Gary Paulsen: Brian's Hunt

But Anne, and Kay-gwa-daush? Had they been outside as well?

The prints leaving the cabin were more measured, closer together, and he started after them and then stopped, thinking of the rifle, and then shook his head. He was not familiar with firearms and might miss if he ran into the bear, and besides, a broadhead was an incredible weapon when it got inside an animal.

He turned away, the bow ready, walking slowly, stopping every few feet and listening, listening. Whatever had happened, he thought, had happened days before; the condition of David’s body and the movement of maggots in the wounds told that.

“Anne? Susan?” He called several times but knew better. If they hadn’t answered when he first yelled coming to the camp they weren’t going to answer now. There had been two younger children as well, a small boy and girl, but he could not remember their names. Surely they weren’t dead as well. .

The kennel. There had been three or four dogs there, not loose but tied with short chains so they wouldn’t rip the gear up, and the bear’s tracks went at first back to the kennel and three dogs lay dead there, mauled only slightly. A fourth chain was there with a ripped nylon collar on the end and he looked back at the dog, which was still following him. “That was you? And you ran? But why not stay if Anne and Susan were here. Or the kids?”

Unless, he thought, unless they were dead. Please no, just please no, not any more, not now. .

But to the left of the kennel there were bear tracks heading off into the brush and alongside the tracks there was a skid mark as if the bear had been dragging something heavy.

No. Please no. .

It was not hard to follow the tracks and they didn’t go very far. Forty yards back in the brush he found the second body, partially eaten, the buttocks and thighs gone, lying on its face, the head hidden by black hair, the rest of the body covered with leaves and dirt as if buried to save for later.

Please no. .

He was sick but this time did not throw up and instead squatted by the head of the body and moved the hair away and saw that it was Susan’s mother, Anne. Her face was not torn but there was a strange angle to her head as though she had been struck very hard and it had broken her neck.

He fell back, weakened suddenly, and sat in the grass next to the body. Then he stood and left the body as it was — time for what had to be done later, when he’d found out about Susan and the other children — and moved back to the cabin area.

Trying not to think about the bodies — and this was nearly impossible — he forced his mind into a hunting-tracking mode and looked for sign. The water between the island and the main shore was very shallow, never over a couple of feet, and he quickly found where the bear had waded across and come onto the island’s shore. Huge tracks in wet mud, then muddy tracks in the grass, moving through low hazel brush up toward the dogs and the kennel, where the bear must have smelled the dog food, fish and beaver meat — the odor would carry with good wind for miles.

Everything in him wanted to hurry, to run, to scream her name and run, but Brian forced himself to be slow, to be careful.

The bear’s tracks were even, just walking, never hurrying until the last moment when he cleared the hazel and the dogs saw him and probably started barking.

There, by the kennel, he saw the tracks of two people, one large and one slightly smaller, David and Anne, and there was a dented bucket. They were probably feeding the dogs. The distance from the line of hazel brush to where they were standing wasn’t ten yards, thirty feet, three bounds for the bear and he was on them.

Two seconds’ warning, at the most, and he was there, on top of them, dogs screaming, one blow for Anne, and Brian could see where her body hit, then David running for the only hope he had, the rifle in the cabin, the bear’s prints wheeling and digging as he went after David and the rest in the cabin. .

Then bear tracks back to the kennel, where he must have killed the dogs. All but one, the one with Brian, and then more tracks, bear tracks, around where Anne’s body had fallen and then the skid marks where the bear had dragged Anne away into the brush to feed.

No other new tracks. No small children’s tracks by the kennel or from kennel to house. No tracks of Susan. No newer tracks at all.

Maybe she was gone, gone to town, visiting friends or relatives back in the world, gone with the children.

He started a circle search, around the center of activity, the attack site and cabin, looping through the brush, close in at first, moving out four feet with each loop, looking intently, studying carefully each stick, each blade of grass, and on the tenth loop he found it and then felt stupid for not having seen it at once.

On the trail up from the lake, just to the side, two scuff marks as if somebody walking, somebody smaller than Brian, smaller than David, had suddenly stopped and then run, frantically run back down to the bank, and there were more skid marks where a canoe had been shoved away from the bank and here, hidden in the tall grass at odd angles, lay two canoe paddles where they must have fallen from the canoe when she flipped it over and pushed it into the lake.

She’d had no paddles, must have used her hands.

And there, at the side, more bear tracks where the bear had run down to the shore and then moved sideways, along the bank, probably following the canoe for a short distance.

On the ground by the first scuff mark was a small two-quart bucket and scattered around it were raspberries.

Susan. No smaller tracks, no children’s tracks.

She’d been off in the canoe along the shore picking raspberries and hadn’t been there at the time of the attack. Two canoes. He shook his head and winced at his own ignorance. Of course they had two canoes. All the gear and people couldn’t travel in one.

Susan had taken the other canoe and gone berry picking either on shore or the other end of the island. Had come back later, after the bear had fed or before, but after the attack and the bear had surprised her, no, seen her coming and gone to meet her and then chased her back to the canoe and out into the water. There were bear tracks in the soft mud of the bank off to the south side that he had missed before when he’d first arrived and they went for a considerable distance, out of sight.

So.

The bear had attacked, maybe fed on Anne but had still been around, perhaps rummaging further in the cabin when Susan returned from berry picking.

Perhaps she called, sensing something was wrong, and the bear had heard her and gone after her. But she was close to the canoes and had gotten back in and out in the water, into apparently deep enough water, before the bear could get to her.

Fast. She’d been fast. The bear had cut the corner and not run the trail — which explained why Brian hadn’t seen his tracks coming up when he first arrived — and she still beat him. God, he thought, she must have been terrified; worse, far worse, she had no idea about her parents.

But why hadn’t she come back? It had been two, three days judging by the fly eggs and worms, and she still wasn’t there.

And where were the smaller ones? Brian hadn’t seen any of their tracks nor, he swallowed uneasily, any other signs that they’d been nearby when the bear attacked.

Had the bear gotten Susan and the children, taken them somewhere else?

“Come on,” he said to the dog. “Stay with me. . ”

He moved at a trot down the shoreline of the island, the dog now slightly in the lead, heading south, and the bear tracks lined out in front of him along the bank, through the willows and hazel brush, but always close to the shoreline. Now and then the tracks lunged at the water, then back. .