“Hello?”
“Fuck, man,” Creed said. “Where are you?”
I frowned. “I’m working on Old Smith Landing. Why?”
“Call just came in,” he said. “There’s a bear that’s attacking a woman.”
My stomach sank. “Okay?”
“It’s Eddy,” Creed said. “And it’s not looking good.”
Eleven
Don’t pick the bear.
—Eddy to Nettie
Eddy
I hiked this damn trail all the damn time.
As in, all the time.
I did it so much that it’d become second nature to me on the trail to know where the turns were, where it switch backed, and even where the best flowers grew in the summer.
Only, this time it felt different.
I should’ve taken it as a sign when I’d asked Nettie if she wanted to go, and she’d immediately said no.
I’d been restless, though, and had wanted out of my house.
I’d wanted a break from reality, and usually I got that from hiking.
So against that little voice in my head that told me not to go, I’d gone.
And now I was staring down a bear that was pissed off as hell because I’d just pepper-sprayed it.
The bear hadn’t run away.
In fact, the pepper spray had only seemed to infuriate him more.
I’d seen him from pretty far away, and I’d started to turn around, only the bear must’ve glimpsed me or smelled me or something. Because almost as fast as I’d noticed him, he’d noticed me. Before I could make a move in the opposite direction, he was running.
That’s when I knew I was about to die.
Despite every instinct telling me to run, I held my ground and made myself big, yelling and shouting to try to scare him off.
Any other time, this would’ve worked.
They would’ve turned around. I’d dealt with plenty of bears in my life to know how they reacted.
But this one…there was something wrong with it.
It ran with an almost drunk gait. It was listing hard to the left, and then to the right, and at one point, the bear had even fallen over in his haste to get up the mountain toward me.
The fall slowed him down immensely, and just when I thought he wouldn’t make it to me, he did.
Only when he was close enough that I knew my bear spray would work, did I use it.
