Part 3
Jesse appeared first, climbing through the timber with a flashlight in one hand. He had left his jacket open despite the cold, and his breath came too fast for the short walk from the road. The beam found the pack, moved toward the tree, and stopped on Alder’s shoulder.
Jesse made a sound like he had swallowed a word.
Cal came up behind him carrying a hunting rifle. “What is it?”
The flashlight shook. Its circle widened enough to catch my face, the rope hanging loose from my right shoulder, and the grizzly standing over my legs. For a moment, none of us moved. Cal had built his life around the belief that he understood the woods better than other men. I watched that belief fail him one detail at a time.
“How did you get loose?” he asked.
“I’m not loose.” My voice was weak, but the bear turned his head when he heard it. “Put the rifle down.”
Jesse backed into a fir sapling. “Cal, we need to leave.”
“The notebook’s right there.”
“There’s a grizzly right there.”
Cal’s eyes stayed on me. Fear had tightened his face, but anger was holding the rest of him together. He lifted the rifle a few inches, not quite aiming, and Alder’s head dropped lower.
“Don’t,” I said.
Cal gave a thin laugh. “You giving orders again?”
“I’m trying to keep you alive.”
That landed harder than I expected. Jesse looked at him. Cal’s mouth changed, and the rifle came all the way up.
Alder moved before the barrel settled.
He did not rush the men. He stepped forward, one enormous paw pressing into the needles, and released a warning so deep I felt it through the tree. Jesse stumbled sideways. Cal fired.
The muzzle flash turned the clearing white.
Alder lurched. The shot struck high in his right hindquarter, throwing dark fur into the air. His roar came a fraction of a second later, a sound with enough weight to erase every human voice around it.
“Cal!” Jesse grabbed the rifle as Cal tried to work the action again. The barrel swung upward, and the second shot tore through branches above us. Alder charged.
There was no time for the men to decide who they wanted to be. Jesse let go and ran. Cal followed, half sliding down the slope with the rifle clutched across his chest. Alder covered the ground behind them in a heavy blur, injured leg striking short but hard.
The truck doors slammed. Its engine screamed to life, tires digging trenches in the soft shoulder before they found purchase. Alder stopped at the edge of the road as the truck fishtailed around the first bend. He could have followed farther. Instead, he stood in the wash of red taillights until they vanished, then turned back toward me.
He limped badly now.
“Come on,” I whispered, though I wanted him to leave while he still could. “Come back.”
The words were absurd. He was a wounded grizzly, not a partner crossing a room because I had called. Yet he climbed the slope, pausing once to look toward the road, and returned to the larch.
Blood had darkened the fur above his rear leg. It fell in slow drops that made small black marks in the needles. He sniffed the torn rope, then looked at my face as if the interruption had been mine.
“You should be done with me,” I said.
Alder opened his jaws around the strand across my ribs.
This time, I could help. My right hand had regained enough strength to hook two fingers beneath the damaged braid. When he pulled, I pulled away from the knot, making a narrow gap between the rope and my jacket. The pressure drove the air from my lungs, but the fibers began to separate.
One strand gave. Then another.
The rope broke across my chest so suddenly that my body pitched forward. The turns at my waist caught me, wrenching my left shoulder. Alder jumped back at the movement, ears flat, and for one dangerous second we stared at each other from less than a foot apart.
I held still. “It’s all right.”
He breathed hard through his nose. The rifle wound had made his whole flank tremble, but after a moment he moved closer again and worked at the rope around my waist.
His claws were more useful than his teeth there. He hooked one under the braid and lifted it away from my body, then bit into the exposed section. A claw sliced my jacket without touching skin. The control required by that small adjustment was harder for me to understand than the strength.
The doubled rope resisted. Alder shifted, braced his uninjured hind leg, and pulled until the larch creaked behind me. I sawed at the frayed edge with my thumbnail, accomplishing almost nothing. Still, the two of us kept at it—one wild animal tearing at tension, one half-conscious man trying to make meaning from every pause.
The waist loop finally slipped below my ribs. I dragged my left arm free and nearly cried out when blood returned to the hand. Both wrists were swollen and raw, but I could reach the knot at my hips now. My fingers found a loosened turn and worried it open while Alder pulled from below.
The rope around my thighs dropped first. I bent forward, fumbling for the ankle loop, and the sudden shift of weight carried me off balance. My knees hit the ground. The remaining rope caught around one boot and twisted me sideways into the needles.
Alder bit the last strand and tore it free.
For several seconds, I could not move. The earth smelled of cold sap, blood, and the mineral dust kicked up by the truck. My legs were heavy, useless things. I pressed both palms into the ground and managed to lift my head.
Alder stood over me, breathing in short bursts. Then his wounded leg folded. He dropped onto his chest beside the tree, close enough that his shoulder struck mine. When I crawled toward his hindquarter, I saw the dark opening beneath the fur and the blood spreading around it. Cal’s bullet had not missed…
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