32
With Gipper in a panic-backtracking blindly, woofing, eyes white and almond-shaped, ears pinned back-Cody jerked on the reins and tried to stay in the saddle. He knew his reaction was as out-of-control as his horse’s and he wasn’t helping the situation, but he didn’t know what to do. The big brown grizzly sow looked up with a mouthful of red meat. The two cubs-one auburn, the other brown like his mother-scrambled back over the body and fell in behind her giant haunches, peering out at him with black eyes.
Cody managed to crank Gipper’s head to the side and stop him from scrambling long enough to slide his right boot out of the stirrup and swing down to the ground with his rifle. Gipper pranced as if he was electrically charged and pinned Cody to a tree trunk, crushing the wind out of him, then crow-hopped back toward the trail. Cody slipped off the side of the horse, stunned and gasping for breath, and felt the reins being pulled away through his fingers.
Gipper was gone, crashing through the timber straight away from him, bouncing through the tight grouping of trees, leaving behind showers of broken branches and pine needles. He could hear his horse grunting and feel the hammering of his hooves on the forest floor through the soles of his boots.
Cody swung the muzzle of the AR-15 toward the body and the bears. The cubs had turned their heads away to the right, transfixed by the panicked run of the horse as it crashed through the trees. The sow, though, locked her eyes with Cody and stretched out, guarding the body with her baseball-mitt-sized paws. The long red strip of flesh swung back and forth in her jaws.
The auburn cub switched his attention to Cody and stood up. He was only three and a half feet tall, a nascent miniature of his mother. His front paws curled down and rested almost comically on his bulging belly. Although he wanted to, he didn’t look formidable except for the blood on his snout.
The brown cub mewled and shot out from behind his mother on all fours, scrambling over the body, straight toward Cody.
The cub came within ten feet before stopping abruptly. It was a deliberate false charge, a bluff move apparently hardwired into grizzly bears that often worked, but Cody refused to run and wouldn’t fire and reveal himself unless he had to. Because he knew if he harmed the cub the sow would be all over him before the ejected brass hit the ground. The.223 rounds from his rifle might slow her, but they wouldn’t likely stop her.
He couldn’t run because the grizzlies could chase him down. Even the cubs had flashing claws and teeth.
Gesturing with the rifle, he advanced several steps as aggressively as he could manage. He screamed at them and bellowed for them to leave and ended up coughing raggedly in what ended as a series of rough barks.
The brown cub wheeled and ran back to his mother. As soon as he reached her, the sow snorted and jumped back from the body, then spun and crashed away into the timber, followed inches away by the brown cub. The auburn cub remained standing on his hind legs.
“You better go, too,” Cody growled.
The auburn cub seemed to suddenly realize he was alone, and he fell to all fours, yelped, and scampered into the woods.
Cody lowered the rifle, closed his eyes, and let out a long chattering breath. He looked down to see if he’d fouled himself and he was relieved to find out he hadn’t. Over the next minute, he felt his heartbeat slow down. He propped the rifle against a tree trunk and rubbed his face with clammy hands, thinking that the sensation of receding adrenaline was not unlike the first stages of a hangover.
He sensed the bears had not gone far. As he approached the body he held the rifle out in front of him and swept the timber on both sides with his eyes. He could still feel his heart beating hard, and the tips of his fingers and toes ached for nicotine to stop the nerve ends from jangling.
He winced. The smell of fresh blood and exposed stomach contents was acrid. Shards of flesh were ripped from clean white bones and the pile reminded him of the aftermath of a Thanksgiving turkey.
Trying not to look at the mutilation directly, he kept his head to the side while he rolled the body over. The underside was not as torn up. In the back pocket of the trousers he found a wallet. Inside was an EasyPayXpress Unlimited MetroCard for the New York subway system, $480 in cash, assorted credit and business cards, family photos of a very large and dark-haired clan, and a New York State driver’s license identifying the victim as Anthony Joseph D’Amato.
D’Amato’s clothes had largely been torn away and they’d bunched beneath his back. Cody rooted through the shredded clothing and felt something crackle. It was the familiar and fantastically welcome sound of crinkling cellophane, and Cody dropped manically to his knees and ripped at the bundle with both hands.
Within a slit and blood-spattered double Ziploc bag was a crushed, half-empty pack of Marlboro Lights.
“D’Amato,” Cody said, “bless you for being a secret smoker.”
It was obvious one of the grizzlies had swiped the plastic bag with claws that sliced through the cigarettes to the skin below. Cody rooted through the pack, breathing in the sweet smell of powdered tobacco, and found three intact cigarettes. The longest one had a small smear of red on the side of it.
He looked at it for a second and conceded that yes, he was smoking a dead man’s last bloodstained cigarettes.
He lit up and sat back and inhaled, looking around for the bears, half expecting them to come barreling out of the forest like demons to rip his throat out while his defenses were down.
And he wasn’t sure it would be the worst way to go because at least it would be epic and quick.
He left the body of D’Amato on the trail until he could figure out what to do with it. He had no rope to hang it, and it would be a matter of time before the bears came back. His camera was gone with Gipper.
Cody bushwhacked through the brush in the general direction his horse had run. As he shouldered through tree trunks and stepped over downed timber while smoking his cigarette, he felt it was getting lighter. He walked toward the light and within ten minutes stepped out of the trees into a small grassy clearing.
The satellite phone had a signal. He punched the number for the cell phone Larry had said to call. Reception was clear and he heard it ring on the other end. Four, five, six rings. No voice mail prompt. Cody let it ring, figuring Larry would eventually hear it and pick up.
While he waited he slowly pivoted in the meadow so he could keep his eyes out in every direction. He held the AR-15 muzzle down in his right hand. The safety was off. There were no signs of bears, or wolves, or his horse, or whomever had killed Tristan Glode, Russell, and D’Amato. And before them, the string of recovering alcoholics including Hank Winters.
Two minutes later, Cody was surprised when he heard a click through his earpiece. Someone was on the other end.
“Larry?” Cody said.
Breathing.
