“You’ve got to kill him, then?” Joe asked.
“That was our recommendation to the Feds,” Trey said with resignation. “This is the fourth time 304’s damaged property in the basin. No matter how far we take him away, he finds his way back. He’s got no fear of humans anymore.”
From a scanner in Trey’s pickup, Joe could hear a low and steady pulsing tone. He knew from experience that the radio collar was transmitting the tone on 304. The bear was still in the area. They would sit and wait for it.
Joe scanned the ridges and slopes of the mountain basin, looking for movement. He saw none.
Trey said, “The sad thing is that 304 lived in these mountains for six or seven years without incident. One of the cabin owners left dog food out on his porch. 304
learned that he liked dog food and kept coming back. Pretty soon, the bear figured out that if he busted into the cabin he could find all kinds of things to eat. But it started with the dog food, and you know what they say.”
“A fed bear is a dead bear,” Joe said.
“Yes, goddamnit.”
Night came. The sliver of moon was a surgical white slice in the sky. Joe and Trey sat silently in the cab of the pickup, listening to each other’s breathing.
“Sorry to start out your trip like this,” Trey said. “I bet you want to get over there.”
“Not a problem.”
“Joe, I’ve got to ask you something.”
Joe grunted.
“After that incident last year, are you okay to work with me to get this bear?”
Joe turned to Trey and found his supervisor studying him. “I’m fine with it.”
“Are you sure? Because if you aren’t . . .”
“I said I’m fine with it, Trey.”
Trey eventually moved from Joe’s pickup to his own so he could sleep. Joe looked at his cell phone to see if he had a signal so he could call Marybeth and tell her about the change in plans. There was no signal. Instead, he checked in with dispatch and asked the dispatcher to advise Marybeth and the station in Jackson that he would be late arriving.
He tried to sleep. Cold crept into the cab from the doors and windows. The pulsing tone of the bear’s collar served as a heartbeat for the stakeout.
At 2:30 there was a metallic clang from the dark meadow below. Joe sat up with a start, banging his head against the steering wheel. He looked over and saw that Trey had heard it too, and had turned on his dome light and unrolled his window.
As Joe opened his door, there was a roar from below that not only ripped through the silence but also seemed to roll through the earth itself.
“Sounds like we got him,” Trey said. There was no joy in his voice.
Joe felt a shiver that raised the hair on his forearms and the back of his neck.
Six
Even before the headlights painted the inside of the culvert trap, Joe could smell the grizzly. The odor was heavy and musky, what a wet dog might smell like if it was twice the size of an NFL linebacker.
“Jesus Christ,” Trey said when they could see the bear huddled at the back of the trap, his eyes blinking against the artificial light. “He’s even bigger than the last time I saw him.”
“Is it 304?” Joe’s voice was weak, as if the presence of the bear had sucked something out of him. The bear filled the back of the trap; his huge head hung low, his nose moist and black. A stream of pinkcolored saliva hung like a beaded ruby necklace from his mouth to the halfdevoured roadkill on the floor of the trap. The bear was frightened, and breathing hard, which made the trap rock slightly back and forth.
“Yup, it’s him.”
On the seat between them was a tranquilizer gun loaded with a dart filled with Telazol. Once the bear was down, Trey had told Joe, they would need to confirm 304’s ear tag and inject the animal with a lethal dose of euthanol to kill it.
Joe drove close to the steel gate on the trap and turned the wheels slightly, giving Trey a good shot at the bear.
“I hate this,” Trey said, cocking the tranquilizer gun and aiming it out the window. “I hate this with all of my heart.”
The gun popped and Joe saw a flash of the dart through his headlights as it flew into the back of the trap. Joe couldn’t see where the dart hit within the thick fur of the grizzly, but he heard the bear grunt.
“Hit it?” Joe asked.
“I’m pretty sure I did.”
“How long before he’s down for the count?”
“Five minutes.”
They waited ten. Joe couldn’t tell if the bear was sleeping or not. He could still see eyes reflecting the light, still see the stream of saliva.
