Gary Paulsen: Brian's Hunt

Not the slightest whiff of woodsmoke. The wind was blowing directly at him from the island, right across him, and there was no odor.

And the dog. .

She was up now, on all fours, whimpering more loudly than ever before, mixing those sounds with low growls, her ears up, then down, then back up again, listening, then hiding, then listening again. Aggressive, but worried?

Brian paused and something made him reach out and take a broadhead out of the quiver and lay it across the bow even though the moment without paddling cost him his forward motion. He thought, This is silly, I’m being a worrywart, but positioned the bow close to himself just the same.

Then dug with the paddle again, pulling hard for the island, the dog whimpering and growling.

I just wish, Brian thought, I could smell their smoke.

At first he thought they were just gone, perhaps back to a town for some reason, although he knew they hated cities as much as he did.

But no dogs barked to greet him, and there was no noise at the island, no sound, not even birds singing. By the time he pulled the canoe up onshore next to one of their canoes — a thick glass — hulled eighteenfooter — he knew something was wrong.

As he pulled in the dog jumped from the canoe onto land but did not leave him, did not run up the shore. She stood near him, pressing against his leg while he tied the canoe to a limb.

He took his bow and put his quiver over his back and nocked a broadhead in the string and thought, All right, crazy as this is, I’ll just take the teasing if they see me walk up all ready.

From the beach where their canoe had been tied a track curved up about fifty yards to a camp area and he could see they had constructed a cabin about fifteen feet square with unpeeled logs and a tarp for a roof pulled over a ridgepole to make it peak and drain off water.

But no people.

All right, they were gone. That was too bad but they would come back and. .

The door to the cabin was open. It was made of three rough planks chopped from soft pine and hung on leather hinges — he could see that much when he was twenty yards from the cabin — but it stood open and they would not have left the door open that way.

The dog stopped, her nostrils flared, and all the hair on her back went up in a thick ridge and she growled in a low, steady rumble.

Brian put his three pulling fingers on the bowstring, ready to draw and release, and moved closer to the cabin.

Then the smell hit him. Not smoke, not woodsmoke, but the smell of blood, musty, rotten smell of spoiled blood and flesh. He stopped again, flaring his nostrils, taking the offensive odor in, trying to see all around and up and down at the same time, holding his mouth open and his breath to hear better and that was when he heard the sound of flies.

All right, he thought. All right. They left some meat here and something broke into the cabin and got at it and let the flies in and. . and. . and. .

It was all wrong. So wrong. He had never felt anything so powerfully wrong in his life and everything in him wanted to run, get away from this place, but he knew he had to go on, to go in the cabin. .

He stood to the side of the door, eight feet away. “Anybody in there?” Then, to the woods, more loudly, “Is there anybody here?”

Nothing. Just the continued buzzing of flies, no other sound, and he stood another second and a half, nervously fingering the bowstring; then he took a deep breath, held it and stepped into the cabin.

There were no windows — the only light came through the doorway and from a dim glow that worked down through the tarp roof — and for moments he stood inside the doorway virtually blind in the sudden darkness.

Then he stood aside and let the light in and at the same time his eyes became accustomed to the darkness.

“My god. .”

The words slipped out without his knowing, or caring. It looked like a bomb had gone off inside the cabin.

Sacks, boxes, sleeping bags, bunks, snares, traps and provisions were torn open, thrown everywhere, ripped opened and flung in piles like so much garbage.

But no people. So they had gone somewhere, maybe in the plane, and probably a bear had gotten into the cabin — and indeed, he saw slash marks on a sack of flour that could have come from bear claws — and torn into everything. .

But no, that was too easy. There was more and part of him knew it, knew there had to be more, though he didn’t want to admit it and he saw then what he had missed at first.

The flies. There was a buzzing of flies everywhere but the sound was deceptive because the flies were all back in a corner where torn sleeping bags covered something, something. .

Brian moved to the corner and with no breath left now, only fear, he reached for a corner of the torn sleeping bag and pulled it away and saw the body, a human body doubled up and jammed back in the corner, covered, and it was Kay-gwa-daush’s father, David, destroyed, face torn, neck torn open, one arm ripped half off the body, stomach torn open. .

“Arrggh!” Brian turned and instantly vomited, almost hitting the dog, which had followed him into the cabin, growling openly but crying and whining as well, looking at the dead man. “Oh my, oh my, ohmyohmy. .”

He couldn’t think, couldn’t react, couldn’t do anything except stand and throw up and try to make what he had seen not exist. It couldn’t be. It just couldn’t actually be, not this, not this terrible thing. .

But he turned back and David was still there, in a cloud of flies, and a part of Brian’s brain went on automatic and saw things he could not stand to look at, could not bring himself to openly acknowledge.

David was dead in the corner. It couldn’t be but it was, he was there and torn terribly apart. It had to have been a bear. A bear, a rogue bear, had broken into the cabin suddenly and attacked and overpowered David and killed him. .

He had fought, or tried to fight. There was a rifle, a 30–30 in the corner by the body with the lever pulled open. David had tried to load it and the bear had come so fast he hadn’t had time to get a shot off. Perhaps the gun had been in the corner and the bear had burst in and David had tried for it and the bear had gotten him first. .

What of the others? There was David’s wife, Anne, and the little boy and girl. And Susan. Kay-gwa-daush. Oh god, he thought, oh god, what of them? Where were they?

He turned away from David — there would be time later for what was necessary there — and looked through the rest of the trash in the cabin, turning over paper and bags and bunks. There were no other bodies.

Outside then; David later, but outside for now. There had to be sign. He had missed things coming in because he’d been nervous. There must be sign, tracks, and when he went outside he was appalled at how much he’d missed on the way up to the door of the cabin.

There, in the soft earth to the side away from the hard-packed trail down to the lake, were clear prints of a bear, a large bear, a huge bear. The prints had to be nearly six inches across and even taking into account the way they spread in soft earth the bear had to be over five hundred pounds.

The tracks coming toward the cabin were far apart and dug in hard, as if the bear had been running, running to break in? That didn’t make sense. And then he saw boot prints as well, running toward the cabin on the same line as the bear, and it made more sense.

David had been outside when the bear attacked and he had tried to run to the cabin and get his rifle. Had nearly made it. Had gotten his hands on the rifle and worked the lever but the bear was chasing him, was right on him and after he killed him had torn the cabin apart.