There Will Be Bears (16 page)

I fall on my butt and admire my accomplishment. The remnants no longer look like an animal. At this point, it’s just meat.

We drag the first two panniers with the elk’s head and hindquarters toward the horses and tie them onto the wood of the buckskin’s saddle. Out of the corner of my eye, I see Crazy Eyes start neighing and jerking her head.

“Hey, cool it,” I say.

She pulls at the tree, bending it back. Pine needles fall to the ground.

“I said cool it!”

Now all the horses are neighing and freaking out.

Gene looks up the hill. A dark, squat form is moving toward the rest of my elk. It has a large shoulder hump, a concave snout, and two round ears on its wide head.

A billow of steam rises from its mouth.

Gene says in a calm but stern voice, “We have to go.”

The thing appears from the shadows, and it’s a big dog. No, it’s a
very
big dog with one thousand pounds of muscle.

No, he’s a giant linebacker hunched down on all fours. His face is scarred and, my God, he’s so fat.

No, it’s a she. Her fur is blond, almost the color of sand. She’s the one who tore down a tent and ate two hunters from Ohio.

It’s Sandy.

She sneaks slow, with her head down. She’s coming for my elk. She sniffs the gut pile and grunts. Despite what Gene told me about grizzly bears — that they like their meat nasty — she goes for the front quarters, leaving the entrails untouched.

“Hey!” I holler, and then I smack my hands over my mouth.

The bear rears onto her hind legs — she’s at least eight feet tall — and sniffs the air. Her face is expressionless and huge. Her legs are as thick as tree trunks. Panic races through me, and I freeze.

I can’t feel my arms or legs. I can’t feel anything.

My throat closes and I can’t breathe.

The buckskin breaks free from the tree, taking the hindquarters and the head of my elk with her.

“Get on your horse,” Gene says.

I still can’t breathe. I need to breathe!

The grizzly sways her head side to side and then woofs. She gets down on all fours and tears another chunk out of my elk’s leg.

Grizzlies can run thirty miles an hour. Gene and I will both be dead in a matter of seconds.

I force myself to breathe.

Air rushes into my lungs and this is not real. The bear is not real. I’m not really here, and this is just a game where I get double points for head shots.

My eyes focus on Crazy Eyes, and even though she’s bucking and pulling at the tree, I get my rifle out of the scabbard.

Sandy charges at me, breaking everything in her path. Her massive haunches move so quickly that I don’t know what’s happening. I drop my rifle and I close my eyes and I’m going to die.

She stops short. I open my eyes. I’m still alive. The bear stands no more than twenty feet away, opening and closing her mouth, clacking her teeth.

The bear’s empty black eyes stare into mine. She roars. It’s so brutal and fierce that I can feel it in my bones.

This is real. The blood on her ragged teeth. The stink of death. The claws.

This is not a game I can reset.

Sandy huffs and returns to my elk. With her paw pressed against the open cavity, she tears off another piece.

“Tyson,” Gene says from behind, “get on your horse.”

My legs are trembling so hard. I wrap my hand around the saddle’s horn and place one foot in the stirrup when Crazy Eyes does a back kick and knocks me down. The bear is still standing by my elk. Watching me. Crazy Eyes is panicking so hard, the knot tying her to the tree is almost undone.

We are the next headline.

“Boy and Grandfather Mauled to Death in Wyoming.”

Gene lets the brown horse go. He smacks Ellie in the face, and she calms down just long enough for him to mount her. He looks at me. I have to do the same.

Crazy Eyes has exhausted herself pulling at the tree and doesn’t yet realize the knot is loose. I have to get on her before she leaves without me.

I smack her hard in the face, the rope in my other hand. “Calm down.”

She writhes her neck but stays steady. I get one foot in, swing my other foot around, and then I kick her good in the belly.

Like a bullet from a gun, she shoots through the woods with Gene right behind. I’m hugging Crazy Eyes’s neck tight, twigs breaking across my face. We enter the clearing, gallop up and over the hill, and my arms begin to weaken. My butt gets higher off the saddle with every downward stride.

I take my feet out of the stirrups because my arms and my body can’t take any more. And so I let go, slamming against the ground. I go tumbling down the hill. My hand reaches out and latches on to the stem of a sagebrush, pulling the plant out. I claw into the dirt until my fingernails scrape across a lodged rock.

I scream. And . . . I stop. Dizzy, I stumble to my feet and search for Gene. All I see is Crazy Eyes turning right onto the trail and vanishing beyond the hill.

“Gene?” I look all around. “Gene!”

The only response is the echo of my voice. Then the silence returns.

“Gene!”

Oh, God, he’s gone. I’m by myself. I look up to the top of the hill. He was right behind me.

A form appears at the summit, and relief sets in.

But it’s not Gene.

The grizzly bear charges toward me at full speed.

Don’t run. Don’t run. Don’t run.

Play dead. Curl up in a ball. Put my hands around the back of my neck.

The bear charges and I don’t see her, but she’s an avalanche that gets louder. Closer. The ground trembles.

I peek. The bear slides past me. She can’t control her momentum.

She looks at me from below, panting, and huffs her way back up. Her steps are slow.

Don’t scream. Don’t fight her. Don’t do anything.

She’s here! Oh, my God, I can feel her shadow. It’s heavy and warm, and I will not scream. I swallow it down, and it’s like shards of hot glass in my throat. My heart is pounding so heavily and it’s way too loud.

Shut up, you stupid heart!
Shut up!

A weight presses onto my back — her paw. The points of her claws touch me, but they don’t sink in. She doesn’t move for a thousand years and then she smacks me.

I go rolling.

Stay curled up. Keep my hands around my neck.

There isn’t anything else I can do, and if I die, maybe I was meant to die in this place.

And then something stops me. A willow bush. I’m not dead yet.

I should say something. I need my last words, even if no one’s around to hear them. What should they be?

I make one eye open. The path is three feet away. And then I hear a glorious sound — a thundering blast from Gene’s rifle, and it’s so loud it has to scare Sandy away.

It doesn’t scare her away because there was no gunshot. It was only in my head.

The grizzly bear is breathing the smell of death onto me.

I love you, Mom. I love you, Dad. And Gene. And Bright. And I never got to know you very well, but I would have been a good boyfriend for you, Karen. Heck, I even love you too, Ashley.

No words come out of my mouth.

Sandy paws at me again, and something sharp slides down my back and I’m just whatever about it.

Just go ahead and get it over with. I’m not here to hurt you or your cubs. And I’ve done everything I was supposed to do, but if you’re going to kill me anyways, there’s nothing I can do to stop you.

She grunts. It’s a frustrated sound, like she’s bored with me.

A hundred years of her tired, atrocious breathing pass, and a warm glob of drool lands on my face.

Then it just comes to me. “Why do you have to be so mean?” I whisper, so quiet I’m not sure I say anything at all. Those will be my last words.

I’m going to die being my stupid whatever self, a smile on my face. Maybe this is what happens just before you die — you get delirious. This is something beyond being scared.

I remain perfectly still.

I don’t know how much time has passed, but I open my eyes and see no sign of the bear. Where did she go? Am I dead? I have to be — this doesn’t feel like the same world. And all the colors are different. Everything is bright and disorienting.

Sandy didn’t eat me. Why didn’t she eat me?

I try and stand, but my left leg buckles. I look at my hand. There is no nail on my middle finger, just a red-and-white fleshy patch dripping with blood. But nothing hurts.

The front of my jeans is soaked in pee.

“Gene?”

He could be lying dead on the side of the trail.

I hobble to my feet and hurry toward North Fork with a gimpy left leg.

“Gene?” I say it louder.

I pass the bend. On the opposite side of the creek and sprawled across the rocks is this soaked, frail old man. For a second, I think he really is dead.

“Gene!”

He looks at me. He struggles to get up, but he stumbles in the current.

“Tyson!” he cries. “I thought you were dead!”

I splash through the icy creek.

“I’m sorry,” he says, his voice breaking. “I tried to turn my horse around, but I couldn’t. I couldn’t hold on, and she threw me off. I tried to come for you.”

“I’m okay. Gene, look, everything’s fine.”

“We shouldn’t have done this trip.”

“What? Why?”

“Why? It nearly killed you!”

I kneel beside him, the frigid water rushing around me. “Let me help you up.” I sling his arm around my shoulder. We’re both about to collapse back in, but I drag both of us onto land.

“Tyson, what happened to your back?”

His words bring to life a searing pain slicing across my skin. “Huh?” I try to look over my shoulder. “What is it?”

“The bear clawed you.” He smacks me on the back of the head, hard. “What the hell were you doing, pulling out your rifle? You never do that! That’s why that damn bear charged. You pissed her off good. Dummy.”

I force a joke. “We could have gotten a grizzly head to hang up.” It comes out like a whimper.

“I’d rather have
your
stupid head on the wall.”

“I’m sorry, Gramps.”

He sighs and puts his arm around my shoulder, bringing me in for a hug. And he keeps me there. He says, “Look at me. I’m a useless old fart, and I couldn’t control my horse. And I want your grandmother back. And for Pete’s sake, I don’t want to have to piss every goddamn thirty minutes.” He wipes his face and says, “It goes by so fast. One minute you’re in middle school, then the next you’re all by yourself in a nursing home.”

I can’t think of anything that will make him feel better or change the situation. I’m not wise. I don’t know what it’s like to be old.

I don’t really know much of anything.

Into his jacket I say, “What are we going to do about the horses?”

“They know how to get home. They go where the food is.” He glances at my back again. “We ought to get Nancy to check you out. Those claw marks look deep.”

“Will it scar?”

He nods. “You’re going to look like a badass.”

I give a tired wink. “That’s because I am.”

We hobble toward the ranch, soaked and freezing, and my mind is really blank and clear, but I’m thinking about
everything
. What am I going to be like when I’m twenty years old? Will I be working at McDonald’s, or will I be in college? Am I going to get married when I’m thirty, divorce when I’m forty, retire when I’m sixty?

Will I live in a nursing home when I’m seventy-seven?

I could die tomorrow.

He goes, “By the way, you made two mistakes today.”

“What’s the other one?”

“You called me Gramps.”

My face tingles, all warm and weird. But it wasn’t a mistake. I know who he is. He’s the same person he’s always been — he’s family. He’s my grandfather.

The ATV comes hauling up to the property line. Mike is driving and Nancy is sitting behind him, her arms around his waist.

“What happened?” Nancy says. “You boys are drenched.”

The sun is high and it’s got to be sixty degrees out and Gramps and I are still alive. Everything is fantastic.

Mike says, “You guys didn’t come across Sandy, did you?”

If I tell them where she’s at, then the Forest Service will kill her. A grizzly bear — the coolest animal to ever exist — will die because of me. Should I say anything? I mean, Sandy let me live, and it’s only right that I return the favor. But who’s to say she won’t hurt someone else?