Snowbound Shelter

CHAPTER ONE

Evangeline

Pulling the reins, I stop Marty. Across the meadow, the trap is exactly where Dooley described it. Nailed to a lodgepole pine, the orange bucket looks out of place. I raise my camera to take a couple of quick photos, then let it hang from the strap around my neck.

Dooley is our oldest ranch hand. On his days off, he likes nothing better than to ride into the mountains, throw his line into a lake, and sit for hours waiting for the fish to bite. He’d come back the night before and reported seeing a bear trap.

I leave Marty ground tied out of sight in the pines. He’s trained to stay, but with the reins loose, he can escape if there’s danger. We’re safe. I think. As long as the poachers don’t show up.

Using binoculars, I focus on the trap. My fingers tighten around the lenses.

A baited bucket trap is not common in California, even among poachers.

The scent draws in the bear, who goes for the food, tripping the spring-loaded cable and snapping it tight around a paw.

The animal is held there until the poacher comes back and kills it.

Most likely they’re after the gall bladder, which is worth a few hundred on the black market.

It hurts my heart to think of the bear trapped, in pain, and desperate to escape.

It’s illegal and unbelievably cruel. And whoever set the trap isn’t worried about getting caught.

As a California state wildlife biologist, my job is to document the scene and report it to law enforcement. I’m new at my position and have been at it for a week. I don’t want to screw up.

Today I’m off duty, not that it matters. This hits too close to home. I hate that poachers are in my backyard, if you can call the Desolation Wilderness my backyard. Raw, beautiful, rugged, it’s located west of Heartbreak Falls, and my family’s Wildheart Ranch.

Currently, Wildheart is my home. Nothing like moving back into your childhood bedroom to make you feel like a kid again.

A situation not helped by my brothers still treating me like a rebellious teenager.

I’d been an adventurous teenager, not rebellious, and since I’m thirty-one, they should back off.

So here I am, not wanting to blow it with my new job, but also hating the idea of leaving the trap primed. Disabling it means compromising evidence that could be used to prosecute the poachers. But leaving it intact is a threat to wildlife.

Carefully, I survey the area. No sign of the poachers. I take more pictures, zoom in, take a few more. And now it’s time to get closer.

I return to Marty and retrieve my grandpa’s old hunting rifle from the scabbard on the saddle. If any bears are hanging around, I have bear spray. But the bolt action .30-06? It’s to scare off poachers. Not that I plan on shooting anyone.

With a pat on the neck for my gelding, I zip up my coat and set off on foot, skirting the meadow. Clouds are piling up over the peaks to the west. A storm’s heading in, faster than I anticipated. I want to get done here and head back before it hits.

I can do it if I don’t waste time.

Approaching the trap directly is too exposed. So, with the rifle’s strap over my back, I move through the trees, circling until I’m about fifty feet away.

I crouch behind a jumble of boulders, scanning, always scanning. Nothing moves, so I creep into the open.

The smell hits me first, rank in the worst possible way.

Breathing through my mouth, I concentrate on not gagging.

Focusing through the viewfinder, I snap several photos.

The orange bucket screwed to a two-by-four, the wood attached to a tree about four feet off the ground.

The dirt with clear boot prints. The bait stinks like rotting fish, because that’s exactly what it is. Trout heads, entrails, fins. Maggots.

Scuff marks in the dirt suggest there’d been some other critter that got to bait left there to entice bear.

No way would a bear leave the offerings inside the bucket, which, in addition to the offal, includes hamburger buns stuffed around the trip mechanism.

I’ve seen the result of these sadistic devices: animals chewing off their paws to get free.

Others killed by poachers, their gall bladders harvested, and the bear carcass left for scavengers.

Snapping closed the camera case and letting it drop to my hip, I use a stick to deactivate the trap. A little evidence destruction but possibly saving a bear from a lot of pain.

Judging by the size of the maggots, the trap was likely set early yesterday, which means the poachers could be back today to check on it. Like me, they’d want to get in and out ahead of the storm.

As I finish with documentation, a plan forms in my head.

I make my way back to the grouping of boulders.

My spot’s a little closer to the trap site than I’d like, but from here I can remain hidden while still watching the trail.

If I can photograph the poachers, I’ll have the evidence needed to see them convicted.

Is there a risk? Sure. But getting these criminals behind bars makes animals and people safer.

Devil’s Canyon is bordered on two sides by high ridges eroded over millennia by the creek running through it. The trail I followed into the valley travels the slope of the ridge before dropping to the creek on the far side of the meadow.

Peering through the camera viewfinder, I scan the trail, looking for any sign of movement. I pause, then swing back. Bright red against green. Behind a tree. And with a rifle and scope pointed in my direction.

Oh shit.

I snap off a quick succession of pictures, then drop. A gunshot pierces the air, followed a heartbeat later by a crack as the bullet fragments granite.

Rifle in hand, I change my position and take a quick look.

Two men, one in a red parka, the other in green camouflage. They must have been behind me on the trail, and now they’re racing down the slope. The creek will slow them, but not for long.

Shit. Shit. Shit.

I need to get the hell out of here before they get any closer.

Marty is to my left and through the trees.

Too much open space between here and there means too much risk.

Behind me, more boulders, and not a direct route out of the canyon, but it’s probably the safest. The ranch maintains a line shack up there that I can use if necessary.

I’ll make my way through the boulders, then cut through the trees to Marty.

Before I can move, two more shots in rapid succession have me ducking again, a fragment of rock nicking my cheek. He’s trying to keep me pinned down. I try to hear past my heart thundering in my ears. I’ll fire off a couple rounds to hold them back and give myself a chance to escape.

Resting the barrel of my rifle in the groove of a boulder, I find the red parka through the scope, adjust my aim, hold my breath, and squeeze the trigger. The rifle kicks hard into my shoulder as I breathe again.

I give a mental fist pump at Parka guy’s yelp, his rifle shattered in his hand.

I widen my field of vision and have another oh shit moment.

I’ve lost track of Camo guy.

Hastily, I reload, then whip my head around, looking for him, fighting my rising panic.

I screwed up. I should have gotten out while I could.

Damn. Damn. Damn.

I catch movement. There he is. Camo guy’s crossing the creek. He’s heading for the trap. Or, if he keeps going, to me. And he’s got a pistol in his hand.

No telling if Parka guy has a backup weapon.

I need to move. Now. And hope the gunfire hasn’t scared Marty into hightailing it back to the ranch.

A bare whisper of sound comes from behind me. Before I can look back, a hand clamps over my mouth, the other over the hand holding my rifle, and I’m pulled against a hard body.

I hadn’t considered there could be three of them.