Grizzly Fury

Everyone shared his bewilderment. They sat around the fire eating their breakfast of oatmeal that Cecelia made and drinking coffee sweetened with sugar.

“Two bears?” Moose said, and slurped as he took a sip. “That ain’t good.”

“I’ve done some research on these grizzlies of yours,” Wendy said, “and I was told they’re not very social. It’s unusual to have two bears roaming together—isn’t that right?”

“Unless it’s a mother and a cub,” Rooster said. “But this second bear seems a mite big to be a cub.”

“I’ve seen a dozen bears in a river at the same time after salmon,” Fargo mentioned. “They always give each other a lot of space. If one gets too close to another, a fight breaks out.”

“Why didn’t these two fight?” Moose wondered. “You’d think the big one wouldn’t want the little one anywhere around.”

“You men,” Cecelia said. “So what if there’s two? It’s the big one we’re after. It’s the big one the bounty is on. And now we know that it knows we’re here.” She beamed. “It’ll come back, and when it does, the money is ours.”

“Don’t get ahead of yourself, woman,” Rooster said. “We have to kill it first.”

“Do you other chaps think it will come back?” Wendy asked.

All eyes turned to Fargo. By unspoken consent he had become unofficial leader, in part because he had more experience than any of them in the wilds, and in part because he had an iron edge about him, a force to his personality that they respected.

“I think it will come back,” Fargo answered. “The question is, when? We can’t let down our guard.”

“What I don’t get,” Moose said, and slurped some more, “is why the critter didn’t attack us last night.”

“You and me, both,” Rooster said. “This thing has killed upwards of fifteen people. I figured it would attack us on sight.”

“A normal bear might but this bear isn’t normal,” Fargo said.

“So what do you propose we do?” Wendy asked. “Go to our blinds and wait?”

“What else can you do?” Cecelia said. “You sure can’t go traipsin’ off after it and leave me and mine to fend for ourselves.”

“I’d never leave you alone,” Moose assured her.

“But it wouldn’t hurt if one of us went,” Fargo proposed, “and since I’m the best tracker, it should be me. I’ll try to find where Brain Eater went, and if I get a shot, I’ll take it.”

“Just so you remember that no matters who kills it, we all get our share of the bounty,” Cecelia said.

“You and your bounty money,” Rooster told her.

Cecelia gestured at her three young ones, who were hungrily eating their oatmeal. “When you have kids, old man, then you can criticize.”

Moose stopped slurping to say, “You leave her be, Rooster—you hear me? You pick on her too much.”

“Thank you, handsome,” Cecelia said.

“Who are you talking to?” Moose asked.

“You,” Cecelia said.

“Oh. No one’s ever called me that before. Mostly folks say I’m sort of ugly.”

“Not to me,” Cecelia said. “To me you’re the handsomest man alive.”

“Gosh.”

Fargo had finished eating, and stood. “I’ll head right out. If I can’t pick up the trail I should be back by noon or so.”

“Be careful, pard,” Rooster cautioned. “You said it yourself. Brain Eater ain’t normal.”

Fargo carried his saddle blanket, saddle and bridle to the Ovaro. He threw on the blanket and smoothed it, then swung the saddle up and over and bent to the cinch. He pulled out the picket pin and put it in his saddlebag. He was about to fork leather when Cecelia came over.

“Before you head out there’s somethin’ I need to say.”

“About?”

Cecelia gazed at the men at the fire, and her kids, and then at the deep shadows in the woods that had yet to be dispelled by the rising sun. “This hunt was my idea. I saw it as the best way to get the money I need.”

“You’ve made that plain,” Fargo said, impatient to be under way.

“You didn’t have to go along with it. None of you did. But I’m powerful glad you did. Without all of you, this wouldn’t work.”

“What are you trying to say?”

“That I’m grateful and I would take it poorly if anythin’ was to happen to you.”

“Thanks,” Fargo said. Her sincerity touched him. He saw that she was slightly embarrassed by her admission so he grinned and said, “I’d hug you but Moose would try to beat me to a pulp.”

“He’s a good man,” Cecelia said. “He doesn’t have much between the ears but the good counts for more than that.”

“You have plenty between yours so the two of you will come out even.”

Cecelia held out her hand. “Like Rooster said, you be careful out there.”

“Always.” Fargo climbed on and held the Sharps in front of him. As he tapped his spurs he tried not to dwell on the fact that a man could be as careful as he could be and still end up in a bear’s belly.

12

As the forest and the shadows closed around Fargo, so did a deep silence. Usually the songbirds started a new day singing in exuberance. Not one was singing today.