But then, with a sudden growl, fate smashed those chances down again. The noise made Frank and Conway look toward the woods, where a massive brown bear stood on its hind legs, glaring at them.
Chapter 14
“Don’t move,” Frank breathed.
“I…I thought bears hibernated during the winter,” Conway said.
“I reckon this one hasn’t quite gotten around to it yet.” A grim smile curved Frank’s raw, wind-chapped lips. “Maybe he wants to fill his belly with a couple of cheechakos before he goes to sleep for the next few months.” He thought back on some things that old-time mountain men had told him. “Bears can’t see worth a damn. They rely more on their sense of smell. The wind’s from offshore, so he’s caught our scent. Or she. Might be a female.” He glanced down at the crate of guns and ammunition. “We’ll take it slow and easy, Pete, so as not to spook that critter, but we need to get the lid off this crate.”
“You think you can get one of those rifles out, load it, and shoot that bear before it charges us?”
“That’s not what I had in mind,” Frank said. He bent his knees and reached down to the crate. They needed some sort of lever to pry the lid off. “There’s a little busted place here. See if you can get your fingers in it.”
Conway had to lower himself to one knee in order to slip the fingers of one hand into the opening. He heaved against the lid while Frank took hold of one of the broken boards from the lifeboat’s hull and began slowly twisting it back and forth. Meanwhile the bear stood at the edge of the trees, sniffing the air with a confused look on its furry face.
“It can’t figure out if it wants to attack us or not,” Frank said. The piece of board came loose in his hands. “See if you can work that lid up a little more, Pete. If you can, I think I can slip this board in there and pry it open.”
Grunting with the effort he put into it, Conway struggled with the crate. With a squeal of metal against wood, the nails holding the lid down gave slightly.
Frank wedged the end of the board into the gap. “You pull up on the lid while I press down on this board,” he told Conway. “Ready?”
Conway nodded as he cast a nervous glance toward the bear. “I suppose so.”
The two men worked together, throwing their remaining strength into the task. The nails screeched loudly this time as muscle power added to the leverage of the board pried the lid up. It came loose suddenly, flying up into the air and nearly hitting Conway, who jumped back, tripped, and sat down down on the beach.
“Oh, hell, Frank, here he comes!” the young man exclaimed.
Frank turned to look at the bear, which had tottered several steps out of the trees. The massive creature stopped short, though, and lifted its head higher as its nose wrinkled. The bear stood there for several tense moments, then turned abruptly, dropped to all fours, and lumbered off into the woods, vanishing into the shadows under the trees.
Conway stared after it uncomprehendingly and muttered, “What…what the hell just happened?”
Frank dropped the piece of board he was still holding. It wouldn’t have done much good as a weapon against a monster like that bear.
“Like I said, a bear’s got a really sensitive sense of smell. I thought all the oilcloth and grease packed around these guns might stink pretty bad to it. If it’s ever been around any hunters, it’s smelled those scents before and knows they mean trouble. So the bear figured it would be better off somewhere else.”
Conway stared at him. “You knew that was going to happen?”
“I hoped it would,” Frank said. “But no, I wasn’t sure. Just played a hunch.”
“It was a good one,” Conway said with a nod. He clambered to his feet. “We’d better get some of these guns out, clean ’em up, and get them loaded before we run into any more wild animals.”
“That’s just what I was thinking,” Frank agreed. “Come on, we’ll drag what’s left of the boat farther up toward the trees and make a camp here. It can be our base while we’re searching for the others.”
“You really think we’ll find any of them still alive?”
“I don’t know,” Frank said honestly. “But like with that bear, I’m going to play a hunch.”
They worked hard for the next hour, dragging the wrecked boat and the supplies up to the edge of the trees. They took rifles and pistols from the crate, cleaned the grease off the weapons, and broke open the cases of ammunition to load them. Frank felt a lot better with the weight of a Colt riding in his holster again, even a .32, and with a fully-loaded Winchester leaning against a nearby tree.
Then, while Conway went back up the beach to retrieve the other two crates of supplies, Frank found enough dry wood and pine needles in the forest to make a good-sized fire. He carried the fuel out onto the edge of the beach and made a pile of it, then knelt and used his knife and the piece of flint to start the fire. By the time Conway got back, Frank had a roaring, leaping blaze going, sending a column of smoke high into the gray sky.
“If they’re anywhere along this beach, maybe they’ll see that smoke,” he told Conway. “We can continue searching for them, too.”
“How about if we fire some shots into the air?” Conway suggested. “The others might hear them.”
“Good idea.” Frank picked up one of the Winchesters and cranked off three rounds. “We don’t need to waste ammunition, though, so we’ll only try this every so often.”
They managed to pry off the lids of the other crates and found salt pork, flour, sugar, and salt. Seawater had gotten into some of the containers and ruined the contents, but quite a few of the provisions were still usable. One crate had axes and hatchets in it, and those tools might well come in handy, too.
The fire warmed them and finished the job of drying their clothes. Conway stood with his hands on his hips, gazing into the flames, and said, “We’re a lot better off than we have any right to expect, considering what happened.” His voice caught a little as he went on, “I hope…I just hope we’re not the only ones who
