Bearly Christmas

by Becca Fanning

  The grizzly definitely had the claws to do it, but when he reached her bag, the bear did not try to get into it. He stepped over her discarded clothes and walked right past her, dipping his head to drink from the busier part of the river. Karina swam around, watching the creature with interest. He was so placid, yet totally independent of her. He didn’t seem to fear her like he had before. Now, she was just part of the scenery.

  When she was fully cooled down, Karina ventured out of the pool. The bear, who had been glancing in her direction every so often, promptly turned its back as she emerged from the water. She stifled a laugh, rummaging in her bag for new clean clothes to put on.

  “I’m just gonna say it,” she began playfully, “you’re a really weird bear.”

  She wasn’t expecting another snap of a branch, nor the sudden voices which followed it. Panicked, Karina threw on her panties and desperately searched for more clothes, a chill rushing through her as she heard two male voices approaching from somewhere nearby. Any second, the pair of hikers would appear and see her frantic half naked form.

  “Shit, shit, shit…” she mumbled, throwing things to and fro as she fumbled for a t-shirt.

  Her panic appeared to have alerted the bear. Just as she managed to scramble into her shirt, two figures appeared through the trees to her left, and the bear made a leap from her right. Karina yelped, shocked by the sudden vaulting force of the wild animal as it jumped clean over the pool she’d been in, right into the path of the oncoming strangers. A low growl began to erupt from the creature, and Karina covered her mouth before another yelp could escape her.

  “Whoa!” cried the first of the strangers, a young man with hiking sticks and khaki shorts.

  “D-don’t w-worry miss,” stammered his equally youthful companion. “W-we’ll, w-w-w-we’ll scare this bear off f-f-f-for you.”

  As if they could. Karina watched as the bear reared up onto its hind legs and let out a massive roar that rocked the whole area. She felt her damp body shiver with the force of the sound, combined with the sudden shrieks of the men. The strangers turned and ran at once, not even sparing her a second glance. She could have been mauled to death, for all they knew. Karina sighed, then jumped a little as the bear landed back on all fours with a thud.

  “Geez,” she mused, “they’d have left me for dead. I guess there aren’t any gentlemen left in the world, huh?”

  The bear glanced her way, those shining golden rings locked with hers for a moment. Karina felt something spark in her heart, and she quirked a brow. No. The thought that had almost hit her was impossible, almost totally unheard of. And yet. She stepped towards the bear, still studying his glowing gaze, reaching one hand out towards his massive head. Her whole body grew tense the closer she got, and yet she felt a wave of heat between them, a radiance that made her feel strangely safe.

  “You can’t be an ordinary bear,” she reasoned softly.

  Before she could touch him, the bear made a dash for it. He shook the ground as he deftly spun and scrambled back the way he had come, vanishing into the thickest trees before Karina had a chance to see where he was going. Her hand was still hovering in the air, waiting to touch him. She sighed again, and went back to searching for the rest of her clothes. Somewhere above her, the sky had sheathed itself with silver clouds, making the day darker and more humid than it had been before. Karina fumbled for her waterproof, fearing rain, but all the while her mind was on the golden gaze of the creature who had just fled the scene.

  * * *

  “Attention. Attention. Are you picking this up? Bad driver lady, come in. This is urgent.”

  It took Karina a good long while to realize where the low, dry voice was coming from. Reinicke had never even had the decency to learn her name, and Karina felt somewhat inclined to leave him hanging as his voice rattled through on the radio. It was much later in the day, approaching evening, and the crystal clear rain had been falling solidly for a good hour now. Karina clutched the radio in one damp hand, watching droplets flick off the speaker as the voice came through again.

  “Please answer me,” Reinicke said, “so I know that you’re safe.”

  His tone was softer the second time, so much so that, on anyone else, Karina might have called the sound tender. It gave her one of those funny gut twists that she was rapidly learning to ignore. She held down the button on the side of the radio, holding it a little unsurely to her lips.

  “What do you want, Ranger Boy?” she asked.

  There was a sound of static at the other end. A sigh of relief? Karina couldn’t be sure, and she couldn’t stop herself from thinking that’s what it was.

  “Listen, there’s a massive thunderstorm imminent,” Reinicke said, his tone suddenly darker. “I need you to get to the outpost before it hits. I’m here waiting, but I’ll come out and get you if-”

  “No, no,” Karina said at once, “I can make it there. I’m not having any problems with the maps now, thank you.”

  “Now?” Reinicke repeated, catching the word. “When were you having trouble?”

  He sounded amused again now, and it made Karina grumble. She clasped the radio tighter.

  “The outpost is marked off Route 12, right?” she said, glossing over his teasing question.

  “Right,” he replied, “where are you now?”

  “Never you mind,” she told him firmly. “I’m near. Gimme an hour at most.”

  The last thing she needed was him trying to come to her rescue again, no matter how unpleasant the climate was getting. Underfoot, the dry earth had gradually soaked up the water, creating a muddy layer that slipped and slid beneath her boots. The world overhead was much darker than usual too, making the trees look sinister and full of shadows. When Karina consulted her map, the large droplets of water threatened to tear a few holes in the weak paper, but she managed to make out the marker for the outpost. The swiftest way to it was to climb the next hill and walk the ridge between that peak and the one on which the outpost stood.

  That had seemed easy on paper. Karina had neglected to consult the difficulty level when she planned this sudden, rain-drenched route, and it took her the whole hour to reach the top of the considerable peak, which had looked fairly easy on the map. Still, when she reached the top, her body heavy with rainwater, she squinted through the drizzle to see the faint outline of the outpost. It was a wooden structure no bigger than an RV, built into the high hillside of the neighboring mountain. The weather up at the top was too poor to see much of it, even though it wasn’t that far away. All that stood between her and the outpost was a narrow walkway, no wider than two feet.

  It was a straight enough path, and when she tested it with her foot, it didn’t seem too muddy. Alarm bells rang in Karina’s mind even as she began to step onto the ridge, but what other choice did she have? Going back around the other way would take hours, and the storm was well and truly closing in now. The world was dark and grey, shrouded in cloud and chill breezes at that height, and Karina desperately tried to keep her focus on the outline of the building in the near distance. It was imperative not to look down.

  But she knew what was there. Even in her peripheral vision, Karina could see the sheer drop to her left and right. One side, the left, was a craggy cliff faces that was probably popular with climbers, littered with rocks that stuck out of the hill at jagged angles. She could hardly imagine the pain of hitting them one by one if she fell. The right was no better, for this side of the mountain was where the trees grew, albeit rather badly. Branches stuck out from hillside roots, rising like warning fingers to tell hikers to turn away. Karina found her footing again and strode on, focused as much as she could on the path ahead.

  It was that focus which let her down. A sudden crack of lightning signaled the oncoming storm, and to Karina’s dismay the bolt landed only a few feet in front of her. The sudden column of light blinded her momentarily, and the shock of being thrown so far out of her concentration was too much. She jumped, a full jump where her feet came aw
ay from the ground, and when they reconnected, they hit the mud badly. Karina veered fearfully to the left as one foot slipped clean off the path, and when she tried to right herself by leaning the other way, she totally lost control of her balance.

  In seconds she was tumbling down the right-hand side of the steep hill, connecting with branches that made a resounding crack against her body. Some of them were thin enough to snap on impact, but others bounced her down the hill like the flippers of a pinball machine. Her backpack took a lot of the hits, but every now and then her stomach or legs would connect with something sharp. She cried out every time as gravity delivered her a seemingly endless stream of smacks and cracks. There was no time for pain, no time to even breathe. All Karina could do in that moment was fall and scream.

  The ground rose up to meet her at an alarming pace, and when she finally landed on something flat, it was a thicket of bushes that stung her skin the moment she touched them. Karina rolled down into the dark undergrowth, hoping she was fairly unhurt, but then two things happened to destroy all hope of recovery. Her foot caught sharply in the gap between some tree roots, halting her motion with a sudden jerk. And then, as her body violently came to a stop, she smashed her flailing arm against the hard, flat surface of a rock. She heard the loud, unmistakable crack in her forearm, and heaved out a sudden sob of shock.

  The world was darker than ever, freezing cold and soaking wet. Karina struggled with her foot, but it was totally trapped between the roots, and when she tried to move her arm the pain was so intense that she almost threw up. It was broken for sure, and the rest of her was horrifically bruised. She was still lying on her backpack, the weight breaking a little of her fall, but Karina’s head lolled dizzily as she tried to fumble her good arm towards it. She needed… something. It was hard to remember what. Her mind was growing dangerously hazy, the corners of her vision turning black.

  “Karina?”

  There was a voice in her pocket. Her heart raced weakly at the sound. She tried to reach down for the radio, her hand clumsily feeling the shape of it in her pocket. It was wedged tight against her body, too tight to free it.

  “Karina? Are you nearly here? It’s been over an hour, and I’m worried. Please, answer me. This isn’t about pride. I… I know you can handle yourself, okay? But just let me know where you are.”

  Reinicke’s words were fading, even as Karina continued to struggle for the radio. She couldn’t do it. Weakness had overcome her from the shock of the fall, and her eyes fluttered shut of their own accord. She didn’t want to give in, but there was no more fight in her, not a flicker of energy left to struggle with. Slowly, reluctantly, unconsciousness took her, and she lay in a rain-soaked heap, totally alone in the wild.

  * * *

  When Karina Vasquez next opened her eyes, the sight that she awoke to convinced her that she wasn’t awake. She had to be dreaming, for what she could see was utterly ridiculous to behold. Before her, clambering through the bushes near the foot of the hill, was a bear carrying a satchel in its mouth. The little white canvas bag was marked with the big red cross of first aid, and the bear was swinging its head to and fro, sniffing at the undergrowth about six feet away.

  “Well,” Karina managed to murmur, “Either I’m hallucinating, or I was right about you being a very weird bear.”

  He heard her. She watched with droopy, pained vision as the bear’s head cocked to one side at her whispered words. At once he found her, sticking his massive head into the bush where she’d become buried in a slew of mud. He put a paw out, feeling the terrain around her, padding into the gloopy mess.

  “Geez, don’t dig me out!” Karina pleaded weakly, eyeing his fearsome claws.

  She flinched at the prospect, and suddenly a shockwave of agony rocked her whole aching body. Karina cried out, and in the same moment she felt a shift in the air beside her. Something funny was happening in her immediate vision, where the bear’s furry head should have been. It seemed to be receding, yet the creature wasn’t moving away. Was he shrinking? Karina was now certain that she had to be dreaming, for this whole moment seemed impossible. She watched on, enthralled by the sight of the fur that was slowly sinking back behind flesh, the strong bare limbs emerging where clawed paws had been just moments before.

  A perfectly cropped head of brown hair followed, and when the man looked up at Karina with his glittering golden eyes, she felt that little jolt in her gut again. Reinicke’s face was a picture of deep concern, his hands reaching out to scoop the mud off of her. He felt her forehead, then pressed against her neck and felt around the joints there. He moved around, checking her arm gently, then moving to the place where her foot was caught to try and break her free of the roots. Karina’s eyes wandered over the curve of his strong, bare back.

  “You’re naked,” she whispered.

  “Really?” Reinicke replied. “That’s the first thing you say?”

  “Gimme a break,” Karina answered weakly. “I just fell off a mountain. A girl needs something to distract her.”

  Reinicke did not reply. He had managed to break apart one of the roots trapping her foot, and Karina felt a sudden surge of relief as her ankle came free. She felt the ranger lay her leg down gently, then his hands were on her hips, turning them ever-so-slightly in his grip.

  “How’s your spine? Any damage?” he asked.

  Karina moved to test it at once. Reinicke had put his hands up to stop her making the sudden shift, but he was too late. Karina hissed at the faint agony of moving after a considerable time lying unconscious, but there were no major problems in her back.

  “It’s just my arm,” she said, “Broken. Definitely broken.”

  The words were suddenly hard to get out, for a sob had clogged her throat. Quite unexpectedly, Karina felt a surge of panic race through her as the tears came racing down her cheeks. She heard the storm rumble overhead as if it was right in her ear, fear and agony overcoming her in one fell swoop. Reinicke took one arm and wrapped it around her shoulders, lying beside her as he reached behind him for the medical bag. Inside there was a radio, much larger than the one he’d given her.

  “Hart, get your ass to the north outpost now,” he demanded in a powerful, almost snarling tone. “I need full paramedic. Broken arm and deep shock. I don’t care what you’re doing. Drop it. This is important.”

  If she had not been in the throes of shock, it might have occurred to Karina that she had a gorgeous naked man lying beside her, trying to comfort her out of the uncontrollable sobs that wracked her body. Eventually, Reinicke managed to persuade her onto her feet, half-carrying her as they began a slow, loping pace back towards the outpost. How he came to be carrying her in his arms, Karina couldn’t remember. She shifted in and out of the moment as her battered body came and went from reality. Later, all she could remember were a few words of conversation from one of her more lucid moments.

  “So, you’re a shifter? That’s something.”

  “Good or bad?” Reinicke asked her.

  “Undecided,” she mused. “Say… you know my name. On the radio, you said it. How… How…”

  “Shhh now,” Reinicke soothed. “Save your breath. I’m sure you’ll want it for yelling at me later.”

  ***

  Her arm was cast and in few days, with a lot of medication, Karina began to feel better. A lot of the trauma of her fall had been lost amid the haze of that night’s events, and her only focus once she was back at her hotel was Reinicke. He came to visit every day and, though he didn’t say a great deal, he held her hand at her bedside. And sometimes, when she was well enough to get up and look out of the window, she saw the outline of a bear sitting waiting below. Even from three stories up, his golden eyes gleamed at her as if they were smiling.

  * * *

  “So, your great adventure is over, I guess?” Reinicke asked.

  It was an unusually somber tone for him. Karina’s forearm was still covered in plaster, but the rest of her was feeling pretty good. The fall aside, the
trek in the wild had enriched her body and strengthened a lot of her muscles. She was packing her suitcase when he came to her room, and she hadn’t even noticed him standing in the doorway until he spoke those strange, sad words. They cut deep into Karina’s heart when she heard them, and she dropped the clothes she was holding into her luggage.