The roaring stopped.
Oh, fuck.
“Where are you?” the woman asked.
I swallowed the bile that was threatening to spew from my throat. “It’s coming back.”
“Where are you?”
I couldn’t answer because I could hear rocks sliding as the bear started heading back that way.
“Ma’am…”
I cursed and prayed that she didn’t say another word as the bear roared so loudly that it shocked my ears.
Then all of its weight came down on me like he was using my body as a trampoline.
I smothered a pained whimper as the bear roared.
I felt something in my upper arm snap, followed by a couple of ribs.
I felt like I could physically hear them breaking.
I wasn’t sure how long I lay there, the bear using me as his own personal jumping pad, but the sweetest words I’d ever heard was a man bellowing from the distance.
“Bear!”
Oh, thank god.
“Here, bear!”
The man continued with his bellowing.
The bear pushed off me, letting his claws scrape me as he left, and I couldn’t stop the whimper from leaving my throat.
The bear took off in a spray of gravel and dirt, and I felt it coat my body and stick to my wounds.
The shot sounded as the bear got far enough away from me, and I started to cry.
I don’t know when the man got to me, but his “oh, sweet fucking Jesus” didn’t give me much hope.
I was probably not coming back from this.
There was no way.
I could practically feel the tears in my skin from his claws.
The broken bones were starting to get to be too much.
“Hold on, darlin’,” I heard the man say. “We’ll get you some help.”
The last word I remember saying was, “Weaver.”
Twelve
Bears wondering what they did wrong to be compared to men.
—Eddy to Weaver
