Page 47 of Three-Inch Teeth

JOE SPED ON the well-maintained gravel road and shot by the sign identifying the campground. It wasn’t difficult to identify the reporting party, not only because they were the only hunters camped there, but because of the way the three men were acting: fist-pumping, howling at the sky in joy, and slapping each other on their backs.

He parked next to a four-wheel-drive SUV with Illinois plates and told Daisy to stay put. The camp consisted of the vehicle, a battered camper trailer, an ATV, and the standard Forest Service picnic table and raised firepit. Two of the men turned to him, one with his arm around the other’s shoulder. The third beamed and approached Joe as he climbed out of his pickup.

“We fucking got him,” the man announced. “We got him this morning down by the creek.”

The hunter had a pudgy frame and a full red beard. He was dressed in bloody camo and a blaze-orange stocking cap. The two men behind him were also in full camo clothing, one a dark-haired beanpole with thick black-framed glasses and the other a wiry bald man with a shoulder holster and a fixed-blade knife that hung from his belt to his knee.

“I’m game warden Joe Pickett. Are you the reporting party?”

“Name’s Buck Lewis,” the bearded man said, “and I’m the one who killed the beast and called your office.” As he said it, he raised his chin and puffed out his chest.

“Show me,” Joe said.

“This way,” Lewis said, turning on his heel.

Joe waited until all three hunters grouped and strode toward a copse of lodgepole pine at the back of the campsite. He remained five paces behind them, a precaution he’d learned from years on the job. Stay far enough back and to the side so that he could keep a close eye on them and so they couldn’t easily jump him.

“We’ve been up here elk hunting for four days,” Lewis said over his shoulder as he walked. “Haven’t hardly seen nothin’ worth shooting at. It makes sense to me now—those elk are smart. They don’t want to be in the same area as a killer bear on the loose.

“So we were hunting the creek,” the man continued, “and I heard a crashing in the trees up ahead of me. I was jumpy—who wouldn’t be?—when I saw him up around a bend. I didn’t wait for him to charge and tear me a new one, so I shot him right here.” As he said it, Lewis cupped himself with his right hand under his left armpit. “Got him in the lungs or heart. He roared and tried to run off, but I blasted him two more times and he went down. Scariest damned thing I ever experienced.”

As they entered the stand of trees, Joe could see the outline of a heavy teardrop-shaped form hanging from a crossbeam. The hunters had obviously dragged it to their camp from the creek with the ATV he’d observed, then hoisted it by its back legs into the air with a chain.

“Is there some kind of reward or something?” Lewis asked.

Joe put his hands on his hips and sighed. He studied the bear and recalled once again how much a hanging bear carcass resembled that of a heavily muscled man. Blood dripped from the red-stained teeth into a dark puddle on the pine needles below.

“No reward, I’m afraid,” Joe said through clenched teeth. “But I will be writing you a citation for killing a female black bear without a proper license.”

“A black bear?” Lewis said, his shoulders slumping. “How in the hell am I supposed to know that?”

“He’s a she,” the tall skinny hunter said to his bald buddy. “What the hell did we do?”

“We didn’t do anything,” his buddy replied. “Buck gets all the credit.”

“Well, shit,” Buck said.

“Sorry to ruin your morning,” Joe said as he drew his ticket book out of his back pocket. “But you need to know what you’re shooting at. This bear is half the size of a mature grizzly, and there’s no hump on her back.”

“Well, shit,” Buck said again.

*

AN HOUR LATER, with the confiscated dead black bear in the bed of his pickup, Joe wound his way to the top of a rock promontory with a three-hundred-and-sixty-degree view of the foothills and Bighorn Mountains and parked. He felt a little sorry for Buck Lewis and his friends, as he always did when he cited someone for being ignorant instead of malicious. The three Illinois hunters had been cooperative if remorseful, and they’d helped him load the carcass into his vehicle. Lewis had asked about good places to eat in Saddlestring, since he didn’t feel like hunting anymore.

“You’ve sort of ruined it for me,” he told Joe.

“You ruined it for yourself,” the bald hunter said.

“Yes, I did,” Lewis lamented. “Shit.”

*

JOE CLAMPED A spotting scope to the open window of his truck and scoped the timber for a while before feeding Daisy dry dog food in her travel bowl on the brown grass surface and pouring her water out of a gallon jug he kept in the bed of his pickup.

It was a fine fall day, crisp and clear, full of sun and very little wind. The air was perfumed with pine, lowland sagebrush, and slightly decayed aspen leaves from where they’d fallen. Eleven miles in the distance he could see the wooded curves of the Twelve Sleep River. Beyond that, the town of Saddlestring twinkled in the sun and appeared in the valley like a handful of broken glass scattered on the prairie.

He’d filled his briefcase with material about grizzly bears, and as he ate his sandwich and apple, he read. Although he knew a lot about the traditional species in his district, grizzlies were a new thing. Joe thought if he were better acquainted with them, he might be able to get a handle on what was going on and what might happen next.

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