“Newbs. Area three’s been tripped. Looks like the doc’s coming back home for some reprovisioning.”
“I’m on it,” Newbs reported.
“Let me know when you have him.”
Starved and dehydrated, the prey returns to camp, driven by the uncanny will to survive. Having foraged for nearly two days, he sees the camp as his only hope and reluctantly returns to his keeper. But the hunter is aware of the return. His patience has paid off. He will be only too happy to welcome him back.
62
FOR ALL HIS STUDY, ALL THE READING HE’D DONE, MARK Aker was shocked to witness firsthand how a bear-even a drugged bear-could come out of hibernation so quickly. As the bear sat up, Aker slipped farther down behind it so that, had the creature lay back down, it would have crushed him.
The bear fixed its attention on the mouth of the cave and the barking just beyond: a dog had reached the entrance, jutting its snarling snout in and out of the cave, teeth glaring, while held back by the cave’s pungent odors, the dog’s persuasive survival instincts.
The blinding darkness prevented Aker from actually seeing the bear glance back toward him, but there was a moment’s hesitation, followed by the sound of the animal’s sniffing, when Aker knew he’d been found out. The bear had definitely smelled him, but, distracted by the dog’s ferocity, had turned in that direction.
Then light caught the top of the cave-a flashlight-silhouetting the massive bear as it charged and swiped. The dog yipped and howled. The beam of the flashlight wavered.
“Shit!” he heard a man shout, also incredibly close.
A single gunshot rang out, followed by the man’s sickening wail, as the bear lunged farther from the cave. Another cry, more desperate.
Coats, or Gearbox, had followed the dog too closely, had approached the cave too quickly, had been stunned to discover a bear instead of the escaped veterinarian.
As the bear broke out of the cave, Aker followed closely. The man-Gearbox, judging by his size-had dropped the flashlight. It was blood-covered. The bear was lumbering off in the direction of the road, far faster than his simple movement implied, but too drugged, or wounded, to pursue with much enthusiasm.
The dog was gored at the neck, lying in the snow. The blood surrounding the fallen flashlight was not the dog’s. The quantity of spilled blood implied the bear had gotten a fair piece of Gearbox as well.
Weak with fatigue and hunger, and stiff from his lack of movement, Aker picked up the flashlight and trained it on the dog, then in the direction of the noises. The bear was still in pursuit of Gearbox, who was himself surprisingly fast and able on snowshoes. If Aker had any chance to get away, it was now.
The bear might have been wounded by the gunshot, but, if so, it had only made it more angry.
Aker looked down at the wounded dog again and found himself unable to leave it there to bleed out and die.
He bent down, hoisted the dog over his shoulders, and, holding the animal’s legs around his neck, made his way through the close-set rocks, knowing the terrain would discourage the bear from following. All the bear wanted was some sleep.
In a moment, the snow would get too deep for just his boots. Twenty yards from the cave, he realized he had no snowshoes, but he was not about to turn back. The bear would return at some point, the drugs contributing to its bad temper. For now, he wanted to put as much distance between himself and the cave as possible.
He heard the sound of a snowmobile’s engine turn over. Again, and then it caught and roared like a motorcycle. He switched off his flashlight, not wanting to reveal his location. The headlight from the snowmobile swept through the woods and illuminated the side of the hill. Aker stood stone still.
The snowmobile made a half circle and then accelerated into the darkness, its engine’s high-pitched whine receding along with it.
63
WALT CAME UPON THE SNOWMOBILE TRACK AT NEARLY THE same instant he heard the single report of a powerful rifle. Adrenaline charged his system the way only gunfire can. His hand went to his pistol as he moved in the direction of the sound.
A pair of lights flared in his goggles. A good distance away. He could not put together what was going on but hoped Brandon was not the target of that report. His fears were settled by Brandon ’s voice in his ear.
“Your twenty?” Brandon ’s voice said.
“On a snowmobile track, still north of the cabin. The gunfire was several hundred yards northeast of me. I’ve got a possible heat signature from the snowmobile. Hold your position.”
“Yeah…”
Walt knew that tone.
“Your twenty?”
“I didn’t exactly hold position. I should be closing in on the cabin shortly.”
“Those were orders.”
“I wasn’t going to hang you out to dry, Sheriff. Besides, I had to shut down any chance of a getaway. We reviewed all this stuff.”
“That was prior to the trip wire.”
“It is what it is. Was that shot thrown at you?”
“Doubtful.”
“Not at me.”
“Hear this, Deputy: HOLD YOUR POSITION! I’ll get back to you.”
“Out.”
Walt saw a second, hotter flare of light through the goggles, and, when coupled immediately with the sound of a snowmobile starting, he understood what had to be done. He jumped off the track, threw his pack on the ground, and unclipped the eighty-foot climbing rope from it. The rope was gray with a red twist, which required him to bury it after tossing a decent length across the track. He moved fluidly and efficiently, living for such moments, for he was briefly free of all else; no thought entered his mind that didn’t directly have to do with stopping the snowmobile. It was its own weird kind of ballet, police work; a combination of efficiency and purpose. Walt secured the bulk end of the climbing rope to a tree, punched the slack rope down into the soft snow as he crossed the track, and reached the other side charged with excitement.
The engine sound told him the snowmobile was quickly approaching. He would have one chance. He took a full wrap around the thick tree trunk with the loose end of the climbing rope. Drew in the slack to where the rope barely lifted out of the snow impression, a few feet from the tree trunk.
The snowmobile’s headlight glanced the surrounding branches, as if setting them all afire. Walt could barely breathe. His mouth had gone dry, his eyes stung. He carefully lifted the night vision goggles so the headlight wouldn’t blind him. It took several seconds for his vision to adjust, and, in those several seconds, the snowmobile raced closer.
There was little time to think this through; he’d acted on instinct alone.
He made one last adjustment to the loop of rope around the tree. He’d rather catch the driver than the vehicle.
The white light filtered down through the branches and onto the dull bark of the tree trunks as the whine of the two-cylinder engine grew progressively louder.
There it was: weaving through the forested obstacle course, a single, blinding headlight.
Walt couldn’t make out the driver or the snowmobile, only its penetrating bright light. And then it was upon him. All at once, as if it had jumped a hundred feet ahead.
He waited… waited… then pulled hard on the trailing end of rope, hand over hand.
The rope popped out and lifted from where he’d buried it in the snow and formed a taut, slanting line leading from the opposite tree, across the track and directly to Walt.
It struck the snowmobile’s Plexiglas screen, was lifted higher by the contact, and caught the driver in the throat. The snowmobile shot out into the woods as its driver did a full backflip, landing on his head. He punched through the track’s packed snow, buried up to the middle of his chest.
Walt drew his weapon and hurried to the man. He pulled him from the snow, only to find his neck broken, his head at an unnatural angle. More surprising was the quantity of sticky blood. It wasn’t until Walt found his flashlight that he saw the lacerations-cougar? bear?-across the man’s shoulder and chest. Deep gashes, the flesh of his chest ripped from his ribs. How he’d managed to drive a snowmobile in that condition not only impressed Walt but warned him: Coats and his posse were tough.