by Will Collins
"Oh, you're a big bag of grits, I'll give you that," Don went on. "But what would you have done if you had caught up with that big black?"
"It's not a big black," said Scott. "It's a grizzly."
Kelly said, "Grizzly?"
Don said, "Bull. There ain't no grizzlies up here. I've counted every bear in the woods. More than once. Not a grizzly among them."
"They were killed off years ago for bounty," said Kelly.
Scott said, "Well, one of them survived."
"How did we miss him?" asked Kelly.
"I don't know," said the naturalist. "But that's not all. This isn't your standard issue grizzly."
"How so?" said Don.
"A normal grizzly goes seven, maybe eight feet tall."
"Which is plenty tall enough for me," said the ranger.
Scott said slowly, "Well, this one is at least fifteen feet tall."
They had begun loading Scott s gear into the helicopter. At this, Kelly stopped and said, "That's impossible. They don't come that big even in Alaska"
"He's been marking the trees," Scott said. "I measured them. His claw prints go up so high it's unbelievable. He's establishing his territory, and he won't be challenged on it. There's nothing taller in the woods."
The rangers nodded. They were familiar with the normal bear's method of protecting his range. The claw marks, placed as high up a tree as the bear could reach, became bench marks against which each new invader would measure himself. If he could not scratch the tree higher, he turned around and looked for hunting grounds someplace else. If he beat the previous owner's height, either a battle ensued, or the first bear surrendered his territory and moved on.
"That's unreal," Don said. "Fifteen feet?"
"And weighing at least two thousand pounds," Scott said, tossing his pack into the baggage compartment of the chopper.
"How do you know that?"
"The depth of his paw prints."
Don Stober shook his head. "You make him sound like some kind of prehistoric monster. I don't believe in science fiction."
"Neither do I," said Scott. "At least, not the fiction part. But I have a hearty respect for science, and my expensive education reminds me that at one time, there were grizzlies that large. The books call them Arctodus-Ursus Horribulus. They were one of the mightiest carnivore during the Pleistocene era."
Kelly, listening impatiently, said, "And when was that?"
"Around a million years ago," said the naturalist.
"And what are you suggesting? That one of those million-year-old babies managed to survive? How? Frozen in a glacier, like that mammoth the Russians thawed out in Siberia?"
"No. But he must have had hearty ancestors with really enduring genes. He was probably born of normal grizzly parents, but he's a throwback to the Pleistocene period. He'd be an outsider to even his own pack, that large. They probably drove him out, or he drove them away."
"How come we never saw him before?" asked Don. "We couldn't have missed something that big."
The naturalist pointed up toward the crest of the mountain. "My guess is he was on the other side, on that private land where nobody ever went. Until the shale oil boys arrived, that is."
"And they chased him over here?" asked Kelly.
"It's the most logical theory," said Scott. "One more thing to blame on the Arabs."
"Well, what's a million-year-old bear doing over here anyway?" demanded Don Stober.
"Looking for something to eat," said the naturalist. "Most bears are omnivores. Especially grizzlies. It'd be easier to make a list of what they won't eat than what they will. They live for their bellies. But something, maybe his size, has turned this one into a carnivore. The son of a bitch simply loves meat."
He almost said the rest, but it wasn't necessary.
Human meat.
As they rode down to the ranger station in the Hughes chopper, Kelly Gordon realized that his worst fears had come true.
Any rogue bear was bad enough. But a grizzly standing fifteen feet tall was nightmarish.
Kelly had known, deep down, that a bear was responsible. But he hoped that the evidence would prove otherwise. Now, Scott's discovery of the bear sign—and especially the fact that it was a grizzly—would start events in motion that might eventually destroy all he and the other rangers had been working to achieve.
Bear cubs are blind and completely helpless at birth, during the chill of winter when the mother is hibernating. But the cubs feed from the teat until spring, and usually come out of the cave weighing thirty pounds or more, frisky, and ready for play.
The giant grizzly who had come over the mountain was huge when he emerged from his birth cave. While mother bears and their cubs usually enjoyed a summer of happy play together, the mother lying in a cool stream with the cubs, teaching them to fish, cuffing them when they became too energetic, the big grizzly had not had such loving times. Before July, he was as big as his mother, and frightened her. One night, she simply vanished, leaving him to fend for himself. This was unusual, for most mother grizzlies will die defending her cubs. And the usual training period for a cub is two years at his mother's side.
But the big bear survived. And he staked out his territory with instinct ruling him. If he was slower to learn, with no teacher, he was also bigger and stronger than anything else in the forest, and that gave him the extra edge he needed to live. Twice, foolish packs of wolves tried to drag him down, and several died for their error.
Because of the high elevation at which he lived, the big grizzly had never been seen by man. If he had, the stories would probably have been dismissed as outright lies. Even scientists admit that not more than fifty percent of bear stories are true.
Although a throwback, the giant bear earned his name of grizzly because his fur, multi-colored with silver, gray, yellow and deep brown, gave him the grizzly appearance of an old man's beard.
The Indians called the grizzly bears "Moose Killer," because only a grizzly could bring down those bovine elephants of the forest. The giant bear had never been seen by an Indian, but if he had, another legend would have been born.
Like most grizzlies, he was powerfully built, with a great hump above his shoulders that marked him apart from even the tallest black bear, the Ursus americana, which is the only other bear indiginous to the North American continent.
Able to run almost as fast as a horse, the normal grizzly often startles those who come upon him in the forest by streaking away with a sprightliness that astonishes those who think of bears as clumsy and bumbling.
Like the shark, the grizzly has been designed as an efficient eating machine. His teeth are canine, and the giant elastic muscles that power his jaws are able to crunch his molars through a deer's leg and bone like a knife through soft cheese.
But the grizzly's most terrible weapons are his forepaws. Ending in razor-sharp claws that may be six inches long, capable of severing a victim's head with one powerful blow. Like man's feet, the grizzly's are plantigrade, with heels, and toes that are tipped with the fearful claws.
Although he hears nearly as well as a man, the grizzly's eyes are poor. Scent is his chief sense, and he uses it to spot his prey. It is this well-developed sense of odor that keeps him out of man's way most of the time, for the average grizzly wants nothing to do with the two-legged predator.
But the beast that came over the mountain was not an average grizzly, not in size, and not in instinct. For he had now tasted the red meat of an easy kill, and had also developed a growing hatred for those he killed, and until he himself was brought down, he would continue to kill both for food and for vicious sport.
Camp site A-2, near the blue lake, had full hookups for campers and RVs, and it was still nearly filled. The rangers had assured the visitors that the bear was in the high country, and besides, what bear in his right mind would wander into what looked like a supermarket parking lot, filled with vehicles, noisy radios and TV sets crackling with the latest exploits of the FBI?
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sp; Several of the campers near the road had gathered wood (dead falls were permitted, but no cutting) and built a cheery fire in a stone-ringed pit provided by the park engineers. The popping of beer tabs and the occasional clink of a bourbon bottle made the evening merrier.
Two young boys, perhaps seven years old, stalked each other around the wood pile. One carried a toy machine gun.
"You're the bear," he yelled. "I got you. Bang-bang-bang!"
The other boy, the "bear," clutched his chest and died.
"Tommy!" called a shrill female voice. "You get out of that dirt and right over here!"
The "bear" got up and ran over to his mother, who gave him a sharp slap. "You go inside and wake up your daddy. It's time to eat."
Near the fire, Sally and Harry Dunham sat in the shadows. They were so close together that it was hard to tell where Sally ended and Harry began. His exploring hand completed the joining.
"You're up to no good," she whispered.
In his best W. C. Fields imitation, Harry said, "Just fondling the merchandise, m'dear."
Sally did a fair version of Mae West. It was their little game before love. She said, huskily, "l'd say you've got something more in mind than squeezing the tomatoes.
"Sointenly do, m'dear," he drawled.
She stirred. "In that case, let me throw on something more . . . comfortable. And why don't y'come up and see me sometime."
"Deelighted," he growled, flicking an imaginary cigar.
She strolled over toward their Dodge pop-up camper, parked at the edge of the camp site where there was privacy and plenty of shade during the day from the tall pines which surrounded the site.
Deliberately, she switched her ample behind at Harry, knowing that it drove him wild. In four years of marriage, he had never tired of admiring her plump derriere.
As she clicked the flimsy door shut, she thought she heard him growl tantalizingly behind her.
She smiled and plugged in an eight-track tape of Ravel's Bolero. Harry simply went ape screwing to Bolero. It was her signal to him to give her two minutes to strip, and then come in ready for action.
Tonight she'd wear the dark blue peignoir. Harry liked pulling it up slowly. From the rear, of course.
At the fire, Harry heard the first pulsating sounds of the music. He felt the urge beginning to stir, and shifted his position slightly. No need to let the other campers at the fire see what he was thinking about.
He looked at his watch, gave a great yawn. "Well," he said, "Time to turn in."
"Yeah," chuckled a young man nearby, seated with his girlfriend. "It's really late. Almost six o'clock."
Harry stretched, his back to the fire.
Mama, he thought, l'm ready!
Then there was an explosion of movement from the camper. It shook violently, and he heard the canvas top ripping like the sound of a low-flying jet.
He started to move toward it, but the world was in slow motion. He thought he saw a giant shape reaching down into the top of the Dodge, and he shouted, "Sally! Look out!"
She never heard him. The huge claws had dug deep into her stomach and she was making soundless, gasping motions of her mouth, the kind seen when a fish dies on the beach. The pain was so intense that all she could do was gurgle, deep in her throat, and plead in her mind for it to stop.
The group around the fire had leaped up and were frozen in fear. They saw a giant, shadowy thing behind the camper, but no one recognized what it was. Then there was a flash of white, as Sally was dragged through the camper's torn roof, and someone cried, "Jesus, that's a woman!"
Harry made a wordless sound in his throat and tried to run toward the camper. Two men nearby caught his arms and held him back.
Now Sally found her voice. "Oh, no, God!" she screamed. "Not me, not me! No, God, no!"
The voice was cut off as her body smashed against a tree trunk. The creature had her by the feet and beat her back and forth from tree trunk to tree trunk, and after the second impact the woman stopped screaming.
But Harry didn't. Inside his head, he never would.
Incredibly, Avery Kittredge arrived at the camp site before Kelly. He was waiting, in his neatly ironed green uniform, a shiny Colt .38 strapped around his waist.
He looked at his watch. "So you finally got here," he told Kelly.
Kelly nodded. "I guess you heard the radio report."
"That's my job," Kittredge said, loud enough for the shocked campers to overhear. "Is the ambulance with you?"
"Coming up the road now."
Harry Dunham sat on a log near the smouldering remains of the fire. One man was trying to get him to take a drink. Harry kept pushing it away.
"Look at that camper, Gordon," Kittredge said. "He tore it open like an egg shell. I thought you claimed your bears were all up in the high country."
"Not now, damn it," Kelly said. He went over to the numbed man on the log. He helped him up. "Come on, it's all right. My driver'Il take you down to the hospital. We'll take care of everything up here. Come along."
Like a child, Harry Dunham allowed himself to be led to the ranger vehicle. As he was helped in, he looked back and, in a small voice said, "Would somebody please turn off my tape player?"
When Kelly's Toyota drove down the hill, it was passed by a battered jeep driven by Arthur Scott.
As the ambulance attendants went about their gory task, Scott, Kelly and Kittredge went off to one side of the clearing.
"We've been trying to reach you, Avery," said Scott. "I—"
"Let me talk first," said Kittredge. "Kelly, what the hell happened? You assured me these lower districts would be safe."
"We thought they would be. But he came down. Maybe because our search parties spooked him."
Kittredge drew himself up to his full five feet nine.
"Kelly, I've had it with you. This is your baby, your responsibility. I wash my hands of it."
Kelly said, disbelievingly, "You wash your hands? How the hell can you do that? This is your park, Mr. Supervisor."
"And this is your district, nobody else's. And that goddamned bear is yours, too."
"Mr. Kittredge," said Arthur Scott. "let me give you a few facts. You would have had them earlier, but you were off talking to the nice ladies about our noble park program."
"This is none of your business, Scott," said Kittredge. "Kelly didn't do the job with those bears. That's the long and the short of it."
"Don't try to be more of an asshole than you are," Scott said gently.
Kittredge began to splutter.
Scott went on, "I don't work for you, like Kelly, so don't think I won't go on television and spill the beans if you keep dodging the reality and the responsibility here. We've been trying to tell you, we've got a killer grizzly on our hands."
The supervisor whirled on him. "You're under my supervision, Scott, and don't you forget it. You're a maniac . . . always were. Running around bundled up in deer skins. There hasn't been a grizzly in these mountains for thirty years."
"There is now," said Kelly. "Come on, Scotty, let's get the hell out of here. There's nothing to do tonight."
"I'm not finished," Kittredge said.
"Oh?" the ranger shot back. "Maybe you want me to take a flashlight and track him out there in the dark?"
"Get me that goddamned bear,'' Kittredge ordered, "and get him fast."
"We're trying," Kelly said. "Maybe if you could get us more men. That's one thing you're good at, talking to Washington."
"And blow this thing further out of proportion? Are you mad? There's nothing unusual about a bear getting out of line every now and then. What's unusual is that your men can't seem to get on the ball and catch this one."
Dr. Samuel Hallit, who had finished examining what was left of Sally Dunham, had joined them. He tried to make peace. "Avery's right, Kelly. It used to happen a lot more often back in the old days, when the campers fed the bears, or left food around in the open to attract them. Not to mention the garbage patrol, luring
bears down so the tourists could photograph them."
"Mr. Kittredge," said Scott, "Do you take Stupid Pills? Why won't you accept that this is no ordinary bear?"
"That remark will go in your file," snapped the Supervisor.
"Sure, we used to have bear accidents," said Kelly. "But they didn't eat their victims. This one does. And like Scotty said—"
Dr. Hallit said, "Gentlemen, four people have been killed. Something has to be done, and arguing about who's responsible isn't going to help."
Kittredge said, "You've got more than enough men to handle this, Kelly. I warn you, if you don't do the job, I will."
He turned and stalked off without giving time for an answer.
Kelly gave a low whistle.
"Hold that expression," said a female voice. It was Allison. She clicked off two exposures, almost shoving the camera lens into Kelly's ear.
"Come on, Allie," he said. "No games."
"What games? I'm getting some terrific shots."
Grimly, he said, "Including what was left of that poor woman?"
"You bet," she said. "I shot two rolls of high-speed color, and then I went out in the woods and threw up."
CHAPTER NINE
No war is without its respites, its quiet moments for reflection and renewal, and the war against the mountain beast was no exception.
Having sent his Toyota down the mountain, Kelly accepted a ride from Allison, and that led to an offer of a drink—in her cabin, since the bar was crowded—and there was a warm and cheerful fire, and more than one drink, and . . .
Kelly added a log to the glowing embers of the fire which had burned down to the last red coals. The room was dimly lit, with only one shaded lamp on. The radio played quiet music, a waltz by Mantovani.
He'd slipped back into his jeans, but above the waist he was bare, and the perspiration was still drying, gleaming on his heavily muscled shoulders.
Near him, stretched out on the big black bearskin rug, Allison stirred under the light blanket. She made contented noises.
"Just fixing the fire," Kelly said. "Go back to sleep."
"Who's sleeping?" she mumbled.
He sipped at a wine glass half filled with brandy, and stirred the fire, which was blazing up again.