Chapter 11
Eleven
Don’t pick the bear.
—Eddy to Nettie
Eddy
I hiked this damn trail all the damn time.
As in, all the time.
I did it so much that it’d become second nature to me on the trail to know where the turns were, where it switch backed, and even where the best flowers grew in the summer.
Only, this time it felt different.
I should’ve taken it as a sign when I’d asked Nettie if she wanted to go, and she’d immediately said no.
I’d been restless, though, and had wanted out of my house.
I’d wanted a break from reality, and usually I got that from hiking.
So against that little voice in my head that told me not to go, I’d gone.
And now I was staring down a bear that was pissed off as hell because I’d just pepper-sprayed it.
The bear hadn’t run away.
In fact, the pepper spray had only seemed to infuriate him more.
I’d seen him from pretty far away, and I’d started to turn around, only the bear must’ve glimpsed me or smelled me or something. Because almost as fast as I’d noticed him, he’d noticed me. Before I could make a move in the opposite direction, he was running.
That’s when I knew I was about to die.
Despite every instinct telling me to run, I held my ground and made myself big, yelling and shouting to try to scare him off.
Any other time, this would’ve worked.
They would’ve turned around. I’d dealt with plenty of bears in my life to know how they reacted.
But this one…there was something wrong with it.
It ran with an almost drunk gait. It was listing hard to the left, and then to the right, and at one point, the bear had even fallen over in his haste to get up the mountain toward me.
The fall slowed him down immensely, and just when I thought he wouldn’t make it to me, he did.
Only when he was close enough that I knew my bear spray would work, did I use it.
That’s about the point in time that I thought…maybe I should run.
This bear didn’t look right. Didn’t act right. And…
Before I could do much more than have the thought cross my mind, the bear attacked.
I curled up into a fetal position, closed my eyes, and prayed.
The bites, swipes of claws, and overall brute force shocked my body to the core.
I knew with the first swipe of the powerful paw against my left arm—which happened to be covering my face—that my arm was broken.
I didn’t open my eyes to see, but there was no doubt in my mind.
The attack continued for what felt like hours, until suddenly, the bear just wasn’t attacking anymore.
I could hear him snarling and snuffling, but I didn’t so much as make a move to look around and see.
I could feel hot blood seeping into my clothing and dripping into my ear, letting me know that I was really hurt.
The adrenaline was pumping now, so I wasn’t hurting, but I knew without a doubt in my mind that I was probably mangled.
The bear roared somewhere near me, and I felt something hot drip down onto my head.
Probably my own blood dripping from his teeth.
The bear roared again, and this time, it sounded from farther away.
I lay there, perfectly still, for so long that the pain started to make itself known.
I was hurt.
Badly.
I chanced a move of my left arm, likely the only thing that didn’t hurt on me right now, and depressed the button on the side of my watch with my nose.
Then, Siri, the loud ass bitch, said, “How can I help you?”
I breathed out a shocked breath before saying, “Call 9-1-1.”
Thankfully, the watch worked, and within seconds, I could hear a female’s voice say, “Jesper County Sheriff’s Department.”
I swallowed hard and whispered, “I was just attacked by a bear.”
The “bear” was drowned out by the bear roaring again.
Thankfully still as far away as it’d been earlier.
“Can you repeat that?”
“A bear. I was attacked by a bear.”
I knew my voice was trembling.
I could hear the terror in my own voice as it shook like a leaf.
“A bear?”
“A fuckin’ bear!” I hissed.
The roaring stopped.
Oh, fuck.
“Where are you?” the woman asked.
I swallowed the bile that was threatening to spew from my throat. “It’s coming back.”
“Where are you?”
I couldn’t answer because I could hear rocks sliding as the bear started heading back that way.
“Ma’am…”
I cursed and prayed that she didn’t say another word as the bear roared so loudly that it shocked my ears.
Then all of its weight came down on me like he was using my body as a trampoline.
I smothered a pained whimper as the bear roared.
I felt something in my upper arm snap, followed by a couple of ribs.
I felt like I could physically hear them breaking.
I wasn’t sure how long I lay there, the bear using me as his own personal jumping pad, but the sweetest words I’d ever heard was a man bellowing from the distance.
“Bear!”
Oh, thank god.
“Here, bear!”
The man continued with his bellowing.
The bear pushed off me, letting his claws scrape me as he left, and I couldn’t stop the whimper from leaving my throat.
The bear took off in a spray of gravel and dirt, and I felt it coat my body and stick to my wounds.
The shot sounded as the bear got far enough away from me, and I started to cry.
I don’t know when the man got to me, but his “oh, sweet fucking Jesus” didn’t give me much hope.
I was probably not coming back from this.
There was no way.
I could practically feel the tears in my skin from his claws.
The broken bones were starting to get to be too much.
“Hold on, darlin’,” I heard the man say. “We’ll get you some help.”
The last word I remember saying was, “Weaver.”