“Fuck!” Dalton raises his fist, like he’s about to hit the cave wall, but stops short and shakes his head instead.
I take his hand and squeeze it. “If you think I’m overreacting—”
“You’re not.”
“If it’s too dangerous—”
“It is.”
“What are our options?” I ask.
“The obvious one is to kill it,” Anders says. “However, beyond the fact that no one wants to shoot a bear for minding its own business, I know killing a grizzly is never easy.”
“It’s not. Especially when it has prey.”
“Did it look healthy?” Anders asks.
“A little thin, but it’s not an old and starving grizzly that we could be justified in putting down.”
“Is luring it out of the den an option? Before it eats anything?”
Dalton shakes his head. “Too risky. I know Casey would like a body that’s as undisturbed as possible—and April will be furious if we ‘allowed’ predation—but I don’t think we’re getting that body out whole.”
Anders swallows. “So I guess we need to ask a very uncomfortable question. How much is the bear going to eat before it leaves its den?”
Dalton pinches the bridge of his nose and squeezes his eyes shut. “Fuck. I hate this.”
“We can’t answer that,” I say. “It depends on whether the grizzly is hungry, how securely it can cache the body, et cetera.”
“We can estimate,” Dalton says with a sigh. “As much as I hate doing this when we’re talking about letting a bear consumea human body. But I really don’t want to kill it for, as you said, minding its own business. When it comes to bears, scavenging big prey is actually more common than hunting it. I’ve seen bear scavenging on moose and caribou. They go for the torso first.”
“Easy to get at,” I murmur. “Minimal work.”
“Yeah. After that, they’ll cache the rest. I don’t think I’ve ever seen one dragging off prey like a wolf might. But it’s fall, and this oneisa bit thin, so it’s going to act out of character. Like Casey says, it doesn’t want to share. Nothing’s going into a grizzly’s den to feed on its prey, so the body will be safe there. I’m guessing the bear will eat the easy parts and leave the rest to go see what else it can rustle up.”
“It’s just stocking the larder.” Anders makes a face. “I shouldn’t say that about a human being.”
Dalton grunts. “True, though. I suggest we see where it goes while someone stands watch. Casey? You’ll want to see where the bear has been, I presume. Try to find the scene of the crime.”
“Yes.”
He exhales, clearly not happy, even with this best solution to our dilemma. “Okay, let’s get out there before the bear disappears into its den.”
We’ve split up three ways. That makes Dalton even less happy, but it’s the best use of our resources. He will keep an eye on the den, which turns out to be not far from where I last saw the bear.
Dalton has climbed a tree, which gives him a good sight line. I insisted he keep the rifle—if the bear hears Anders,Storm, or me and comes charging out, Dalton will see and can stop it. It’s a bit of a cheat, playing on his concern for us, but it works.
I have Storm. For now, I also have Anders. The plan is that we’ll follow the bear’s trail and, if we locate the crime scene, Anders will head back to town and grab the ATV, which we will need for transporting the body.
Or what’s left of the body.
Damn, I am really trying not to think about that.
Storm easily tracks where the bear dragged Blake’s corpse. Even without her, I could track it by the swath of flattened undergrowth and disturbed soil. Where the trail leads is…
“Okay, that is not what I expected,” Anders says as we stare at the spot.
It’s near the bottom of the foothill, where there’s a small cave that we’ve used for residents who want a taste of spelunking. Real spelunking, not the type that Anders jokingly refers to as “caverning” where tourists walk upright through caverns, occasionally needing to duck their heads. This type requires crawling and sometimes wriggling. This particular opening is larger than most, and it doesn’t go far. It gives residents a taste of the sport, upon which many discover they’re claustrophobic, which is good to know before you try a real cave system.
