Part 3
I kept the door open until Curtis disappeared among the trunks. Then I called Walt on the radio and repeated the threat without dressing it up. He contacted Claire and dispatch. A deputy was coming by way of the station, and the wildlife officers were being notified. Walt said he was starting his snowmobile. I was to stay indoors until he arrived.
I had the carrier half packed when lights appeared between the pines. Curtis had brought two men back with him. They crossed the clearing fast, flashlights moving over my windows and the shed. The cub dug his claws into the blanket when I tried to settle him in the carrier. I told Walt they were here, left the carrier, and took the cub against my chest through the back door.
The path behind the woodshed met the trail to the station. I knew its turns from years of walking it, but snow made the footing uncertain, and I couldn’t run with his leg unprotected. A flashlight found the ground ahead of me. Someone shouted that I had gone behind the house.
Curtis called my name in an ordinary speaking voice. I went between two firs, caught my coat on a branch, and heard him tell me to put the cub down. The branch let go. Something much larger moved across the path in front of me.
His mother stood up from the dark.
I stopped with the blanket tight against my chest. She dropped to all fours and placed herself between me and the men. The cub wriggled, and I felt his tiny claws through the cloth.
Curtis raised the rifle. One of his companions swore and started backing away. I called to Curtis, trying to get his eyes off the bear and onto me. He turned.
In the moment before he faced her again, she came forward.
I saw her shoulder fill the narrow trail and one foreleg sweep across Curtis. He went down. The rifle flew clear of his hands. She stopped over the space between us while both other men fled, their lights jumping wildly through the trees.
Curtis got to his knees and lunged for the rifle. She moved a step in his direction. He grabbed it and retreated after the others, shouting that I would pay for this. Only when their lights vanished did I realize I was standing exactly where she had first blocked the path.
She remained there a little longer. The cub called from my arms, and she approached him. Her scar passed close to my hand as she smelled and licked his face. Her muzzle brushed my wrist.
I had seen her strike Curtis, and I knew what she could do if I guessed wrong. I also knew she had stood between him and the bundle I carried. I thanked her quietly.
She turned toward the creek.
My thumb shook against the radio button. Walt’s headlight reached me before I got to the bridge. He drove us to the station, helped warm the cub, and relayed which way the men had gone. When he asked for an account, I could describe the rifle being raised and then no further. He guided me into a chair. The blanket was still in my hands though the cub had already been returned to the carrier. A deputy came through later, took an initial account, and checked the road for Curtis’s truck. Walt and I stayed at the station that night.
Claire arrived the next morning with two wildlife officers. Nolan Price introduced himself; Garrett Shaw listened while Walt laid out what he had heard over the radio. Claire checked the cub first. She did not make me retell the chase while she had a sick animal to examine.
They came back to the cabin with us. The men had churned up the snow near the shed, and the officers photographed the tracks and walked the approach. Nolan took my statement at the kitchen table. Each time I moved from what I had seen to what I thought Curtis intended, he stopped me and asked which was which. I described the rifle, the fall, and Curtis recovering it. The torn sack was still hanging near the stove, and I showed Nolan where the mother had first left it. I could only swear to the last few feet of her journey.
The cub hid beneath the cot when Garrett entered. Nolan crouched without following him under it. His wariness around strangers pleased Nolan more than the way he came immediately to my boot.
“Do you believe she brought him here for me?” I asked.
Nolan capped his pen. “I believe what you watched her do. Beyond that, I couldn’t tell you what she knew about you.”
He explained that Curtis had no right to decide on his own to kill a mother with a cub. The threats and armed pursuit had also been passed to the sheriff. Nolan confirmed the limited field-care arrangement with Claire after seeing the cabin; it would end as soon as the cub could safely leave. His office arranged a temporary trail closure and patrols of the access road while treatment continued. If a return to the mother became unsafe, the wildlife facility would take him.
The thought of someone driving him away felt both unbearable and temptingly simple. The cabin smelled of damp fur and the feedings I’d made. In a center I would no longer have to listen for him at night. But the bear’s prints still crossed my clearing.
“She’s here,” I said. “If he can go back to her, that’s what I want.”
Nolan looked at Claire, who was going over the treatment notes. The cub came out from under the cot and sat with his nose against my boot. Nolan waited until I turned back to him.
“Once Claire says the leg can carry him,” he said, “will you let us try?”
To read the rest of the story – CLICK the NEXT button 👇👇👇