“He got away?”
She nodded. “He’s alive. Father was able to shoot at the bear, and it ran off.”
My palms started itching. "They track it?"
She shook her head, red curls catching the late summer light. "They're not putting him down."
My jaw had tightened. "Why?"
"I guess the bear's part of some university study." She frowned, clearly not liking it any more than I did. "Wildlife cops say Tommy 'provoked it by being in its territory.'" She used air quotes.
“But if it attacked one person, odds are it’s going to attack another.”
Mary shrugged. It wasn’t an indifferent one. Just one that said it didn’t matter if she liked it or not. There was nothing she could do about it.
I knew I shouldn’t get involved. If I hunted and killed that bear, I’d have to leave for sure. Too much heat would fall on a man who wasn’t supposed to exist.
I tipped my chin at the ammunition behind Mary. "Give me some of that .338."
I caught her trying to suppress a smile as she grabbed it. "You could take down a pretty big animal with that..." she hinted.
"Never hurts to be prepared," I called out as a goodbye.
It felt like a final one.
Now, as I walk through the woods, I’m pulled toward the territory she warned me about.
I had convinced myself this was just a fishing trip. But my rod and tackle are still lying in the tent.
It’s my rifle that adorns my shoulder.
By late afternoon, I work my way upstream, following game trails until I reach a clearing where the weak gray sun breaks through. I approach cautiously, my boots silent against pine needles and moss. My training makes stealth second nature.
The clearing tells its story before I've taken three steps in.
Rusty brown stains splash across boulders. Dried pools mark the dirt where the boy must have fallen, tried to crawl, then collapsed again.
I kneel beside a large boulder where the most substantial bloodstain centers. My fingertips touch the surface, feeling the flaky texture where it's dried black against the stone.
My eyes fix on a sneaker lying on its side, laces still tied. It's small. A child’s shoe. I sigh.
I follow the deep gouges cut into the soft earth where massive paws dug for traction to the edge of the clearing onthe opposite side. Branches hang broken at odd angles, showing the path of something massive pushing through.
I make my way to the forest’s edge and find a clear paw print.
I drop to one knee, placing my open hand beside the nearest print. The tracks tell the opposite story from the kid's shoe. It swallows my spread fingers with room to spare: a male grizzly and a monster at that—seven, maybe eight hundred pounds.
I follow the trail, rifle not on my shoulder but now in my hands. The prints lead away from Miller's Creek, deeper into the wilderness, toward the high ridges where few people venture.
The thought comes again that I should let this be. Not my problem. Never was. And I don't get involved anymore.
I only ever make things worse.
But the thought doesn’t catch since I follow the tracks for another half mile, noting how they weave between the densest parts of the forest, avoiding natural clearings and open spaces.
I should let this be. But I can’t.
I keep thinking of the boy’s shoe.
