Chapter Eight
I’m on watch now with Storm. The plan had been for me to switch and let the guys carry the body down.
Now that it’s in halves, Dalton is coming out with his wrapped bundle while Anders must be finishing up.
I didn’t see the process of separation. Not that I’m squeamish—my parents were both doctors, as is my sister—but that’s when Dalton and I switched places.
Anders insisted on doing the work, which wasn’t more than separating the spine. Dalton hadn’t watched that. As a lifelong hunter, he’s not squeamish either, but I suggested Anders might not want anyone seeing him doing it, and Dalton accepted that as an excuse.
Dalton passes me with only a nod. By the time he’s down the hillside, Anders is following, his body half wrapped in a second tarp.
“Good thing I brought two,” he says as he passes me, and we exchange tight smiles.
I stand on watch with Storm and the rifle while they situate the body. The ATV is a side-by-side. It can hold four people, but the third and fourth person ride in the cargo area and face backward. That means one of us needs to sit with the body and Storm. I take that spot over Dalton’s protests.
“I’m the smallest,” I say.
They’ve tied down the tarps and their contents, so at least I won’t need to hold on to them. I still check that they’re secured. Then I climb in, and Storm hops up beside me. The guys sit in front, with Anders driving.
Anders takes it slow. It’s open ground here, which helps, but it’s also rocky.
I bounce around despite the custom-installed seat belt.
Typically Storm would lie in the cargo area, but that’s in use, and she insists on sitting on the other seat and looking around.
I’m resisting the urge to hold on to her bandana to keep her from falling over the side.
Eventually, the ground levels out, and I let myself fall into thoughts of what I saw in the cave. Not the condition of the body—I really don’t want to dwell on that. I’m focusing on the parts that affect an investigation, all the data I’d noted and filed away as I laid out the tarp.
I’d been partly mistaken about the bruises around his neck.
They weren’t the thick ones left by manual strangulation.
Instead, it’d been a thinner, more regular line, with spots where whatever had been used to strangle him had cut in.
Not a wire—that would have sliced in more.
A rope seems thicker than the mark I saw, and it would leave scraping. A cord or something similar.
The body had been partly in rigor. Going into it? Or coming out? That’s hard to tell without checking internal temperature. Either he was killed last night and is coming out or he was killed very early this morning and is going in.
The next thing I’ll want to check for is signs of defense.
Healthy people don’t sleep through strangulation.
How hard did he fight? Could he fight? Was his attacker behind him?
Blake is wearing a jacket and long trousers, so there was no obvious sign of injury, at least nothing I could discern at a sweeping look. Nor could I check his—
Something moves out of the corner of my eye. It’s off to the north, just past the tree line. The moment I realize what it is, it bursts from the forest, leaving no doubt.
I whirl and grab Dalton by the shoulder as I shout, “Bear!”
He twists so fast his shoulder knocks into me, and I duck, making sure he can see. Then he lets out a curse and shouts “Go!” to Anders.
Anders hits the gas. The ATV lurches, and I grab for Storm’s bandana, yanking her down under my feet, my legs going over her to pin her there.
It’s the grizzly, and it’s coming fast. We’ve stolen its meal, and it must have smelled it—along with hearing the ATV. It’s running full out, and for a creature its size, it is blindingly fast.
Dalton is shouting at Anders to be heard over the engine. Anders yells “Hold on!” and the ATV rockets forward over the rough terrain.
Behind us, the grizzly roars, and I can finally hear it over the engine …
because it’s that close. I know the rules.
Never try to outrun a grizzly. Do not look at that massive beast, rolling with fat, and think “I can beat it.” You can’t.
Not unless you can qualify for the Olympics, and even then, you will wear out first.
Grizzlies are known for fast sprints, tiring quickly. But “quickly” only means they cannot maintain that speed for hours.
We hit even rougher terrain, and my head smacks the roll bar. Dalton reaches back to steady me, but I motion for him to just hang on, that I’ve got this.
I don’t have this. I have a Newfoundland who is not belted in by anything except my legs.
I’m wearing only a lap belt—the full restraints are up front.
I’m banging back and forth, and all my focus is on Storm.
I must keep her in the ATV. If she falls out, she’ll be dazed, and the grizzly will attack before she can flee.
The only saving grace is that Dalton and Anders secured the body parts and secured them well, leaving one fewer thing for me to worry about.
Then I realize that having the parts so well secured might not be to our advantage.
If the grizzly gets close, the obvious answer is to knock one out and hope it takes that and stops.
But there’s no way I can untie those straps.
The ATV is bouncing so much I can barely see the grizzly.
We’re whipping along open ground that is not meant to be a path, much less a road, and we have got to be doing forty miles an hour.
The grizzly has stopped gaining.
It’s still running, still roaring, and it is not falling back, but it is no longer gaining on us. We’ve hit its top speed. Now we just need to outlast it.
How far can they sprint? I struggle to remember. I know people always underestimate it. I seem to recall it’s a couple of miles.
We can do this. The bear is about twenty feet behind the ATV. Okay, more like fifteen. Storm whines and trembles, but we’re okay. Even if the bear finds a last burst of speed, we can do this. We’re even starting to pull away. We just need—
“Fuck!” Anders’s curse bellows over the engine.
“Turn!” Dalton yells.
“I know! Casey! Hold on!”
Anders makes a hard right, and I’m bent nearly in two, gripping Storm as tight as I can. She still slides and my seat belt wrenches, making me gasp. I hold her with both hands and legs as she scrabbles.
“Too tight!” Anders is shouting. “Not sure I can do it at this speed!”
I manage to twist and squint to see the forest looming ahead. Shit! We’re reaching the end of the clear ground. There’s an opening into the woods ahead, but he’s right that it’ll be tight and we can’t see how far it goes. This isn’t a path we’ve ever used. It might not be a path at all.
“I’m dumping the body!” I shout as I pull a penknife from my pocket.
They don’t answer. No one is going to argue we should risk our lives to keep it.
The bear has fallen back, but it’s still running, and we’re about to go a whole lot slower, once we hit the forest. Hell, we might not be going anywhere at all.
I reach to start sawing at the straps.
“Left!” Dalton shouts.
“See it!” Anders says.
We hit a bump, and I fumble the knife. I manage to grab it, but the blade slices my finger. I ignore it and keep cutting the strap.
“Hold on!” Anders shouts.
I flick the knife shut and grip Storm with both hands.
The body bounces and strains against the cut strap.
The ATV swings right again and Storm yelps, but I have her in both hands and locked behind my feet.
The belt cuts off my breath, and pain tells me I am going to have bruising, but we reach what seems to be a wider opening.
It’s still narrow, branches whipping the ATV and us.
“Cut?” I shout.
“Wait!” Dalton calls back.
He must twist, because his hand rests on my back for a moment. I peek. The bear has fallen farther behind.
“Be ready to cut but hold off!” Dalton shouts.
I nod, not that he can tell with the jostling of the ATV. Storm shakes so much I can only squeeze her tight and hope she’s reassured. Then there’s a snort, and I look up to see the back end of the bear.
“It’s leaving!” I yell.
“Confirm?” Anders shouts.
“Confirmed!” Dalton replies.
Anders eases off the gas—and the strap I’d been cutting snaps. The body bags start sliding toward the back. The other end is strapped, but they’ll slip free from it.
“Losing the bags!” I call. “Eric?”
It takes a moment for him to assess, and the makeshift body bags keep sliding. One reaches the end, where we’d tied the small tailgate open.
“Confirm!” Dalton says. “Slow but don’t stop. Casey?”
“I can get them.”
The bear is still walking away, but slowly, grudgingly. I relax my death grip on Storm and reach for the bag, but when I grab it, the tarp starts to come off, the top half of Blake’s body slipping out.
“Undoing my seat belt!” I shout.
I swear I hear Dalton’s grumble over the engine. He doesn’t argue, though. Storm refuses to get back on the seat, but I manage to get her far enough to the right that I can undo the belt and slide only my knees.
I grab the body bag by the other side, where it can’t unravel. Then I ease it away from the danger zone, with the ATV jostling me—and the body—the whole time. And I keep my eyes on the bear. I know Dalton will be twisted around doing the same, but I still keep checking.
The bear continues ambling—
The ATV strikes a rock or a rut or something. Enough to send the back end jumping. Storm leaps up, hitting my arm. The body bag wrenches from my grip. The bear … The bear seems to slow, as if it heard something, sensed something.
I lunge to grab the bag, throwing myself over it even as a voice screams to let it go, let it fall out, we can try coming back later.