Instinct by Jason Hough (ebook reader web TXT) 📗

Then call over to O’Doherty’s. Tell Kyle to come, with the appropriate firepower for something like this. Just in case the animal is still in the area. There’s no sign of it now, but I don’t want to take any chances.” My Beretta isn’t enough. But more than that, I have no experience with wild animals, especially of this sort.

“Got it. Anything else?” she asks.

“There will be more, but we need to make sure the area is safe first. Tell them to hurry, please.”

“I’m on it, Mary. And please, be careful!”

“I will. Keep me posted.”

She signs off.

“God dammit, Greg,” I mutter, “hell of a time to go on leave.” He’d have experience with something like this, surely. My mind churns with everything that needs to be done. Animal Control will need to be contacted. Maybe the Ranger Service. That’s just to deal with the bear. There’s still the hiker to consider.

I stand still for a moment, trapped between two choices. Stay with the body, or return to the woman at the trailhead. She’s scared out of her wits, but she’s safe in her car. My fear is if I leave the body, the bear will come back and drag it away, or worse.

In the end it’s a compromise. I circle the clearing, making a load of noise to scare off the potential lingering bear plus any other animals that might be smelling dinner right about now. Then, I head back to the woman in the Subaru.

We sit side by side in the dirt, backs against the driver’s-side door of my cruiser. She sips from a water I found in the trunk, her hands still shaking as she raises the bottle to quivering lips.

Neither of us have yet spoken. I simply went to my car and she followed. We both slumped here and stared at the trail. She with the water and me with the Beretta. After five minutes of dreadful silence I’m about to ask the basics—name, where are you from, and so on—but I settle for the classic.

“Tell me what happened.”

The reply comes slowly, as if she’s trying to remember something from years ago. “He just stood there,” she says in an even, quiet voice that belies her shaking hands.

I nod, solemnly. Then I wait, but she doesn’t continue, as if that is all there is to it.

“Didn’t turn to run?”

“No.”

“Play dead?”

“No. He just stood there. He was… he was… smiling.”

A raking sob courses through her, and I wait it out, considering her words. When she finally calms down I ask, “And you? What’d you do?”

She glances at me as if I’m a moron. “I ran!” Her gaze swings back to the trail. “God dammit, Jeff, you…”

Grief drowns the words. She’s sobbing, snorting back the worst of it. I put an arm around her, grip her shoulder, and try to picture the scene. The pair of them out on a guidebook-inspired nature hike, hoping to snap some cool pictures of a silver mine out of some John Wayne film for their social media profiles. They get to the clearing and stop for a drink of water. Maybe she’s set her pack down and is fishing in it for a granola bar, and then he says, “Wow. Check out the bear.” She looks, then reacts like any sensible human would: drops her shit and runs like hell. Probably assumes he’s on her heels and then glances back to see he’s not moved an inch.

He doesn’t run. He doesn’t even play dead like some people think they’re supposed to do. Doesn’t yell or make aggressive movements like you’re actually supposed to. Nope, he’s just standing there letting a bear—a savage brute of a bear from what I saw in that clearing—stride toward him.

He was smiling, she said.

That’s weird.

I’m not a big fan of weird.

In my experience, “weird” usually means someone’s lying. Maybe she pushed him down to buy herself some time. How’s the saying go? You don’t have to be the fastest, just don’t be the slowest. Something like that.

But she doesn’t look the type. And this is not the time to press. People in shock aren’t the most reliable of witnesses.

I change tactics. “Is he… I mean, are you, were you, married?”

“No,” she manages.

“Dating?”

“Yeah.”

“Is there someone we can call? Family of his?”

“I… I don’t know.”

“You don’t know if—”

“We only met a few weeks ago.”

“Okay. That’s fine. We’ll figure it out.”

She nods.

“Is the car yours or his?” I ask.

“His.” She swallows, hard, and her next question is choked out. “Are you going to leave him out there?”

I pat her hand. “Coroner’s on the way, and some others with hunting gear. Still, it might be better if you waited in the back of my car. Is that okay? You stay put and I’ll go make sure Jeff isn’t… alone.”

She stares at the trailhead, her lower lip quivering. Finally, she nods.

I am getting her situated as Kyle and Doc pull up in separate vehicles. A modified Jeep and an unmodified Volvo, respectively.

“Wait here,” I tell the young lady, and close the door.

Kyle parks first. His old Jeep looks like something out of a Mad Max film. Whip antenna, intake snorkel. Winch on the front, armored gas can and spare wheel side by side on the back. The whole thing has been coated in black bed-liner usually used to protect pickup truck beds. The “paint job” was done by Kyle himself, and it shows.

The vehicle creaks as he steps down. He smiles at me and I smile back. No further communication needed, I guess. Things had progressed rather quickly after we drank that toast to Johnny Rogers at the pub. I found myself back there the very next evening, and without Greg seated beside me Kyle and I talked until closing, and then some more in the alley behind the place where I learned all about his Jeep, among other things. The next night, I was back again, and that time we didn’t part ways. A rapid escalation, I admit, but a welcome