Grizzly

by Will Collins

  "Share the wealth," Allison said.

  "Are you referring to the brandy?"

  "What else would I be asking for?"

  He smiled in memory of the past hours. "A guy never knows."

  He moved closer to her. The blanket was just above the twin mounds of her breasts. Then, as she moved, it slipped down.

  Kelly let a few drops of the brandy spill onto her skin, all rosy in the firelight. Then he bent down and kissed the brandy away. Allison writhed and whispered, "That tickles. But don't stop."

  "I wouldn't have stopped before. But you fell asleep."

  "Look who's talking. You were snoring five minutes after we—"

  She stopped. It wasn't necessary to use the words. His hand stroked her.

  He held the glass to her lips, and she sipped.

  He said, "It was good. l'd forgotten how good it could be."

  "You?" She laughed. "I've heard about your exploits.''

  "Yeah," he said, "and that's all they were. A few sweaty minutes without meaning and without love."

  "I didn't know you were acquainted with that word," she said softly.

  "What word?"

  "The four letter one that can be either the most wonderful thing a person can say or the most damnable lie ever heard."

  "Love?"

  "See, you do know how to say it."

  "Do you?"

  She reached up and drew him down. The blanket had fallen off all the way now. She kissed him, slowly and deeply.

  Moments passed. When he drew back, he said, "Where did you learn to do that?"

  "With the tongue?"

  "Among other things."

  "I had a liberal education," she said. "I used to practice for this moment, siphoning gas out of parked cars."

  He finished the brandy. "You're crazy," he said, making the words a caress.

  "And you're a chameleon."

  "How so?"

  She traced her finger along its strong bones "Your jaw. Changes. Always changes. It's different in each new light."

  "You should know," he said, lifting an imaginary camera. "Click!"

  She covered her breasts with simulated modesty. "Oh, sir, please. Give me the negatives. I'll pay anything for them."

  He leered. "Anything."

  She lowered her eyes. "Yes . . . even that."

  They laughed together gently, and the fire painted golden patterns on their bodies.

  He kicked off his jeans and slipped under the blanket with her.

  "Wait a minute," she said, pushing him away. "Before this goes any further, l've got to know something."

  "Shoot," he said, cupping his hands around her.

  "What's your sign?"

  "My what?"

  "Your astrological sign."

  He nuzzled her shoulder and bit gently. "You're kidding."

  "No, I'm not."

  "All right. I'm a Taurus."

  She shoved him away. "Oh, hell!"

  "What's the matter?"

  Trying to contain her laughter, and failing, she choked, "I'm a Leo. The book says we're not compatible.''

  As he pulled her to him for the complete embrace they had both been working up to, Kelly said, "You know what you can do with your book."

  There had not been a legal hunt in the park for more than thirty years. At one time, hunters drawn by lot were allowed to harvest the excess deer, but that practice was stopped before the Second World War, and had never been resumed.

  Now trained sharpshooters were brought in whenever the herds had outgrown their grazing range, and the meat was donated to the state hospital.

  But the convoy of jeeps, pickup trucks and other off-road vehicles that lined up outside the park's main gate early this morning was filled with anything but sharpshooters. They were a motley bunch, some in

  camouflage green some wearing hunters flame orange, one actually dressed in a rumpled business suit. The only thing they had in common were the rifles they carried.

  The gate ranger had received instructions to let the hunters come in. But as he watched them drive past, in the dull gray of dawn, he shook his head.

  He turned to his partner. "Kelly's not going to like this," he said.

  "Some of those guys have got dogs," said the other ranger. "That's illegal."

  "The whole thing's illegal. But they're doing it, and we have to let them. Orders."

  One party of hunters stopped at the edge of the road, and they planned their routes.

  A man driving a battered red Ford pickup leaned out and called to another hunter, who piloted an International Scout, "Hey, Carl, did you bring those extra three-hundred express cartridges?"

  "Got 'em right here," said the other man.

  Up the mountain, three rifle shots made a string of lonely boom-boom-boom's which echoed down the valleys for fully half a minute.

  Carl said, "Damn it, somebody's already up there shooting."

  "They didn't get him, though," said the other man. "One shot, meat. Two shots, maybe meat. Three shots, no meat. That guy missed his first shot and just kept squeezing them off."

  Carl said, "Let's get this show on the road. I want to get me a shot at that bastard."

  The hunters soon filled the woods. Men and dogs ran in all directions. The dogs were as mixed a bag as the hunters. Some were bird dogs, others were rabbit-trained beagles. One enterprising hunter had actually brought along his wife's poodle.

  That nobody was shot by accident in that first hour was a minor miracle, because the nervous men fired at anything that moved.

  By the time the sun came up, the mountain sounded as if a small war had broken out on its slopes.

  One party paused, cold and tired. They hadn't brought an axe, but there was deadfall wood, and one man knocked down a wooden sign and used it to help start the fire.

  The sign's legend read, NO HUNTING.

  One man saw a black shadow moving in the underbrush, threw his 30-30 to his shoulder, and fired.

  Something thrashed in the thicket, and went still.

  Carefully, the hunter advanced. He looked down at what he'd shot.

  "Oh, hell," he said.

  He had killed someone's big Labrador retriever.

  Don Stober said to Kelly, "You're late."

  Embarrassed, Kelly said, "I overslept. What the hell's going on?" He looked around the office. "Where's Scottie?"

  "He got an early start. He's out there tracking. I just hope some stupid hunter doesn't shoot him."

  Kelly listened to the distant shots. "Hunters? What the hell are hunters doing in the woods?"

  "Looking for our bear."

  "On whose authority? Who the hell opened the woods to hunters?"

  "I'll give you,one guess."

  Kelly swore. "That goddamned Kittredge."

  "He passed the word around High City last night. I hear he authorized a five hundred dollar bounty."

  Kelly poured some coffee and drank it, holding the cup in shaking hands. Too much brandy, too much loving. . . .

  "For God's sake," he said. "Has he gone bananas? They're more likely to kill one of the rangers than that bear."

  Don shrugged. "Me, I've always thought most hunters are a little crazy. They might get lucky and find him."

  "Like hell," said Kelly. "Those bastards are shooting at everything that moves, including themselves. Listen to it up there, it sounds like the Battle of the Bulge."

  He slammed down the coffee, picked up the phone, and began dialing Avery Kittredge's private number.

  Not all of the hunters on the mountain were gunhappy amateurs.

  One man, Phillip Boyson, a fifty-one-year-old Texan, made his solitary way, through the forest with care and planning. He searched for the bear's markings, and when he found the first set of claw marks, high on a tree, he looked up at them and gave a low whistle.

  Boyson had hunted big game all over the country and in Canada and Alaska, too. He had stayed away from the mob scene that was being enacted in the easily accessible areas.
He knew that the bear would steer clear of them too.

  The bounty did not interest him. But the thought of being the tirst hunter to bag a grizzly in this state in the past fifty years did.

  He moved quietly through the woods, following the almost invisible trail left by the bear. He saw occasional claw marks, and twice, piles of droppings left deliberately to stake out the animal's territory.

  What he didn't see was the beast who was stalking him.

  Kelly slammed down the phone.

  "That pompous ass!" he yelled.

  Don asked, "What did he say?"

  "He'll talk about it. But not here. We've got to go down to his office. He's too goddamned busy to come up here where the action is."

  "He's not dumb," said Don Stober. "He doesn't want to get a load of buckshot in his tail."

  The hunter found a torn patch of earth where the bear had rooted for wild onions. The dirt was still moist. The beast had been here not long ago.

  Only now did Boyson chamber a shell into the breech of his rifle. He clicked off the safety. He was ready for anything.

  But while he was tracking the bear, the bear was tracking him.

  The grizzly was almost within reach of the hunter when Boyson caught a trace of the animal's distinctive odor. Most men would have ignored it, and they would have died. He knew better, and whirled, his rifle snapping up to his shoulder.

  The move saved his life. The grizzly's great claw was already sweeping toward him. Instead of tearing flesh, it caught the wood stock of the rifle and hurled it from the man's hands as he squeezed the trigger. The sound of the shot was astonishingly loud in the stillness of the forest. It startled the bear, he drew back, and the hunter seized the opportunity to run as fast as he could.

  He got a bare fifty yards head start, and the grizzly dropped to all fours and began to chase him. The huge animal gathered speed, and the hunter could hear its breath puffing with each giant stride

  Boyson reached the edge of a large stream. The grizzly was close behind him.

  Desperately, the man threw himself into the swiftly flowing water. The bear hesitated. He did not fear water, but before he could act, the man had been carried downstream and out of sight around a bend.

  The grizzly gave the equivalent of a shrug. There was plenty more food in the woods today. It wasn't necessary to exhaust himself chasing this one.

  Although Avery Kittredge kept a nominal office in the park itself, he almost never visited it. He conducted his business from a handsome paneled room in the tallest building in High City, the Boulder Mining Center, a leftover from the boom days of the mid-thirties when silver had been taken out by the carload. Now the mines were closed, but all eyes were fixed on the oil shale operations over the mountain. If they proved out, that might mean new life for High City, which now existed more as base for the park activities and a tourist shopping center than anything else.

  The "Park Supervisor" sign on Kittredge's door was burned with a branding iron into a large chip of redwood. It always antagonized Kelly. There wasn't a redwood tree within a thousand miles of the park.

  Kittredge, behind his huge, absolutely clean desk looked at Kelly and Don.

  "Where's Scott?" he asked.

  "Up on the mountain," Kelly said shortly.

  The two rangers were standing. It angered Kittredge.

  "There are chairs in this office," he said.

  "I don't want to sit down," Kelly said. "I want some answers. What the hell are hunters doing up there in the park?"

  "Sitting or standing, the answers you'll get are the same," said Kittredge. He looked at the chairs and waited.

  Don Stober decided to stop fighting city hall. He sat down. Kelly didn't.

  "Last night I was in charge of this operation," Kelly said. "This morning I discover that I'm not. You went over my head."

  "I didn't have any choice," Kittredge said. "You weren't staying on top of the situation."

  "I had rangers in the field."

  "And who was supervising them? I called you last night around eleven. You were nowhere to be found."

  "My men don't need to be ramroded."

  "No? What did they come up with? I'll tell you. Diddly."

  "So you went right ahead and authorized that batch of maniacs. Why couldn't you wait to consult with me?"

  "Because I'm tired of your pussyfooting around. It's almost as if you're on the bear's side instead of ours. The public wants action. So I gave it to them."

  Kelly sighed. "And in the process you made it open season on every animal in the woods."

  "I gave clear instructions. The only target is bear."

  "Not bear. Grizzly. There's a difference."

  Kittredge shrugged. "A bear is a bear. Just so we get him."

  "Wrong," said Kelly. "A bear is not a bear, believe it or not. Listen, if we wanted to bring in hunters, it would have taken less than half a day to do it right, call for the professionals."

  "Every man up there has a valid license," said Kittredge.

  "Bull! What does that mean? That he's over sixteen and knows how to sign his name. Do you know what you've put up there in our woods? A bunch of roadhunters who do their best shooting over a beer down at Chauncey's. There's not more than two or three real hunters in that whole mob you saddled me with."

  Kittredge admitted, "Sometimes you find one or two nuts, but we didn't have time to screen them out."

  "I want those amateurs out of my forest," Kelly said.

  Kittredge replied, "It's not your forest, Kelly."

  "It's my jurisdiction, and I want them out, and right now."

  "I have authority to deny that request. Denied."

  "This is my district."

  "Your authority is granted by me," said Kittredge. "My concern is the welfare of the entire park, not just your section of it. In my judgment, this is the best way to handle the situation."

  "So it's okay for those nuts to go up there and shoot at anything that moves? Damn it, there are campers in those woods."

  "Not in R-Three and R-Four."

  "Do you think those so-called hunters are carrying around topographical maps? They wouldn't know it if they were on Mars."

  "Your campers are in no danger," Kittredge said. "Not if they stay where they're supposed to be."

  Kelly said, "We've got a man-eating grizzly up there, and a bunch of silly-assed hunters who couldn't tell a bear from a beer keg, and you say my campers have nothing to worry about. That's the laugh of the year."

  "Are you through?" Kittredge asked coldly.

  "Almost. I've got one more question."

  "Ask it."

  "Why have you always been after my ass? Ever since you took over, I've been on the griddle. I moved on this bear thing in the right way, and I followed the book. I should be getting good grades, not this crap."

  "The Service is changing," said Kittredge. "Maybe in the old days it was all right for a ranger to be a maverick like you. Not any more. We're a team effort. We don't have room for mavericks."

  "Without mavericks like me, you wouldn't have any forest. Your solid businessmen would have lumbered off every square acre. That forest isn't mine? You silly bastard, that forest is a part of me. What claim do you have on it?"

  "I can bring charges against you for saying that," Kittredge shouted.

  "Great," said Kelly. "File them. Meanwhile, those stupid hunters you turned loose are in my jurisdiction, and I'm going to take care of them my way. If you think you can stop me, go ahead and try."

  He left.

  Don Stober, who had been trying to stay out of the battle, got up.

  "Nice seeing you again, Mr. Kittredge," he said.

  When Don and Kelly got to the Toyota, parked outside the Boulder Mining Center, they found Tom Cooper sitting in the back seat.

  "Saw you parked here," Tom said. "Give me a lift?"

  Kelly, starting the engine, said, "You feel up to it?"

  "I'm all right. Hung over. Yeah, I'm ready. Did you hear
the news? One of those hunters saw our bear. Said he was twenty feet tall. Bear took his gun and everything. I know the guy. He's a good man in the woods. Take off five feet or so, and that's still a big mother up there."

  "Where is the hunter?"

  "In the hospital. He had to swim down the rapids of Trout Creek to get away. But he's okay."

  "He was lucky," Kelly said. "The next one won't be. I'm going to get their asses down off that mountain."

  "Let them alone," said Tom. "Let them blow that bastard away. I wish I could."

  "Not this way," said Kelly.

  He put the vehicle in gear.

  CHAPTER TEN

  It was one thing for Kelly to decide to recall the hunters from the forest, and another thing to achieve it. The lazy ones, the road-hunters who drove around hoping to see something they might shoot from a car window, were easily found and told to go back to town. But in the forest's interior the more serious hunters were scattered all over the mountain, and finding them was no easy job. Kelly decided not to even try it. By getting out the majority of the hunters he had eliminated the most dangerous ones. He would handle the rest as he came upon them.

  It was late afternoon by the time he had reorganized his forces. The hunter who had seen the bear had given him a good idea of where the grizzly was, and Kelly called down those rangers he could reach by radio and was forming a new hunting party.

  He warned, "Watch out for those birds Kittredge sent in. They'll shoot first and check to see if you have fur later."

  A CLICK! made him turn. Allison had just taken another photograph.

  "When did you come up?" he asked.

  "Few minutes ago." They moved off to one side. She looked up at him. He peered around, realized that whatever they did was not going to go unnoticed, and leaned down to kiss her.

  "Thanks," she said. "I know what a trauma that must have been for you, showing humanity in front of your troops. But I was feeling unloved."

  "Me too," he said. "I'm glad you came by."

  "Going hunting?" she asked.

  "Yes. I think I know where he is. A hunter spotted him."

  "I'm coming with you," she said, hitching up the strap of her gadget bag.

  "No way," he said.

  "Now wait a minute—"