“Yeah. Got it. Then found Jakey here, crashing through the forest.”
Jacob arches a brow. “I’m not the one who makes enough noise to scare game for miles.”
Tyrone Cypher. Six foot four. Well over two hundred pounds. With his grizzled brown hair, he does indeed resemble an aging bear. Cypher is a former sheriff of Rockton. Before that, he was a hit man, which in Rockton apparently qualifies as law enforcement experience.
“That Brady kid get away on you again?” Cypher says when Dalton tells them we’re looking for a fugitive.
“Not unless he’s a zombie,” I say. “And Eric has promised that whatever else we have in these woods, there are no zombies.”
“Yet,” Dalton says.
“No, you said there were no killer rabbits yet. You said there were no zombies at all. You were very, very clear on that.”
“Which only means I’ve never seen one.” He turns to the other two. “Brady’s dead. This fugitive is a different problem.”
While the three of them talk, I wander off. As always, Dalton keeps one eye on me. I joke that he’d like to have us all on leashes … with shock collars that will zap us if we stray too far.
I check out what looks like a berry bush. I’m hunkered down examining it when something moves in the undergrowth. It’s the size of a rabbit. Too dark to be an Arctic hare, though, or any of the other small critters we get out here. When I squint, I realize it’s twice the size I thought—it just looked small because it’s lying on the ground.
When the thing gives an odd bleat, I go still.
Another bleat and then it snuffles, raising a black furry head with a black nose. It reminds me of what Anders said the other day, joking about Storm being a bear cub. That’s exactly what I’m looking at: a black bear cub.
It lifts its head and bleats, and it is so adorable that I stifle an “Awww” of appreciation. I know to leave it alone, so I just smile and step backward.
Then a snort sounds behind me.
I turn slowly to see Mama Bear twenty feet away.
ELEVEN
I take a deep breath to calm my stuttering heart. I’m not bothering her cub. I’ll just step sideways, get farther from it, and hope she hasn’t noticed me.…
Mama Bear rises up on her rear legs, and her nearsighted eyes lock on me.
I open my mouth to shout. That’s how we deal with black bears: stand our ground, make ourselves as big as possible, and shout in hopes of scaring them off.
Thankfully, before I shout, I realize the logic flaw in that. If I’m standing between a sow and her cub, I really don’t want to put on a threat display.
The sow is in front of me, the cub to my left. The bear keeps snuffling the air, her head bobbing as she assesses. When I step backward, away from the cub, the sow snarls, baring her teeth.
“Casey?” Dalton’s voice, sharp with anxiety.
I slide my gaze his way. He’s on the other side, just out of the sow’s sight line.
“I thought you said black bears aren’t like grizzlies,” I say. “They don’t attack if you get between a sow and her cubs.”
“I said that’d always been my experience.” He’s right, of course. He’d never say such a thing couldn’t happen, only that he’d never known it to. Apparently, this sow has not read the black bear behavior guide.
“Advice?” I say.
His gaze is on the bear, assessing just as hard as she is. He has his gun in hand. When he shifts, the sow glances his way and waves one paw, brandishing inch-long claws. I’m closer, though, and I’m the threat to her baby, so her attention swings back to me.
“She doesn’t want me to move,” I say. “But I need to get away from her cub.”
“Yep.”
“Which requires moving.…”