Linwood Barclay - Lone Wolf

Outside, I heard voices.

I looked out the window and saw Thorne and his two helpers emerging from the woods, looking discouraged and bedraggled. I didn’t have the energy to go outside and rub it in, so I stayed in front of the computer while Dad, crutches tucked under his arm, went to meet them. The conversation was subdued, but I could make out enough to know that they hadn’t spotted a bear, but were prepared to come back the next morning.

“Just because we didn’t see him doesn’t mean he’s not out there,” I heard Orville say, loud enough, I figured, so that I would hear him through the wall.

I heard a car coming down the hill and moved my head closer to the window so I could get a better look. A shiny blue Jaguar sedan.

Lawrence Jones had arrived.

I went out to greet him. He got out of his car slowly, taking in the scene from behind his shades. He had on a black leather bomber jacket and jeans that looked like they cost a lot more than the Gap variety I was wearing. He nodded when he saw me, then cast his eye over the three men with rifles.

I shook Lawrence’s hand. “Hey,” I said.

I nodded my head in the direction of the others and Lawrence closed the door of the Jaguar and walked along with me to where Dad was talking to Orville and his two hunting assistants.

“Dad, Orville, fellas,” I said, “I’d like you to meet my friend Lawrence. Lawrence Jones.”

Orville glared. “Hey there, Larry.”

“It’s Lawrence,” he said, extending a hand. Orville took it reluctantly, probably figuring that refusing it would cause a greater scene. Everyone shook hands.

“This the guy going to solve all our problems?” Orville asked.

Lawrence said nothing. I said, “Lawrence has some experience that might be helpful.”

Orville grinned. “Well, I think we’ve all been waiting for someone with an expensive car and pretty clothes. I know I feel safer already.” The hunters chuckled.

“Orville,” Dad said reproachfully.

“I take it you’re coming back tomorrow,” I said to Orville.

“We did what we could today,” he said. “We’re not going to give up.”

“Of course not,” I said. “Come back as often as-”

Bob Spooner’s truck came over the hill with a roar. It was moving so quickly, skittering across the gravel, I wondered whether it was out of control. Through the windshield I caught a glimpse of Bob, his face bloodied, his eyes wild. We took a few steps back, thinking we might have to run for cover, but then Bob slammed on the brakes, the truck lurching to a stop, gravel dust engulfing the vehicle.

Bob threw open the door, nearly fell out. There was blood streaming from his face, blood on the palms of his hands. “Call an ambulance!” he shouted. “You gotta follow me! We gotta go back! Bring your guns!”

“What is it?” Dad shouted.

“The bear!” he shouted. “I think he’s got Leonard! Jesus Christ, follow me!”

Lawrence Jones, taking off his glasses and looking at me, said quietly, “Is it always this busy around here?”

Before any of us could ask Bob anything else, or suggest he not drive in his excited state, he’d turned his truck around and was racing back up the drive. Dad and I got into Lawrence’s Jaguar while Orville and his two pals piled into his cruiser. Orville was talking on his radio at the same time as he was turning the car around, calling for an ambulance to meet them up the highway.

Bob’s truck jerked forward as it hit the highway, the wheels hitting pavement after spinning on gravel.

“Bob shouldn’t be driving,” Dad said. “He looked like he was in shock or something. Why didn’t he take some bear spray? I thought we had another can of the stuff. What the hell was he thinking?”

The Jaguar’s engine hummed as Lawrence pushed down on the accelerator.

“You know what I bet he was thinking?” Dad said, answering his own question. “I bet he was thinking there was no bear. And you know why he’d be thinking something like that?”

Dad was sitting in the back, so I didn’t have to look at him.

“Because of all your crazy talk, that’s why.”

“My crazy talk? You’ve been thinking something different? After our dinner at the Wickenses? You mean to tell me you haven’t been thinking the same thing I’ve been thinking?”

“I’m just saying.”

“And besides,” I said, “I don’t think I’ve ever even told Bob my theories about what happened. It’s one thing to involve you and Orville in conjecture, but it’s quite another burdening your guests with all this shit.”

“So,” Lawrence said, his eyes darting back and forth between Bob’s truck and Orville’s police car in the rear-view mirror. “It sure is beautiful up here.”

Dad said, “My son tells me you’re homosexual.” Lawrence took a long breath. “You don’t look homosexual,” Dad said. “Of course, that might be because you’re black. Most of the homosexuals you see on TV are white. Isn’t that right, Zack?”

Orville had put the siren on. I glanced back and saw that he had the flashing red light going, too. I had a pretty good feeling that he was going to be insufferable very soon. And I had a pretty good feeling I was going to have to endure it.

Ahead, Bob’s brake lights came on and the truck skittered over to the shoulder. The truck was barely stopped before he had the door open and was running back to us, pointing into the forest.

“I think it was here!” he shouted as Lawrence pulled the Jag over. Bob was an older guy, and he was looking winded.

Lawrence and I got out. Dad, who’d hopped into the car and come on this adventure without crutches, opened his door but made no move to get out.

“Bob,” I said, as calmly as possible. “You have to slow down. You’re going to have a heart attack.”

He put his hands on the Jag hood to steady himself. Lawrence glanced down at the bloody smudges being left on his sheet metal.

Bob took a couple of breaths. “We might,” he said, gasping for air, “already be too late.”

Orville and company bolted from the police car like it was rigged to explode, running forward, rifles held across their chests. “Which way?” Orville asked.

Bob pointed again toward the forest. “I’m gonna have to lead you in, show you where I last saw him. Jesus, I don’t believe this.”

I put an arm around Bob’s shoulder. “First of all, how badly hurt are you?” Bob’s face was cluttered with several cuts and scrapes and smudges of dirt. The skin was scraped in several places on his hands.

“I fell,” he said. “Couple of times, I think. I was running fast as I could. I didn’t want him to get me. Jesus, he was huge.”

“Okay, but you haven’t broken anything, right?”

“I, I don’t think so, no.”

“Okay.” I looked into the back of the Jag. “Dad, you can’t walk anyway, so you watch for the ambulance, all right?”

Dad gave me a thumbs-up as Orville brushed up next to me. “I’m in charge here,” he said. “And you’ve got a lot to answer for.”

We all started following Bob through the high grass at the edge of the road and into the woods. Orville had taken a position next to Bob.

“Mr. Spooner, isn’t it?”

“Yes, that’s right.”

“What happened exactly?”

“Um, Leonard and I, we were hiking through here, this is the land where he wants to build his fishing resort, you know? He was showing me around, and we heard this rustling behind us, and we turned around, and there it was.”

“The bear.”

“Fucking right, the bear. He was standing on his back legs, kind of rearing up, you know, and he roared, Jesus, I never heard anything like it in my life.”