Downstream, Bullfrog lowered the gun.

24

Bullfrog and Mara butchered the bear while her cub watched. Her guts sloshed from her belly, steaming, and stained the river stones. She seemed smaller now. Maybe three hundred pounds. Two-fifty gutted. The size of a large man, nothing more; the size of the man in front of you in line at the bank. Her black hair coarse and thick, as long as Mara’s fingers, and the skin beneath it almost translucent. She had dandruff.

The cub watched. He was not so young. A yearling. Maybe he would live.

The bear’s heart was still beating. Not in her chest, but in Bullfrog’s hand. The chambers twitching on their own, still struggling to push blood. Bullfrog put the heart aside.

They cut from her flank and her thigh, long thin strips to dry and smoke, and they didn’t worry about the smell, because what bear would they draw with the scent of meat, who would come? Nobody was coming. Nobody was coming, and so they would eat.

“Will he live?” Mara asked Bullfrog, of the cub. For all she’d done in the woods, she had never been a hunter. She didn’t know these things.

“I think he will,” said Bullfrog. “If he can find enough food by fall.”

Now they had enough food. Mara didn’t ask Bullfrog where he’d gone or what he found. The answer was obvious: wherever he’d gone, however far he had walked, he had found nothing. It was better not to make him say it aloud.

They cooked tenderloins on the pot lid, and the meat was good. Thick and dark, if a little stringy. Mara sliced the edges from a pheasants’ back mushroom and seared them in the leftover juice, a rubbery approximation of fries. They mixed scoops of jam in cups of hot water to make a thin, sweet drink for dessert. They sat by the fire, the four of them, and passed a packet of ramen seasoning for flavor, tapping sprinkles of orange powder onto the vegetables and the meat.

After dinner they played cards. Go Fish. Kyle got ahead with fours and sevens and he held the lead. The game was good because it was simple, and none of them were feeling smart. When it wasn’t Kyle’s turn, he closed his eyes. Ashley petted her fawn with one hand and held her cards with the other. Her fawn had grown bony, and its ears curled back.

Between games, Mara shuffled. She had heard once that most arrangements in a deck of cards had never been made before and would never be made again. She didn’t believe it then, but now she did.

Kyle didn’t mention amputation again.

In the morning, Bullfrog built a smoker, and the air filled with the smell of smoked bear. Rich and persistent, a scent that stuck to your skin. Mara went back to the carcass, where the flies were so lethargic that she could pick them off with her fingers, and cut a thick sheet of fat from under the fur. She rendered it on the outdoor fire into oil, and they rubbed the oil into their dry and flaking skin. Mara massaged it into Kyle’s arms, his good leg. They all reeked with the smell of it. They got the cards and played another hand. The cards were greasy, too.