I dozed fitfully, dreaming that Angus called out for me while a golden dragon hovered over his head. Richard Sterling watched something at his feet and looked terribly sad. And Angus’s father—curse him—called out for me to come back.
A branch broke, and an animal snorted, and I snapped back to consciousness.
Even in the Yukon, there are not many people who can truthfully say they have stood (or sat) mere feet away from a grizzly bear. And lived to tell the tale. From my perspective, he was about twenty feet tall. Twenty feet of bristling fur and teeth and claws. His beady brown eyes stared into mine, and he let out a roar they would have heard in town. And yes, those were impressive teeth.
I closed my eyes, saw my son’s lovely blue eyes, which always remind me of my father, and wondered what sort of a man Angus would grow up to be. I comforted myself with the thought that Ray would take care of him, while Richard looked over his shoulder to make sure Angus kept to the straight and narrow. My parents stood in front of me, smiling, holding out their hands, waiting for me to join them.
Twigs broke under the massive feet, and branches snapped as the bear lumbered back into the woods. I opened one eye. My parents were gone, and where they had stood there was nothing but the Yukon bush.