“If we can’t even talk to that woman, we might as well go back to your place,” Kathy says. “I almost wish I had gone with that guy who waylaid me outside Dot’s yesterday. He said this guy was his friend and that he has the code for the gate. I wonder how I could find him…contact him again.”
“I have no idea how we could find out. Maybe Sergeant Villeneuve?”
“But he wouldn’t give out information like that even if he had access to it. Not unless there was a reason, like a legal reason,” Kathy concludes. “But he did say Annie told him I was looking for Hank. We can ask Annie!”
“Back to Dot’s?”
“She might not be at work today. How about we phone? You have your phone on you?”
“Yup.” She pulls it out of her pocket and turns it on. “Okay, can’t call from here. No cell service. We’ll have to head back down the road.”
By this time, the dogs have disappeared into the bush. Astrid calls them back. Tippy comes bounding out through the underbrush, but Buster doesn’t follow. After a few minutes of calling, Astrid says, “Damn it! That dog! He is so bad for running off! Can you keep a hold of Tippy while I go after him?”
“We agreed we wouldn’t split up.”
“It’s okay. Don’t think he’s gone far, probably just over that rise. If you can just keep her here, I’ll get him and be back in two minutes.”
But before Kathy gets a hold on Tippy’s collar, Buster’s booming woo-wooo-wooof! shatters the calm. Tippy spins and dashes off.
“Now I suppose he’s found a raccoon, and of course Tippy has to join the fun. I’ll have to go get him and drag him back.”
They start off in the direction of the barking, single file through the tall grass and weeds in the cleared area, staying a safe distance from the fence.
Besides barking, there’s snarling and growling, and then something roars. “My god, that’s no raccoon!” Astrid cries. She starts running toward the sound, with Kathy right on her heels. They run up a slight incline, skirt a rocky outcropping, and stop in their tracks.
In a wider cleared area where another trail, this one leading further into the forest, begins, Buster is face to face with a huge bear. Hair on the bear’s hump is silvery, and when he turns his head, a white patch the size of a handprint gleams in the sunlight. He rears and bellows out a series of ear-splitting, percussive roars before dropping back down on all fours and lunging at Buster. Bear and dogs are all growling; Buster and Tippy snarl and bark while the bear’s gruffly squeals are almost pig-like. Buster lunges in to attack and then scurries back out of reach of the bear’s massive front paws while Tippy circles behind, nipping at his hocks.
“No!” Astrid screams. “Buster! Heel! Buster! Tippy! Heel!”
Buster gives no sign of hearing much less obeying, and even the usually compliant Tippy pays no heed. With a throaty snarl Buster lunges at the bear again, and this time succeeds in clamping onto his face. The bear partly rears and shakes his huge head but Buster doesn’t let go. Tippy barks and worries the bear’s back legs. The bear swings his head side to side, then gives another toss, breaking Buster’s hold.
Buster falls and rolls away; he struggles to get up but before he can gain his feet the bear pounces and fastens his jaws around the dog’s neck. Buster yelps and then is silent as the bear lifts him and shakes him as easily as a terrier shakes a rat. Bright arterial blood sprays from his neck when the bear flings him away. He lands with a thud and lies still.
Now the bear turns his attention to Tippy, who lunges at his back leg for another bite. One huge paw swats her. She utters a series of yips as she rolls into the bush but instantly leaps to her feet and comes back at him. He swats her away again and this time she lies still.
The bear rears and sniffs the air. When he was on all fours he looked big even compared to Buster, but upright, he looks massive. When he fixes his gaze on the two women just a few hundred meters away, Kathy, seconds earlier paralyzed into inaction, turns to run. Astrid grips her arm and hisses, “Don’t move! If you run, you’ll trigger his prey response!”
Kathy draws several deep breaths and stands, quaking, despite every instinct telling her to run. Birds, silent or at least unnoticed moments before, begin singing again, the cheerful sound incompatible with the tense drama still playing out.
“Stay close and don’t make eye contact,” Astrid says quietly. “We’ll just back slowly away.” She starts taking small steps backward while facing the ground, looking up under her brows at the bear. He drops back on all fours and makes a lunging dash toward them, but holds up after just a couple of meters. Astrid blows out a sharp breath while Kathy begins sobbing.
They hear an engine off in the distance and a loud BOOM! breaks the quiet; almost the same instant there’s a ZING! and a small explosion in the rocks near the bear kicks up dust. The bear drops down on all fours and sprints toward them. A second BOOM! and a hunk of bark flies off a fir just meters away. The bear changes course and runs off further into the forest. Another gunshot. The bear bounds through the underbrush and over a deadfall as if it wasn’t there. A fourth gunshot, another miss. The bear disappears from sight.
Kathy moans and collapses to the ground.
“You okay, Kathy?” Astrid demands as she hovers over her friend. “The bear’s gone…You okay? I’m sorry! We should’ve run the other way while he was busy with the dogs. I was stupid! Just stupid! I could’ve gotten you killed! I’m sorry! Are you okay?”
Kathy nods several times, gasps and gets to her feet. “I’m not hurt. Just need a minute.” She bends forward, hands on knees, and takes several deep breaths before straightening and asking, “who shot at us?”
“They must’ve been shooting at the bear but damn careless, shooting in our direction!” Seeing Kathy is all right, Astrid turns and rushes to the dogs with Kathy close behind. Kathy goes to Tippy while Astrid falls to her knees at Buster’s head and tries to staunch the flow of blood from his neck with her hands. “Buster! Stay with me buddy!” Astrid pleads. He looks up at her for a second, gives his tail a half wag, then exhales a long breath and dies.
“Agggh!” Astrid wails. She encircles his huge grizzled head in her arms and rocks back and forth, keening in grief.
Tippy raises her head and whimpers quietly as Kathy approaches. “Tippy’s alive! Hurt, but alive!” She calls out as she drops to her knees next to the dog. The fur on her side is saturated with blood. Kathy carefully probes the bloody fur to expose four parallel claw marks running from just behind her foreleg on her underside up nearly to her back; deep, wicked gashes tapering to superficial scratches.
The engine noise grows louder and a small black and orange truck-like vehicle comes out of the bush, stopping a dozen meters away. The driver turns the engine off and sits watching the women, silent.
“Hello!” Astrid calls out. She stands and turns her tear-steaked face toward the new arrival. The man in the UTV doesn’t respond. She squares her shoulders, watches him and waits.
At last he gets out of the cab, his rifle cradled muzzle down under his arm. He barks, “this is private property. You shouldn’t of came here.”
In camo cargo pants and ankle-high boots, wearing a black T-shirt and a balaclava-like mask that covers most of his face, he’d be an imposing figure even without the wrap-around sunglasses. All it would take would be some type of helmet and a vest bulging with extra magazines for his rifle, and he’d be the picture of a combat soldier. When Astrid realizes this, and that it’s not out of character for a survivalist, she relaxes somewhat.
“Well? What the fuck’re you doing here?” he demands.
“I—we—are looking for Hank.”
“You think you’re gonna find some guy named Hank out here?” He comes around to the front of the UTV, rifle still at the ready.
“N-no,” Astrid says. His tense body language drives her flight instinct into high gear. She commands her feet to stay where they are, and replies, “we asked at the house but then my d-d-dogs ran off�
�and then the b-b-bear!”
“We were told Hank lives there.” Kathy gets to her feet, steps in front of Astrid, and waves an arm back to indicate the log house on the rise inside the fence.
The man snorts and shuffles his feet. “Well, he don’t. No trespassing sign’s there for a reason. Now for your stupidity you got two dead dogs. You could of been next.”
“Thanks to you, we’re not! But this dog is still alive…”
“I n-n-need to get her to a vet and I need to take him home,” Astrid says, pointing at Buster. “Can you help me get them to our car?”
“Leave him there.”
“What?” Astrid shakes her head. “No! I n-n-need to..”
“How’re you gonna take him home? Carry him? Big dog like that?”
“If you could help?”
“No.”
“I’ll pay you.”
“I said, no.”
Astrid frowns and cocks her head, then turns to Kathy and mutters under her breath, “we don’t have time to argue with this f-f-fucking idiot. I’ll have to leave Buster, but do you think between the two of us we can take Tippy to your car?”
“We can make a sling,” Kathy says. She draws herself up to her full five foot two inches, raises her chin and fixing the strange man with a defiant glare, reefs on her shirt tails to open all the snaps. She quickly pulls the shirt off and now topless except for her sports bra, goes to Tippy.
“Here,” she says to Astrid, “help me get this under her. Her main injury is on her side, here. We can wrap it around her and hopefully, we should be able to carry her and stop the bleeding at the same time.” They work the shirt under Tippy as carefully as possible. “He might’ve heard what you said. I don’t think it’s a good idea to provoke him,” Kathy whispers. “What is he wearing?”
“I think it’s like militia, or combat stuff like Fletch wore sometimes.”
“Fletch?”
“John Fletcher. He worked for Hazens when I did. Long story,” Astrid whispers, then sobs. “What the fuck? We have to leave Buster here?” Silent tears run down her face as she concentrates on fastening the blouse at Tippy’s back. “Would it kill him to put him in the back of that ATV?”
“No. But he’s holding a gun. We know he’s not afraid to shoot at us and we don’t know what else he’s capable of.”
“Goddamn fuckin’ lunatic!” Astrid hisses under her breath.
Kathy looks up under her lashes to see if the man reacted, but if he heard, he shows no sign. He stands unmoving, feet apart, watching.
Tippy lets out a yelp, then whines. Moving her as they must to get the blouse around her is painful but she but seems to know they’re trying to help, and keeps still. Finally they pull the sleeves together over her back and knot them there.
“I think that’ll do it,” Astrid says, sitting back on her haunches. “I hate to move her in case she has other injuries, but what choice do we have?”
“None,” Kathy says.
They stand, one on each side of the dog, each with a hand near the knot in the blouse, and tentatively lift. Tippy yelps again.
“Hold it!” the man calls out. “There’s cell service just up at the top of the hill behind me. Call your husband to come.”
“If my husband didn’t have other things to do, he would’ve come with us. I can’t waste time waiting for him to come now, while my dog is dying!” She sobs, then nods to Kathy and they start back toward the road. The dog weighs under thirty kilos but even shared, it’s a load. With Kathy so much shorter, it’s a challenge keeping the dog’s legs from dragging in the tall weeds and grass, especially with the ground sloping down toward the fence.
“You doin’ okay?” Astrid asks.
“I’ll manage. But maybe I should be on the higher side?”
Before they can change places, the UTV coughs to life, roars past them and stops, blocking their path. “Get in the back,” the man barks.
“What about my other dog?”
The man says, “let the bear have him.”
A shudder courses through Astrid’s body as she visualizes sweet Buster being torn to pieces, and fresh tears spring to her eyes. Would Denver come and get him? Would it even be safe? Maybe not. Besides the bear, there’s this crazy man patrolling the woods.
They ease Tippy into the box, then hop up to sit beside her, their lower legs dangling off the back. Astrid is just pulling the dog’s head onto her lap when the vehicle starts off at speed, bouncing along through the rough going, the dog whimpering with every bump. When they reach the gate and turn up the driveway, the ride is smoother but the speed increases. Thankfully it’s not far to the road. The vehicle pulls up behind the Sorento and stops; they barely get their feet on the ground and lift Tippy before he races off.
“Well, that was a wild ride,” Astrid says.
“Can’t even imagine what his wife has to put up with,” Kathy says as she digs the keys out of her pocket and clicks the button on the remote to open the tailgate. “No wonder she was so cranky.”
“You think he lives in that house?”
“Oh, I just assumed…I guess not necessarily.”
They carefully settle Tippy inside and Astrid climbs in with her to cradle her head in her lap. “What an asshole! What a fucking asshole!”
“But he did save our lives.” Kathy closes the hatch and hurries to the driver’s seat. She starts the engine, negotiates a three-point turn on the narrow roadway and accelerates away. “Should we go straight to the vet?”
“No. We have to go right past our place anyway. Just swing in there and Den can take over driving. I’ll call him as soon as we’re back in cellphone range.”
“That would take time. Maybe we should go straight to the vet!”
“No, it won’t delay us more than a minute or two and you’re half naked and covered in blood.”
“So are you! Well, not naked but you have more blood on you than I do. You’ll scare the shit outta anyone…”
“I don’t care! I’m not going to take the time to clean up, and I’m not leaving her.” The dog’s eyes are closed but as Astrid rubs her ears and says, “I won’t leave you, sweetie,” she thumps her tail.
♦ ♦ ♦
FROM HIS VANTAGE point on the rocky outcropping, Bearon watches the SUV speed away in a plume of dust. He goes to the Kubota, starts the engine and pilots it back to the trailhead where his father’s old dog lies dead.
Pity, he thinks as he looks down at it. Blood is congealing in a pool at his neck, and flies are already gathering. Nice old dog, life cut short by Silverface because of those stupid women! But I suppose dying a warrior is a better end than fading away until the vet puts a needle in you, eh Buster? You won’t be forgotten.
He pulls his skinning knife out of the sheath on his belt and quickly slits the dog’s belly. The visceral sac containing the intestines spills out. It’s messy work and the pungent, metallic smell of blood and slaughter wafts up around him. A few more quick slashes and the innards are in a heap on the ground.
He read somewhere bears have the best sense of smell of any animal in the world, two or three thousand times better than humans, and that they can smell food from several kilometers away. In the unlikely event Silverface has forgotten about the kill, it’s a sure bet he smells this butchery and is on his way back. In fact, he could be watching right now, maybe only a few hundred meters away. Silverface can have the guts, and later, the rest of the dog, but he’ll finish skinning it inside the bear-proof fence. It’s surprising the gunshots scared him off. He won’t press his luck by staying near the kill any longer than he has to.
He picks up the carcass by its fur. Even gutless, it’s surprisingly heavy; with an effort, he uses his good leg to help heave it into the back of the Kubota. He climbs into the cab and starts back to the gate.
If he had recognized those women before he scared the bear off, he might have let Silverface take care of them. Or, once he realized who they were, he could have shot Kathy and said it was a
n accident. He was trying to save her from the bear.
The first scenario would have been the better one, although either would have meant an investigation and this place would swarm with cops and forensics and possibly goddamn snoopy reporters. He’d be interrogated. There would be lawyers. They could find out who he is. They may even discover his motive.
The only way around all that would be to “disappear” both of those women without a trace. It crossed his mind. He had the rifle at the ready. But then Astrid’s husband! Goddamn Danielson knew they were coming here. He knows from experience he would come looking and he wouldn’t give up easily. He’s seen Kathy’s husband in action, too. The two of them teamed up? Tough combination.
The last time he was in Pillerton he saw Rick and Kathy together. Goddamn it! Does he have to take Rick’s wife away from him? Yes. But it’s not his fault, it’s hers. She should have stayed in Pillerton.
Astrid and Kathy. Together. It’s a given Astrid has told her about the will, so why is she still sniffing around? It can’t be because she actually wants to meet her father since she must know he’s dead. So why hasn’t she gone home? This hasn’t made sense from the beginning.
Goddamn Hayward, telling Danielson Kathy was here! He knew I didn’t want it spread around, he thinks. Hayward is almost as bad as Briggs, getting an over-sized opinion of himself since being anointed Regal Leader. Second in command of the Second Congregation. The other two are just as bad. Even Clint is starting to have an opinion about everything. Time they all were reminded where the money comes from, that they’re only involved in this lucrative enterprise thanks to him, and show the proper respect. Otherwise, he’ll have to cut ties. But can he trust them to keep their mouths shut if they aren’t sharing the wealth? No. He’ll have to figure out a way to silence them permanently. Maybe Clint’s idiot son too. He’s so fucking stupid, he’d brag about…
Then it hits him: he doesn’t have to do anything about Kathy, not in Dark River, anyway. She can’t stay here forever. Trent’s shipping out with Evan in a few days. Get him to do the job in Pillerton. Tell him it’s an initiation to the inner rankings. Then all he has to do is convince the Big Guys Trent has to be shut up permanently. They’re good at disappearing people. And there will be no possible way to connect a man with no past living in the wilds on Bear Mountain to a couple of murders two thousand kilometers away in Shithole, Saskatchewan. It’s perfect!
The Bear Mountain Secret Page 18
