Pike heard what happened up Chaik Creek from a boat captain he met in Petersburg: Three Department of Fish and Game biologists had ventured up Chaik Creek to conduct a population count of spawning salmon. On their first day, the biologists reported a high number of brown bears, which was typical for the spawning season and not unexpected. The biologists were not heard from again until a garbled plea was received by a passing boat four days later. Officials from FG working with local Tlingit trappers determined that a mature boar stalked the three biologists for some distance along the creek, then attacked when the trio stopped to build a fish trap. Though armed with high-power rifles, the ferocity of the attack prevented the team from using their weapons. Two of the team members-Dr. Abigail Martin, the senior biologist, and Clark Aimes, a wildlife supervisor-were killed immediately. The third biologist, a graduate student from Seattle named Jacob Gottman, fled. The boar-estimated by the depth and breadth of its track at weighing better than eleven hundred pounds-pursued Gottman to a gravel bar downstream where it disemboweled the young man, tore off his right arm at the elbow, and pushed his body beneath the uprooted base of a fallen alder tree. Gottman was still alive. When the bear returned to the original attack site to devour Martin and Aimes, Gottman made his way downstream to Chaik Bay where he called for help on a small walkie-talkie. One of his last pleas was heard by the fifty-foot salmon boat, Emydon. Gottman bled to death before he was reached.

It had to be a mercy. The captain stared into his coffee. No doubt, it had to be a mercy. They said his guts trailed behind him like a garden hose.

Pike nodded without comment. He had seen worse done to men by other men, but he did not say that.

The captain explained that tests on their remains indicated that the bear was rabid. Fish and Game sent two teams of trackers to hunt it down, but neither team was successful. Jacob Gottman's parents put up a bounty. A Tlingit trapper from Angoon went in to find the bear, but didn't come back. The Gottmans doubled their bounty. The trapper's brother and father-in-law spent two weeks along the creek, but had found only one sign: the single largest print that either had ever seen, with claw marks the size of hunting knives. They had felt him in there, they said; felt the dark deadly weight of him like a shadow in the trees, but they never saw the bear. It was as if he were hanging back. Waiting.

Pike said, Waiting.

That's what they said, yeah.

That evening Pike phoned a man in Los Angeles. Two days later Pike's rifle arrived. He set out for Angoon.