Long Range (Joe Pickett Book 20)(5)

Joe nodded. It made sense. He appreciated the fact that Martin hadn’t referred to “the body”—even though the possibility of Trenary lasting through the night in his condition was improbable at best.

They made plans to meet at the office the next morning at four-thirty. Martin had a string of horses assigned to his district. Jackson Hole was considered a “six-horse district” and it had good equine facilities.

“I suppose you want the youngest mustang,” Martin asked.

“I do not.”

Martin grinned to indicate he’d been kidding.

*

JOE LISTENED IN as Martin asked Talbot additional questions. In the distance, he heard the sound of the helicopter getting closer.

“Walk me through this again,” Martin said to Talbot.

“I’ve done this three times already.”

“Let’s do it a fourth time.”

Talbot sighed.

“So you take a shot at a bull elk at one hundred fifty yards and you miss.”

“Yes,” Talbot said with irritation. No hunter liked to talk about when they missed.

“Did you see where your bullet hit?”

“No.”

“Did Jim Trenary say anything about where it hit? Like, ‘You were way high to the right’ or anything like that?”

“No.”

Martin said, “I’m just trying to figure things out. I’m wondering if you were way off when you shot and the round went high into the timber where the bear was. Maybe you even hit him and made him mad. Is that possible?”

Talbot scoffed. “That’s ridiculous. I might have missed that bull by a few inches, but I didn’t shoot that high at a hundred and fifty yards.”

“Is it possible there was a ricochet up into the trees? Like maybe you hit a rock?”

“I didn’t hear anything like that,” Talbot said. His voice was rising with irritation. “I told you what happened. Why do you keep asking me about it?”

“Because,” Martin said, “I’ve worked a dozen or so bear encounters, and I’ve talked with biologists who’ve been on the scene of lots more. I’ve never heard of a grizzly attacking two men without any provocation at all. It just doesn’t happen.”

“It did this time,” Talbot sniffed.

“Is it possible that bear was feeding on a carcass out of your view?” Martin asked. “Maybe he heard the shot and thought you were trying to steal his bounty?”

“I don’t know,” Talbot said. “We didn’t see any carcass.”

Martin asked, “Is it possible that you got so excited when you saw those elk that you walked right past a bear cub or two? That maybe you two walked by accident between a mama and her babies? So the mama charged you to protect her little ones?”

Talbot shook his head. “I guess anything is possible. It’s pretty dark in that timber. But my guide left me up on the hill while he scouted down below—before he found those elk. I doubt he would have walked past bear cubs twice without noticing them.”

Joe noted the “my guide” reference again.

Martin nodded and thought about it. He said, “You might be right. Cubs wouldn’t be that far away from mama bear normally.”

“Thank you,” Talbot said in exasperation, as if the issue were settled.

But it wasn’t. Martin asked Talbot, “You say you forgot to thumb off the safety on your bear spray, so it didn’t work.”

“That’s correct. I’d never used one before and I panicked and forgot.”

“I understand,” Martin said. “At the moment, you were rattled. But when you realized that you hadn’t armed the spray, why didn’t you flip off the safety and hit the bear with it when it was attacking Jim Trenary? Jim wouldn’t have liked it, but I’m sure he’d much rather have bear spray in his eyes than get torn up.”

Talbot paused a long time. Then he said, “I’d already dropped the canister by then. I guess I wasn’t thinking straight.”

“Interesting,” Martin said. To Joe, that “interesting” sounded a lot like You’re a fool, then. In that moment, Joe felt a little embarrassed for Talbot, despite himself.

Joe leaned forward in his saddle. “Mike?”

Martin turned around.

Joe said, “I’ve talked to a couple of wildlife biologists who are doing a study on grizzly bear behavior. Although they don’t have any conclusions yet, one of the things they’re studying is if the reason there are more and more bear encounters every year is possibly because the grizzlies are getting more comfortable with humans around in their habitat. And when they hear a shot during elk-hunting season, the bear associates that with easy food. Maybe something like that happened here.”

Not said was that the enactment of the endangered species laws in the previous decade had produced a lot more grizzlies in the ecosystem than before. Conservative estimates Joe had read indicated there were more than six hundred in the area. Local outfitters reported that they saw grizzly bears nearly every day out in the field—sometimes as many as five or six. More grizzlies meant more likelihood that there would be human–bear encounters.

“Maybe,” Martin said. “But I hope not.”

“Why do you hope not?” Talbot asked.