by Jon Sharpe
‘‘They were in a panic,’’ Toomey said. ‘‘You should have seen them. Without their horses they are in trouble.’’ He smiled. ‘‘Darned clever of you.’’ Toomey held out his wrists for Fargo to cut the rope. ‘‘Now we can get out of here.’’
‘‘Have you seen any sign of the Tlingits?’’ Fargo asked.
‘‘Tlingits? What would they be doing here?’’ Toomey gazed anxiously about. ‘‘This is getting more—’’ He abruptly stopped, his eyes widening in stark fear.
Fargo whirled. He thought it would be Russians or maybe Tlingits but he was wrong.
Something stood amid the tents. Something as big as the tents themselves.
‘‘Dear God!’’ Toomey breathed.
It was the brown bear.
15
In the flickering glow of the campfires, the brown bear truly had the aspect of a monster. Immense beyond measure, it embodied every fear the human heart harbored, every dread the human mind could conceive. It was so huge and so fearsome that it was not uncommon for its prey to freeze in sheer fright.
Fargo froze, but for a different reason. Bears were drawn to movement and he did not want the bear to charge them. It was sniffing at a tent. Or so Fargo thought until a burly Russian leaped up and looked confusedly about him, a rifle in his hands. The guard Vassily had posted had fallen asleep. No doubt he had lain down close to the tent so no one could see him. His back was to the brown bear and he did not realize it was behind him until it growled.
The Russian turned and bleated in horror. He was nose to nose with the largest carnivore on the continent and he did what most would do. His nerve broke and he turned and fled. Or tried to, for he had hardly taken three strides when the brown bear was on him, smashing him to earth with an almost casual swat of an enormous paw.
The Russian screamed. From his shoulders to his waist, his back had been ripped to ribbons by the bear’s raking claws. His coat and shirt were in tatters. So was his flesh. Incredibly, his spine was visible, the white of the bone a pale contrast to the rich scarlet of the blood pumping from the wounds.
The man did not give up. Frantic, he crawled toward a tent, but again he had gone only a few yards when the brown bear brought the same paw that had raked his back smashing down on it, pinning the man to the ground. Shrieking, the Russian struggled to wriggle out from under but the brown bear held him down as effortlessly as Fargo might hold a fly.
Twisting his head, the guard looked up into the descending maw of death. He screamed. The crunch of his skull as the brown bear’s jaws closed was frighteningly loud.
Frank Toomey whined like a stricken puppy. He started to stand but Fargo grabbed his wrist and whispered, ‘‘Stay right where you are.’’
The brown bear was shaking its victim as a terrier might shake a rat.
‘‘Let go of me!’’ Toomey mewed, tugging to be free.
‘‘Don’t move,’’ Fargo warned.
‘‘We have to hide before it sees us!’’ Toomey insisted. Again he tried to pull loose but Fargo would not let go.
‘‘Stay still, damn it.’’ Fargo had not taken his eyes off the brown bear. It had torn the Russian’s head from his body and was gnawing at the top of the head, apparently in an effort to get at the brains.
Toomey did not know when he was well off. ‘‘I said let go!’’ he yelled, and jerked backward.
There was only so much stupidity Fargo would abide. He let go, diving into the aspens as he did.
The brown bear had dropped the head and was staring fixedly at Toomey in the manner bears had before they attacked.
Seconds ago Frank Toomey had been set to flee. But now, paralyzed with fear, he blurted, ‘‘No, no. Dear God in heaven, please.’’
The brown bear grunted.
Toomey ran. But in his abject fear he did not run into the aspens, as he should have. He ran toward the nearest slope. He was not thinking, for even if he reached it, it offered no cover, no haven from the beast pursuing him. And the brown bear was after him, although at a leisurely pace, almost as if the bear knew Toomey could not get away and it was not going to exert itself more than it had to.
‘‘No!’’ Toomey reached the slope and raced up it, but in his haste and excitement, he slipped. He came down hard on his hands and knees, screeched in terror, and made it halfway to his feet.
The brown bear’s paw flashed once, twice, three times, and what was left of Frank Toomey crumpled in a mangled heap. The bear pawed at the body, then ponderously turned and gazed into the aspens.
A chill spiked through Fargo. The bear had seen him. It was looking for him, looking to do what it had done to Toomey and the guard. Panic welled, and it was all Fargo could do to keep from making the same mistake Toomey had made.
But Fargo had encountered bears before. Maybe not Alaskan brown bears, maybe not bears bigger than buffalo, but he had run into large black bears and even larger grizzlies, and he had learned not to give in to fear.
One of Toomey’s legs was convulsing. The brown bear looked down at it, then nipped at the knee. Its teeth sheared clean through. A crimson geyser spurted, and like a cub frolicking in the watery spray of a river, the brown bear held its great head under the red spray and let the blood splash over it.
Fargo began to crawl backward. If he could slip off while the brown bear feasted, he could yet save his hide. But no sooner did he start than movement in the camp caused him to stop.
A tent flap had opened. The flap to the tent the women used. A head poked out, a lovely head crowned with dark hair. Sabina glanced both ways, then beckoned to someone behind her. She stepped out, Kira at her heels.
Fargo opened his mouth to shout. But if he did the bear might come after him. For a span of heartbeats he hesitated, trying to think of a better way. But there was none. Especially since the women, unaware of the brown bear on the slope, were moving into the open where the bear would see them.
‘‘Sabina! Kira! Run off down the valley!’’ Fargo shouted, and darted from the aspens. The brown bear’s head had snapped up at his shout and the bear was staring fixedly at him.
‘‘Chase me, bear! Me!’’ Fargo yelled, and turned to run back into the trees.
Too late, Fargo saw that Sabina and Kira had not run off as he had told them, but were running toward him. ‘‘No!’’ he bellowed. ‘‘Go back! The bear will see you!’’
‘‘What bear?’’ Sabina asked as she stepped past the last of the tents. She spotted it then and turned to stone, but the harm had been done. The bear had spotted her.
For all of a minute, the tableau did not change—Fargo, by the aspens, armed with only his toothpick; Sabina, by the tents, her hand pressed to her throat in shock; Kira, behind the last tent, too scared to move or cry out; and the Alaskan brown bear, spattered with the blood and gore from two victims.
Then Sabina screamed and bolted, not back in among the tents but toward the slope on the far side. If she thought she could outrun the brown bear, she was mistaken. A grown bear could overtake and bring down a horse.
Fargo hoped the brown bear would let her go. By rights it should have been content with Toomey and the guard. But bears were notorious for being unpredictable, and this bear was no exception.
Sabina’s next scream rose to the stars. The brown bear was after her, moving with astounding swiftness for something so big.
Firming his grip on the toothpick, Fargo rushed to intercept it. He was closer to Sabina and he figured to block its path and hold it at bay long enough for her to hide. But even he reckoned without the bear’s speed. It pounded past without so much as a glance in his direction.
‘‘Lie down and don’t move!’’ Fargo hollered. He had heard that worked sometimes—that a bear would sniff and paw but leave the person alone.
Sabina heard. She was almost to the slope but she stopped dead and dropped, curling into a ball with her arms over her head and face. She was whimpering and trembling.
The brown bear reached her. It cocked its head fr
om side to side, and then bit her arm and with a powerful wrench, tore her arm off.
Fargo stopped. There was nothing he could do. Not now. Not with blood spurting by the gallon from the stump. She did not scream much; she passed out before the end came.
Scarcely breathing, Fargo sidestepped toward the tents. The bear had temporarily forgotten about him and was tearing at her abdomen in a feeding frenzy.
Kira was cowering in fright. She was riveted to the ghastly spectacle of her best friend being devoured, and jumped when Fargo touched her arm. She opened her mouth to say something and Fargo instantly clamped a hand over it and whispered in her ear, ‘‘Not a sound. Back away slowly. We are getting the hell out of here.’’
They started to do just that. Then, to Fargo’s consternation, Kira stopped and pointed at Vassily’s tent. Without explaining why, she moved toward it, her eyes never leaving the brown bear.
‘‘What are you doing?’’ Fargo whispered. They had no time for this. The bear would be done eating soon and might decide to poke around in the tents or to destroy them. Bears loved to disport themselves at campsites, leaving ruin in their wake.
‘‘Come,’’ Kira whispered, motioning. ‘‘You will like much lots.’’
‘‘Like what?’’ Fargo whispered, his anger rising when she did not answer. He had half a mind to throw her over his shoulder and carry her off. He overtook her just as she came to the tent and opened the flap. ‘‘Stop.’’ He snatched at her wrist but did not get a good grip and she twisted loose and darted in. Downright mad, he went in after her. ‘‘What the hell do you think you are doing?’’ he demanded.
‘‘I see him do.’’
‘‘Saw who do what?’’
She was referring to a long wicker basket. Apparently it contained some of Vassily’s personal effects. Unfastening the clasp on the lid, she opened it and pointed. ‘‘We these need, yes?’’
Fargo went over. He thought she was after food or some such. One look, and he wanted to kiss her. Lying on top of clothes and other articles were his Colt and his Henry and his spare box of ammo for the rifle.
‘‘I see Vassily do,’’ Kira said in her imperfect English. ‘‘Sabina and me here.’’ At mention of her friend, her eyes misted. She was on the verge of tears.
Fargo hugged her. It was the best he could do under the circumstances. ‘‘Hold it in,’’ he whispered. ‘‘There will be plenty of time to cry after we put a lot of miles between us and that damn bear.’’
‘‘Shoot damn bear,’’ Kira urged. ‘‘Kill with gun.’’
So that was why she brought him to get them, Fargo realized. He scooped up the Colt and checked that it was loaded, saying, ‘‘It takes a cannon to drop a bear that size. I need a heavier caliber rifle.’’
‘‘Can kill with pretty long gun,’’ Kira said, smacking the Henry’s brass receiver as he raised it.
‘‘It might not bring him down,’’ Fargo said. ‘‘We can’t risk it.’’
Kira stamped her small foot and snapped much too loudly, ‘‘Kill it! Kill for Sabina!’’
Fargo was making sure the Henry was loaded. ‘‘We tangle with that bear, we might be the losers.’’ He crammed the box of ammunition in a pocket.
‘‘I want big bear dead!’’ Kira insisted, stamping her foot again.
Fargo seized her by the wrist and hauled her toward the flap. He swore when she dug in her heels and tried to twist loose. ‘‘Stop it, damn it.’’
‘‘Kill bear!’’
She practically shouted that last, and Fargo came close to slugging her. He got her to the flap and shoved it aside, and they both stopped cold in their tracks. Fargo seldom experienced fear but he experienced it now.
Kira whimpered and cringed.
The brown bear was ten yards away, staring. It had heard them. Its maw was caked with bright fresh blood, and a strip of pink skin dangled from its lower jaw.
‘‘Don’t move a muscle,’’ Fargo whispered. It was their only hope; that the bear had eaten enough and was not all that interested in them and would go off to sleep or whatever bears did when they had gorged themselves.
Kira was shaking.
Fargo could not blame her. He had his own fear under control or he might quake, too. The bear was so immense and they were so puny. If it charged, his days of wandering were over.
The next moment, to Fargo’s amazement and profound relief, the brown bear did exactly as he wanted it to do. It wheeled and lumbered off with that peculiar gait all bears had. It did not look back but crossed to the aspens and disappeared.
Just like that, Kira was in his arms. She clung to him, weak with emotion, her warm hands on his neck. ‘‘It be gone! We is safe!’’
‘‘Luck,’’ Fargo said. ‘‘Pure dumb luck.’’ But he would take all the luck life threw at him.
‘‘I much happy,’’ Kira said. ‘‘We celerybrate.’’
‘‘Celerybrate?’’ Fargo repeated, and laughed. ‘‘No. We still have to light a shuck.’’
Kira had gone to a corner where packs were haphazardly piled. She rummaged through them until she found the one she wanted. Opening it, she held up a bottle of vodka. She giggled as she brought it over and offered it to him. ‘‘We drink, eh?’’
‘‘Not now,’’ Fargo said. He had other worries besides the bear. There were the Russians to think of, and the Tlingits. Either might show up at any moment. ‘‘Bring it with us if you want.’’
‘‘No. Now.’’ Kira said.
Fargo was losing his patience with her. She had nearly gotten them mauled to death by fighting him when he wanted to leave, and now this. ‘‘We are still not safe. There are Indians out to slit our throats.’’
‘‘What Indians? I no see Indians.’’
‘‘Tlingits,’’ Fargo said. ‘‘And I am not going to stand here and try to convince you. Either come with me or stay. Your choice. But I am leaving.’’ He turned to the flap.
Kira gripped his hand. ‘‘I sorry. I not want mad make you. I come. I like you. I like big much.’’
‘‘That’s nice.’’ Fargo was reaching for the flap when the blunder he had made hit him like a physical blow. His gut tightened and his head reeled. The brown bear had gone into the aspens—but there was nothing past the aspens except the hole with the gold vein and the rock cliff. There was no way out of the valley at that end.
‘‘Why you do stop?’’ Kira asked.
Fargo did not answer. He opened the flap and the blood in his veins became ice.
The brown bear had come back.
16
In the instant Fargo beheld the bear he knew it was going to charge. Nothing the bear did told him, nothing in the way it held its body, nor did it growl nor snarl nor roar. Fargo just knew.
And it did.
Pushing Kira back, Fargo whipped the Henry to his shoulder. He had already levered a round into the chamber. In the blink of an eye he had sighted and thumbed back the hammer and fired. He aimed for the head, for the bear’s right eye. The skull was too thick, the body a mass of muscle and bone only the heaviest slugs could penetrate, and from head-on he did not have a lung shot, anyway, so he went for the head, he went for the eye. He fired three times as fast as he could work the lever and put three slugs into the brown bear at a range of twenty yards. It had no more effect than if he had used a pea shooter.
The bear roared.
Standing stock-still so the rifle was as steady, Fargo sent three more slugs into the beast in the time it took the bear to cover fifteen feet and still the bear came hurtling on, impervious, indestructible.
The grim specter of death breathing down his neck, Fargo fired again and again and yet again, and still the bear came on.
Fargo had used nine of the fifteen rounds in the Henry. Six cartridges left and the bear was only ten yards away and closing fast. Ten yards, and Fargo would be ripped to bits as the guard and Sabina Baranof had been.
Strangely, Fargo’s fear was gone. He felt only the baffled frustr
ation any marksman would feel on putting nine shots into something and having that something not go down. And Fargo was a marksman. He had taken part in shooting contests where the best in the country competed for money, and he was rated among them.
As the brown bear came barreling on, Fargo aimed at that right eye and fired and worked the lever and aimed and fired and worked the lever again and aimed and fired and finally, finally, the brown bear broke stride. It stumbled and nearly fell, and Fargo worked the lever and sent another slug into the eye, and by now the bear was close enough that he could see the eye was gone; there was a hole where the eye had been.
The bear was almost on him. It was moving slowly, molasses could move faster, but it was almost on top of him, and Fargo fired and the bear crashed down inches from his legs and he thrust the Henry’s muzzle into the hole where the eye had been and fired the last round.
In the sudden silence, Fargo’s ears still thundered with the boom of his shots. He could hear his blood roar, hear the hammer of his heart. His whole body tingled, and when he sucked in a breath it was the sweetest breath he ever took.
A hand timidly touched Fargo’s shoulder. Swallowing, he resisted an impulse to jump out of his boots.
‘‘Big bear be dead?’’ Kira asked.
Fargo had to cough twice before he found his voice. ‘‘They don’t get any deader.’’
‘‘You kill it.’’
‘‘You got what you wanted,’’ Fargo said.
‘‘You really kill it.’’
‘‘I’d as soon not have had to.’’ Fargo had come as close as he ever had to becoming worm food and he was still shaken.
Kira laughed and came around in front of him, nearly tripping over the brown bear. Embracing him, she kissed him on the cheek. ‘‘We make revenge for Sabina. I thank you.’’
Fargo did not share her elation. When the brown bear attacked Sabina it was only doing what bears did. Bears ate things. Living things, sometimes. Bears did not distinguish between other prey and humans. To them, flesh was flesh. ‘‘We have to get out of here.’’ He began reloading.