Yellowstone Standoff. Scott Graham

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СКАЧАТЬ body, thick and muscular, stretched full out as it sprinted toward the voices.

      Chuck’s heart tattooed his chest at the sound of the bear’s harsh breaths as it charged.

      The young man hollered, “Whoa, bear!”

      The next screen shot captured half the bear’s body as it angled out of the picture, running flat out across the meadow toward the off-screen man and woman.

      The grizzly woofed, a dog-like exhalation of warning.

      “Stop!” the young man yelled. “I said stop!”

      Chuck sucked a gulp of air, his throat stiff. The man’s exclamation should have given the bear pause. Instead, the bear woofed again, the sound farther away, and the video feed returned to a serene shot of the meadow and forested hillside beyond.

      A terrified screech from the young woman came over the speaker, after which her voice and the young man’s united in a powerful, “No!”

      “Stop!” the man cried out a millisecond later. Then, under his breath, “Get behind me, Rebecca. Back up.”

      A savage roar shook the phone’s speaker.

       2

      Me,” the man shouted in response to the grizzly’s roar, his voice strong and forceful. “Hey, bear. It’s me you want.”

      Justin raised his free hand. “Wait for it,” he said, his eyes big and round and shining.

      Chuck’s jaw tightened.

      The hiss of releasing aerosol came over the phone. From the reports he’d read, Chuck knew the two wolf researchers were spraying a protective screen of red pepper mist between themselves and the charging bear.

      Chuck envisioned the team members’ desperate effort at self-preservation, comparing it to the practice session he’d held with Janelle and the girls and Clarence before they’d left Durango a few days ago. Standing side by side in the front yard, bear-spray cans at arm’s length, all five of them had pressed the buttons on the top of their flashlight-sized canisters at once. The pressurized cans hissed and a red fog formed in the air in front of them. They stepped forward and took a sample whiff of the spray as it dissipated. Even in its dispersed form, the aerosolized pepper burned their noses and set their eyes watering.

      On Justin’s phone, the video feed remained fixed on the meadow and pines while the terror-filled voice of Rebecca, the young woman, came over the speaker. “Joe!” she screamed. “Joe!”

      Justin narrated. “She did what the guy wanted. She backed off. The Incident Team figured it out when they reconstructed the event.”

      Two sharp pops sounded.

      “That’s the griz,” Justin said, “snapping at the spray.”

      Chuck pictured the brown bear’s powerful jaws and jagged teeth, saliva flying. The pepper mist should have turned the animal away.

      “Back!” Joe yelled.

      The bear snarled. The warning nature of its initial woofs was gone now, replaced by long bursts of deep, bellowing roars.

      The sounds of a struggle came over the phone—exhalations, scuffling feet.

      Joe screamed in agony. “It’s got me,” he screeched. “Rebecca. It’s eating me! It’s eating me!”

      “Joe,” Rebecca moaned. “Joe.”

      “Run,” Joe cried. “Rebecca. Run!”

      Chuck shot a sidelong glance at Justin, who gazed at the screen, the phone steady in his grip.

      Growls and indistinct noises came from the speaker. Chuck’s gut twisted.

      “She didn’t know what to do,” Justin said. “No protocol existed for her situation. The spray had always worked.”

      “Oh, my God,” Rebecca cried. “Oh, dear God. Joe!”

      “She wouldn’t leave him,” Justin said. “Gotta give her props for that.”

      “Bear!” Rebecca yelled. “Leave him. Leave him!”

      “The griz went for the guy’s abdominal cavity,” Justin said. “She stayed. She should’ve run. I bet she’d have gotten away.”

      “Bear,” Rebecca said. Her voice was little more than a whimper now. “Bear.”

      There came a long pause. Chuck clenched his hands at his sides, his fingernails digging into his palms.

      Rebecca screamed, loud and shrill. Her cry died in her throat, followed by snarls and sounds of ripping and snapping.

      “Stop,” Rebecca managed. Then, two final words, half cry, half sigh: “Please. No.”

      Silence. The video feed remained steady on the field and forest.

      “Keep watching,” Justin said. “This is the creepy part.”

      Half the bear’s body appeared on the screen. The animal stood in profile, looking across the meadow.

      When the next frame appeared, the bear had turned to look straight at the camera.

      Chuck stared back at the creature—its massive, furred head and short, dark snout glistening with blood; its stubby ears, the notch plainly visible in its right flap; its blond hump, lit by the midday sun, rising between its wide shoulder blades.

      The hunter in Chuck focused on the precise spot between the eyes where an adult grizzly was sure to be brought down by a bullet.

      But researchers weren’t allowed to carry firearms in the park.

      The bear continued to stare at the camera.

      “It’s almost as if it’s posing,” Justin said. “Is that bizarre or what?”

      No further sounds came from the wolf researchers. Three seconds later, the bear was gone, the camera back to recording the sun-dappled meadow, the lodgepole pines covering the distant hillside.

      “That’s all,” Justin said. “Those poor wolfies.” He tapped his phone with his fingertip. Its face went dark and he shoved the phone back in his pocket. “By the time the posse showed up, the grizzly had split.”

      “They tried to track it, from what I read,” Chuck said.

      “Yeah. But it rained later that day and they ended up losing the trail.”

      “They haven’t spotted it in all this time? Even with that notch in its ear?”

      “They’re still trying.”

      “It’s been two years.”

      “Grizzlies cover a lot of ground—and there’s lots of ground out there for them СКАЧАТЬ