A Darkness Absolute (Casey Duncan #2)(4)

I do that now, but I stay stock-still. Anders does the same, both of us straining to see, but the thing is only a dark shape against a quickly darkening backdrop.

Just don’t move, Casey. You’re fine. I’ve got my gun out. Perfect trajectory to the snout. That’s where you want to hit if you have to shoot.

Dalton couldn’t help turning even a stare-down with a grizzly into a teaching moment. But the reality was that he’d been calming me. A grizzly bear less than a meter away? No big deal. Let’s take what we can from this. He’d also been calming himself, the strain clear in his voice. Now, remembering his words, I adjust the angle of my gun, whispering to Anders, “I’ll go for the upper chest. You take the head. Just wait until we can see it. We have to be sure.”

He nods, but my warning is more for me than him. Stay calm. Be certain before I pull the trigger. My gun isn’t meant for shooting bears—I don’t haul around a .45.

But you know what’s even better than shooting? That canister in your pocket. Pull it out as slowly as you can—no sudden moves.

Gun in my right hand, my left slips into my pocket and removes a small can. Pepper spray.

The problem here is that we’re lying on the ground. There’s no way to spray it in the bear’s eyes from this position. I’m not even sure Anders can fire a bullet at its face with enough accuracy.

As long as it’s upright, you’re good. It’s unbalanced on two legs. It’s just checking you out. The trouble comes if …

The shape drops to all fours, and beside me, Anders lets out a hiss. We’re both trying to make out the bear’s head, but its whole body has turned to a dark blob. Anders backs onto his haunches, gun in one hand, the other pushing himself to a crouch. I do the same. I know not to leap up. Again, if it was a black bear, that’d be the right move—show it you’re bigger. But with a grizzly, we’re not.

“I’ll spray first,” I whisper. We will give this bear a fighting chance. That’s Dalton’s rule. He never hesitates to kill an animal if it’s a serious threat, but he won’t if he has the option.

We’re waiting for the bear to charge. That’s why it dropped to all fours. It’s taking longer than we expect and then it rises again.

Anders makes a soft growling sound that has me nodding in agreement. The beast is toying with us. While we don’t exactly want to deal with a charging grizzly, neither of us is good with just waiting, unable to see enough to be sure it’s a bear, not daring to shoot if it isn’t, not even particularly wanting to shoot if it is.

The sun is dropping farther with every second. We need to get to shelter before nightfall, need to be sure Anders is okay after his collision, and it’s not enough that we’re trapped by a freak blizzard, we’re stuck in a standoff with a damned grizzly.

“Just go,” Anders mutters to the bear. “Nothing to see here. Run along home.”

When the bear turns around and starts ambling off, I have to stifle a snicker at Anders’s expression.

“Well, that was easy,” he says.

“Bears.” I shake my head. This was how my last grizzly stare-down had ended, too. When that bear showed no signs of charging, Dalton advised me to take slow steps back, and as soon as I was far enough away, the bear snorted and returned to digging for grubs, satisfied that I’d been suitably intimidated.

This bear is gone, but we stay crouched and watching until Anders’s wince tells me his back didn’t escape that collision uninjured.

“I’ll stand guard,” I say. “You empty the saddlebags.”

He does. Then we head for my sled to do the same. The snowfall’s still heavy enough that I’m grateful for the rope, guiding me through that endless white. As we near the spot where the bear stood, I spot something red under a layer of new snow. I brush the snow aside and uncover a woolen hat. A bright red, gold, and white one with a flaming C on the front.

Sutherland’s Calgary Flames toque.

I remember the figure standing here, watching us, and then bending over.

Not a bear preparing to charge.

A man, placing this on the ground.

I turn over the hat in my hands, and as I do, something dark smears on my gray gloves. I lift one hand to my face for a better look, but even before I catch the smell, I know what it is.

Blood.





THREE

I clear the spot where the toque lay. More blood. I position the hat on my hands and can see the blood is on the back. Consistent with a blow from the rear. I shine my flashlight into the toque. There’s hair. Light brown, like Sutherland’s. What I’m really looking for, though, is brain matter. There’s none of that. A blow hard enough to draw blood, but not crush the skull.

As I fold the toque, Anders points. He knows what I’ll want next and has uncovered boot prints under a thin layer of snow, confirming we had indeed been looking at a man and not a bear.

Anders takes off one of his boots and lowers it next to the print. It’s the same size.

“Eleven,” he says, but I know that already—we’ve done this before. In Rockton, crime solving is decidedly low-tech.

I compare the tread and make mental notes for later.

There’s no question of going after the guy. His footprints are already covered. Yes, that toque suggests something happened to Sutherland, but I won’t risk our lives running pell-mell through a darkening forest in hopes of finding him. Shawn Sutherland brought this on himself. Yes, that’s a cold assessment. It’s also the same one Anders makes, without any discussion. This forest isn’t a whole lot different from a war zone. If one of your comrades disappears on a mission, you’ll move heaven and earth to find him. But if he goes AWOL? Screw him. He made his choice.