CLAWS 2

by Stacey Cochran

  It looked like the man’s face had been torn clean off.

  Angie tried to get in closer, but the men quickly picked up the body and put it in the back of one of the jeeps. The crowd just stared and a speaker from one of the jeeps squawked, “Go back inside. There’s nothing to see here. For your safety, we recommend everyone staying inside for the next twelve hours.”

  The first two jeeps raced away. The second jeep patrolled the street in front of the hotel. The crowd slowly began to disperse. The jeep cruised slowly up the street, did a U-turn, and then came back by the front of the hotel.

  “Please disperse,” the voice squawked over a loudspeaker. “Everyone should remain inside for your safety.”

  Angie saw the three cowboys, and then she saw the fourth inside by the window. He was in the midst of a crowd by the window, but Angie knew it was Abraham Foxwell.

  She wanted to shout, “Those men killed that man! They shot him dead in the street. Arrest them!”

  But the jeep pulled away into the darkness and snow, and she found herself standing alone on the curb opposite the hotel. The three cowboys were the last to go inside. One turned and saw Angie standing across the street.

  She was staring at the spot in the snow that had been bathed in blood. She thought about going back into the hotel.

  Instead, though, she turned and looked up the darkened alleyway. She peered into the black. She glanced once more over her shoulder and saw the cowboys. All three were staring at her, and she could see the fourth—Abraham Foxwell—inside the window looking at her.

  She turned and stepped down into the darkened alleyway.

  She would find the bear herself.

  Forty-three

  The bear watched Angie from the shadows. It remained utterly silent. The sound of the sirens and the shouting people had startled it, and it wasn’t sure if this woman was dangerous or easy prey. It watched her.

  • •

  Angie walked along the dark alleyway, trying to follow the bear’s tracks the best that she could. It looked like it had been up and down this alley several times, and the tracks overlapped.

  She stopped and listened for any sound.

  She could hear her own breathing and so held her breath. The sound of snowflakes hitting the ground echoed through the alley. She turned her head and looked back toward the hotel.

  She could not see it any more. It was around a corner.

  She turned back in the direction she’d been heading and thought she saw the outlines of a dumpster over on the left. It looked like snow had piled up against its side and on its lid.

  Was there something hiding behind it?

  Angie strained her eyes to see. She was so cold. What was she doing out here alone? She should be back inside the hotel, curled up next to the fireplace reading a cheap paperback novel. To hell with trying to make a difference. To hell with trying to save the day. To hell with actually thinking anyone would ever care enough about anything she’d do to bat an eyelash for her.

  She started to shiver. The cold gripped her spine, and she wanted to hold her arms close to her chest for warmth.

  But the truth was she actually cared about people. Even though she’d accepted that she didn’t matter one iota in a world filled with seven billion people, for the moment that she stood there in the alley she mattered to herself. She mattered to the space and time that she occupied, and she had the power to choose what she would do.

  Something had killed that man back on the street. Something had gotten to him after the cowboys filled him full of lead. Something had practically chewed his face off.

  Angie stared at the dumpster up on the left. She could swear she saw something hiding just beyond the corner of it. She took a few steps closer to it.

  Then, she saw its eyes.

  They glinted in the very faint light. They were staring at her. Angie continued to approach.

  She held her hands up in front of her.

  “It’s okay,” she said. “Everything’s going to be alright.”

  She was now only fifteen feet from the dumpster. She couldn’t see its body, but she saw its eyes. She took a few more steps closer to it. She held her hands up in front of her.

  “I’m not going to hurt you,” she said.

  Ten feet away, now.

  She felt her blood run cold. She felt her nerves on edge.

  Five feet away, now.

  She could almost reach out and touch the dumpster. Her feet were cold in the snow. She looked into its eyes.

  Why didn’t it move?

  She took another couple steps closer, and she realized it was stuffed animal. A pink stuffed animal, like the kind won in a carnival. It was very large, but it was no more alive than the dumpster itself.

  She exhaled a big nervous breath.

  And heard the real bear burbling behind her.

  The sound was the unmistakable low growl of a grizzly bear. Angie slowly turned and saw it standing there twenty feet away. It was enormous, but before she had time to comprehend what she was seeing, it turned and vanished into the darkness of an intersecting alleyway.

  This one was narrower.

  Angie stood there in shock a moment. The bear had been almost completely white. It looked like it was covered in thick ice and snow over most of its body. It was so white it almost looked like a polar bear, though she knew it was not.

  Polar bears had a Roman-shaped nose, whereas grizzlies were short nosed with a rounder flatter face. There was no doubt about it. It was a grizzly.

  For the moment, she did not consider what this meant for her research. She did not consider what this meant in terms of preserving the 550 land. She did not even think about the fact that a visual sighting like this would almost certainly grant Governor Creed the power to enact legislation that would prevent Abraham Foxwell from mowing down the forests to build his resort. She didn’t think of any of those things because she was utterly terrified.

  The adrenaline racing through her veins was so extreme, she was actually in a state of paralysis for several seconds. Her heart was deciding whether it would explode, and then her knees sort of whooshed out from under her. They buckled, and she went down on one knee in the snow by the dumpster.

  She stared into the darkness where the bear had vanished. She did not want to follow after it.

  Her head was dizzy with fear, and it hurt. She thought she was going to be sick. She leaned forward to throw up, but nothing came up.

  Her eyes shot up toward the darkness. She just knew the bear was going to return for her. She knew she was going to die. She was so angry at God for having put her in this position she wanted to stand up and shake her fist. She wanted to spit. She wanted to curse. She wanted to let the Almighty know what she thought about its playing games with humans and animals and the sheer stupidity of life here on Earth.

  Instead, she rose to her feet and trotted back up the alleyway toward the hotel. She came out onto a curb on the opposite side of the street from the hotel. She could see through the window that there was a commotion inside.

  Quickly, she scanned right and left to see if she could see the bear. She saw nothing but snow and an empty street.

  She saw the spot on the ground in front of her, where the man had bled on the snow. She saw the tire tracks in the snow where the jeeps had carried him away.

  And then she noticed the storefront window to her left. There were knives displayed on a rack in the window. She’d seen these knives earlier in this window, but it had not registered consciously. Now, she stared enraptured by the glinting blades.

  The door to the store was almost certainly locked. But at least with a knife she would be able to defend herself.

  She looked down and saw a loose brick lying by the windowsill. She reached down and grabbed it. It didn’t come away at first touch, but she jiggled it back and forth and pulled with both hands. It came out from the wall.

  She touched the glass.

  Then, she leaned back and threw the brick toward th
e window. It shattered and rained down onto the snowy sidewalk out front of the shop. Angie looked nervously behind her and saw people coming out of the hotel. They held torches.

  She reached in the window and removed a giant Bowie knife. Its chrome blade shined and reflected the firelight from the torches across the street. She turned and saw the mob of people.

  The cowboys led the way, and she saw Abraham Foxwell among them. They were armed. Foxwell stepped out into the street.

  “We’re going to split up into two groups,” he shouted. “We’ll circle the downtown streets and find this bear!”

  Everyone cheered. They thrust their torches up into the air. Others carried flashlights. In the short time that she’d been in the alleyway, he had rallied a group of people around him. Angie held the knife in her hand.

  No one seemed to notice her or care about her. The angry mob split into two groups, and they marched in opposite directions away from the hotel.

  Forty-four

  Angie held the knife in her hand and smelled the burning smoke from the angry mob’s torches. She watched them walk away from the hotel, and she crossed the street.

  She opened the door and stepped inside. “They’re gonna kill that bear,” she said.

  There were a few people standing in the lobby, presumably the few who weren’t swept up in the frenzy of the angry mob.

  The desk clerk said, “Good riddance!”

  The others just stared. One woman said, “What can we do? They’d kill us if we got in their way!”

  “Call the police,” Angie said. “Get somebody over here. These National Guardsmen. Anyone!”

  They looked at her holding the twelve-inch knife. The thing was as big as a dagger, and Angie looked desperately at them. Several people were afraid of her. They backed away.

  She tried to say evenly, “If we don’t do something, they’re going to kill that bear.”

  “We don’t care,” someone finally said. “You’re just as crazy as them. Just leave us alone!”

  Angie stared at them, astonished that no one would stand with her.

  “Won’t anyone help?!” she said.

  Several of them shook their heads. Others remained stonily silent.

  “All we have to do,” she pleaded, “is drive the bear back up into the mountains.”

  They all stared at her. A few turned their backs and walked away. The desk clerk actually laughed, and shook his head.

  “Pathetic,” he muttered.

  Angie stared into his eyes with sheer desperation.

  He said, “Maybe someone down the street at the other hotels will help you.”

  “Yeah,” Angie said. “Maybe.”

  She looked once more at the crowd, turned, and exited the hotel.

  Outside, the cold hit her once again. She held the knife in her hand, but she didn’t know whether it was to defend herself against Foxwell and the mob, or against the bear. The snow continued to fall from the night sky.

  She looked left and could see the tracks in the snow where the mob had vanished up the street. She could hear them one block over. Likewise, to the right, she saw the tracks where the other half of the mob had walked away from the hotel.

  It was hopeless. They were going to kill the bear. What could she do? What difference did it matter?

  Quickly, she darted across the street toward the alleyway. Darkness surrounded her once again, and she saw her tracks from a few minutes before in the snow.

  She ran through the darkness.

  A minute later, she came out on the lawn of the courthouse. She saw the flames of the angry mob’s torches. She stepped back into the shadows.

  What were they doing?

  Suddenly, she saw the bear race out from an alcove on the left side of the courthouse. The crowd gasped, and gunfire erupted in the night.

  The bear ran across the snow-covered lawn. The cowboys fired. Angie winced because she knew the bear had been shot. There was no way they could have missed at that range with that many people shooting at it.

  But the bear continued to run across the lawn. It reached the sidewalk opposite the courthouse. The crowd followed after it, the men up front shooting their rifles and handguns at it.

  Angie saw ice and snow explode on the bear’s fur, and she realized that it was serving as protective armor. The bear was clearly frightened, though, and it raced up the sidewalk toward where she was standing.

  Angie was in the shadows. She held her knife.

  The bear ran toward her, but it didn’t see her. Or perhaps it was too frightened by the gunfire to care. It barreled into her, and Angie drove the knife into its left ear.

  She hit the wall behind her hard, thrown backwards by the collision with the bear. Everything faded into a punch-drunk daze for a moment, but she sensed the great creature skidding on the ground in front of her.

  Quickly, she tried to scramble to her feet. She slipped and fell, but then tried again. By that point, the crowd had reached the edge of the alley. They were shining their flashlights and holding their torches up to see into the darkness.

  Angie got to her feet and threw up her hands. “Don’t shoot!” she shouted. “Don’t shoot!”

  Everyone stopped and pointed. They were all astonished.

  It took her a moment to realize they weren’t pointing at her, and she turned and saw the bear on the ground.

  “Oh, my God!” she said.

  In the firelight from the torches, she could see the bear was dying. Her knife had gone in, driven by the impact and the bear’s own weight.

  Angie staggered forward.

  “She killed it,” someone said. “She killed it with her own bare hands.”

  Angie fell forward onto the snow beside the bear. The crowd stayed a safe distance away. Angie felt the bear’s side. It was breathing its last few breaths. She looked down and saw its eyes.

  The bear looked up at her. She started to reach forward, and suddenly the bear lunged wildly at her.

  Several people screamed, and for a moment, it had hold of Angie’s left arm.

  Those with guns opened fire on it. The alleyway filled with the sound of gunfire. The bear released its grip on her arm, and surrendered to the bullets.

  Still the men continued to fire.

  Angie cried out, “No! Don’t shoot it! No!!”

  But it was too late.

  Several seconds later, the gunfire ceased. The bear lay motionless. Angie stared at it. Even with the ice and snow as protection, too many shots had gotten through. They’d killed it. It was dead.

  The great bear was dead.

  Forty-five

  Angie’s arm was temporarily bandaged, as she made the initial inspection of the huge bear. It was dead, no doubt about it, but she lifted its front left paw and then its front right paw, and she felt a sinking snow-burst of panic in her stomach.

  This bear had all of its claws.

  Flashbulbs flashed from the edge of the alley, where they’d set up a provisional rope to keep the crowd back. The National Guardsmen had been unable to drive their jeeps down the pedestrian mall that led to the courthouse lawn because of concrete barricades located out on the street.

  A Lieutenant with the Guard spoke with her briefly before he had his men set up the rope. There was a logistical problem about removing the bear’s body. Several men had tried to lift it, but the bear must have weighed nine hundred pounds.

  They were going to need some sort of crane or winch, which was exactly what the National Guardsmen were trying to set up right that moment.

  Angie checked the front left paw on the grizzly bear again. The paw was easily as large as both of her hands laid side-by-side, but that wasn’t what concerned her. What concerned her was the fact that it wasn’t missing a claw.

  She checked the front right paw once more.

  Shit, she thought. It’s got ’em all.

  She scrambled around to the animal’s back right leg, checked it, and then checked the animal’s back left leg. From the rope at th
e alley’s edge, flashbulbs continued to flash.

  “You people, get back!” a National Guardsman barked. “We’ve got to get this line through here.”

  They were pulling a steel cable around the corner. It was attached to a large steel hook.

  “Ma’am, please step back,” the Guardsman said to Angie.

  She let the paw drop to the ground, and took several steps back away from the animal. They brought the steel cable through the crowd. It took them a minute to get it fastened around the giant bear’s body. Angie ducked down under the rope and stepped out from the alley.

  People snapped photographs of her. The light from the flashbulbs was nearly blinding.

  “Angie!” someone called.

  She squinted to see. It was Jonas. He was dressed in his sheriff’s deputy brown shirt and tan hat. The hat had a plastic liner on the top, and falling snow collected there.

  “Jonas,” she said.

  She reached forward and took his arm. The flashbulbs continued to flash.

  “Please,” Jonas said. “Back off!”

  He helped her through the crowd, and they crossed the snow-covered lawn toward the courthouse.

  “Are you okay?” he said.

  She nodded.

  He said, “What in the hell has happened in the past two hours?”

  “They killed a man,” she said. “Those cowboys.”

  “What cowboys?” he said. “What’re you talking about?”

  Angie started to point toward the crowd of people gathered between the alleyway and the street. The bear’s body was being towed through the snow by the retracting cable winch.

  The cable was taut, and it ran to the front of a large green Guard truck parked just beyond the concrete barricades. The crowd walked along beside the body of the bear. Many of them snapped photos as the huge creature slid slowly through the snow.

  “Get back!” one Guardsman warned. “People, stay clear!”

  Angie pointed. “They were right there,” she said.