Oh fuck, Dan said, followed by the sound of safeties coming off all around. Kate was still holding her rifle in front of her but she didn‘t raise it to her shoulder or sight down the barrel. Mutt hadn‘t charged or put herself between Kate and the noise.

The crashing came nearer, and the bear whose food cache they‘d just stumbled on came growling and stumbling into the clearing, bringing the better part of a dense clump of alders with him.

Only it wasn‘t a bear. It was Old Sam, and he wasn‘t growling, he was swearing, loudly enough to be heard all the way back to the road. He stumbled to a halt, spit out an alder leaf, and glared at them.

Something chasing you, Old Sam? Dan said.

No, there is nothing fucking chasing me! Old Sam Dementieff, a lean and leathery old fart, near as anyone could figure ninety-five going on forty and cranky with the wisdom of accumulated years, drew himself up and bent a fulminating eye on the ranger. I was looking for you. Heard you had a search party going. Figured I‘d lend a hand.

Kate looked at the toes of her wet boots with an intensity they did not merit. Matt was inspecting the straps on his pack, Mark was whistling a happy tune, Luke was scratching at a nonexistent mark on the immaculate barrel of his .30-30, and Peter was squinting at the cloudless sky in search of the next incoming front. Dan eyed the well-worn, well-kept Model 70 Winchester over Old Sam‘s shoulder. From years of long and usually alcohol-involved conversations over the bar at Bernie‘s Roadhouse, Dan knew that Old Sam believed absolutely in the hunter‘s maxim Use enough gun. The Model 70 was known to the cognoscenti as the rifleman‘s rifle, and Old Sam‘s had a serial number well below 600,000, making it a drool-worthy object of desire to any hunter worthy of the name. His preferred cartridge was the .458 Winchester Magnum, which could put down half a ton of bear and an incoming ICBM with equal efficiency.

It was the half-ton bear, however, that more nearly concerned the chief ranger, steward of everything on two wings and four legs within the twenty-million-acre Park.

Dan looked at Kate. She had her back to him, now absorbed in examining the inside of one of Mutt‘s ears. The Grosdidiers had double-checked all the equipment they carried, and had fallen back and regrouped at a safe distance.

Absent a carcass—an ursine one—there wasn‘t a thing Dan could say, but he gave Old Sam a hard look anyway, just to keep in practice. Unintimidated, his usual attitude, Old Sam gave him a hard look right back. Kate said, Let‘s see what we got here, and walked to the pile at the top of the clearing.

They came to a halt in a loose half circle. It wasn‘t pretty, but no one humiliated themselves by averting their eyes. Oh, great, Dan said, sounding more irritated than horrified.