Instinct by Jason Hough (ebook reader web TXT) 📗

He wears a camouflage cap over his shaggy brown hair, along with a matching vest. Jeans and a flannel complete the hunter’s outfit. Oh, and the shotgun, expertly held.

“Clara said it was a bear. That true?” he asks.

“Yeah. Big one, I think.”

“Damn. That’s gotta be a first up here. A sighting is one thing, but an attack? Christ.”

“Thanks for coming,” I say.

He nods, then gives me a little wink. A wink as in “I can handle a bear,” or as in “I really enjoyed having sex with you last night and wouldn’t mind doing it again sometime”? Hard to say. Both options lift my spirits.

Meanwhile Doc unfolds himself from his boxy silver wagon. If one’s car is the extension of the man, these two are the textbook examples.

Dr. Frank Ryan. Psychiatrist by trade, and as it happens the only Silvertown resident with a doctorate of the medical variety, and so has the distinguished honor of becoming the de facto town doctor. Like me he’s relatively new to the area, having moved into the old Smiley mansion a year back, give or take. He runs his practice from the front room of the place, advertising it on the local public access channel constantly.

The town’s too small for a full-time shrink, to be honest, but he doesn’t seem to care. Town doctor, though? Apparently he grumbled about that for the first few months, according to Greg. Not his area of expertise, not what he signed up for, et cetera, et cetera. From what I’ve seen, though, the role has really grown on him.

He wears what he always wears: a gray tweed jacket that hangs loosely despite his large frame. A bow tie, plaid shirt, and dark slacks complete the uniform. The one difference today is the kind of boots you’d expect to see on an English gentleman enjoying a fox hunt. Big green rubbery things with a yellow stripe up the center. The only thing that could make them more perfect would be a price tag dangling from the side.

“Doc,” I say in greeting. He towers over me. Over Kyle, too. Six-foot-eight if he’s an inch. Wide at the midsection, way too thin everywhere else.

“Sheriff,” he replies, “I hope this isn’t another bogus call. I’ve had enough of those for one day.”

I’m not a sheriff but he always calls me that. Part of the small-town fantasy, I guess. “Bogus? Wait, are you talking about the biker?”

His eyebrows lift and he turns his head slightly to one side, talking to the ground beside me instead of me, his words quick and just this side of a mumble. “There was no biker. There was no bike. Mile marker thirteen was quiet as a library. I canceled an appointment for what I can only assume was some kind of hoax. I really don’t appreciate being the butt of a joke.”

“Whoa, calm down.” I spread my hands. “No hoax, Doc. There was definitely someone there. I thought he might have a concussion. Sorry if it was a false alarm. The dude must have gone with the tow truck.” Only, that wasn’t possible. A tow truck would need to come up from Granston, which takes an hour on a good day. Had the idiot pulled his bike from the tree and continued riding?

I file that. On my list of things to worry about right now it’s far below murderous bear.

“Well,” I say, “you’d better come take a look at the victim.”

“How bad is it?”

My skin goes clammy at the memory. “Bad” is all I can muster.

He glances at Kyle, who adjusts his grip on the shotgun.

“Want me to take point?” Kyle asks me.

I nod, grateful. Doc follows me, seemingly unperturbed by the prospect of what awaits us farther up the trail.

Before the parking lot disappears from sight, I take one glance back at the woman sitting in my cruiser. She offers me a brief wave, her face unreadable. I wave back, then fall in behind the two men.

At the clearing, Kyle wastes no time. He doesn’t even glance at the body, trusting my assessment of the state of the hiker. Instead, he continues on past the man and out the other side of the clearing, following the animal’s tracks.

“Be right back,” he says over his shoulder.

Doc approaches the hiker, stopping a good ten feet away. He pulls a handkerchief from one pocket and a small digital camera from another. The cloth serves to cover his mouth and nose as he begins to snap some photos for evidence. Then, with great reluctance, he walks a circle around the victim. There is only the briefest instant where he seems to look at the wound. Most of his attention is instead grabbed by the strange smile on the man’s face.

“Terrible,” Doc mutters, voice muffled by the cloth. He stops beside me and puts the handkerchief away. “Okay to move him?”

“If you feel you’ve gotten enough photos, I think that would be wise.”

He returns the camera to his pocket and rummages through his satchel until he finds a folded-up black body bag from within. Then he seems to realize what the task entails and hands it to me. “Maybe we should wait for Kyle.”

“Yeah. Good idea.”

A silence begins to stretch, becoming something awkward.

“It doesn’t make a lot of sense,” I say, if only to fill that void.

Doc nods. “It is unusual, a bear coming this close to town. First time I’ve heard of such a thing, anyway.”

“No, not that. The hiker.”

“What about him?”

“Why didn’t he run? Or play dead? His companion says he didn’t even defend himself. Isn’t that what anyone would do? Instinctively, I mean?”

A long pause stretches as Doc considers this. He rubs at his chin, and slowly begins to nod.

“Well,” Doc says, “yes, theoretically. Fight or flight is about as simplistic as you can get when it comes to the primal behavior of human beings. There are many others. Danger avoidance, seeking sustenance, et cetera. And, of course, such reactions