Her attention never wavered from the opposite side of the little clearing. She was ready when she caught just the merest glimpse of sunlight on a rich shining hide before the grizzly exploded into the clearing. He was running flat out, straight at them, squealing and growling a challenge, turf kicked up behind him by those long, sharp, deadly claws. Distantly, as if it were happening to someone else, Kate could feel his weight hitting the ground, a steady, rhythmic vibration up through the soles of her feet. His thick, gleaming hide rolled in loose, flapping folds around flesh diminished by a winter‘s hibernation.

He couldn‘t possibly have been moving that fast before, the thickness of the brush would have impeded him as surely as it would have stopped Kate and Old Sam‘s escape. Once he was in the clearing he moved at a flat-out four-gaited gallop, the hind legs following the forelegs in a dedicated integration of muscle and bone and attitude that she would have recognized as sheer beauty if she hadn‘t been the prize at the finish line. He was the size of a Humvee, coming at her with the hammer down and armored with teeth and claws, and she concentrated all her awareness on the tiny bead at the end of the barrel of her rifle. She blew out another breath, and held it.

The bead wavered a little before steadying. Bead and bear‘s head sprang into acute and equal focus. His head came up in mid-stride, some instinct as primeval as the forest behind him alerting him to the danger. For a fleeting moment their eyes met, and it flashed through her mind that she had seen that expression or something very like it before. The eyes, dark, near together, nearsighted, and bent on the annihilation of his target.

Looked just like Harvey Meganack when he was intent on scoring against Kate at an NNA board meeting.

She pulled the trigger without volition, an act of instinct and self-defense. As if it came from a great distance, she heard the report of a rifle shot. After what seemed like forever felt the rifle‘s butt kick into her shoulder.

The bullet penetrated eye and occipital bone and ricocheted around the inside of the skull. The bear‘s head flung back with such force that it broke his neck. His front legs went out from beneath him, but the forward motion backed by his mass was so great that he slid the remainder of the twenty feet between them.

When his body slid to a halt, his head flopped forward. The tip of his short, blunt nose was just touching Kate‘s boot.

Three

Most of the time I just love being a ranger, Dan said. But I admit there are days that do test that love.

Jim saved the document and hit the Print button.

Kate had given her statement first. Then, because she was still seeing the world through a transparent veil dotted with large dull black spots that kept fading in and out, she walked down the hill on shaky legs to the Niniltna Native Association headquarters. Annie Mike kept a cache of Stouffer‘s frozen mac and cheese in the break room freezer. Kate felt like she hadn‘t eaten in a week.