Grizzly (18 page)

Consciousness returned slowly.

Pain throbbed through every nerve of Scott's body. It was the pain he became aware of first. Then, as if

from a long distance, an impression of light—and then its actual presence moved toward him.

He opened his eyes.

The bear was feeding on what was left of the horse.

Scott lay absolutely still. Something had awakened

him from that sleep so close to death.

He heard it again.

The flopping whirling of a helicopter's blades.

It seemed to come closer. But then it faded.

They were looking for him.

Scott felt a faint trace of hope stir within him. If he played dead, the bear might be satisfied with the horse meat.

His eyes were slits. He could see the bear from the corner of his field of vision. The sounds that it made, crunching the flesh and bones of Tex, were sickening. Added to his own pain and fear, it was almost enough to make Scott vomit. But he choked down the mucus and bile. He must not make noise. That would be sure death.

He let his body flatten against the earth.

What a waste. A creature like that, driven to murder by whatever unknown compulsions. Any naturalist worthy of the name would travel halfway around the world to see a throwback such as this.

But there was no hope for the grizzly, and little enough for he himself. He did not know how extensive his wounds were, but they were serious. He sensed the loss of blood in the waves of dizziness that swept over him every time he moved his eyes, however slightly.

He must have fainted, then, because the next thing he was aware of was the sound of digging.

The bear was clawing a shallow trench in the ground just feet away from the man.

My God, Scott thought, he's going to bury me!

Then he realized that was good, that it was his only hope. He could lie there, playing dead, until the bear wandered off. Then maybe he could get away, or raise help with the radio.

The digging noises stopped.

Scott felt his insides seem to shrivel up.

The bear was coming to get him.

With the number of men in the woods, it was a miracle that no one was seriously hurt. There were several near misses, as nervous rangers shot at what they thought was the grizzly. But no one was even wounded. Several falls resulted in minor injuries, and one ranger got lost and wandered in circles until he dropped from exhaustion only a few hundred feet from the base camp he'd started from.

Don Stober had circled the December Gap area three times, without seeing anything worth going down for a closer look. He returned to base for fuel, and while they were taking it on, Avery Kittredge arrived.

"It's obvious that you're incapable of handling this affair," he told Kelly. "I've decided to ask for help from the National Guard. When their commander arrives, give him whatever cooperation he requests."

Kelly almost hit the supervisor. "You headline-grabbing bastard," he said. "I wanted the Guard in here two days ago. If we'd had them, Tom Cooper would probably be alive right now. Well, we can use the manpower. But if their commander wants me, he'll have to come up on the mountain, because that's where I'm going to be. Scottie's spotted our bear. He needs help, and right now, not tomorrow."

"My instructions," began the supervisor. He shut his mouth when Don Stober waved at him.

Don said, "Mr. Supervisor, if I were you, I'd close my trap before either the flies or Kelly's fist settle in it. Just a little friendly advice."

"Let's go," said Kelly, crawling into the helicopter.

They took off in a whirling blast of rotor backwash, blowing Kittredge's hat down the hill.

"He's going to get you fired," Don said. "Probably me too."

"Let him," Kelly said. "Who the hell cares? Let's go get our bear before Scottie makes a house pet out of him."

The grizzly was far from being a pet.

He studied Scott carefully. The two-legged one seemed dead, he had not moved, and the smell of blood was everywhere on him.

Yet the bear hesitated. He did not understand wounding further merely to be sure his prey was dead. If it looked and smelled dead, it
was
dead.

He had eaten well of the dead horse. Its blood and the torn shreds of its flesh were smeared all over his great snout. His belly was distended, bloated.

This meat could be buried for a while, and he would eat it when it ripened.

The grizzly reached down and scooped up Arthur Scott, like a housewife at the market scoops up a handful of loose string beans.

Scott felt one of the claws go through his chest, into his lung. He bit his lip to keep from crying out. If he made a noise, he would be torn to bits.

A hazy darkness began to descend over him. He fought it away.

Even if he had a punctured lung, many men had lived through that. He most not move, he must not even seem to breathe.

He felt himself being thrown into the shallow pit, and then he almost choked as fresh dirt and damp leaves were thrown into his face. But he managed to control the spasm.

He felt his blood leaking out into the ground. Slowly, he managed to slip his hand around to cover the wound. With luck, the blood would clot. But the claw had left a sucking hole there, and his breath moved in and out through it.

Scott knew he had only hours to live, if he didn't get help.

He waited.

The bear went back for another snack from the entrails of the mangled horse. Scott heard the crunching and the slurping as the beast ate. He willed himself into immobility, into death-like silence.

If ever a man had earned his life through sheer courage and determination, it was Arthur Scott in those long moments as he lay buried in his own grave.

Kelly's radio beeped.

He hit the button. "Kelly."

They were orbiting the high country, looking for anything, any clue.

The voice that came was weak. "Scott . . . hurt . . ."

"Scottie! Where are you?"

"December Gap. Half-buried. Bear killed . . . horse. Mauled me."

"We're on our way," Kelly rasped. "Hang in there."

"He's gone . . . I've got to get out of this hole, hide someplace. Come quick . . . bleeding . . ."

"Five minutes," Kelly promised. Don had put the chopper into a screaming dive, heading down the mountain toward December Gap.

"Locking transmitter button on . . ." gasped the naturalist. "No strength . . . look for me in . . . trees."

They could hear the grating sound of the earth, as he pawed it away, the gasping and whistling of his breath.

He choked, "I'm out. I'm—"

There was a pause.

Then something growled.

Scott's voice said, "Oh, my God, no."

And, because the naturalist's transmitter was locked in the on position, for the next thirty seconds they listened while Arthur Scott died.

They had run up the hill, although they knew they were far too late. Looking down at Scott, they gasped for breath. They had not remembered to bring a ground cloth or blanket.

Kelly took off his parka and draped it over what remained of Scott's face.

"What now?" Don asked dully. "Do we take him down?"

"No time," Kelly said. "That thing's getting away."

"We can't leave him here like this"

"Let's move."

"But there's other wild life up here. They'll—""

"Let them. It's too late for Scottie. But it's not too late for us to get that bastard. He can't be too far away."

As they half ran, half staggered, down to the landing site, Don said, "Kelly, believe me, I truly never meant that feller any harm."

"I know it," Kelly said. "Run."

They got the chopper off the ground in record time.

"Take her right over Scottie," Kelly said. "That's our starting point."

"Okay. Hang on."

They scraped the tree tops, and buzzed the little clearing with its two terribly still chunks of bleeding meat that had been, only an hour before, a man and a horse.

"Take us uphill," said Kelly.

"How do you know?"

"I don't know. But that's where he's going. That bastard's headed back where it all started, up to R-Four."

"Why? There's nothing there now."

"
He
doesn't know that. Damn it, Don, pour on the coal. Let's spot him before he gets under cover."

He fumbled in the storage area behind the seat and came up with a bag of grenades.

"What do you figure on doing?"

Kelly said grimly, "Blowing his lousy hide into ribbons.''

Don gave a low whistle. "So it's finally pushed you to where you'll shoot back."

"And then some," Kelly said. He laid three of the grenades out near his foot. He unlatched the hatch and slid it back, locked it there. Now it was as if he were flying through the air with nothing between him and the blurred landscape below but a tiny strip of metal.

Don asked, "Why R-Four?"

"Why does a salmon kill himself to swim back to the little hollow in the stream where he was spawned? Something programs them, like a computer. And this grizzly's programmed, too."

Softly, Don said, "Just like us."

"There!" Kelly said, pointing.

They saw the trees parting beneath them and ahead a few hundred feet. Something monstrously large was plunging through them, heading up the mountain.

"Son of a bitch," said Don, glimpsing the grizzly. "He's one hell of a bear."

"Swing in over him," Kelly said, pulling the pin from one of the grenades. He held the firing lever tightly and leaned halfway out the open hatch.

The beast knew fear, genuine fear, for the first time in his life.

Above him, the strange bird circled. It was obviously pursuing him.

He twisted and turned, but he could not outrun it, and he could find no place to go to earth, to hide.

Something fell from the bird. It hit a few yards down the mountainside, and then there came a great noise and a huge paw tore at his fur and hurled him to one side. He fell against a spruce, almost knocking it down, and then lurched on his headlong flight again.

The grizzly had been peppered with metal fragments and chips of exploded rock, but they did not penetrate his thick hide, and only the concussion had been noticed.

He came to a stream and splashed through it, throwing water in a plume ten yards high.

Another object fell, and this time the hammer of its blast
hurt
the beast. He fell to one side, clawing at a patch of blood that had appeared on his leg, and chewed at the wound until he realized that the thing in the sky was approaching again.

He reared to his full height and reached for it, but it was too high, and he fell down to all fours and began the furious plunge up the mountain once more.

"Take her down closer," Kelly said. "I almost got him that time."

"Let me hover, get him with the rifle. I don't want to get any closer to those trees, Keli."

"No time. He'll be over the mountain and gone."

"So? Isn't that what we want?"

Kelly said, his voice dead, "No. We want him stretched out cold."

Don tilted the chopper down, but he didn't descend fast enough to suit Kelly, who put on a little more forward pressure on his own control yoke.

"Hey!" Don yelled.

"He's coming up on the clearing," Kelly shouted. "Keep on top of him."

He pulled the pin of the third grenade.

"Don't drop that thing in here with us!" Don warned.

Kelly heaved it out the hatch. This time, the giant grizzly was hurled almost headlong out into the clearing where the two girls had camped that first day.

"Got the bastard!" Kelly shouted. He turned to reach for the rifle, and Don misunderstood, thought Kelly had the controls, and reached for his own weapon.

Unpiloted for a fraction of a moment, the chopper tilted and one blade tipped a tree.

Don grabbed for the yoke. "Holy Christ," he said.

"I thought you had it."

"Bad?"

"Tip's gone from one rotor blade. I've got to take her down, or we'll come apart."

He feathered the blades and slipped the Hughes down into the clearing. For a moment they both lost sight of the grizzly, but the bear never took his eyes off them, and when the strange bird settled down, he was rushing toward it, and caught it in midair and threw it savagely to the ground.

He had never touched metal before, and when he tried to claw and bite the ugly thing from the sky, his teeth closed around cold, tasteless hardness.

Don was thrown from the chopper, carrying with him the army rifle. He landed heavily near the edge of the clearing.

Kelly, pinned in the wreckage, fumbled at his harness. Don's had broken cleanly at one of the attach points.

The grizzly, ignoring the fallen man on the ground, reached toward Kelly. He had never seen transparent plastic, either, and it foiled him for a few seconds. His claws made white tearing marks on its surface.

Don, dizzy from the fall, lifted his rifle and fired into the animal's shoulder. The heavy slug made a meaty slap as it exploded against the grizzly's muscles, and the impact staggered the bear.

He looked around, seeking the source of this new pain.

Don fired again. The second bullet shattered one of the bear's ribs. But his huge body soaked up the two-thousand-pound-plus impact of the slug.

This one had the invisible fang! With a roar, the grizzly hurled himself across the dozen yards separating him from the fallen man.

Don had time to fire once more, but this bullet missed completely. And then the grizzly had him around the upper torso, the razor claws ripping through his flight suit and his flesh.

Staring death in the face, Don let out a cry of rage. He grabbed for his sheath knife, began to slash the bear across the shiny black snout.

Now it was the bear's turn to roar with anger. His great jaws opened, moved toward the ranger's unprotected throat.

His head jerked with a sudden impact.

Kelly had managed to half-free himself from the twisted wreckage, and had glanced a thirty-ought-six bullet off the beast's skull.