Page 24 of Three-Inch Teeth

“They’re graphic,” Joe warned the Mama Bears.

“No, I don’t want to see them,” Calhoun said, recoiling toward her SUV.

“Maybe you should,” Gordon said. “That way you’d have a better idea of what a grizzly bear can do to a human being.”

“That’s sick,” Fowler said, stepping back to join her friend. “That’s disgusting.”

“You claim to know so much about bears,” Gordon said. “Maybe you should take a look at what one can do. Then maybe you’d understand why sometimes we have to euthanize the killer before the bear does it again.

“The victim was innocent,” she continued. “As far as we know, he did absolutely nothing to provoke the attack. He was as innocent as 413 was when her litter was killed. He wasn’t behind the wheel.”

“We’re not here to judge,” Calhoun said. “We’re here to save—”

From behind him and to the side, Joe heard a dry branch crack on the slope across the river. Then another. And then a distinctive muffled drumbeat of heavy footfalls increasing in volume.

He glanced from the figure of Brodbeck in the middle of the river to the distant silhouette of Cress on top of the ridge. Neither man had produced the sound.

Both Joe and Gordon turned away from the Mama Bears in time to witness a massive tan and brown form emerge from the timber on the slope they’d climbed before. The grizzly was a little over a hundred yards away. Its wedge-shaped body hit the surface of the river with tremendous force. Joe saw a flash of teeth from an open mouth and heard a heavy splash when the grizzly hit the water. It was headed straight for Brodbeck.

Bill Brodbeck turned, but the weight on his back made his movements ungainly as he tried to face the oncoming bear and unsling his rifle at the same time.

“Shit,” Gordon shouted. “It doubled back on us!”

Joe scrambled for his rifle, which he’d leaned against the grille of Gordon’s pickup. He shouldered it quickly and thumbed the safety off. By the time he leaned the red-dot scope to his eye, the bear had closed the distance with Brodbeck and the two forms had merged into one. It happened so quickly that Brodbeck couldn’t even pull the bear spray off his belt or get a shot off. There wasn’t even a hint of a bluff charge.

Joe heard the collision on the surface of the river and it sounded like a three-hundred-and-fifty-pound linebacker hitting a defenseless receiver in a helmet-to-helmet takedown.

On top of the ridge, Cress hollered and waved his arms.

The action was furious and hard to follow through Joe’s scope. His red dot flashed across the glistening hide of the grizzly to Brodbeck’s flailing hands to the terrifying moment when the bear’s jaws engulfed Brodbeck’s head and shook him like a puppy playing with a sock. The man’s arms flailed and his legs retracted into a fetal position.

Joe felt himself go steely. He had no clean shot at the bear without the possibility of hitting Brodbeck, who was still alive, but the mauling would continue for every half second he held off. Beside him, he heard Gordon curse again as she raised her own rifle. She obviously had the same problem.

He elevated the muzzle of the rifle above the fray and fired four rapid shots into the hillside, hoping the concussions would distract the grizzly. If the bear paused and separated from Brodbeck, he might get a shot.

Boom-boom-boom-boom. The shots echoed in cadence through the canyon.

But instead of letting go of its grip on Brodbeck’s limp body, the grizzly furiously backpedaled through the river, dragging the man along with it. Joe could sense no independent movement from Brodbeck. Not until the bear was onshore again and nearly hidden under brush cover did it unclamp its jaws from the man and leave him there in a wet heap.

Both Joe and Gordon fired repeatedly into the dense wall of willows and buckbrush where they’d last seen the grizzly. The heavy shots drowned out the screaming of the Mama Bears, who urged them to stop.

*

REMARKABLY, BILL BRODBECK was still alive when Joe and Gordon reached him on the far bank of the river. He wasn’t conscious, and Joe could see horrific puncture wounds from teeth in his scalp at the hairline. There were holes in his armored vest where it had been bitten through, and his head, face, and neck were covered in blood.

Gordon called for EMTs to come from Saddlestring as she shed her daypack and let it drop to the ground. Joe stood over Brodbeck’s body with his rifle at the ready, while Gordon dropped to her knees and ripped into a first-aid kit to attend to him. Joe glanced down to see bubbles appear in the blood streaming from the man’s mouth and nose.

Cress had left his position on top of the ridge and was crashing down through the timber toward the scene, followed by Hoaglin. Joe’s eyes raked the hillside for signs of the bear. His breath was shallow and total fear filled him once again.

This time, he could smell the dank, musky odor of the bear lingering around Brodbeck’s body. Pungent, viscous saliva from the bear’s mouth oozed down the man’s face and neck.

Joe glanced over his shoulder to see that the Mama Bears had left the scene and were tearing across the meadow in their SUV toward the road.

*

CRESS STOPPED ABOUT fifteen yards uphill and crouched for a moment, his fingers brushing the mat of loam and pine needles on the forest floor. When he raised his hand, Joe could see a smear of blood on his fingertips.

“One of you hit her,” he said. “I thought I heard a hit from up on the ridge.”

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