NOW
“Crap,” Webb said. And meant it. He pointed at the pile near his feet.
They were walking up the incline toward the summit of Devil’s Pass, just beyond Mile 116. Walking was easy because the trail had plenty of gravel. It felt soft and springy because of all the rain that had fallen on the previous day. Here, unlike many parts of the Canol Trail, it was obvious there had once been a road.
The trail also had plenty of something else.
“Impressive,” George said, stopping to examine what Webb had pointed out. “I don’t see any little bells in it, and it doesn’t smell like pepper. Must mean the grizzly hasn’t eaten any hikers lately.”
“Ha, ha,” Webb said.
George unstrapped his rifle. The click as he took it off safety sounded like the bang of a drum.
“What is this?” Fritz said, his voice more high-pitched than normal.
For the first time, Webb felt sympathy for the man. Webb was plenty scared himself. The only reason he hadn’t said anything was because his throat was too tight.
It was obvious why George had unstrapped the rifle. The pile of grizzly dung was so wet that it gleamed in the sunlight, and flies were all over it. The rocks beside it had already dried from the rainfall, so that could only mean the dung was very, very fresh.
And very, very large. Webb doubted he could manage an output like that in an entire week.
“What is this?” Fritz repeated. He stepped backward, with Wilhelm clutching his arm.
George waved him into silence and pointed at the ground just a little farther ahead.
Webb’s throat, if possible, became even tighter. There was a set of paw prints, where the weight of a heavy animal had pressed down into the soft gravel. The prints were deep enough to hold water. And the prints still held water.
Which meant that the heavy animal responsible for those prints—and the big pile of droppings—had been here very recently.
“Don’t move,” George said.
Webb looked up the trail and saw it.
The grizzly.
George spoke in a low voice to Webb. “You ready to take the rifle?”
“What?” Webb whispered.
“You had plenty of practice the other day,” George said in a low voice. “Take this rifle, and if I tell you, shoot over the bear. If you need to, you can always give me back the rifle.”
That which does not kill us makes us stronger.
Webb took the rifle. He could feel his heartbeat throbbing in the side of his neck. He sighted down the rifle at the grizzly.
It stared back.
It stood, waving its massive paws like it was swatting flies. It looked like it filled the road.
Webb kept his finger on the trigger but didn’t pull. He had the sights of the rifle on a patch of white fur just below the bear’s shoulders.
“Now,” George said. “Shoot over its head.”
Webb lifted the sights and pulled the trigger. The rifle thundered, and the bear almost fell backward, then bolted down the path, scattering gravel behind it.
Webb put the safety back on and handed the rifle to George.
“Good job,” George said. “Feel stronger now?”
“That was more than difficult. What if I had frozen?”
“There would have been enough time for me to take the rifle from you. But I knew you could do it. Your grandfather told me you were strong. He asked me to look for a chance to let you prove it to yourself.”
In his tent, Webb couldn’t sleep. He’d earned George’s trust and didn’t take it lightly.
George reminded Webb of his grandfather. A solid man. Unafraid of adventure. Or danger.
Webb missed his grandfather so badly that he wanted to wake George up and talk again, simply because it would feel like talking to his grandfather. Webb didn’t hate that grampa had died. He remembered what his he had said in his final video message: I don’t want you to be too sad. I had a good life.
Webb did hate that he’d had to keep secrets from his grandfather. Not minor secrets like all kids kept from their parents, but something as big as the fact that his stepfather beat him without leaving a mark and had threatened to hurt Webb’s mom if he said anything about it.
Webb wondered if telling George about it would ease the burden. But what if George decided to tell Sylvain, and Sylvain reported it to the authorities in Toronto? Then the secret would truly be exposed, and Webb’s mom would pay the price.
Besides, then George would learn why Webb had been kicked out of high school.
Thinking about that day, Webb remembered most clearly the ticking of the clock in the hallway at school.
It was 9:26. Fifteen minutes before the next bell would ring and kids would pour out of their classes.
Mid-September, and Webb was two days past his seventeenth birthday. He was taller than Elliott now. He didn’t need a mirror to confirm it; he was looking over Elliott’s crew-cut hair as Mrs. Gaukel, the principal, fumbled to unlock Webb’s locker. Elliot had signed a permission form allowing the search.
It was just the three of them, and it was so quiet he could hear the principal’s asthmatic breathing. The locker clicked open.
“Mr. Skinner,” she said. “I really don’t believe what the anonymous letter said, so I apologize for this. Jim is one of our best students. All you need to do is look at him. You can tell he’s going to follow in your footsteps.”
Webb understood what she was talking about. Webb’s crew cut matched Elliott’s for precision. His blue jeans were ironed, for crying out loud. All the friends he used to argue with about the Rolling Stones were no longer friends. Webb didn’t have friends. Didn’t want friends.
Two years as a junior cadet and Webb was iron-tough. He had height but no bulk. Muscle, and no fat. He ran four miles at an average pace of five minutes, thirty-two seconds. But no matter how tough cadets’ training made him, he still wept silently whenever Elliott hurt him. Webb didn’t dare let his mom hear him cry.
“I’m glad you called me here for this,” Elliott said.
“False accusations are a horrible thing.”
Webb saw the irony in that and had no doubt that Elliott intended it for him. Nobody knew the real Elliott. Except Webb. If Webb accused Elliott of abuse, if would just look like a false accusation. And then his mother would pay the price.
Principal Gaukel took Webb’s backpack down from a hook inside the locker. She gave an apologetic shrug and unzipped the front pocket. Principal Gaukel tugged at the edge of a baggie that protruded from the open pocket. It could have been a sandwich bag, except it didn’t hold a sandwich.
She gasped. “No.”
Elliott took the bag and opened it. The unmistakable smell of marijuana bloomed from the baggie.
“Apparently,” Elliott said in his silky voice, “the accusation wasn’t false after all.”
He handed the baggie back to Principal Gaukel and said, “I think you and I should have a discussion in the office. But in the meantime, I’d like a few minutes alone with Jim here.”
“Certainly,” she said. She looked at Webb. “Jim, I’m disappointed.”
Principal Gaukel walked away.
The clock showed 9:28. In less than two minutes, Webb’s life had shifted as drastically as if an earthquake had hit the school.
“Drugs,” Elliott said.
“Apparently,” Webb said, “the accusation wasn’t false after all.”
Elliott shook his head. “You don’t think I’ve heard about the martial-arts training you’ve taken at cadets? About all the hours and hours you’ve worked at it? The instructor tells me that you’re one of the best he’s seen.”
Webb kept his gaze on Elliott’s eyes. Training was easy. All he had to do was think about the day that he would beat the crap out of Elliott. A day that got closer with every new move that Webb learned and practiced and conquered.
“You’re wondering whether you can take me,” Elliott said. “Don’t try. There are things you really don’t want to learn. Things that make what you’ve already learned seem like a day at the spa. So maybe you shouldn’t come home tonight. I’ll tell Charlotte about this myself.”
“Maybe I’ll tell her.”
“Maybe not. All along, I’ve told you I want her to be happy. You’ve just proven she is better off without you in her life. So you walk. And I win. The war is over. Don’t talk to her. Unless you don’t want her to be happy.”
For far too long, Webb had lived with the belief that someday Elliott might hurt his mother. Was it because Elliott’s veiled threats were perfectly worded? Or was it because after losing his dad, Webb’s guilt of not saving his dad and his hidden fear of another loss had never slipped away? Did his mother need protection? Or was the horrible blackness of confusion simply an enemy Webb could never conquer? Webb was too afraid to push for the answer.
He didn’t go home. Or speak to his mother again. Not even at the funeral or the reading of the will. He’d lived on the streets for the next two weeks after getting caught with the bag in his locker—diving in Dumpsters for food, pushing past boarded-up windows to sleep in abandoned buildings, washing up in the bathroom at Tim Hortons. Things got a bit better when he got the guitar and the dishwashing job. He was always lonely, but he believed that by enduring this loneliness, he could keep his mother safe.