Chapter Six
“Casey…” Dalton says slowly.
“Yes,” I say. “That’s Blake.”
The bear is maybe fifty feet away—thirty ahead and twenty down. But even from here, I can make out the body it’s dragging, and recognize it as the man I spoke to yesterday.
“And yes,” I say. “He’s definitely dead.”
“Fuck,” Dalton breathes.
He motions for us to keep backing up. That’s not easy when we don’t dare turn our backs.
I actually do—I need to guide Storm and I can’t risk tripping over her.
I get her in front of the others. She’s spotted the bear, and her hackles are up, but she is well-trained in this and mature enough to obey.
Retreat from the threat. Do not make a sound.
If I’m right, there’s a cave entrance just past where we climbed up. We would never crawl in where a bear might trap us, but we can duck into the entrance and regroup.
I find the cave, and it’s not one of the small holes we often squeeze through. This is a big opening that doesn’t go far. I tuck inside with Storm. The guys arrive a few moments later, and Dalton bustles Anders in while he stands guard.
“Did it spot you?” I whisper.
Anders shakes his head. “Didn’t seem to. We’re downwind, too.”
I move past him to Dalton. “I’m going out.”
“What?” He stares at me. “Going where?”
“Oh, I thought I’d just hop out and run back to Haven’s Rock. Look after the baby.” I give him a look. “Going back for a better look, I mean.”
“That’s what I figured you meant.” He points at his face. “Hence this expression.”
“I won’t go far. I have these.” I lift a small pair of binoculars.
“You think it might not be this Blake guy? Or that he’s not dead?”
I could lie. But that erodes trust, even if it would help me win this battle.
“No, it’s him and he’s dead. But I need to check something else.” I lean from the cave. “I’ll go right there, to that curve. If I even think the bear has seen or heard me, I’ll come straight back.”
Dalton grumbles but he knows he’s not “the boss” in the sense that he can order me to stand down. This is just two peers disagreeing over safety.
I walk slowly, listening and rolling my footfalls.
It’s unlikely the bear will see me—they don’t have great eyesight.
Also unlikely it will smell me unless the wind changes direction.
The biggest danger is it hearing me. But I make it to that curve, and I can see it, almost up to our level now, completely engrossed in its task of getting Blake’s body to its den.
I lift the binoculars and focus on the body. I stay there long enough for Dalton to make a growl of his own behind me. My lifted finger asks for one more minute. It’s not even the finger I might like to use.
When I’m sure my initial observation is correct, I retreat to the cave and slip inside, staying at the mouth where I can whisper to Dalton, while Anders can listen in.
“The bear didn’t kill him,” I say.
“What?” Dalton’s gaze shoots my way before turning back to watch.
“No signs of blood. The bear is scavenging.”
“Fuck.”
“Remind me how a grizzly kills again?” Anders says.
“Not bloodlessly,” Dalton mutters.
“Easiest kill would be to catch someone unawares,” I say. “They usually bite either the back of the neck or the head. That’s not necessarily fatal. You die from loss of blood when they, uh, start to eat you.”
“Remind me why I live out here again?”
“This bear isn’t eating him yet,” I say. “It found a whole body and is caching it before scavengers swoop in.”
“So there’s no sign of how the guy died?” Anders says. “From a fall maybe? That’s what supposedly happened with his ankle, right?”
“Yes, but now there are bruises around his neck.”
“Sure the bear didn’t do that?” Dalton drawls. “Put its big paws around his neck and squeeze. I hear grizzlies like to kill that way.”
That earns him a middle finger from Anders. “Okay, so not a fall. Not a bear kill. Possible strangulation. Possible murder.” He looks at Dalton. “And do not tell me that strangulation means murder. There are instances where it is intentional and not meant to kill or even hurt someone.”
“So I have been informed,” Dalton says. “I wasn’t going to say anything. Possible murder is correct. Not only could the neck bruises be from consensual play but they could indicate self-defense gone wrong.”
I nod. “Someone puts their hands around your neck to stop you, and when you don’t stop, things go south. The point is that we have a likely murder victim in the jaws of a grizzly bear.”
“No problem,” Anders says. “You can just wait until it falls asleep, sneak in, and do your postmortem. We’ll grab April. She’ll be delighted to conduct an autopsy next to a sleeping grizzly.”
I look at Dalton. “I don’t know what our responsibility is here.”
He exhales. “Fuck.”
“If Blake was killed by a bear, we’d leave it,” I say. “Cruel but what else can we do? We’d tell his wife we saw him but couldn’t get to him. But it seems like murder. Technically, not our problem because he’s just a stranger passing through. Except…”
“Murder means a killer,” Anders says.
“Yes, which—statistically speaking—is probably his wife. We’d decided they really must be hikers, but this changes things.
Is his wife a spy partner who turned on him?
Did they come for someone in Haven’s Rock and that’s who killed him?
Did they come for someone in the mining town who killed him?
Even Lilith could have been the target. If the killer isn’t Gretchen, is she still alive?
And in any of those scenarios, what danger does the killer pose to Haven’s Rock?
Or to anyone walking around out here? If Gretchen is alive and not the killer, she’s still an exposure risk—running around looking for her missing husband. ”
“Fuck.”
“We need to get that body away from a hungry grizzly, don’t we,” Anders says.
“Fuck!” Dalton raises his fist, like he’s about to hit the cave wall, but stops short and shakes his head instead.
I take his hand and squeeze it. “If you think I’m overreacting—”
“You’re not.”
“If it’s too dangerous—”
“It is.”
“What are our options?” I ask.
“The obvious one is to kill it,” Anders says. “However, beyond the fact that no one wants to shoot a bear for minding its own business, I know killing a grizzly is never easy.”
“It’s not. Especially when it has prey.”
“Did it look healthy?” Anders asks.
“A little thin, but it’s not an old and starving grizzly that we could be justified in putting down.”
“Is luring it out of the den an option? Before it eats anything?”
Dalton shakes his head. “Too risky. I know Casey would like a body that’s as undisturbed as possible—and April will be furious if we ‘allowed’ predation—but I don’t think we’re getting that body out whole.”
Anders swallows. “So I guess we need to ask a very uncomfortable question. How much is the bear going to eat before it leaves its den?”
Dalton pinches the bridge of his nose and squeezes his eyes shut. “Fuck. I hate this.”
“We can’t answer that,” I say. “It depends on whether the grizzly is hungry, how securely it can cache the body, et cetera.”
“We can estimate,” Dalton says with a sigh.
“As much as I hate doing this when we’re talking about letting a bear consume a human body.
But I really don’t want to kill it for, as you said, minding its own business.
When it comes to bears, scavenging big prey is actually more common than hunting it.
I’ve seen bear scavenging on moose and caribou. They go for the torso first.”
“Easy to get at,” I murmur. “Minimal work.”
“Yeah. After that, they’ll cache the rest. I don’t think I’ve ever seen one dragging off prey like a wolf might.
But it’s fall, and this one is a bit thin, so it’s going to act out of character.
Like Casey says, it doesn’t want to share.
Nothing’s going into a grizzly’s den to feed on its prey, so the body will be safe there.
I’m guessing the bear will eat the easy parts and leave the rest to go see what else it can rustle up. ”
“It’s just stocking the larder.” Anders makes a face. “I shouldn’t say that about a human being.”
Dalton grunts. “True, though. I suggest we see where it goes while someone stands watch. Casey? You’ll want to see where the bear has been, I presume. Try to find the scene of the crime.”
“Yes.”
He exhales, clearly not happy, even with this best solution to our dilemma. “Okay, let’s get out there before the bear disappears into its den.”
We’ve split up three ways. That makes Dalton even less happy, but it’s the best use of our resources. He will keep an eye on the den, which turns out to be not far from where I last saw the bear.
Dalton has climbed a tree, which gives him a good sight line. I insisted he keep the rifle—if the bear hears Anders, Storm, or me and comes charging out, Dalton will see and can stop it. It’s a bit of a cheat, playing on his concern for us, but it works.
I have Storm. For now, I also have Anders. The plan is that we’ll follow the bear’s trail and, if we locate the crime scene, Anders will head back to town and grab the ATV, which we will need for transporting the body.
Or what’s left of the body.
Damn, I am really trying not to think about that.
Storm easily tracks where the bear dragged Blake’s corpse. Even without her, I could track it by the swath of flattened undergrowth and disturbed soil. Where the trail leads is …
“Okay, that is not what I expected,” Anders says as we stare at the spot.
It’s near the bottom of the foothill, where there’s a small cave that we’ve used for residents who want a taste of spelunking.
Real spelunking, not the type that Anders jokingly refers to as “caverning” where tourists walk upright through caverns, occasionally needing to duck their heads.
This type requires crawling and sometimes wriggling.
This particular opening is larger than most, and it doesn’t go far.
It gives residents a taste of the sport, upon which many discover they’re claustrophobic, which is good to know before you try a real cave system.
The trail ends here, and there are deep scratches in the dirt, where the grizzly had widened the hole to get at something inside it.
That “something” would have been Blake’s body. Using my flashlight, I peer in to find hair caught on rock. There’s also a boot, which I need to crawl inside to retrieve. I bring the boot out and turn it over in my hands.
“His?” Anders says.
“Yep. I noted what they were wearing, hoping for hints about whether or not they were legit, and you know I always pay attention to boots.”
He leans over to check the brand. “Oh, I’ve got a pair of those.”
“Sturdy and comfortable and not too trendy, which supports their hiking story.” I hunker down. “So Blake is killed, and someone—presumably his killer—drags him and stuffs him in here.”
“They were up here yesterday, weren’t they? When he fell?”
I nod. “They indicated this foothill.”
“Meaning his partner—Gretchen—could have seen this cave and knew it’d do the job.”
“Yep.” I straighten. “Okay, this isn’t necessarily the crime scene, but I’ll need to process it.
Time for you to head back to Haven’s Rock.
Give Rory a kiss for me and tell Yolanda she may need to pass off auntie duties to Dana.
I’ll be out here for hours, and she didn’t sign up for all-day baby care.
” I take a notebook from my backpack. “Better yet, I should write a note. She’ll need more milk from the icebox and probably diapers and—”
“Yolanda can handle it, Case.”
“I know. I’m stressing over being gone so long, and this makes me feel a bit better.”
He pats my back. “Then write it all out. And Rory is fine. If Yolanda needs a break, there’s Dana, April, Isabel, Kenny…”
Tears prickle my eyes. “I’m lucky, aren’t I? To have so much support.”
“You get what you give, Casey,” he says softly. “And you give a lot.”
I nod, letting the tears of gratitude well as I write the note.