“Are you ready to get that cast off?” CeeCee asked, weeks after the incident.
“It’s about time,” John said, holding out his left arm.
CeeCee laughed. “Are you always this impatient? I’ve taken this cast off and replaced it three times already.” She picked up a pair of surgical scissors and slipped the blunted end under the soft material. The cutting went quickly and soon John was freed.
“No permanent damage, Doc?” he asked as she gently probed his arm.
“Not to your arm.” She turned his hands to look at his scarred palms. “If we were anywhere else except in the middle of a desert, I’d recommend physical therapy for these scars though. A good massage therapist could really loosen up the tissue underneath and relieve the stiffness.”
“When I get home I’ll have Allex look at them. Fair enough?”
“You’ve mentioned Alex before, John. If it’s not too personal, who is he?”
“She, not he. Her name is Allexa, Allex is a nickname, and she’s a great massage therapist. That’s how we met.” John’s mind drifted away thinking of the woman he left behind.
“How long has it been since you’ve seen her?”
“Over a year,” John said wistfully.
***
“I see you’re out and about early again,” Seth said when John came into the mess tent to refill his travel mug. “After three months of this, I would think you’d want to sleep in occasionally.”
With his sprained ankle long healed and freed from the cast that restrained his activity, John had taken to early morning guard duty.
“I like the peace and quiet,” John replied. Those pre-dawn walks around the compound when the sun was breaking through the darkness helped to soothe his troubled mind. He shifted his rifle and took his coffee outside. The AR-15, the one he used to ignite the death-camp fire, he managed to keep, with Hank’s acceptance and sure that Vivian didn’t care. The accuracy was better than his shotgun, and he tested it out regularly, keeping the coyotes and occasional wolf away from the camp.
During the second sweep around the perimeter, John heard a ruckus of pots and pans clashing in the mess tent. He dropped his coffee and ran to the source, rifle in hand.
Inside, John saw two grizzly bear cubs knocking over tables and tearing into bags of bread. The mother was nowhere in sight. Quickly scanning the tent, he saw Seth cowering in a corner.
“Stay down, Seth!” he called out to the cook. The bears were beautiful animals, both weighing maybe two hundred pounds and likely only a year old. He hated to kill them. If he didn’t though, they would be back and he couldn’t risk that. He quickly took aim and shot the one closest to Seth, the powerful .223 ammo easily penetrating the thick skull at such close range. Then he moved his attention to the other one. It rose up on its hind feet facing him, standing nearly five feet, and he put two bullets at center mass. It dropped with a scream.
“Behind you, John!!” Seth shouted.
John dove and rolled to his left as the huge mother bear raced to her downed cubs. She rose onto her hind feet, dark brown fur bristling. She roared at John in agony and then lunged at him in anger. Thankful for the larger capacity magazine, he emptied the rifle into the five hundred pound female. Breathing hard, he ejected the empty magazine and rammed home a full one. He kept the AR aimed at the fallen giant as he circled her, and only when he was positive she was dead did he lower the rifle.
Hank and Sam burst into the tent and stopped cold when they saw the carnage.
“Is anyone hurt?” Hank asked with his eyes riveted on the three unmoving humps of matted brown fur.
“A minor bump on the head when I dove for cover,” Seth said with a shaky laugh.
“I’m fine,” John said calmly. “Thanks for that warning, Seth, she would’ve ripped me in half in a heartbeat!” He walked up to the dead beast and nudged a giant paw with his boot. “Look at the size of those claws…” John’s knees weakened and he leaned against the nearest table for a moment, then bolted for the door. He retched up his coffee into the nearby scraggly weeds.
Sam came up behind him and handed over a bottle of water. John rinsed out his mouth then drank the rest of the bottle. “Thanks,” he said, laughing nervously. “I’ve never seen a grizzly up close. Had I known about those claws I might not have been so brave.”
***
The entire camp was awake and abuzz about the morning raid by the animals. Three of the crew dragged the cubs out of the tent and behind the semi-trucks to butcher under the guidance of Seth, whose hands were still too shaky to hold a knife. Sam and Hank tied ropes to the female and pulled her out of the tent with a truck, leaving a bloody trail to the butchering site. Others righted tables and cleaned up the mess caused by the cubs and the shooting. Molly made fresh coffee and personally took John a mug of the hot brew.
The few refugees in camp were stunned over the killings. The crew, on the other hand, was looking forward to fresh meat over the next few days and set up a smoking pit to preserve the rest of it.