the added burdens.
In truth she'd not wanted the added burden in the persons of Joan and Rory but, after she'd traded her theory for Joan's information, they refused to be left behind. It increased her sense of responsibility, yet she was glad not to be alone. Because she suspected the park radios were being listened to by people other than rangers, she'd made the decision not to call Ruick to send backup.
The decision was not as foolhardy as it appeared on the surface. No one could start for the high country till morning anyway. Anna had all night to change her mind.
Leaving the trail before it neared Trapper Peak, Anna, Joan and Rory followed the slope in a southerly direction along the side of Flattop. This flank of the mountain was west-facing and caught the brunt of the afternoon sun. Several tiny lakes, carved an eternity before by glaciers and fed by small streams carrying snowmelt, provided water. It was prime huckleberry country and the berries were at the height of their season.
A half-mile or so beyond their old campsite, on an upthrust of rock, Anna stopped. Partly she was motivated by the sounds of heavy breathing behind her. She'd set a punishing pace. That she, too, was breathing hard was of no consequence. If she was right, time was of the essence, not only to save a valuable life but to see a sight that she would never forgive herself for missing.
A grunt and sucking sound told her Rory had dumped his pack at the base of the rock and gotten out his water bottle. Joan crept up beside Anna, aping her pose, elbows on the higher stones, body crouched behind. The researcher's round face was alarmingly red. The hair that curled from beneath her ball cap was glued to her cheeks with sweat, and the upper regions of her oversized glasses were beaded with moisture. Despite the physical costs, Joan's first words were, 'Do you see anything?'
'Not yet. Tell me again about the e-mails,' Anna said.
'Okay. Right. Let me think.' Breathewould have been as apt a word. Anna waited while Joan recovered and lined her thoughts up for a round of scientific reasoning.
'First e-mail about six weeks ago. Maybe more. The screen name is Balthazar. He says he's a high school student doing a research project on grizzly bears. He wants to know their ranges, denning habits, eating habits, if they're protected at Glacier, or if we allow hunting. Sensing an acolyte, naturally I fell all over myself to answer.'
'Naturally.' Anna unboxed her binoculars. Above the little lake, the land was sloped and thick with undergrowth. Nearer the water the bushes thinned out, creating a small natural meadow. The pine forest straggled down unimpressively, the trees thirty and forty feet apart.
'And you figure this Balthazar really was a high school student, not just some guy?'
'Maybe not high school but young. He never made any attempt to show me what he knew. The more education you get, the more irresistible that becomes.'
'Six or eight weeks ago,' Anna said as much to herself as Joan. 'About the time George Fetterman was kicking the bucket.'
'Several more e-mails like that,' Joan went on. 'Late July around then. Then no more for a week or so. Then the map idea comes up. The questions become very specific. Where the bears eat, when.'
'About this time we're packing to head out for the first round of DNA traps. Same time as the truck and horse trailer are found abandoned,' Anna said.
'Yes. Near as I can figure.'
'And you told him…'
'Flattop burn, glacier lilies.'
'Then we go down with the dead woman and you've got mail.'
'I tell him Cathedral Peak for army cutworm moths. And, in a week or so, Flattop, west side, huckleberries.'
Rory pushed up beside them. 'You think some guy is trying to trap a bear or something? Like to put in a side show?'
'Not exactly,' Anna said.
Rory came and went. Napped in the last of the sun. Anna and Joan stayed where they were, raking the hillside with binoculars.
Once Joan nudged Anna and pointed. A black bear, nearly the size of a grizzly, ambled out from the scrub below the clearing. Through the glasses Anna could see its nostrils open and close as it checked for danger. By good fortune and foresight they were downwind. Dressed in muted colors, lying low on the rock, they watched it unseen.
A quarter of an hour later a small grizzly sow, probably not quite three hundred pounds, came from higher up. She was a rich brown, almost the same shade as the black bear who, like many of his compatriots, was black only in name, not in hue. With her was a single cub, one born this season.
The cub ran after her, nipping and tugging at her ankles. Anna smiled as she and Joan simultaneously said 'awww' under their breath.
Half an hour more and Anna was getting wiggly. Joan had spent so many hours in uncomfortable positions watching empty tracts of land that she'd slid easily into research time and moved not at all. But for the slow arcing of the glasses as she scanned the area, Anna would have suspected her of having fallen asleep.
Ten minutes before sunset, when down-canyon winds, the night breath of the mountains, was chilling the back of Anna's neck, Joan whispered a prayer.
'Oh, my heavens,' she said. 'He's a god. I must apologize to the lab at the University of Idaho.'
'Where?' Anna demanded. 'Where?'
'Shh. There. Twenty degrees west of the last tree. Closer in. There. Rory!' she hissed. 'Wake up. Come up. Bring your glasses.'
Anna was scanning the huckleberry-choked hillside, seeing nothing but a blur. Then he was there, standing on his hind legs easily eleven feet tall, easily twelve hundred pounds and an incredible golden color. The rays of the setting sun struck him full on the side, the light flaring like fire on his pelt, running in sharp liquid flame over the pale guard hairs of his hump and the tops of his ears. 'Jiminy,' Anna breathed. 'Boone and Crockett, eat your heart out.'
'See him?' Joan whispered to Rory, who had belly-crawled up between them. 'An Alaskan grizzly.'
The magnificent creature was no more than twenty yards from where they lay. He had been feeding on the huckleberries that grew thick through a low cut in the hillside, little more than a ditch, but sufficient to hide him from sight until he stood up on his hind legs.
'I see him!' Rory hollered, sudden and loud in his excitement.
'Shh,' Joan hissed, but it was too late. The great golden head turned in their direction. The nostrils flared and the huge paws twitched. Even at a distance of sixty feet, Anna could see the claws, four-inch nails, dull white against the slightly darker fur of the animal's belly.
Brown eyes looked at the three of them, locked with Anna's then the bear looked away, growled as if uncertain. His great forelegs swung, the incredible power in them rippling smoothly beneath the backlit hide.
The black bear, the sow, even the little cub stopped feeding. The black bear huffed and snorted, the sound an unhappy pig would make. For an instant it looked as if he would stand, meet the challenge. Then he chose the better part of valor, turned and loped away, quickly hidden by the ensnaring tangle of brush.
The cub squeaked and hopped in excitement and earned a stern cuff from its mother. Silence settled back, unbroken by the noises of foraging animals. Unbroken by the sound of breathing. Consciously, Anna stopped holding her breath.
Crack. Crack.
Not nearby but carrying clearly in the still air; the sound of twigs breaking, or of wood on wood. The sound Anna had heard the night the bear tore up their camp, the night she'd dreamed a bear stalked her hiding place in the rocks on Cathedral Peak.
Crack.
