“Yes, sir.”
It’s Moses’s turn. Dalton tells us that he will count down from three. I take one split second to adjust my grip. Out of the corner of my eye, I can see the younger bear. It stands on all fours, watching. Curious and a little anxious, sensing its mother’s stress, but trusting that if she’s not attacking, everything is okay.
Dalton counts down. When he hits one, Moses darts toward Dalton, and the mother bear roars and lunges. My finger twitches on the trigger, but my brain processes her trajectory in a split second. She’s not lunging at Moses, she’s lunging into the spot he’s vacated, toward her baby.
She hits the ground on all fours, and the earth vibrates with four hundred pounds of force. My insides quiver, sweat dripping onto my cheek. I don’t blink, though. I keep my gun aimed at the mother bear, my side gaze aimed at her youngster as they reunite, the cub bleating with joy.
I take a deep breath and slowly exhale. Storm nudges my leg, and I absently reach down to pat her head and …
I know my dog’s fur. It’s long, and it’s soft. What my hand touches is coarse, thick and bristly, like Raoul’s wolf fur. Hot breath exhales on my leg as I pivot my torso, keeping my legs planted. There is Storm, between me and Dalton, her gaze fixed on the reuniting bears. And beside me? A beast the size of my dog, hidden in the waist-high brush. A beast with golden-brown fur and the unmistakable rounded ears of a grizzly.
“Eric?” I say, his name coming as a squeak just as Storm turns, catching the new scent.
Storm lunges, and I yelp, “Stay!” Moses leaps to grab her even as she halts, bristling and growling. Dalton looks over, frowning in confusion, seeing nothing at first and then …
And then he lets out a sound, almost inaudible, a gasp and a hiss as his eyes go wide and his gun rises.
“Don’t move,” he says, his voice nearly as squeaky as mine.
“I’m fine,” I manage. “I’m aiming.” I am, too, my gun pointed down at the head. Two cubs. There’d been two yearlings, one safely hidden in the brush until I walked over, and it ambled my way. Now it’s on all fours, snuffling my leg. Curious, as bears are. Trying to figure out what I am. Prey or predator? Dinner or danger?
“Eric?” I say.
“Right here. You’ve got this.”
“I know, which is why I need you to turn that gun away.”
He hesitates, and in the silence, I swear I hear him swallow.
“You can’t get a good shot at this one,?
?? I say. “I need you aiming at the mother while I get out of this.”
“She’s right,” one of the men murmurs. I don’t know who it is—I don’t dare look over. “She’s got this, like you said, Eric. But if she shoots, that mother bear is going to charge.”
“Right now this one’s curious,” I say. “Tell me how to let it know I’m not dinner. How to let it realize I’m a threat … without alerting its mother.”
Silence. He’s thinking fast. The question isn’t fair, though, because I don’t think there’s an answer here. Anything I do is going to put me in the same situation Moses just escaped—trapped between mother and cub.
“I’m going to start toward you,” I say. “Is that okay?”
A pause. Then, “Yes.”
“I will move sideways. I will do it now. I can’t wait, or Mom will figure out what’s happening.”
“Okay.”
I take one very careful sideways step. The young bear huffs, and my heart stops, everything in me saying to run, that the mother will have heard that and—
Another step. A third. I am about to step out of the long grass when—
A massive paw swipes at my leg. It’s not even a hard smack. Just a curious bat, but it hits behind my knee and catches me off guard and my legs fly out from under me.
TWENTY-FIVE
A shout. A shot. Two shots. A snarl.
All that passes as if through a soundproofed wall, muffled and indistinct, as I grit my teeth against the urge to twist and break my fall. I wrap both hands around my gun just as I crash onto the ground, arms flying up with the jolt, gun still gripped tight and …