Part 3
Calvin called for quiet. Dean’s offer had split the room, but he spoke as if the decision had already been made. “We know this country. We’ll find it before someone else does.”
After people filed out, Mason stayed long enough to see Dean take a pencil from the table and ask Calvin for a road map. Calvin pointed out a public trail and told him where the school buses turned around. Mason stepped between them and showed Dean the route away from the houses. “If you are really here for wolves, you don’t need to go near that backwater,” he said. Dean smiled without answering. Mason could not stop him from walking into the forest, but he could remember every question the man had asked.
Mason had no reason to believe Dean meant to wait for a wildlife officer. Outside the cafeteria he caught Seth by his patrol vehicle and asked him to check the hunters’ names, their firearms, and the camp they said they were using. Seth said he had spoken to Dean and would keep an eye on things. He was already reaching for his keys.
Dean came through the door carrying a bottle in a paper sack. “For lending a hand,” he said to Seth. Mason watched the deputy accept it. Seth noticed Mason watching and shifted the sack out of sight. One bottle did not tell Mason everything about the arrangement, but it told him his warning would not be enough.
At home, Ruth was packing sandwiches and a dented steel thermos into his canvas bag. “You’ll go before they do,” she said. “At least eat something.”
The house carried the smell of toasted bread and the cold air that came through the window Ruth opened whenever she cooked. Mason saw she had set out two pairs of gloves, one old and one waterproof. It was the sort of care she had continued to give throughout their silence, as regular and unremarked as putting a light on at dusk. He realized he had answered it with reports of work and forecasts of weather. Ruth had once kept the accounts for a logging outfit; she knew exactly what it cost to keep a household going in a place where the road could disappear under snow. Moving to Boise would mean less worry for her, and leaving this forest would mean more than a change of address for him. Neither had said those sentences to the other.
Mason held the bag open while she put the lid on the thermos. “I’ve called the regional office. They haven’t returned it yet.”
“Then call again when you get service.” She put his extra gloves beside the food. “And when you’re home, you and I finish the conversation we keep leaving at the kitchen table.”
He wanted to give her a promise about the bear and the men, but could only promise to come back and talk. Ruth accepted that much. She had added sugar to his tea without asking, as she had done on cold mornings for years.
In the spruce timber, the bear’s path was easier to read than Mason had expected. The injury had slowed the animal. A shallow impression where it had rested showed a few dark drops, and the stride beyond it lengthened as it moved north. Mason followed at a distance, looking for a chance to leave it alone once it reached ground away from Alder Creek.
Voices came from a side trail.
Dean and the two others stood over a creased forest map. Mason took cover behind a fir. He heard Eli identify the old den and Drew ask about blood in the tracks. Dean pointed toward a clearing near an overturned spruce farther north. They knew where the bear had sheltered before anyone at the meeting had told them. When Drew wondered aloud what to do if “the forest man” got in their way, Dean said, “He can step aside.”
The scar became familiar. Three weeks earlier, Mason had seen a man at the gas pumps struggling to close the tailgate over hunting gear. The same pale line had shown above his glove. Recognition was not evidence, but the map, the den, and Dean’s own words were becoming a pattern. Mason eased back without a sound and took a shorter route through a tangle of windfalls.
He had a few minutes at most. The hunters followed the main trail around the fallen timber, while Mason went through it, ducking under trunks and stepping where the old deer path held less snow. A branch scraped his cheek. When he stopped to listen, he could hear Dean’s voice farther away and knew his shortcut had bought him some ground. His knee protested on a steep bank. He drank from Ruth’s thermos and tasted the extra sugar she knew he liked when the cold settled in. It was a small, familiar detail in a morning that had become dangerous; he packed it carefully and kept moving.
By the time he reached the clearing, his knees ached.
The bear stood near a lone cedar, sniffing under the snow. Mason kept the width of the open ground between them. He waved his arms and called, urging it toward the deeper cover. The bear looked up, took two uncertain steps, then paused. It was listening to something behind him.
“That’s far enough.” Dean had entered the clearing with his rifle. Eli and Drew spread out, each carrying a gun. The bear backed toward the cedar. Mason told the men about the destroyed den and the casing. Dean gave a short, joyless laugh. “You’re going to prove that with a piece of brass?”
“I photographed where I found it.”
“Then go show somebody.” Dean glanced toward the bear. “After you get out of the way.”
Mason had known these woods for three decades, but he could see no route that would put distance between the animal and those barrels. He called Dean by name and said the bear had not threatened the town. Dean spoke of a buyer for a winter hide, glanced at Eli, then stopped pretending. “We tore into the den. I hit him in the shoulder. He should have gone down before you found him.” Eli lowered his gaze. Mason felt the den casing against the lining of his coat and understood exactly who had left it there, though Dean could still deny every word later.
When the bear moved, Drew raised his rifle. Mason stepped into their line of fire. His father’s gun hung at his side; he did not point it at anyone. Dean’s expression changed from mockery to calculation. “Move, Mason.”
The bear made a low sound from the cedar. Mason could feel his legs shaking. He thought of Ruth with the thermos, of Cal’s boy asking about his window, and of a life that deserved better than anybody’s confident predictions. Still, he held his place. Dean sighted past him once, then lowered the barrel. Eli had turned partly away. There were witnesses enough among his own men to make Dean reconsider.
“Keep your bear,” Dean said. “When it gets close to those houses, tell them whose idea this was.” He led the others out through the trees. Mason waited, watching for a feint. Only when their footsteps had faded did he step aside. The bear moved into the timber, favoring one leg but heading north. Mason’s relief lasted until he noticed that Dean had taken the same direction by another trail.
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