Alex halted, slung his backpack to the ground, unclipped a water bottle and took a long drink. “We should be getting close.”
She copied his actions, perching on a rock. “Look.”
He followed her gaze further down the valley. Three or four black figures flapped lazily against the polished sky, and a rusty, raucous calling drifted on the increasingly heated air. “Good eye,” he said. “Ready?”
“Let’s go.”
The trail was relatively straight and level, and it wasn’t long before the fresh scent of wildflowers, dust and leaves was tainted with the stench of death. A low, growling buzz raised the hair on Alex’s neck. He glanced over his shoulder and gestured for June to stay back. She stopped obediently and waited while he stepped toward a cleft in the rock to their left.
He peered in the opening, covering his nose and mouth with the crook of his elbow. The stink was incredible, but the insects were worse. The grizzly’s carcass was covered in a moving sheet of glossy black flies, thousands upon thousands of them. Hundreds more hung like fog. Soon they were swarming around him, drawn by salty sweat. He backed away from the opening.
He lowered his arm. “It’s going to be ugly,” he said. “But if you can stand it, I could certainly use your help.”
She moved forward and looked around him into the narrow space. She sucked in a breath, making a slight choking sound when the full force of the decomposing body struck her, but she stood her ground.
She turned to him, her face pale under the light tan of early summer, but she regarded him steadily, her voice matter of fact. “What do we do now?”
He pulled out a small digital camera. “Get some pictures,” he said. “First, with the flies.” He snapped a few shots of the fissure’s entrance, then advanced in, getting various angles. He called back to her, “Let’s see what we can do about those flies now. Cut me a couple switches, would you?”
She dug a small blade from one of the many pockets on her shorts, and hacked off a few of the leafiest branches from a nearby willow. Then, armed with those, they headed back into the rocky cleft.
It was a buzzing, foul-smelling hell. Flies shrouded them, blundering drunkenly like tiny, black hailstones. After a few minutes of determined flailing, the worst of the insects were gone, and they could see what remained of the bear.
The glossy dark brown fur had dulled and dimmed in death. The head was missing, leaving a gory stump on which a few persistent flies still gorged. All four paws had been roughly amputated. And it had been disemboweled.
“If you can stand staying with me, keep moving those branches.” He handed her the ones he had used. “I’ll be as quick as I can.”
While she waved the willow boughs to keep most of the flies from returning, he took more pictures. Then he slipped on thin, latex gloves and searched meticulously around the carcass, including the pile of entrails. Despite June’s efforts, dozens of insects droned about them, irresistibly drawn to the carnage. The tiny beasts crawled in his hair, on the back of his neck, up the cuffs of his sleeves, but he ignored them and calmly continued his inspection.
His search spread in ever widening circles, until he finally nodded and motioned to the opening. June backed out, relief evident on her face.
He stripped off the bloody gloves. “Thanks.” He scrubbed his hands through his hair, scattering flies.
She swished off a few insects lingering on his shoulders and back. “Are they usually this bad?” she asked as they retreated farther away from the crevasse.
“The flies? It depends when you find the body, and where. It didn’t help, tucking the carcass into that narrow space.”
“Tucking it? You mean the bear wasn’t shot there?”
“Dirt was piled up against the shoulders, as if it had been pushed or pulled in. Which means more than one poacher for sure. There’s no way a single person shifted that bear. It had to be close to three hundred pounds.”
“Did you find anything else?”
“You saw the obvious bits. And the gall bladder was missing. Other than that, not a damn thing.” He paused in rearranging his equipment and sat back on his heels.
“Will you catch them?”
“It’s not very likely.” He puffed out a breath. It probably wouldn’t have made any difference, but the nearly one week delay in getting to the kill site frustrated him. “Not from any evidence here.”
Now they were at a distance from the remains of the bear, fresh, alive scents like warm dust and peppery wildflowers filled the air. A movement on the far side of the valley caught his eye—a rabbit, hopping out from under a bush to nibble on succulent new grass. As soon as it came to rest, he lost sight of it, expertly camouflaged in its mottled brown coat.
“Is it really worth it?” she wondered. “For the poachers, I mean? Or is it just for the thrill?”
He laughed shortly. “Worth it? Almost no risk, and extremely high returns. Do you know why they take the gallbladder?”
“It’s used in traditional Chinese medicine.”
“They believe bear bile is a cure-all. It’s been used for thousands of years. And do you know how much buyers will pay?”
She shook her head.
“Each gall bladder can net a poacher up to ten thousand dollars. Ten thousand! Per gram, that’s more lucrative than cocaine. The paws are used for soup. It’s supposed to cure respiratory and gastrointestinal problems. In Asian restaurants in the US, you can buy a bowl of bear paw soup for about sixty dollars. Overseas, a bowl can cost as much as one thousand dollars US.”
She stared at him. “I knew bear parts were valuable, but I had no idea that much money was involved.”
“Most people don’t. Poaching rarely makes the big city newscasts, and even when we do manage to catch someone, the fines are so small they don’t even warrant coverage. It is possible for poachers to be sentenced jail time, but…” His shoulders jerked. “Canada has the largest wild black bear population remaining in the world. China has topped one billion people, and that doesn’t include the rest of the Asian world, where traditional Chinese medicine is just as popular. You figure it out.” He stood abruptly, slipped his arms through the straps of his pack and jiggled it into position. “We should head back. Ready?”
She tilted her head, eyes thoughtful, and they began their return.
They were scrambling up a particularly steep section of the path when the shot rang out. Alex, a few feet below June on the slope, snagged her wrist and yanked her to the ground. “Where the hell did that come from?”
Another shot boomed through the still, mountain air. She pointed to a bright flash on the opposite side of the valley. “There. Close to that big crack in the far wall.” The glint of sunlight reflected off a recoiling rifle barrel.
“Stay here,” Alex said, then was off, racing down the slope.
Chapter Three
He heard footsteps and risked a glance behind. June hustled after him, a determined look on her face. He opened his mouth to shout at her to get back, but she yelled, “Don’t even bother,” as she dodged a low thicket.
They dashed across the valley floor, weaving around boulders and brush shoulder to shoulder. The fissure in the mountain wall grew as they neared it. Dropping to a walk, he scanned the wall, checking left and right. “Nothing. Maybe he went in.” He forged into the gully. The floor was strewn with large rocks, hummocks of grass, and small, wiry shrubs, and barely wide enough for the two of them to walk side by side.
“What are we doing?” she hissed.
“Seeing what we can see.” He kept moving, picking his way carefully forward.
“There’s no one here.”
“Keep searching. There can’t be too many places to hide.”
They followed the ravine deep into the mountain, until the sky was a bright blue gash in the air high above them and they reached a vertical wall a mountain goat would have trouble scaling.
Nothing.
She slung off her pack, slumped against the rock wall and slid to the ground. Sweat beaded her forehead and ran from her temples. He followed suit, feeling the dampness of his own shirt against his back as he leaned against the sun-heated stone.
“I don’t know,” she said. “I guess whoever it was didn’t come in here.” She took a long drink from her bottle, the muscles in her slender throat flexing.
“It was only a chance. And a slim one at that.” His own water was stale and tasteless, but a welcome relief. “Chasing them was probably a lost cause, but we might have caught them if they ducked in here. Maybe they knew it was a dead end.”
He dribbled a small amount of water over his head, letting it run down the back of his neck, then poured the tepid liquid into June’s cupped hands. She splashed her face and used the hem of her T-shirt as a towel. He caught a glimpse of flat stomach muscles and a small, round dark mole beside her navel. Relaxing back, he gazed up into the narrow slice of cloudless sky framed above the gully’s edge.
She propped her elbows on her bent knees. “Do you think that was the poacher? And was he aiming at us?”
He took another sip from his flask. “I don’t know. But poachers aren’t murderers. They certainly wouldn’t want to draw attention to themselves by attacking a human near a recent kill. And unless they’ve been watching us for a long time, they’d have no reason to suspect we’re anyone other than casual hikers.” He shrugged angrily. “This place is perfect for poachers—reasonably accessible yet remote, and teeming with both blacks and grizzlies. If the hunter that killed our bear is feeling lucky, he might be back.”
She rose, hefted her pack to her shoulders and reached out. He gripped her hand, feeling the slight roughness that spoke of outdoor work, and let her help him to his feet.
“Let’s try this again,” she said, “and see if we make it all the way back this time.”
They made the return trip at a much less breakneck pace. “We haven’t really had a lot of trouble with bear poachers recently,” he said. “It’s mostly ungulates, like deer, elk and moose. And a lot of the time it’s simply a trigger-happy hunter who shot the wrong animal—big bull without a tag, or cow moose out of season. If our dead grizzly and whoever was shooting now are connected, then I’m afraid we might be into something bigger than usual.”
“What do you mean?”
“Potentially, a poaching ring. A highly organized group out to make the most of the black market.” They reached the other side of the valley and started their climb to the tower. “When are you heading back to town?”
“Couple of days. Why?”
Alex was leading, and when he stopped, she tipped her head back, squinting slightly as the bright, late morning sun shone in her eyes.
“Be careful,” he said.
She answered him seriously. “I always am.”
Strands of her hair, darkened with sweat, clung to her temples and behind her ears, and her face glowed with exertion. The tug of attraction he’d felt last night gave another yank. “Be extra careful,” he repeated. “Please.”
They made the rest of the ascent in silence. At the summit, he headed straight for the helicopter, opening the bubble glass door and tossing his pack in. “I should be getting back.”
She nodded. “Have you got everything?”
“Packed it all this morning before you were up.” He smiled. “You do sleep soundly.”
She made a face, turning down the corners of her wide mouth. “As long as I wasn’t drooling.”
He circled the helicopter, readying it for flight, then lifted himself into the cockpit, leaving the door open for the moment. “Thanks for your help today. I know it was gruesome, but it’s important.” She nodded, and he added, “You should stop by the office when you get back to town.”
“Do you want me to give a report of what happened?”
“That wouldn’t hurt, but I was thinking you might enjoy meeting some of the other people around the place, take a look around.” He had been extremely impressed with her composure at the kill site, and even more so with her poise during and after the gunshots. She stood before him, not classically beautiful but long-limbed, athletic and dynamic. “Also, I wouldn’t mind seeing you again, for myself.”
She considered him, a glint in her eyes. “I don’t think I’d mind seeing you again, for myself. Maybe I will.”
“Think about it.” He shut the door and reached up to lock it in place. She backed away to the cabin, and waited the few minutes it took him to go through the pre-flight checks. The engine pitch rose to a whine as the rotors reached the correct speed, and then he was off, like a clumsy dragonfly lifting from a reed. Hovering, he caught a last glimpse of her, defiantly alone in the vast wilderness, then headed back to civilization.
****
“There you are!” A tall woman with a braided rope of red hair stood up and beckoned to June as she walked through the doorway. “Come, sit over here!”
Weaving her way through the ranks of chairs, June sat down next to her. The woman leaned in closer. “I’m so glad you came,” she said confidentially. “Now you’re here we can poke fun at Thomas.”
June had arrived back in town that afternoon. After a long, luxurious shower, she’d headed right back out again, in time for this meeting held at the University of Northern British Columbia, a small, young institution stretching its wings from its perch on the hills above Prince George.
About a dozen men and women were spread about the room. One lanky woman wearing a Sherpa-style toque was pinning an anti-poaching poster to the bulletin board. On the whiteboard at the front of the room the title “RiverForce” headed a list of agenda items. A pudgy young man, oddly dressed in a collared shirt and tie paired with khaki walking shorts, fidgeted with papers on the podium. He smoothed back his fine, blond hair awkwardly, using his wrists instead of his palms.
“We will not poke fun at anyone,” June scolded with a laugh in her voice. “Thomas is doing his best, and we shouldn’t tease him.”