Don't Cry for Me

There she stood, dripping wet, shivering and listening to the booming laugh right above her.

Quinn! The jerk. She still couldn’t believe he’d done that.

She rolled her eyes, grabbed a towel and wrapped it around her body, then got another one and began to dry her hair. The dryer she got, the warmer she became—and, grudgingly, she began to grin. That was, without doubt, the funniest shower she’d ever taken. In fact, she couldn’t remember the last time she’d done something just for fun.

Once she was dry, she realized the bag with her clothes was still on the washing machine on the other side of the door. She peeked out, saw the coast was clear and started to go get it just as she heard footsteps coming down the stairs.

“Oh, no, no, no!” Moving as fast as she dared on her gimpy leg, she grabbed the bag and darted back inside the bathroom, and none too soon.

“Hey, are you okay in there?” Quinn asked.

“I’m just fine,” she said.

“Do you need any help?”

“I’ve got this.”

“Are you sure? In case you don’t remember, I’m good in the shower.”

She grinned. Clearly he was gonna play that “lost her memory” card as long as she let him.

“Hey, Quinn?”

“Yeah?”

“Shut the hell up.”

He grinned. “Yeah. Okay. I’ll just be in your bed watching TV.”

“Oh, for the love of—”

She heard footsteps. He was walking away. She didn’t know whether to be glad the pressure was off or worry about what she would find waiting for her in her bed.

* * *

Quinn figured he’d pushed enough of Mariah’s buttons for one night and left her on her own in the bed watching television while he finished some work.

He was busy on his laptop at the kitchen table, finishing a report on his last trip up to the area around Greenlee Pass where the rogue bear had last been seen. As soon as he was done, he hit Save, then emailed it to the office.

According to the latest info they’d sent him, the trail had gone cold. After forty-eight hours without a solid hit, the powers that be had made a decision, and pulled the Doolens and their dogs off the mountain. Until there was a new sighting, they were at a loss as to where to look. But this decision had led to another one.

Come Monday, all the rangers were to begin notifying people in their areas about the possibility of a bear attack and advise them to stay out of the woods until the bear had been found.

Quinn read that directive without any confidence that it would be heeded. Telling mountain people to stay out of the woods was like telling them to stop breathing. They hunted the mountain and fished the creeks to feed their families. He would follow orders and spread the word, but he had no faith in anyone listening. Discouraged and more than a little bit worried, he finally turned off the laptop and went to check on Mariah.

The television was still playing softly in the background, but she had fallen asleep with her leg propped up on a pillow and the covers in a wad at the foot of the bed.

He picked up the remote and turned off the TV, then straightened out her covers and eased them over her, taking the time to assess her more carefully when she wasn’t aware.

She was pale, and much thinner than he remembered, but all of that figured. Two months in a hospital would do that to anybody. Her dark hair was much shorter, as well, but he assumed that was because they’d probably shaved most, if not all, of it off because of her head injuries. As he watched, her eyelids began to flutter, and he knew she was dreaming. When she suddenly moaned, it was like someone had just shoved a knife into his gut. It was startling to realize he was that connected to her distress.

He started to wake her, but he knew how hard it was to get back to sleep once the nightmare took over and changed his mind, hoping she would just sleep through it. Instead he began turning off the lights until the house was completely dark except for a night-light up in the loft by his bed.

She moaned again, this time mumbling beneath her breath before the moment passed. Then she flinched, and he kicked off his shoes, pulled back the covers and slid into bed beside her. As many times as they’d made love, they had never had the luxury of sleeping together. But this wasn’t a night for passion, and she wasn’t sleeping in the true sense of the word. She was still fighting a war, and he couldn’t let her do it alone.

He eased as close to her as he could get without bumping her injured leg, then rolled over onto his side and tucked her close against his body. There was a moment when he felt her tense.

“Easy, soldier, easy,” he whispered. “I’ve got your back.”

He heard a sob and rose up on his elbow. She was crying in her sleep, but her body had begun to relax. For now, it was enough.

He eased down and let go of his own tension. Within minutes he, too, had fallen asleep.

* * *

Ten miles over and another mile higher, the bear had taken shelter beneath an overhang of trees and rock. The festering wound in its hip was a constant pain that kept it in a pain-filled daze. It was sick and starving—a recipe for disaster. The cougar that usually bedded down in this lair smelled the bear and the festering wound. And sensed the danger. It was enough for the big cat to give the bear a wide berth and slip quietly away.

About two miles from where the bear had holed up, a couple of hunters had taken to the woods to run their dogs. They were sitting around their makeshift camp with their lanterns lit, laying bets as to whose dog would strike a trail first, when they heard one of the pack began to bay.

“Woowee, Warren, you hear that bugle? That’s my big red, Samson. You owe me five dollars. I told you he’d be the first to pick up a good scent.”

Warren rolled his eyes. “Son of a bitch,” he muttered, and handed over the five, which his buddy promptly pocketed.

They picked up their lanterns and shouldered their guns as they listened to the rest of the pack begin to sound. The dogs would bay in a different tone once they treed their prey, and the hunters wanted in on the kill.

“Sounds like they’re running something a little east but coming this way,” Millard said. “What say we head out?”

“I’m with you,” Warren said, and they disappeared into the woods.

* * *

The bear was in a sleepy daze when it heard the hounds. If circumstances had been normal, the sound of the dogs would have sent the bear in the opposite direction, but not this time. In its pain-addled brain, that was food on the move.

As it began to move, it recognized its own weakness, which in turn fueled its desperation to kill.

* * *

Warren and Millard were following the pack by the sounds of the yips and bays when all of a sudden they heard everything change. The barking went from trailing to full-on attack. Even though the men were more than a half mile away, they could hear the howls and growls, the shrieks and the yelps, in what they could only assume was an all-out fight.

“What the hell?” Millard said, and started to run, holding his lantern with one hand and a finger near the trigger of the gun he carried in the other.

Warren was right behind him.

Even as they ran, they could tell something bad was happening. The dogs were no longer in fight mode. They could hear constant cries of pain, until, one by one, the pack went silent.

The hunters kept running, but by the time they reached the kill site the bear was gone and seven dogs were dead or dying—bones crushed, bodies eviscerated.

“Oh, sweet Jesus,” Millard said, going from body to body in disbelief.