by Linda Howard
She slipped the camera into the inside pocket of her jacket and zipped it shut, then resettled her orange vest. She looked around once more, and that was when she saw a shred of cloth, maybe ten yards away, close to a big cluster of boulders. It looked like part of a blanket, maybe. She checked all around her, saw nothing, so she eased in that direction.
Not a blanket. Part of a plaid shirt. The plaid was visible on a small portion of the fabric; the rest of it was black and stiff with blood.
She stopped in her tracks, hair lifting on the back of her neck. She didn’t go any closer to pick up the fabric, just stood where she was and once more checked her surroundings, three-sixty. The mountainside was quiet.
She looked back at the ground surrounding the fragment of shirt. The ground was dark in patches, gouges in the earth showing dark and raw, mixed with the imprints of big pads, the short claws that said black bear, not grizzly. There were scuff marks, as if something had been dragged. She followed the drag marks with her gaze, saw what looked like a piece of raw meat, dark red, stringy.
She edged back, away from the scene, so she wouldn’t disturb it, then farther down the trail a few yards before once again working her way across. The going was harder now, the slope much steeper; she had to brace herself with one hand, check each step to make sure it was solid before she put all of her weight on it. When she was even with the cluster of boulders, she looked up.
And gagged.
The man’s remains—possibly a man, she couldn’t be certain, because there was no face that she could see—had had dirt scratched over them. Bear did that with a half-eaten kill. The viscera had been eaten. Part of an arm lay nearby. And as if to leave proof of ownership, she could see where the bear had crapped.
Holy shit. Holy shit. Holy shit! Not the bear shit, but oh-my-god-get-me-out-of-here kind of shit.
She’d seen wildlife kills before. Nature wasn’t neat; it was messy and brutal. But she’d never before found a half-eaten human, and her stomach heaved. She fought down the nausea, fought the abrupt sense of panic as she suddenly imagined the bear looming right behind her on the trail just like in her nightmare.
Swiftly she pulled her rifle from the scabbard on her back, jacked a round into the firing chamber. The reassuring mechanical sounds of metal parts moving were all she could hear. She did another three-sixty check. No bear, no cougar, or coyotes attempting to raid the bear’s kill. Nothing. The “nothing” was almost as terrifying as “something,” because she knew the bear was in the vicinity. They didn’t willingly abandon their kills. It wasn’t close enough to scent her, though, or she’d have already been fending off an attack.
But if it came back for its kill, and crossed her scent trail, would it track her? Black bears did that. They stalked people. Humans were just part of their food chain.
She returned to the trail, heading back for the camp as fast as she could safely go. She checked the time, calculating distances. This had to be reported immediately, the Montana Fish and Wildlife Department alerted that there was a man-eater in the vicinity. The body had to be recovered and identified. But it was already so late in the afternoon that she’d barely have time to make it back to the camp before dark; there was no way they could make it to Ray Lattimore’s.
Even though Mitchell Davis hadn’t seemed thrilled with anything about the hunt, she bet he’d make a stink about it being canceled. She’d have to either refund the money or give them an extension on this hunt, if they could stay longer.
Or they could stay at the camp while she rode back to Lattimore’s. If she left at first light, she could be back tomorrow afternoon. She’d be able to travel faster if she was alone. Maybe she could convince them to do that.
The sun had already sunk below the mountain peaks when she got back to camp. Neither of the two men were in sight. “Davis!” she called. “Chad! We have a problem!”
Chad almost immediately popped out of his tent, and Davis emerged, his cold and dark expression in place, from his tent a few seconds later. “Did you find bear sign?”
“Yeah,” she said grimly. “I also found a body. Looks like a bear killed him. We’ll have to head back down the mountain in the morning to report it.”
“A body?” Chad echoed faintly.
“Bullshit,” said Davis. “It was probably a wild animal you saw, and you panicked.”
“Last time I checked, wild animals don’t wear plaid shirts, or carry digital cameras,” she snapped. “We go tomorrow to report it. If you don’t want to make the ride, I’ll go by myself. It’s up to you. We can either extend the hunt a day or reschedule.”
He looked around, disgust in his expression. “I want a refund.”
“Fine, you’ll get a refund.” It wasn’t worth arguing about. Someone had died a gruesome death, and this asshole didn’t like being inconvenienced. Sure, she needed the money, but she’d get by. Dare Callahan’s offer was still out there.
To her surprise, Chad said, “I want to stay. Angie rides down and back tomorrow, it’s just one day.” He shoved his hands into his pockets. “There’s no reason to leave.”
“Don’t be stupid,” Davis growled. “The body will have to be retrieved, and that’ll take at least one team. Then the Fish and Wildlife Department will have people all over this mountain, hunting for this particular bear. Everything will be spooked. This close to the end of the season, there won’t be any decent hunting until next year.”
He was probably right, and she didn’t care. “I’ll refund your money,” she said with finality in her tone. “We ride back down tomorrow. I’m leaving at first light, so be ready.” Because as of this minute she no longer considered Davis a client, she narrowed her eyes at him and said, “And you can saddle your own damn horse.”
Supper, what there was of it, was strained and silent. Angie kept her rifle close to hand, because the theory went that once a man-killer, always a man-killer. Couple that with a black bear’s propensity for stalking, and she had more than enough reason to be alert. It seemed everyone was angry at everyone else, so they all retired to their respective tents as soon as they returned from the food-prep site.
She secured the zipper on the tent flap so it couldn’t be opened from the outside, then sat on the cot for a while, so mentally exhausted she needed a minute to regroup. She couldn’t get the gruesome image of the mauled body out of her head. Yeah, she had to deal with people like Mitchell Davis, her business had taken a nosedive, and she had to deal with Dare Callahan, but all of that was nothing when balanced against what had happened to that poor guy.
Sleep might be impossible, but at least she could rest. Eventually she went through her nightly camp routine, using the wet wipes for the camp equivalent of a bath. Sleeping in jeans could get uncomfortable, so she always brought a pair of sweatpants to sleep in. In the summer she’d pair that with a T-shirt, but this time of year the T-shirt was exchanged for a sweatshirt. Between the sweats and the sleeping bag, she was usually toasty warm without having to resort to the camp heater. After pulling on a pair of thick socks, she crawled into the sleeping bag. She checked to make sure all essentials were right there at hand. Rifle—check. Boots—check. Pistol—check. Flashlight—check. She was as safe as she could make herself.
She reached out to turn off the camp light, and took one of those deep meditation breaths, because the darkness inside the tent was absolute. Normally that didn’t bother her, and from experience she knew that after a while her eyes would adjust and there would be a very, very faint lightening, but tonight she felt as if the darkness was alive, pressing down on her. She lay very still, listening to the night, forcing herself to breathe.
Maybe she dozed, maybe she didn’t. She heard the first far-off rumble of thunder, and lifted her hand to look at the luminous face of her watch. Thirteen after midnight. Great. She’d been hoping the rain would hold off, given that she had to ride back to Lattimore’s, but it looked as if the weather front was rolling in right on schedule. She could almost feel the air ch
anging, gathering force and electrical energy. The wind began whipping through the trees, producing a sound that was almost like a low, mournful whistle.
At first she thought it was the wind she heard. She’d been restlessly trying to find a comfortable position within the confines of the sleeping bag, which normally felt roomy enough, but tonight seemed to be twisting around her legs. With a sigh she forced herself to stillness, because she had to get some sleep, even if it wasn’t much.
The noise came again. Angie stopped breathing, every muscle in her freezing as she listened. Her heart rate doubled. Bear? Without thought she darted out her hand, touched her rifle, and just the feel of the smooth wood settled her heart rate down.
She cocked her head, listening.
No, not a bear. And not the wind, either. Voices. She definitely heard voices, too far away for the words to be distinct. There was a sharpness, a tone, that told her an argument was going on. For whatever reason, Davis and Chad were going at it, though it was probably more Davis berating Chad for the hunt being a total failure than anything like a real argument. But—
At this time of night? Really?
Exasperation surged, pushing out the fright. Part of her wanted to just leave them out there, let them slug it out or do whatever else their manly little hearts pleased, but if she could possibly get some sleep, even just ten minutes, she’d rather do that than listen to them argue.
Growling to herself, she pulled herself free of the sleeping bag. She didn’t want to turn on the camp light, because it was too bright, so she grabbed the flannel shirt she’d pulled off and draped it over the flashlight before she turned it on. There—that was just about right. She had enough dim light to see what she was doing, but her senses weren’t being assaulted by so much light that it would overwhelm what little chance she had of getting some sleep that night.
She stomped her feet into her boots, tied the laces. Then she dragged on her coat, because even though the weather was mild for November, it was still November, she was still in Montana, and the mountain air at night was cold. Swiftly she unzipped the tent flap, then debated for about two seconds on whether or not to get the rifle or the pistol. The pistol was more convenient. The rifle packed more power. She got the rifle.
For reasons she couldn’t explain even to herself, she turned off the flashlight. She gripped it in her left hand, and the rifle in her right, and ducked out of the tent.
Standing there, both of the other tents were to her left, and so were the sounds of argument. She stood a moment, letting her eyes adjust to the darkness again, because even the dim light she’d allowed from the flashlight had been enough to destroy her night vision. When she could make out dim outlines again, she headed toward the voices.
Lightning glowed overhead, outlining a towering mountain of clouds, and thunder rumbled. The storm blew its breath ahead of it, as if to clear its path, and the wind whipped her hair around her head. She passed Chad’s tent; it was dark, but there was a light on in Davis’s. The voices weren’t coming from there, though, they were coming from the direction of the cook camp … not as far away as that, but in the trees.
A few fat raindrops splatted on her head, on the ground around her. Great. She could turn around and get her rain slicker, or she could try to break up the argument and get everyone back in their tents before the real rain got here. She chose to plow ahead, on the theory that the sooner she cooled things down, the better. If she delayed, the situation might escalate to actual fist-swinging.
Another flash of lightning, this time closer, thunder booming right on its heels. In the corral, the horses began moving around, neighing anxiously. Samson didn’t normally act up during a storm, but she didn’t know how the new horses would react; storms sounded different up in the mountains than in the valleys. This high up, they were closer to the heart of the storm; the lightning was brighter, the thunder boomed and echoed as if it was right on top of them. After she got the humans settled down, she’d see what she could do about settling down the horses.
She skirted Davis’s tent, and through the trees saw a light. Yet another flash of lightning briefly illuminated the two men, but neither of them were paying any attention to either the weather or their surroundings. She stomped toward them.
“—steal from me!” she heard Davis say, his tone low and vicious.
“Hey!” she yelled, and turned on her flashlight so they could see her, though the lightning aided her with another white-hot blast. “Damn it, put this on hold until tomorrow!”
Davis turned toward her, his jaw set. “Fuck that—” he began, then the night was split by a sharp crack that cut off his words, and the crack itself was swallowed by a tremendous crash of lightning that split open the heavens and let all the pent-up water come pouring down on them in a solid sheet.
Davis staggered back, then fell. Her flashlight beam cut through the thick veil of rain, played over him, and she saw the awkward, boneless position of his body. He wasn’t moving. His eyes were open, but he wasn’t moving. In the next second she swung the flashlight back toward Chad just as he pointed a pistol at her. One of the horses gave a shrill, panicked scream; his hand jerked, and he fired.
Chapter Ten
Angie dived to her left, hitting the ground hard and rolling as she desperately thumbed the switch on the flashlight, then kept on rolling. She tried to tuck the rifle against her body but it caught on something and tore loose from her grip. She didn’t stop rolling, just left the rifle there on the ground because if she stopped she was dead. More shots came, so fast the booming cracks were right on top of each other. The blasts of lightning would reveal her position, she had to get behind a tree, something—
Another white-hot flash, and the earth shuddered as the lightning bolt went to ground somewhere nearby. The thunder was deafening. In that ungodly light she saw Chad, pistol still in his hand, but he was turned in the direction of the tents and didn’t see her on the ground off to his right side. The horses were raising hell in the corral; it sounded as if they were trying to tear it down. Chad moved forward, swinging a flashlight from side to side, trying to find her. With nowhere to go, unable to reach cover, Angie simply buried her face in the wet ground and stayed still, praying, hoping the heavy rain would obscure his sight enough.
The rain pounded on her with a force that felt like a thousand tiny hammers. The earth was churned into instant mud, rivulets of water becoming streams that gushed down the side of the mountain.
Mentally Angie grappled with what had just happened, trying to make the last thirty seconds fit into her conception of reality. This couldn’t have happened. Chad had not shot Davis, had not shot at her. Why would he? What had happened, what had she missed?
Out of the corner of her eye she saw Chad move past her position, playing the flashlight beam on the tents as if he expected to find her crouched between them. She lifted her head a tiny fraction, just enough that she could see the gleam of the rifle lying in the rain, ten, maybe fifteen feet away, but it might as well be a hundred feet. If she hadn’t dropped the rifle, she’d have him; he was three-quarters turned away from her. But she had dropped the weapon, and if she leaped for it, he’d hear her, and the footing was so sloppy now she wasn’t certain she could make the distance without falling.
One of the horses, probably Samson, was now doing his damnedest to knock down the corral. Chad jerked in that direction, his back now completely toward her, and Angie gathered herself, getting up on her hands and knees, the toes of her boots digging into the mud—
—and another flash of lightning revealed the monster coming out of the trees, a huge black hulk padding forward with a swinging gait, head down, jaws popping with a hideous sound as if it were cracking bones. Chad turned around just in time to catch a glimpse of it, then she heard the choked shriek he gave as he hurled himself toward the horses.
All the blood rushed from her head. She heard a buzzing noise, and even though the lightning kept flashing her vision kind of washed out, as if sh
e were looking at a photograph faded almost beyond perception. She thought she might fall face forward in the mud, helpless, but if she made any movement the bear might see her and charge, so she forced herself to freeze there like a runner in the blocks, waiting for the monster to hurl itself after Chad and seize him in its popping jaws.
Instead, it raised one massive paw and swiped at Davis’s body. It shoved its snout against him, flipped him over. Davis’s legs and arms flopped like a rag doll’s. The bear circled him, bouncing up and down a little on its front paws. From behind the tents came the clatter of poles falling, a sound she’d heard so many times she knew exactly what it was. A rush of hoofs pounding on the ground, one of the horses with a dark form hunched on its back—Chad taking the horses, all of them, and running.
Leaving her alone there with the bear.
For a few seconds that felt like an eternity, she couldn’t force her panic-numbed brain to function. Then, slowly, she began to analyze the situation. The bear was … what … twenty, maybe thirty yards away? A bear didn’t have great eyesight. It had very good hearing and a stupendous sense of smell, but the rain and wind were coming at her from the bear’s direction. It couldn’t smell her. Its attention was on Davis’s body. It couldn’t see all that well anyway, and the rain further shielded her.
Every one of her instincts shrieked at her not to move, not to attract its attention, but she needed that rifle. To get it, she’d have to crawl fifteen feet closer to the bear, and pray it didn’t see her. Slowly, so slowly, she lifted her right hand from the mud and moved it forward. Next was her left knee. Then her left hand, still clutching the flashlight. Right knee. Repeat the process. Slowly, slowly, forcing herself to drag in deep, controlled breaths through her mouth, then silently letting the air ease out of her, not putting any force behind it. If she didn’t make any noise, maybe the bear wouldn’t notice her.
