The human had followed the bear back into the first line of trees, then towards the river again. Pete walked alongside the set of tracks and struggled through the deeper snow at the river’s edge. Despite his best efforts at sealing off the gaps, snow found its way into the tops of his boots, and he felt an icy trickle down his thick socks as it melted. Felt sort of good right now, but he knew it could be trouble later, if he didn’t dry them out.

Once out on the open ice, the snow was nearly swept clean, and he had difficulty following the prints. It didn’t matter though, because he could see something on the ice near the middle of the river. A darker spot staining the expanse of blue-white. He hurried towards it, but before he got there, he already had a very bad feeling.

The feeling deepened into full-blown panic when he reached the blood.

There was a lot of it, just speckles at first and then arcing across the ice in a sweeping spray, and finally, a large pool full of gore. He crouched next to the pool and touched his finger to it. Still wet.

“Hello?” he said again. His voice echoed back at him from the far bank. He had no way of knowing whether this blood was animal or human. But there were two possibilities; this man had either bagged big game, or gotten himself into a heap of trouble.

“Anyone there!? Do you need help!?”

A crow, rousted by his voice, lifted off from a pine tree in a flurry of cawing and flapping wings and soared over the river. Pete jumped and swore. Okay, Grizzly Adams, think. If the guy’s hurt, there will be a trail of blood to follow.

In fact, there was a thick line of blood leading away from the larger pool, towards the opposite bank. There were bloody boot prints too. He followed them across the ice, but before long, they faded and then disappeared well before they reached land again.

On the one hand, Pete thought, that was good news. If the man had been badly wounded, he would have kept bleeding. But then again, if he’d wounded or killed the bear, what happened to the carcass? It didn’t make any sense.

He crouched and studied the last boot print. It was strange. Faint but still visible enough, and yet the prints just ended there, as if the wearer had grown wings and flown away. He could try to find this guy, or he could just turn around and go back to his truck and pretend like it never happened. There was nobody here to judge him; nobody, that is, except one man who may or may not be lying somewhere with his intestines hanging out and a bear’s teeth marks in his skull.