David Robbins - Yellowstone Run

A few willows were interspersed with the underbrush. The thicket extended for 30 yards to the east.

Geronimo, who was 40 feet in front of Blade, halted and looked back.

“Should we go around it?”

“See if you can find a trail through it.”

Nodding, Geronimo walked closer to the vegetation.

Achilles looked at the head Warrior. “I hope I’ll be able to repay you someday.”

“You can repay me by always discharging your duties properly if you’re selected. That, and learning to behave like a normal human being.”

“Like Hickok, for instance?”

They both laughed.

“I heard that!” the gunman declared from 12 feet behind them.

Blade grinned and idly gazed skyward. Flying to the west were four large white birds unlike any he had ever beheld. They were five feet long, with white feathers, broad wings, and big beaks a third the size of their bodies. Each had a yellow throat pouch. He watched them for a minute before he identified them from pictures he had once seen in a book in the library. They were pelicans. What in the world were pelicans doing in Yellowstone National Park? He’d always associated them with the sea. Did they nest on the many lakes in the Park?

“When we stop for the night, I’d like to volunteer for the first guard shift,” Achilles offered.

“Trying to impress me?” Blade asked.

“No. I’d like to show Hickok and Geronimo that I’m just one of the guys. If I pull my weight on this assignment, they might change their opinions of me.”

“That’s what I’m counting on.”

“But will it be enough to convince the Elders?”

“If Nathan, Geronimo, and I all make a special appeal to the Elders to have you instated, they’ll have to present an irrefutable argument to reject you,” Blade noted, gazing at Geronimo.

The stocky Warrior had reached the thicket and was searching for a way through. He moved to the right, then pivoted and smiled. “Here’s a deer trail. Just what we need.”

Blade had opened his mouth to acknowledge the information when behind his friend an immense, bulky form reared up in the thicket, its jaws wide, its five-inch claws glinting in the bright sunlight.

The awesome form of a grizzly bear.

Blade broke into a run, swinging the Commando barrel up. “Behind you!” he bellowed. “A grizzly!”

Reacting instinctively, not even bothering to glance at the thicket, Geronimo dived forward. He landed on his left shoulder and rolled onto his back, the FNC stock pressed against his thigh, the assault rifle at a slant.

Uttering a rumbling growl, the grizzly dropped onto all fours and barreled from the undergrowth, going for the human in green.

Geronimo fired from a range of only six feet, and he heard his rounds smacking into the bruin’s wide skull. He saw the grizzly halt and swipe at its face, as if batting at bothersome mosquitoes, giving him the time he needed to leap to his feet and run.

The grizzly lumbered in pursuit.

“Out of the way!” Blade snouted, motioning with his right arm and angling to the left, trying for a clear shot.

Geronimo obliged by abruptly darting to the east.

Instantly Blade cut loose, squeezing the trigger and holding it down, feeling the Commando buck in his arms as he sent a hail of heavy slugs into the beast. He heard more gunshots to his right, the sharp retort of Hickok’s Henry and the deeper discharge of Achilles’ Bullpup.

A series of red dots blossomed on the grizzly’s head, but instead of falling it charged, making straight for the giant human.

Blade kept firing, expecting the bear to go down long before it reached him. There wasn’t an animal alive that could absorb 90 rounds from a machine gun and still keep coming. Or so he believed.

The grizzly never slowed. Fifteen hundred pounds of sinew and muscle, seven feet long and almost five feet high at the shoulders, with its bulging hump adding to its height, the bruin was virtually unstoppable unless pierced in the brain or the heart, and even then the beast’s tremendous vitality could drive it onward.

The Commando went empty when the grizzly was still eight feet away, and Blade reversed his grip, taking hold of the gun by the barrel and sweeping the stock overhead, prepared to use the Carbine as a club. He could see the bear’s slavering, yawning maw, and the animal’s musculature rippling under its coat of brown fur. Grasping the barrel firmly, he waited until the very last second, until the grizzly was almost on top of him, and then swung with all of his strength, slamming the stock onto the bruin’s head.

Not breaking its stride, acting as if it was impervious to the blow, the grizzly plowed into the human.

Blade felt a jarring impact in his abdomen and chest, and he was flung backwards. Something cut into his left shoulder, producing an intense stinging sensation. His arms flailing, short of breath and in exquisite pain, he tumbled onto his back. Above him loomed the bear, and he braced for the crunching of strong teeth on his body.

The grizzly reared its head and spread its mouth wide, about to bite, when unexpectedly the bear sprawled forward, venting a loud growl, collapsing onto its victim’s legs.

Blade hurled the Commando aside and whipped his Bodies from their sheaths. For a moment, as the massive bear lay still with its eyes closed, its weight causing excruciating agony from his knees down, he thought the beast was dead. He bent toward it, intending to try and lift the bear’s head and shoulders so he could slide his legs out.

The grizzly opened its eyes and fixed a baleful gaze on the Warrior, then began to rise.

Realizing the bruin could disembowel him with one slash of its sharp claws once it regained its footing. Blade took the offensive, deliberately leaning forward at the waist, placing his face within inches of the bear’s, and speared his gleaming Bowies into the bruin’s eyes before the animal could snap at him.

A mammoth cry of rage issued from the grizzly and it jerked its body backwards.

Blade held onto the hilts of his knives and shoved erect the second his legs were free. The grizzly lashed wildly at him with its right forepaw, and he darted to the right to evade its claws.

Blood streaming from its sliced orbs, the bear shook its head and shuffled after the human.

Tensing his legs for a spring. Blade detected a motion out of the corner of his left eye.

Achilles and Hickok materialized, their weapons blasting at point-blank range. Four, five, six shots sounded, and with the sixth the grizzly bear grunted and fell, dead in its tracks, its head thudding onto the ground.

Hickok shot the bruin once more for good measure, then lowered the Henry. “I was beginning to think this critter would never go down,” he commented in amazement.

“Had the brute not fallen when it did, I was prepared to dispatch it with my Amazon,” Achilles said.

“Your toothpick against this dinosaur? Give me a break,” Hickok quipped.

“Your comparison is in error,” Achilles corrected him. “Dinosaurs were reptiles. This bear is a mammal.”

“Really? How did we get by all these years without your wisdom?”

Blade listened inattentively to their exchange, breathing deeply, restoring his composure. The grizzly attack had made his adrenaline surge. He looked down at his Bowies and saw the bear’s blood dripping from both knives. Footsteps sounded on his right.

“Are you okay?” Geronimo inquired.

“Fine,” Blade replied softly.

“What about your shoulder?”

Blade recalled the slinging sensation and glanced at his left shoulder.

With a start he realized the grizzly had nailed him. There were five deep gashes, each over an inch deep. The bear’s claws had torn through his leather vest and his flesh as if both were made of putty, and blood flowed from all five slits.