Grizzly (11 page)

"Coming up the road now."

Harry Dunham sat on a log near the smouldering remains of the fire. One man was trying to get him to take a drink. Harry kept pushing it away.

"Look at that camper, Gordon," Kittredge said. "He tore it open like an egg shell. I thought you claimed your bears were all up in the high country."

"Not now, damn it," Kelly said. He went over to the numbed man on the log. He helped him up. "Come on, it's all right. My driver'Il take you down to the hospital. We'll take care of everything up here. Come along."

Like a child, Harry Dunham allowed himself to be led to the ranger vehicle. As he was helped in, he looked back and, in a small voice said, "Would somebody please turn off my tape player?"

When Kelly's Toyota drove down the hill, it was passed by a battered jeep driven by Arthur Scott.

As the ambulance attendants went about their gory task, Scott, Kelly and Kittredge went off to one side of the clearing.

"We've been trying to reach you, Avery," said Scott. "I—"

"Let me talk first," said Kittredge. "Kelly, what the hell happened? You assured me these lower districts would be safe."

"We thought they would be. But he came down. Maybe because our search parties spooked him."

Kittredge drew himself up to his full five feet nine.

"Kelly, I've had it with you. This is your baby, your responsibility. I wash my hands of it."

Kelly said, disbelievingly, "You wash your hands? How the hell can you do that? This is your park, Mr. Supervisor."

"And this is your district, nobody else's. And that goddamned bear is yours, too."

"
Mr
. Kittredge," said Arthur Scott. "let me give you a few facts. You would have had them earlier, but you were off talking to the nice ladies about our noble park program."

"This is none of your business, Scott," said Kittredge. "Kelly didn't do the job with those bears. That's the long and the short of it."

"Don't try to be more of an asshole than you are," Scott said gently.

Kittredge began to splutter.

Scott went on, "I don't work for you, like Kelly, so don't think I won't go on television and spill the beans if you keep dodging the reality and the responsibility here. We've been trying to tell you, we've got a killer grizzly on our hands."

The supervisor whirled on him. "You're under my supervision, Scott, and don't you forget it. You're a maniac . . . always were. Running around bundled up in deer skins. There hasn't been a grizzly in these mountains for thirty years."

"There is now," said Kelly. "Come on, Scotty, let's get the hell out of here. There's nothing to do tonight."

"I'm not finished," Kittredge said.

"Oh?" the ranger shot back. "Maybe you want me to take a flashlight and track him out there in the dark?"

"Get me that goddamned bear,'' Kittredge ordered, "and get him fast."

"We're trying," Kelly said. "Maybe if you could get us more men. That's one thing you're good at, talking to Washington."

"And blow this thing further out of proportion? Are you mad? There's nothing unusual about a bear getting out of line every now and then. What's unusual is that your men can't seem to get on the ball and catch this one."

Dr. Samuel Hallit, who had finished examining what was left of Sally Dunham, had joined them. He tried to make peace. "Avery's right, Kelly. It used to happen a lot more often back in the old days, when the campers fed the bears, or left food around in the open to attract them. Not to mention the garbage patrol, luring bears down so the tourists could photograph them."

"Mr. Kittredge," said Scott, "Do you take Stupid Pills? Why won't you accept that this is no ordinary bear?"

"That remark will go in your file," snapped the Supervisor.

"Sure, we used to have bear accidents," said Kelly. "But they didn't eat their victims. This one does. And like Scotty said—"

Dr. Hallit said, "Gentlemen, four people have been killed. Something has to be done, and arguing about who's responsible isn't going to help."

Kittredge said, "You've got more than enough men to handle this, Kelly. I warn you, if you don't do the job, I will."

He turned and stalked off without giving time for an answer.

Kelly gave a low whistle.

"Hold that expression," said a female voice. It was Allison. She clicked off two exposures, almost shoving the camera lens into Kelly's ear.

"Come on, Allie," he said. "No games."

"What games? I'm getting some terrific shots."

Grimly, he said, "Including what was left of that poor woman?"

"You bet," she said. "I shot two rolls of high-speed color, and then I went out in the woods and threw up."

No war is without its respites, its quiet moments for reflection and renewal, and the war against the mountain beast was no exception.

Having sent his Toyota down the mountain, Kelly accepted a ride from Allison, and that led to an offer of a drink—in her cabin, since the bar was crowded—and there was a warm and cheerful fire, and more than one drink, and . . .

Kelly added a log to the glowing embers of the fire which had burned down to the last red coals. The room was dimly lit, with only one shaded lamp on. The radio played quiet music, a waltz by Mantovani.

He'd slipped back into his jeans, but above the waist he was bare, and the perspiration was still drying, gleaming on his heavily muscled shoulders.

Near him, stretched out on the big black bearskin rug, Allison stirred under the light blanket. She made contented noises.

"Just fixing the fire," Kelly said. "Go back to sleep."

"Who's sleeping?" she mumbled.

He sipped at a wine glass half filled with brandy, and stirred the fire, which was blazing up again.

"Share the wealth," Allison said.

"Are you referring to the brandy?"

"What else would I be asking for?"

He smiled in memory of the past hours. "A guy never knows."

He moved closer to her. The blanket was just above the twin mounds of her breasts. Then, as she moved, it slipped down.

Kelly let a few drops of the brandy spill onto her skin, all rosy in the firelight. Then he bent down and kissed the brandy away. Allison writhed and whispered, "That tickles. But don't stop."

"I wouldn't have stopped before. But you fell asleep."

"Look who's talking. You were snoring five minutes after we—"

She stopped. It wasn't necessary to use the words. His hand stroked her.

He held the glass to her lips, and she sipped.

He said, "It was good. l'd forgotten how good it could be."

"You?" She laughed. "I've heard about your exploits.''

"Yeah," he said, "and that's all they were. A few sweaty minutes without meaning and without love."

"I didn't know you were acquainted with that word," she said softly.

"What word?"

"The four letter one that can be either the most wonderful thing a person can say or the most damnable lie ever heard."

"Love?"

"See, you do know how to say it."

"Do you?"

She reached up and drew him down. The blanket had fallen off all the way now. She kissed him, slowly and deeply.

Moments passed. When he drew back, he said, "Where did you learn to do that?"

"With the tongue?"

"Among other things."

"I had a liberal education," she said. "I used to practice for this moment, siphoning gas out of parked cars."

He finished the brandy. "You're crazy," he said, making the words a caress.

"And you're a chameleon."

"How so?"

She traced her finger along its strong bones "Your jaw. Changes. Always changes. It's different in each new light."

"You should know," he said, lifting an imaginary camera. "Click!"

She covered her breasts with simulated modesty. "Oh, sir, please. Give me the negatives. I'll pay anything for them."

He leered. "
Any
thing."

She lowered her eyes. "Yes . . . even that."

They laughed together gently, and the fire painted golden patterns on their bodies.

He kicked off his jeans and slipped under the blanket with her.

"Wait a minute," she said, pushing him away. "Before this goes any further, l've got to know something."

"Shoot," he said, cupping his hands around her.

"What's your sign?"

"My what?"

"Your astrological sign."

He nuzzled her shoulder and bit gently. "You're kidding."

"No, I'm not."

"All right. I'm a Taurus."

She shoved him away. "Oh, hell!"

"What's the matter?"

Trying to contain her laughter, and failing, she choked, "I'm a Leo. The book says we're not compatible.''

As he pulled her to him for the complete embrace they had both been working up to, Kelly said, "You know what you can do with your book."

There had not been a legal hunt in the park for more than thirty years. At one time, hunters drawn by lot were allowed to harvest the excess deer, but that practice was stopped before the Second World War, and had never been resumed.

Now trained sharpshooters were brought in whenever the herds had outgrown their grazing range, and the meat was donated to the state hospital.

But the convoy of jeeps, pickup trucks and other off-road vehicles that lined up outside the park's main gate early this morning was filled with anything but sharpshooters. They were a motley bunch, some in

camouflage green some wearing hunters flame orange, one actually dressed in a rumpled business suit. The only thing they had in common were the rifles they carried.

The gate ranger had received instructions to let the hunters come in. But as he watched them drive past, in the dull gray of dawn, he shook his head.

He turned to his partner. "Kelly's not going to like this," he said.

"Some of those guys have got dogs," said the other ranger. "That's illegal."

"The whole thing's illegal. But they're doing it, and we have to let them. Orders."

One party of hunters stopped at the edge of the road, and they planned their routes.

A man driving a battered red Ford pickup leaned out and called to another hunter, who piloted an International Scout, "Hey, Carl, did you bring those extra three-hundred express cartridges?"

"Got 'em right here," said the other man.

Up the mountain, three rifle shots made a string of lonely
boom-boom-boom
's which echoed down the valleys for fully half a minute.

Carl said, "Damn it, somebody's already up there shooting."

"They didn't get him, though," said the other man. "One shot, meat. Two shots, maybe meat. Three shots, no meat. That guy missed his first shot and just kept squeezing them off."

Carl said, "Let's get this show on the road. I want to get me a shot at that bastard."

The hunters soon filled the woods. Men and dogs ran in all directions. The dogs were as mixed a bag as the hunters. Some were bird dogs, others were rabbit-trained beagles. One enterprising hunter had actually brought along his wife's poodle.

That nobody was shot by accident in that first hour was a minor miracle, because the nervous men fired at anything that moved.

By the time the sun came up, the mountain sounded as if a small war had broken out on its slopes.

One party paused, cold and tired. They hadn't brought an axe, but there was deadfall wood, and one man knocked down a wooden sign and used it to help start the fire.

The sign's legend read, NO HUNTING.

One man saw a black shadow moving in the underbrush, threw his 30-30 to his shoulder, and fired.

Something thrashed in the thicket, and went still.

Carefully, the hunter advanced. He looked down at what he'd shot.

"Oh, hell," he said.

He had killed someone's big Labrador retriever.

Don Stober said to Kelly, "You're late."

Embarrassed, Kelly said, "I overslept. What the hell's going on?" He looked around the office. "Where's Scottie?"

"He got an early start. He's out there tracking. I just hope some stupid hunter doesn't shoot him."

Kelly listened to the distant shots. "Hunters? What the hell are hunters doing in the woods?"

"Looking for our bear."

"On whose authority? Who the hell opened the woods to hunters?"

"I'll give you,one guess."

Kelly swore. "That goddamned Kittredge."

"He passed the word around High City last night. I hear he authorized a five hundred dollar bounty."

Kelly poured some coffee and drank it, holding the cup in shaking hands. Too much brandy, too much loving. . . .

"For God's sake," he said. "Has he gone bananas? They're more likely to kill one of the rangers than that bear."

Don shrugged. "Me, I've always thought most hunters are a little crazy. They might get lucky and find him."

"Like hell," said Kelly. "Those bastards are shooting at everything that moves, including themselves. Listen to it up there, it sounds like the Battle of the Bulge."

He slammed down the coffee, picked up the phone, and began dialing Avery Kittredge's private number.

Not all of the hunters on the mountain were gunhappy amateurs.

One man, Phillip Boyson, a fifty-one-year-old Texan, made his solitary way, through the forest with care and planning. He searched for the bear's markings, and when he found the first set of claw marks, high on a tree, he looked up at them and gave a low whistle.

Boyson had hunted big game all over the country and in Canada and Alaska, too. He had stayed away from the mob scene that was being enacted in the easily accessible areas. He knew that the bear would steer clear of them too.

The bounty did not interest him. But the thought of being the tirst hunter to bag a grizzly in this state in the past fifty years did.

He moved quietly through the woods, following the almost invisible trail left by the bear. He saw occasional claw marks, and twice, piles of droppings left deliberately to stake out the animal's territory.

What he didn't see was the beast who was stalking him.

Kelly slammed down the phone.