There Will Be Bears

by Ryan Gebhart

  “You fainted?”

  “Your gramps — Gene — poured his canteen on me to wake me up.”

  I’m not like Dad. I’m not scared about cutting open an animal as big as a morbidly obese dude or getting blood on my hands. I won’t faint out there.

  I really hope I don’t faint.

  I laugh. “Wuss.”

  “And you understand why you’re not going on the hunt, right?”

  “Because Gene is sick.”

  “I don’t know what I would do if something happened to either of you. I love you guys so much.” He wraps his arm around my neck and pulls me in for a painful noogie, giving a growl.

  “Dad. Cut it out.”

  I have this heavy lump of guilt sitting low in my stomach. I mean, he doesn’t want me to go to the Grand Tetons for all the right reasons. But I’m going for all the right reasons, too.

  Mom, Dad, and Ashley are planning on doing the whole tourist thing near Rock Springs — visit the wild horse sanctuary in the Red Desert, then the Killpecker Sand Dunes. Dad’s even talking about renting some ATVs to go off-roading, but I’ll believe it when I see it. If Gene and I make it back on Sunday, they’ll take me home.

  When we get to the nursing home, Mom and Dad help bring our gear into the lobby.

  Dad goes, “Call our cell if anything happens, you hear?”

  “We will.” Gene told me there isn’t an ounce of signal in the Tetons.

  “If Gene starts to feel weak or ill, if he gets a headache or is short of breath, I want you two to go to a ranger station immediately. Be responsible.”

  Mom rolls her eyes. “Oh, Lee, they’ll be fine.”

  Dad smiles, nodding in agreement. “Most important, I want you two to have a good time.”

  Dad gives me a hug and Mom kisses my forehead, then they get in the SUV and drive away.

  Gene is finishing dinner by himself in the cafeteria. He’s wearing his cowboy hat. He wears it every year when he drives to the Tetons. It has a raven’s feather, cigarette burns, and bloodstains.

  He wipes his mouth with a napkin, and his sleeve slides up his arm. There’s a bandage barely covering a large bruise on his right forearm.

  “What happened?” I say.

  “Dialysis appointment this morning.”

  “Oh.”

  Knowing Gene, he was probably just sitting in a reclining chair and chatting with his nurse about the weather, like it’s no big deal that blood is getting pumped in and out of his body.

  The thought of all that blood and the white hospital room and the beeping machine noises makes my head go light. Black spots appear around my vision. I have to sit down. I’m such a wuss.

  And I’m definitely Dad’s son.

  In fourth grade, my entire class surrounded a table to watch Mr. Carmichael dissect a cow eyeball and talk about all the different parts. When the knife went in and the juices squirted, everything went black. The next thing I remembered, I was on the ground and everyone was looking down at me. Mr. Carmichael put a cold rag on my forehead.

  I had fainted. It was so embarrassing.

  Maybe Dad was right. Gene is going to be mauled by Sandy, and he’ll be screaming for me to help him, but I’ll be passed out and useless in the sagebrush.

  “Gene, am I a man?”

  “Nope,” he says, without giving it a second thought.

  “I thought you said thirteen is the year boys become men.”

  He shrugs. “I know boys who are five times your age.”

  “So hunting makes you into one?”

  He shakes his head. “I know just the thing to cheer you up.” He takes off his cowboy hat and places it on my head. He says, “You can be me for Halloween.”

  Gene goes to bed right after Jeopardy! and I stay up doing sit-ups and push-ups in the cramped living room. When my muscles can’t even lift me off the ground, I crawl onto the really small couch and put on his Two and a Half Men Season 3 DVD, but there’s no way I’ll fall asleep with Gene snoring in the other room like he’s got a Tater Tot stuck in his throat.

  It’s after midnight and I’ve gone through all the episodes on disc 1, and it returns to the main screen. I can’t find the remote and I’m so scared that I can’t even get up to turn off the TV, so they’re playing the theme song on repeat.

  “Men men men men, manly men men men.”

  For three hours.

  “Men men men men, manly men men men, oo hoo hoo, hoo hoo, oo.”

  A real man wouldn’t be curled up like a fetus, hoping that morning never comes. I’m not even half a man.

  We leave the nursing home at four a.m., and I maybe got fifteen minutes of sleep. The sun rises just as we pass through Jackson, the last city before the national forest. There isn’t a single car on the road. On our left-hand side, the Teton mountains rise up epically from the surrounding prairie, and they’re orange from the rising sun. Any other time, I would be amazed by these sights, but with death hovering overhead like a starving vulture, everything feels drab and colorless.

  We get stopped by a herd of buffalo crossing the road. They look like devil creatures with their hooked horns and giant flat faces. A huge bull shepherding three calves stares at us menacingly.

  I roll down my window to take a picture of them with my phone, but then I catch my reflection in the rearview mirror. With Gene’s lucky hat, I kinda look like a real cowboy. I make a serious face and sneak a picture of myself instead.

  When the buffalo pass, Gene takes a right and we enter into a forest of pine and aspen. The sign reads: GROS VENTRE ROAD.

  “How do you say that?”

  “Grow-vaunt. It’s French for ‘Big Belly.’ Yup, just twenty or so miles down this road and we’ll be at the ranch.”

  The narrow road winds and climbs up out of the forest, and now we’re on a mountainside with a steep cliff to our right. There is no barricade, nothing to prevent us from falling hundreds of feet into the massive lake at the bottom.

  Gene pulls over to the shoulder as an oncoming truck appears from beyond a bend.

  “I’m gonna take a leak,” he says, then gets out.

  I open the door to join him, but a small piece of ground comes loose beneath my foot and tumbles down the cliff. I guess I can hold it until we get to the ranch.

  Gene looks like he’s in pain as he gets back in.

  “You okay?” I say.

  “I’m fine.” He breathes in deep a few times and blinks a bunch, like he just spaced out. He gets back on the road, which is getting worse the farther along we go. As we go higher up, the ride gets so bumpy I can feel the vibrations.

  He coughs and his eyes get red.

  “You sure you’re okay?”

  “Of course.”

  The vibrations get so extreme that the truck slides at a curve, then tips a little on my side. Gene presses harder on the gas, and the engine revs up. I grab onto the handle above the window, squeeze my eyes shut, and brace for whatever’s going to happen next.

  Gene gives a nervous laugh. “That’ll wake you up.”

  I open my eyes. My hands are tingling and cold. Everything’s okay.

  Snow begins to fall.

  What if no one’s at the ranch? What if there aren’t any horses? Or worse, what if there isn’t even a ranch? We’re going to be stuck out in the middle of nowhere with a broken-down truck and no one to rescue us.

  And then Sandy will come.

  When the road levels out, I say, “Ashley was afraid that we might run into a grizzly bear.”

  “Are you afraid of grizzlies?” he asks.

  “No. Of course not.”

  “They scare me to death. Haven’t I told you my grizz encounter stories?”

  “You told me one decapitated your horses.”

  There’s this deepness to his eyes like he’s looking at his memories instead of the road. He always gets excited at a chance to tell a story. “There was this other time I was hunting with some coworkers and we rode up to this place called Hackamore.”
>
  Hackamore Creek. That’s where the Oklahoma girl got her legs broken.

  He continues, “We got off our horses, and my guide and I went up a hillside that was covered in this really thick black timber. We were climbing over felled trees, hacking through overgrowth and branches. When we reached the top of this hill, we found the elk herd. There must have been close to two dozen. Just as I’m aiming my rifle, they all take off running. Then this big, mean bear — and she was solid. Just pure muscle. She comes huffing out of the trees —”

  “How big was she?”

  “Big. Like a couple of idiots, we haul it down that hillside, and sure enough we see her following us. We’re screaming and hollering for our lives, and she finally backed off when she saw the other hunters at the bottom of the hill.”

  “Was it Sandy?”

  “Yup. She was mean even back then.”

  “I thought bears normally leave people alone.”

  “This one don’t like people.”

  “Why?”

  He nibbles at one of his fingernails, then rolls down the window and spits it out. Maybe because he’s nervous, too. “Some bears are just nasty.”

  “Do you think we’ll see her?”

  “I usually see her once every other year. Flip a coin. Heads we see her and tails we don’t.” He hands me a penny from his cup holder.

  I flick the coin, catch it, and smack it against the top of my hand.

  “So what is it?” he asks.

  It’s Abraham Lincoln’s decapitated head.

  Our ranch is the very last on the road. With its tractors and flatbed trailers rusting away in overgrown grass, this place would be perfect for a horror movie.

  Gene stops at the locked metal gate, and an engine growls to life next to the barn about a football field’s length away. An ATV hurries through the pasture where horses are grazing in the snow and stops on the other side of the gate.

  “Hello, there,” the guy says. He’s stout and tall, maybe midfifties, and wearing a camouflage hat backward. “The name’s Mike.”

  “Pleasure to meet you. I’m Gene and this is Tyson.”

  “Marjorie told me all about you two. Said you’re looking to fill your tags. Well, Sunday is the last day of the season, so you better get to it.”

  “How have the elk been?” Gene asks.

  “Saw a pretty decent herd going up Hackamore yesterday.”

  Would everyone please stop saying that name?

  Mike gets the combination for the lock and swings the gate open. “Make yourself at home. Me and my girl just got breakfast made. You guys like elk sausage?”

  “Tyson loves it,” Gene replies. And on any other day, he would be right. But for the first time in forever, I’ve completely lost my appetite. Just the idea of food is enough to make my stomach clench.

  “Nancy will saddle you up some horses.” He points out into the pasture. “That painted horse over there, that’s Ellie. Real big, but she’s a sweetheart. You can ride her, Gene. And Tyson, I got a good one picked out for you.”

  “Is mine going to be a sweetheart, too?”

  With an unsettling grin he says, “I’ll put you on Crazy Eyes.”

  Oh, man, that time I rode on horseback during our fifth-grade camping trip, I had no idea what I was doing. The other kids were laughing as my horse wandered away from the rest of the group. Our guide was yelling at me to steer her back, and then I did something wrong, because she started galloping and I fell off.

  There’s no way I’ll be able to control a crazy horse.

  Mike shows us to the cookshack, which is a big log cabin with a fully working kitchen powered by a generator and a water pump. It also has two small beds right next to the dining table. I just want to stay in here, make a fire, sit back with a full stomach, and maybe read some more of my bear book. But there’s no time — Mike’s girlfriend, Nancy, is already saddling our horses.

  After Gene finishes his breakfast and I force down a sausage link and half a glass of OJ, I hear the clomping of horses. Through the window, there’s a large brown horse and a horse with black and white spots like a dairy cow.

  Me and Gene put on our orange safety vests and head outside.

  Nancy, a pretty woman maybe ten years younger than Mike, gets off my horse. And now I understand why my horse is called Crazy Eyes. Her eyes are shockingly blue and wide, with the whites showing, like she’s spooked and about to do something unpredictable.

  “Gene, you want to trade?” I say.

  “Huh?”

  “I was just thinking, you know, that you got a little more experience with horses.”

  “Let your grandfather ride Ellie,” Nancy says. “You don’t want him falling off and breaking a hip, do you?”

  “No.”

  She smiles. “Why don’t you hop on? Let’s see if she likes you.”

  So with one foot in a stirrup, I grab the horn and hoist myself over the saddle. Crazy Eyes doesn’t make any sudden movements. She’s just hanging out.

  “Hey there, cowboy,” Gene says. “You look like a natural.”

  Yeah. People ride horses all the time. I can do this.

  “What did you expect?” I say, and even if they can see right through me, no one says a thing.

  Nancy ties the lead rope to the horn and hands me the leather reins. “You know the commands?”

  “Uh . . .”

  “Pull back to slow down — but don’t pull back too hard. Give her a kick in the belly when you want her to go. Take these reins, and left goes left and right goes right.”

  “Got your rifles in the scabbards,” Mike says. “You’ve shot a gun before, Tyson?”

  “Oh, yeah. We used to go to the shooting range all the time.”

  “Well, all right, then. Gene, you know the country pretty well?”

  After three tries, Gene mounts his horse. He looks weak and dizzy, blinking a bunch as he grabs the reins. He says, “Yes, sir. I’ve been hunting out of the ranch at Cottonwood the last sixteen seasons. When I worked with Henry Feed and Tractor, Martin and I hunted right out of here.”

  “Any word on that bear?” I say to Mike.

  “Sandy?” He shakes his head. “Haven’t found her yet. TV stations were all over here a couple’a days ago.”

  Nancy says, “You two keep your eyes peeled, won’t you?”

  “We’ll be fine,” Gene says.

  “She’s an old bear,” Mike says. “Nasty, too. But it’ll be a sad day when the Forest Service finally tracks her down. She’s just as much of the park as anything else.”

  I say, “So she’s just that way for no apparent reason?”

  Nancy and Mike look at each other, thinking about the question. Finally Mike goes, “There was an incident where one of her cubs got shot.”

  “Really?”

  “We’ll chitchat later,” Gene says, annoyed, and he starts down the trail toward the wooden fence. A large orange sign reads: You are now entering the national park. No motorized vehicles. Trail open to horse and foot travel only.

  I squeeze Crazy Eyes’s belly with my foot, and she gets her head right behind Ellie’s butt.

  Don’t be nervous. Horses can sense fear, and they act on it.

  I say to Gene, “You sure you’re feeling okay?”

  “I’m top-notch. You’re not chickening out, are you?”

  “No, no. I mean, what are we going to do if something goes wrong and we’re like three miles from the ranch?”

  “I’ve been hunting every season since I was your age, and I know this country better than you know your video games. Let’s have Tyson worry about Tyson and Gene worry about Gene. Sound good?”

  An uncomfortable silence fills the gap between us as we take a trail through the snow-dusted sagebrush. There’s a hill to our left and a drop-off to our right. The path tightens, and at this point, I don’t have to worry about my horse wanting to go nuts and take off, because there’s no room. There are, however, quite a few more things for me to worry about. What if
my horse loses her footing? What if —?

  Okay. I need to calm down. If something does happen, I can’t be freaking out.

  Gene veers to the right and goes down the drop-off, his horse taking slower, more cautious steps toward a creek that babbles and winds past a hill.

  My horse follows.

  I grab the horn tight and I’m leaning my body backward, trying to balance myself with my horse. “Where are we going?”

  Gene points between two very big hills in the distance. “You see that valley?”

  “Is that Hackamore?”

  “Hackamore is three valleys past that.”

  How am I going to ride for that long? My legs are already aching and my back hurts. “Oh.”

  The horses clomp and splash on the river rocks. And then Crazy Eyes hoists herself onto dry land. Her body brushes up against the willow bushes. Branches are snapping, and this most definitely is not a path.

  Gene goes, “In these parts, you learn your way around by the creeks. This one is called Fish Creek. The one up in that valley ahead, that’s North Fork. Then you got Purdy. And after that it’ll be another half mile to Hackamore. If you get lost, follow the flow of the water and it’ll lead you back to the ranch.”

  “Gene?”

  “Yes, sir?”

  “Hackamore is dark timber, right?”

  “Oh, would you quit worrying about bears? Your horse will know if one’s around.”

  “What will she do?”

  “You’d better hold on to her neck tight, because she’s gonna haul ass.”

  “I want to go home,” I mutter. My words vanish into the sounds of the creek, the clomp of the horses’ hooves, and the screeching of a hawk over our heads.

  We move forward.

  “Yeah, it’s getting to be about that time of year. Grizzes are trying to get real nice and fat before they go into hibernation.” He points up at the hawk. “And when you see birds like that, you can bet the house there’s a dead animal somewhere around.”

  I remember what he told me: Grizzly bears like their meat rotten.

  Gene lifts his head up, sniffing the air. “You smell that?”

  “What?”

  “The musk.”

  “I don’t smell anything.”

  “That’s elk. They must have gone through here.” He points to tracks in a patch of snow to his left and all excited, he says, “You see that? Elk tracks.”