Chuck jerked up from the binoculars, his chest seizing. The lead team consisted of four people—four. Grizzlies didn’t charge that many humans. Ever.
“Uncle Clarence!” Rosie screamed.
“What’s happening?” Carmelita demanded. “What’s going on?”
Chuck put his eyes back to the binoculars. The bear galloped across the meadow, straight at the lead team.
“It’ll stop,” Chuck said through clenched teeth. “It has to.”
In the face of the charge, Toby rose and stepped backward toward the others. All four extended their pepper spray canisters at the bear.
The grizzly’s ease of movement belied its bulk. With each leap, the bear hung above the grass like a thoroughbred for an instant, its legs outstretched.
The grizzly was thirty yards from the team.
Another leap.
Twenty.
Chuck gulped, powerless to do anything but witness through his binoculars the scene playing out before him.
The bear leapt to within yards of the gray wolf’s carcass. The team stood shoulder to shoulder, ten feet from the dead wolf. A cloud of red mist appeared in front of the team as they put their canisters to use—but the steady breeze sweeping off the ridge blew the mist away from the grizzly and, instead, into their faces. They doubled over, hands to their mouths and noses.
The bear took one final leap and came to a halt next to the gray carcass humped in the grass. The grizzly rose on its hind legs, towering over the dead wolf and Lex, Toby, Sarah, and Clarence. The pepper spray melted away on the wind. Clarence gripped Sarah’s arm. Again, the bear let out a ferocious roar, gnashing its teeth and shaking its head. The grizzly batted the air once, twice, its forepaw a blur of motion. Then, the bear dropped to all fours. Eyeing the team members, it lowered its head, took the wolf’s body in its teeth, and lifted the carcass from the grass. The dead wolf’s tail was bushy, its legs trailing.
The bear threw the carcass violently to the ground and backed away. The team backed the other direction, distancing themselves from the retreating grizzly, until Toby came to an abrupt halt. Lex reached for him, but Toby knocked Lex’s hand away and returned to the carcass.
The bear stopped and watched from no more than twenty feet away as Toby grabbed one of the dead wolf’s hind paws and dragged the animal backward through the grass until he reached the other members of the lead party. Toby lifted the dead wolf by its legs, threw the carcass over his shoulders, and resumed the retreat with Lex, Sarah, and Clarence. After a moment, the bear, too, recommenced its movement in the opposite direction.
When the distance between them grew to fifty feet, the grizzly turned and strode across the meadow at a stately pace until it disappeared into the trees. The team members turned and headed back across the meadow with Lex in the lead. Lex broke into a jog, the others hurrying behind, the wolf’s long body bouncing on Toby’s shoulders.
Chuck straightened from behind the binoculars as the lead party neared the trees. Rosie and Carmelita broke from Janelle’s grasp and ran to Clarence. He bent and spoke in their ears before walking with them back to Janelle.
“Hermana,” he said to her, his eyes alight.
“Hermano,” she replied.
They embraced. A tear rolled down Janelle’s cheek. Clarence brushed it away with his thumb.
“There, there, Sis,” he said, stepping back from her. “No need for that. That’s how it’s supposed to go. Exactamente. The griz showed us who was boss, then backed off, gave us our space, without the spray doing a thing.”
“Uncle Clarence told us he peed his pants.” Rosie giggled.
“I did,” he admitted with a tight smile, his cheeks rosy. “But only a lee-tle,” he said, emphasizing his Latino accent.
Sarah’s tone was awestruck. “It was ten feet away from us. Ten feet.”
Lex coughed, eyes still watering from the bear spray. “Too close. We were lucky.”
Thunder rumbled from the thick bank of clouds in the west, now rolling down the ridge toward the valley floor, driven by the wind.
Lex clapped his hands. “Time to get out of here. We’ll debrief at camp.”
Toby lowered the carcass of the wolf to the ground. Blood streaked his daypack and the shoulders of his jacket.
The dead wolf was larger than Chance. Its torso was long and lanky, its fur the color of concrete save for the tip of its tail, which looked as if it had been dipped in tar. Its eyes were closed. Its tongue, matted with bits of dry grass, extended from the side of its mouth. A long wound slashed its side, gouged through gray fur into its ribcage.
Toby, Sarah, and Chuck set about shortening the legs of their tripods and strapping them to their packs. A chorus of wolf howls rose from the far side of the meadow. Chuck stared across the rolling grass. From the place where the grizzly had vanished into the trees, half a dozen wolves trotted out of the forest into the meadow. The six wolves—four gray, one coal black, one white as a snowshoe hare in winter—spread out as they came into the open.
Chuck’s throat went dry as the wolves loped across the grass in an even line, heads high and snouts forward, as if on a hunt.