“Thank you, handsome,” Cecelia said.
“Who are you talking to?” Moose asked.
“You,” Cecelia said.
“Oh. No one’s ever called me that before. Mostly folks say I’m sort of ugly.”
“Not to me,” Cecelia said. “To me you’re the handsomest man alive.”
“Gosh.”
Fargo had finished eating, and stood. “I’ll head right out. If I can’t pick up the trail I should be back by noon or so.”
“Be careful, pard,” Rooster cautioned. “You said it yourself. Brain Eater ain’t normal.”
Fargo carried his saddle blanket, saddle and bridle to the Ovaro. He threw on the blanket and smoothed it, then swung the saddle up and over and bent to the cinch. He pulled out the picket pin and put it in his saddlebag. He was about to fork leather when Cecelia came over.
“Before you head out there’s somethin’ I need to say.”
“About?”
Cecelia gazed at the men at the fire, and her kids, and then at the deep shadows in the woods that had yet to be dispelled by the rising sun. “This hunt was my idea. I saw it as the best way to get the money I need.”
“You’ve made that plain,” Fargo said, impatient to be under way.
“You didn’t have to go along with it. None of you did. But I’m powerful glad you did. Without all of you, this wouldn’t work.”
“What are you trying to say?”
“That I’m grateful and I would take it poorly if anythin’ was to happen to you.”
“Thanks,” Fargo said. Her sincerity touched him. He saw that she was slightly embarrassed by her admission so he grinned and said, “I’d hug you but Moose would try to beat me to a pulp.”
“He’s a good man,” Cecelia said. “He doesn’t have much between the ears but the good counts for more than that.”
“You have plenty between yours so the two of you will come out even.”
Cecelia held out her hand. “Like Rooster said, you be careful out there.”
“Always.” Fargo climbed on and held the Sharps in front of him. As he tapped his spurs he tried not to dwell on the fact that a man could be as careful as he could be and still end up in a bear’s belly.
12
As the forest and the shadows closed around Fargo, so did a deep silence. Usually the songbirds started a new day singing in exuberance. Not one was singing today.
Fargo rode with every nerve tingling. Grizzlies were notorious for ambushing their prey. They were also cunning at concealing themselves. He searched in a loop. The ground was hard and there were plenty of pine needles to cushion the bear’s great weight but he found a partial print and then broken brush, enough to tell him the giant bear had headed west.
Fargo went slowly, as much to keep from being jumped as to not miss any of the spoor. Tracking was often painstaking; with grizzlies it was more so.
From the spacing between prints, Fargo deduced that the griz had been moving at a fast pace. It made no attempt to hide its passage and for over an hour Fargo made good time. Then he crested a rise. Below spread a granite slope sprinkled with scattered pockets of bare earth. Dismounting, he checked the bare patches first but he didn’t find a single print. It was possible the bear’s claws had scraped the granite here and there but the nicks would be slight and hard to find.
His only other recourse was to descend to the bottom and search for sign there. He rode back and forth for half an hour, but nothing. It was as if the grizzly had vanished into thin air. He ranged farther and came on a smudge but he couldn’t say whether the bear made it. He scoured the vicinity and found no other marks.
Fargo was getting nowhere. Frustrated, he returned to the granite slope. Maybe the bear hadn’t come all the way down. Maybe it had changed direction again. He reined to the right and spent another twenty minutes looking, without success. Swinging around to the left, he discovered a large pine that bore fresh claw marks.
“Thank you, bear,” Fargo said with a grin. He examined them; they were wider and deeper than any he’d ever run across.
He went a little way and found where the grizzly had urinated. Dismounting, he tried to tell if the urine came from under the bear or from behind it. If from under, the bear was a male. Females usually squatted, and the urine was usually behind them. But there were no clear prints to go by.
Brain Eater had gone north for about a hundred yards and turned due west again. Shortly after, the tracks pointed to the south. To someone unfamiliar with bears it would seem the grizzly was wandering all over the place. Fargo knew better. Brain Eater was doing what bears always did; they followed their nose. Bears relied on their sense of smell more than any other faculty.
Fargo hoped Brain Eater found something to eat. A gorged bear would lay up after eating. Twice he lost the sign but found it again. The few tracks of the bear’s whole paws were marvels; Bear Eater was as third again as big as most grizzlies.
Fargo was so engrossed in the spoor that when he flushed a gray fox, it startled him. It startled the fox, too; the animal bounded away and never looked back.
Noon came and went and Fargo had yet to catch a glimpse of his quarry. He was thinking of that when he came out of a stand of firs, and there, on a shelf not fifty feet above him, was Brain Eater.
The grizzly had heard him and they set eyes on each other at the same instant.
Fargo drew rein.
Brain Eater reared.
Astonishment rooted Fargo. The thing was gigantic. It uttered a menacing growl. Recovering his wits, he jerked the Sharps to his shoulder. Belatedly, he realized that Brain Eater was a female, not a male as everyone assumed, which made the bear’s immense size all the more remarkable. Usually males were larger than females.
Fargo took aim. He centered the sights for a lung shot and started to thumb back the hammer. Brain Eater had other ideas; she dropped onto all fours and hurtled down the shelf toward him.
Fargo did the only thing he could. Hauling on the reins, he fled. He used his spurs and the Ovaro was at a gallop in a few bounds. He ducked to avoid having his head taken off by a low limb, shifted to keep from being swept from the saddle by another.
Fargo didn’t need to look back to know the grizzly was hard after them. The wheezing bellows of its breaths were proof enough. He looked anyway.
Brain Eater was swift of paw. Grizzlies always seemed ponderous until they exploded into motion. Over short distances they were faster than a horse but they lacked stamina. If he could keep ahead of it for half a mile or so, it would likely tire and give up the chase.
That half a mile soon felt like ten.
Fargo burst out of the trees and across a grassy tract. The Ovaro increased its speed—but so did the grizzly. It was only a dozen feet behind them, its muscles rippling under its hairy hide, its paws striking the ground in sledgehammer cadence. He shuddered to think of the consequences should the stallion go down. The bear would be on them in a heartbeat, and he would be ripped to pieces before he got off a shot.
Fargo wished he could shove the Sharps into the saddle scabbard so he’d have both hands free for riding. He was half tempted to twist in the saddle and fire but common sense checked the impulse. To hit a moving target from a galloping horse was more luck than anything. Even if he hit it he might not kill it, and wounded grizzlies were fiercely vengeful.
Woods loomed. Not daring to slow, Fargo plunged into them. Spruce were all around him. Limbs whipped past his face and snatched at his buckskins. His cheek stung and his shoulder was jarred. Then the trees thinned and Fargo was in the open again. But not for long. A belt of aspens spread before him.
Fargo steeled himself. Aspens grew close together. So close, threading a horse through them was a challenge. He’d have to constantly shift and turn, and ride slower. The only consolation, if it could be called that,
