an endangered grizzly bear, which means that the death must be reported right away. (Chapters 18-19)

CHAPTERS 21-22

Reading Check

1. The bearstone (Chapter 21)

2. Peach tree seedlings (Chapter 22)

Short Answer

1. Although Walter shows signs of promise in the beginning, over time he is still weak, and he cannot manage the farm alone. When Cloyd makes the decision to move in with Walter permanently so he does not lose the farm, he learns that his family in White Mesa would like for him to come home permanently. (Chapter 21)

2. After learning that he is able to return home to White Mesa, Cloyd proposes his plan to stay with Walter and help him. She tells him that it is a big decision and to take time and think, and in his reflections he realizes “a father had come into his life after all,” ultimately deciding to live with Walter. (Chapter 21)