It takes a moment for him to assess, and the makeshift body bags keep sliding. One reaches the end, where we’d tied the small tailgate open.
“Confirm!” Dalton says. “Slow but don’t stop. Casey?”
“I can get them.”
The bear is still walking away, but slowly, grudgingly. I relax my death grip on Storm and reach for the bag, but when I grab it, the tarp starts to come off, the top half of Blake’s body slipping out.
“Undoing my seat belt!” I shout.
I swear I hear Dalton’s grumble over the engine. He doesn’t argue, though. Storm refuses to get back on the seat, but I manage to get her far enough to the right that I can undo the belt and slide only my knees.
I grab the body bag by the other side, where it can’t unravel. Then I ease it away from the danger zone, with the ATV jostling me—and the body—the whole time. And I keep my eyeson the bear. I know Dalton will be twisted around doing the same, but I still keep checking.
The bear continues ambling—
The ATV strikes a rock or a rut or something. Enough to send the back end jumping. Storm leaps up, hitting my arm. The body bag wrenches from my grip. The bear… The bear seems to slow, as if it heard something,sensedsomething.
I lunge to grab the bag, throwing myself over it even as a voice screams to let it go, let it fall out, we can try coming back later.
It’s too late, though. The inner warning comesafterI’ve lunged, and then I’m lying on the tarp, gripping the body bags with both hands, my legs having nowhere to latch on to. I’m sliding, holding those damn bags, and it’s too late to release them.
I’m about to shout for help. I presume Dalton had returned to looking forward when we hit that bump. The bag slides more, and I start falling over the back end—
A hand grabs my coat and wrenches me up. It’s Dalton, running beside the ATV, holding me. The bear is still facing the other way, but it’s standing still now, nose lifted to sniff the air.
We’re traveling at maybe ten miles an hour. It’s fast for Dalton to run, but not nearly fast enough to escape that bear if it turns around and charges. It’s had time to rest, and it’ll come at us at its full forty miles an hour, with maybe a half mile between us. Dalton will never get back into the ATV in time. What the hell have I done?
I resist the urge to shove the bags out the back end. I have them, and I heave, and Dalton gives them a push. Then he cuts the rope on the tailgate and yanks it up, even as I wildly motion for him to get back into the damn vehicle. The bear is still standing there, its back to us, sniffing the air—
“Turning left!” Anders shouts.
I brace. It’s a hard left, and I fall onto Storm, but the tail gate is shut and Dalton’s running alongside again, ducking the branches. He hauls my arm. He wants me back in my seat.
I do that, and I motion for him to get in, but he waits for the click of my seat belt. Then he dashes forward… and needs to wait again, now until the path is wide enough for him to get the door open.
I squint back, looking for the bear, but we’ve turned enough that I don’t see it. That means it can’t see us, but it also means I won’t know if it charges. Dalton is finally inside, and I lean to say, “Can we go faster?”
Dalton nods, and he speaks to Anders. We pick up speed. I keep my gaze on the forest, straining to listen for a roar, to see a blur of motion.
“Don’t go straight back!” Dalton shouts.
At first, I think he’s talking to me—and I have no idea what that means. Then I realize it’s for Anders, who says, “I know!”
Don’t go straight back to Haven’s Rock.
Don’t risk leaving a trail that could bring the bear to town.
The ATV leaves a scent of its own, and while I don’t think bears have the capacity to jump from “I smelled my dinner in that stinky metal thing” to “I need to track the stinky metal thing to find my dinner,” we can’t take any chances. Also, the bear is no more than a few miles from Haven’s Rock now. We can’t let it get close.
Anders continues on this straightaway until we’re sure the bear isn’t following. Then he takes—or creates—other trails, circling all the way around the lake to the south of town before coming back along the shore. A group is out fishing on the far side, and they turn to wave… and then stare… which is when I realize Blake’s arm is out of the tarp, his hand hanging over the side.
I wave, as if nothing’s wrong, and then say to Dalton and Anders. “Let’s hope they’re too far away to see what that was.”
Dalton shakes his head, and Anders says, “Myhand. I have really long arms, and I don’t need to hold the wheel with two hands. Also, I’m wearing a white glove.”
“On one hand?”
“It worked for Michael Jackson.” He launches into an off-key rendition of “Thriller.”
