Bear

BEAR

Van Allen

Revised Edition

September 6, 2020

Copyright 2020

BEAR

by

Van Allen

www.VanAllenFiction.com

Email: vanallenfiction@aol.com

Copyright Van Allen 2020

Screaming Weasel Productions

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License Notes:

This eBook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This eBook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you are reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to your favorite eBook retailer and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author and other eBook authors.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without prior written permission of the author/publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in reviews.

All characters and most locations in this book have no existence outside the imagination of the author and have no relation to anyone or anything BEARing the same name or names. Any resemblance to individuals or locations known or unknown to the author are purely coincidental. This is entirely a work of fiction.

The Cover Art is by the one, the only, Charles Gunnery Sergeant Wolf of www.SemperToons.com. Please look him up if you like the cover art. I have included more info about Gunz in the Afterword.

Cataloguing Information:

Allen, Van

BEAR/Van Allen

FIC015000 FICTION / Horror

FIC030000 FICTION / Thrillers / Suspense

FIC031080 FICTION / Thrillers / Psychological

Contains adult references, adult situations, mild sexuality, horror, violence, adult language, and mature themes.

This book is available in print at most online retailers. If you would like a signed printed copy of BEAR, email me and we will work out the details: vanallenfiction@aol.com.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Prologue – Old Man Jones

Ch 1 – Ghost Spirit Lake

Ch 2 – Tom

Ch 3 – Phil and Susie

Ch 4 – Left Alone

Ch 5 – A Bump in the Night

Ch 6 – Loose Floorboards

Ch 7 – Blood in the Snow

Ch 8 – Phil’s Fight or Flight

Ch 9 – Susie’s Fight or Flight

Ch 10 – Blood in the Snow

Ch 11 – Susie Waiting

Ch 12 – Out of the Hole

Ch 13 – Defending the Fort

Ch 14 – Returning

Ch 15 – Taking the Offensive

Ch 16 – Back at the Cabin

Ch 17 – Tracking

Ch 18 – Susie’s Run

Ch 19 – Ghost Spirit Lake

Ch 20 – Frozen Paths

Ch 21 – Decisions

Ch 22 – Park Rangers

Epilogue

Afterword

About the Author

Inspiration

I know a kid and his nickname is Bear, purely a coincidence. He’s just now old enough to read this book, barely. He’s is a remarkable kid, full of wild-eyed whimsical imaginations with nothing but great potential to enjoy this world and find happiness and wonder. I owe him my very best. Ashton, son, thank you for inspiring me.

~Dad~

To the rest of the Allen Family…Thank you!

Prologue – Old Man Jones

"Listen up, Tommy boy. I been huntin’ monster grizzlies all my life. You gone huntin’ with me? Few things um spectin’ you to know so’s you don’t git me n you both killed.

First thang, you better know grizzly bears kill people often enough and when they kills people, that ain’t no accident or no tragedy. That’s nature. You city boys like comin’ out here dickin’ around in bear country with yo fancy boots and yo fancy guns and yo fancy dreams cause you ain’t got no respect for nature’s boundaries. You thank you the cockle-doodle-do, but you ain’t.

Grizzlies ain’t stupid. Probably smarter than most people is, specially city folk. They been huntin’ in these here woods for a hundred years, a thousand years, or a hundred thousand years, maybe longer. Grizzlies is the best killer you ever gone find in these here woods. They kill whatever they feel like killin’ and ain’t nothin’ to stop ‘em. Now, you tell me who spose to be huntin’ who in these here woods—soft, fleshy, pink, pot-smokin’, easy-to-kill city folk or them?

I ‘spect grizzlies would kill more people if it were true that grizzly bears wanted to eat people. That’s what city folk thank. You thank grizzly bears is hungry and actin’ on they instincts to feed? There ain’t no truth to that. Grizzlies don’t want to eat people. If they did, there’s plenty people to eat and people is easier to kill than most other creatures in these here woods. I’m spectin’ grizzly bears don’t kill more people ‘cause people don’t taste good. You ever ate anybody?

People, ‘specially city folk, got a foul flavor and probably a good thang or else we would have been all ate up a thousand years ago. We’d a probably ate each other. But we don’t taste good, take my word for it. Taste kind spoilt from all that shit we eat—fried food, booze, medicines, chemical shit—and wear—soap, deodorant, shaving cream, sweet smellin’ perfume. Don’t be wearing that shit out here when we go huntin’. I’ll shoot you myself and leave you to the worms and maggots that won’t give no shit what you smell or taste like.

If anything, grizzly bears kills people to git rid of they nuisance, to git rid of they weakness, meddlin’, holdin’ hands skippin’ through the woods with headphones on listenin’ to Bob Marley or some stupid shit like they own the world. Git one thang straight, Tommy boy. See out here in these here woods, you is the nuisance, an unnatural nuisance. You is the weak link, an unnatural weak link.

You the pathetic contradiction to nature. Thank ‘cause you got a gun that costs more’n my house, that evens the score out here in these here woods? Well it don’t even nothing, not a got damn thang, Tommy boy. And if you slip and forget for one minute who’s got the real advantage, you’ll be dead. You’ll be dead.

Now as far as the great Shanekoe spirit bear? We’ll be avoiding that one. They say to see that bear is to know death and I believe ‘em. Plenty of folks talks about seeing it, but ain’t no folks talks about actually shooting it. Bounty or no bounty, I only like huntin’ regular grizzly bears. Regulars, they’s tough enough to survive and hunt. We run into that other grizzly, plan on showin’ respect, Tommy boy. Plan on runnin’ for yo life like the devil is after you for sleepin’ with his woman.

Just remember, I ain’t gotta outrun no grizzly bears. I just gotta outrun you."

{Return to Table of Contents}

Chapter 1 – Ghost Spirit Lake

Snow, damned endless snow and mountains, damned mountains, stupid trees and all the slick rocks, and that bear! Damn, damn mystic bear, tribal spirit bear god and all the trouble its worth! Kim yelled fumbling around inside her tent to turn off the beeping alarm on her watch, which was somewhere under her thermal blanket.

Finding the watch and silencing it, she sat still there in the dark, inside her cold dark tent, shivering for the moment, contemplating, rubbing her eyes and then deciding, okay, this is all still worth it.

She looked at her watch. It read 6:32 a.m. now. She pressed one of the side function buttons. The watch read, Elevation 1967 ft and 45 degrees—the temperature inside the tent.

Get it together, beautiful. Get up, get going. Don’t you dare lie back down. Don’t you dare. Don’t you . . . dare.

Three hours later, she fumbled with the zipper to the tent, cursing her cold, weathered hands. She then unzipped three layers of tent flaps and paused again for a moment before unzipping the final outermost flap on her tent. Pausing before this last zipper, she sat there still a little blurry-eyed, procrastinating and reflecting on the fact that this tent and these flaps kept the cold out and kept what little heat there was in.

These layers keep the cold out and they keep the heat in, but how do they know? She laughed aloud at that joke and ran her fingers through her messy head of gray hair. It was the same joke she had told herself every morning for the last week or so, the same lame joke she had been telling herself for years since her son, Captain Kope, Company Commander, Bravo Company of the Third Amphibian Assault Battalion, United States Marine Corps, told it to her.

The Styrofoam cup is the most amazing device in the American military inventory. You see it keeps hot thangs hot and it keeps cold thangs cold, but HOW DO IT KNOW? Kope had said. Always told with the exaggerated southern voice of former President George W. Bush.

She laughed and then sat quiet for a moment just listening to her own breathing.

Oh, God, I miss my kids.

She always missed them this time of year. She grabbed her camera and swiped through pictures of them.

Okay, I’m ready.

She took a deep breath, exhaled slowly, and then yanked hard and fast on that last zipper. A cold chill, a biting wind, and bright glaring sunlight slapped at her chapped face forcing her teeth to chatter. She snapped her forearm up to shield her eyes from the morning sun and her face from the blistering cold. The mild cold inside her tent earlier felt warm in contrast, not at all any preparation for the gnawing cold outside.

She tested her readiness for the outside air by inhaling breaths through her nostrils. This sent a deep wave of shivers across her entire body.

Why is it so goddam cold? It’s not January yet.

Another quick gust of wind howled through the mountains as if calling her name, insulting her for leaving safety, warmth, and home for this frozen wilderness. It rattled her small insignificant tent, forcing her to duck back under her thermal blanket. She said a prayer. Then she waited, hugging the warm blanket, then she forced herself to go through her regimented waking up process and her fog-clearing routine.

Finally, she reached outside, sinking her hand and arm deep into the foot of snow that had collected just outside the tent. The snow reached almost to her elbow before her hand contacted solid ground. She pulled her bare hand back inside and, just like every morning for the last few days, for a split second she thought about zipping up the flaps of the tent and just sleeping through the entire rest of the winter.

I really could use a three-month beauty and sanity nap. No one would hardly miss me, she told herself.

The snow piled outside against the base of the tent provided reasonable insulation. The tent served as her temporary and mobile home away from home, and she liked its serenity and simplicity, but getting too comfortable would lead to her death one way or another. She had a job to do. She needed to track a very large grizzly bear and if she intended to catch up to it, study it and complete her research, then she needed to get moving, to get moving now.

You’ve got work to do in these mountains. YOU don’t get to hibernate.

She reached past the flaps again and pulled in the thermometer from the top of her tent. Twelve degrees it read.

Wow. It’s actually warmer today, she said aloud.

She stuck her head out, letting her eyes adjust to the new morning sunlight and the stark white, snow-covered forest before her. Then she inhaled, breathing in as deep as she could. She choked and coughed hard on the frigid mountain air, but she kept her head outside the tent flap. She did it again and again, breathing in deep and coughing until her head cleared and her lungs burned less and less.

Awake now and back inside with the flaps open, Kim rummaged through her backpack and took out a small stainless-steel cylinder and removed its top. She sat this cylinder on the floor of the tent near the open flaps and squirted a clear stream of fluid into the bottom of the container. Then she dropped a lit match inside. A small flame leapt up from the bottom. She held her hands over the flame rubbing them together. Then she unfolded a small grate and set that on top above the flame. Next, she sat her large metal cup on top of the grate, poured water into it, and added two teabags.

What a beautiful invention these little camping stoves are. Impossible to survive without one. Tea in three minutes with heat to spare.

After tea and granola, she stepped outside and began packing up her things. Packing up served as her fifteen minute warm-up wake-up exercise routine. While packing up, she also took time to give herself pep talks, to remind herself why she had ventured 200 miles from civilization to hike through mountains searching for a bear, an unusual bear, a bear that didn’t hibernate like other bears, a bear that she knew to be a killer.

After packing, she felt ready to hike hours on end, well, at least until an hour or so before sunset. She estimated she had about five and a half hours of sunlight to work with.

She hiked slow at first, careful to judge the placement of each footstep, mindful of her age and how long it would take her body to warm up, and mindful of how long it would take to heal if she fell and injured herself. The last thing she needed this far out from civilization and help was a twisted ankle, a torn muscle, or a sprained anything else. After about two hours, she felt warmed up, hiking at her top speed. She now remembered how it used to take her about fifteen minutes to warm up, but that was many years ago.

Just keep going and keep moving, she told herself.

After three hours and a couple of miles of hiking, she hit her stride.

Pick ‘em up and put ‘em down, she said aloud, as she pumped her legs up and down in and out of the ankle high snow, making sure to avoid obvious places of deep snow.

She smiled, breathed in and out, and said, Today is a fine day. Today is the day. I’m a full week ahead of schedule.

She repeated this aloud until she was almost giddy.

This is the hunter’s high. This is and has always been exciting. This is my purpose. This is going to be a great day.

A heavy snow began to fall, quieting the forest, muffling all possible sounds like a fluffy pillow might do, blanketing almost anything anyone would care to see.

Far ahead near a series of cliffs and bluffs jutting out over a rocky ravine, a dark movement in a dense cluster of gray trees made Kim pause. She scrambled to grab the large, leather pouch strapped to her left side. She flipped open the flap and retrieved her digital binoculars. Peering through the digitally enhanced lenses, excited and breathing heavy and loud, Kim found her target.

There you are my friend, she said, locking her knees, holding still, leaning against a tree to steady her aim. She pressed a button on the side of the binoculars, saving the image to the small internal hard drive.

Mister Terror of the Wild Northwest, Mister Great North American grizzly bear, Ursus arctos horribilis, aka the silver-tipped bear, or I’ll call you a North American brown bear if you like that. Mister The Largest Land Carnivore On The Western Hemisphere, but I fancy I will call you what the Shanekoe mountain people have always called you—Rotukenokowa, King of Beasts or Bear God or God of Beasts if my translation is right. Or is it Bear of God?

She captured several more images, but these disappointed her because she couldn’t seem to hold the binoculars still enough to capture a good image over the far distance.

I’ve got to get closer.

She snapped another digital picture through the binoculars and her target disappeared over a distant ridge. She studied the last photo imagines saved on the binoculars, swiping the images back and forth on the viewscreen.

This is going to be a great day, Kim whispered again, staring at a small dark blip on her screen.

She played with the zoom and edit features, then shuffled through the other photos, wiping away snowflakes that landed in her way on the screen. With each frame she viewed, her smile widened with excitement.

Damn it! I want some better shots. Stop being so elusive, she said aloud.

She placed the large binoculars back in their protective case then hiked on faster than before. She found the sounds of crunching snow beneath her footsteps, the rhythmic loud panting of her own breathing, and the large falling snowflakes all very hypnotic.

She reached in and turned on her digital voice recorder, which dangled from a leather strap around her neck inside her thick parka.

"Day 12. Target grizzly bear spotted crossing ridgeline Tango 39 at 319 degrees from current GPS coordinate. Range finder shows distance to ridgeline is 3,205 yards. I’m closer to the bear today than I was yesterday. The time is 14:29. Obviously, this is one very large bear. One tree marking, which I took a photo of, suggests the bear’s height is outside the range of normal, abnormally large.

And just where are you going? What are you up to? Where are you leading me? A steady snow is falling. This makes finding a readable paw print nearly impossible. This snow also makes it hard to keep up with and to keep track of this bear and makes it difficult to document other bear signs.

At least it’s quiet out here. It’s just me and this bear. Oh, and my new boots are holding up 100% better than my old boots. On a scale of one to ten, my feet feel zero cold," she added, ending her recording.

Kim huffed out a long streaming cloud of steam into the crisp mountain air as she quickened her pace to what she knew was beyond her top hiking speed.

Keep pushing. Ignore that nagging pain in your back. Ignore that nagging pain in your fingers. Ignore that growing burning you feel in your thighs. Ignore your hunger. It’s just fatigue and fatigue is 90% mental.

She looked out into the distance from one snow covered mountain peak to another. Nothing moved except snow falling from the sky. The thick blanket covering the ground reminded her of her days in Aspen—skiing, tubing down slopes with the kids, hot-tubbing and drinking with friends. She missed it all, but she intended to enjoy these serene and beautiful scenes, these natural works of art at every turn here in this forest, and the solitude too.

Even if the snow covering everything and the absolute quiet suggested she should go inside, she wanted this. She wanted to complete this work. This was living, she convinced herself. Real living, doing what you love, calling it work, and having someone pay you for it. She giggled between her cold breaths.

A flash of sunlight warmed her face and she smiled. The next snowdrift turned out to be deeper than she guessed. She made a misstep and slipped, landing on her butt. With her forward momentum, she slid all the way down twenty feet to the bottom of a shallow dip between two low hills. When she came to a stop, she laid there for a moment and laughed out loud.

You’re having way too much fun. Let’s be more careful. There’s a lot more dips and downhills coming up soon if this bear stays on course.

She tried to stand up, but the weight of her backpack made that hard to do.

You’re getting old. You’re having fun and you’re getting old. She couldn’t help but giggle. Seeing the grizzly bear made her feel euphoric. Okay, let’s work smarter and not harder.

She unhooked the straps and then pulled herself upright leaving the pack on the ground. Then she reverse-flipped the pack up and over her head onto her back, and pulled the straps tight again.

That was fun, she laughed, looking back up the small downhill slide, tracing the trail she made in the snow with her butt. Okay, everything is right where it’s supposed to be, so let’s keep moving.

Several minutes later, Kim thought she saw a small deer far away, peeking out from behind naked gray trunks of trees jutting out of a distant forest cluster. The animal stood motionless behind the trees, and in front of dark, earthy brown and gray rocks of a tall cliff side. This almost shielded the animal from view, providing near perfect camouflage.

Kim paused, thinking of the deer as a hint of what was out here—not much of anything except her, a large bear, and some random fauna. It all seemed to entice everyone to go back inside, to go back home. She just kept telling herself that deep, down inside she loved these scenic views, she loved these animals, and she loved this grizzly bear, all so very different from the cluttered and unnatural congestion of Portland and the university and the students and the people. She valued the journey and knew this was so very worth it even if she suffered a little frostbite.

She scanned the horizon before her. She had climbed the highest peaks she would have to today. Those lung-burners were behind her.

Before her now stretched a series of smaller peaks and ravines, and more wooded forest, all covered in thick snow, all more downhill than uphill. White snow dominated her vision. Dense blue-gray clouds that seemed close enough to touch from the high peaks began releasing snow now in only the lightest precipitation possible to even count as snow. Kim knew this was deceptive. In a matter of moments and without warning, those clouds could pour on a foot or two of snow with shifting winds. She scanned ahead and saw a dark crevice at the base of a low cliff about a mile away.

Always be ready to take hasty shelter, she told herself. She learned this lesson the hard way two years ago when she trekked through this same forest and got caught in a blizzard. It cost her two toes from extreme frostbite. The low clouds reminded her of that. It took almost a year before she regained the feeling in the eight toes she still had. She remembered the pain. Pain is a hell-of-a teacher.

Kim knew from past experiences she couldn’t stay out in these snow-covered mountains for more than about two weeks at a time, but she would stay forever if she could and she thought often enough about finding a way to retire out in these woods with only nature and the Indian people of the Shanekoe tribe, a few straggling hunters, the forest service rangers and a few seasonal idiots to keep her company. But who was she kidding? The kids would never let her retire so far away from them. Every year she came out here, she felt as if time stopped. She even felt as if days here erased years from her ticking clock.

If not for the kids and grandkids. She sighed.

She imagined people in these mountains lived longer than most because of the fresh air and the uncontaminated environment. In some ways, she found it harder and harder to leave the mountains each year. She felt as if she belonged right here, right now. She felt as if this was where she wanted to live, love and someday die. Nevertheless, she knew she couldn’t stay. She sighed a little more now as she trudged on down the steep slope of a ridge, moving, almost dancing along between tall snow-covered pine trees, and letting her weight pull her downhill.

There were other mountains and other bears to track and study. If she could collect significant data on this bear, this king of beasts, then she would leave him alone to his world and go on to study some other bears, possibly in Alaska again. She hadn’t been there in more than five years. Maybe it was time to go back.

Yes, I should have gone back to Alaska last year like I planned, but this is such a unique opportunity to study this one single grizzly bear this year and it’s all paying off nicely so far. I’m closer to him this time than I’ve ever gotten before. Still, I pray this king of beasts will continue to elude hunters and live out his full life. Now is that just wishful thinking?

She knew this great bear of the north had a mounting bad reputation. Already regional hunting groups had placed a growing bounty for its capture or killing, growing every time the grizzly bear killed another hunter. Kim feared there was a strong chance that this bear would be dead soon and only then would she get close enough to see it up close, touch it, inspect it and catalogue it. Only then would she truly know this odd bear. She would then have a chance to finish her book on the great beast.

Knowing that without any great luck this would be her last winter in these mountains for a while, Kim stared out at the snowy peaks and tried to take pictures with her mind.

There is just nothing quite like the beauty and the solitude of the great northern forests.

She raised her head to the sky, breathed in deep, and exhaled as slow as she could. A snowflake landed on her nose. She removed her goggles and her hood and closed her eyes and counted each flake that landed on her face, forgetting for a moment where she was.

Through what seemed to be countless evergreen pines and dense forest clusters shrouded in white, snowy-down veils, Kim continued on, tracking her target. At this time of the year, a deep white blanket covered mostly everything. Dark rocks and other earth features jutted up from the snow covering, visible and giving everything the white-on-black textured colors of a reverse negative. Where sunlight shined through dense clouds, dazzling beams of refracted light ricocheted off frozen things, threatening to blind onlookers with their brilliance. Sunshine was such an unexpected visitor to the mountains this time of year.

To Kim, these breathtaking views were a reminder of how spoiled most Americans were.

Most will never see this, trapped in city prisons with almost no idea of how beautiful the world really is outside. So many kooks and nut-jobs complaining about resource shortages, pandemic outbreaks, urban sprawl, civil liberties. Politicians, immigrants and terrorists destroying America. War, defending the borders, and global warming. All anyone needed to do was drive for a few hours in just about any direction and they would quickly realize how enormous this world is and how utterly small and insignificant people are, and have always been.

Some part of her wished more people would get out of their city prisons. Some other part of her was just fine if they stayed there forever and never spoiled these wild areas with their ravages. After all, she came out on this trip to study the effects people have on bear populations.

The demographics are not looking good for North American grizzly bears and things have been bleak for a long time, she reminded herself. The impact, the effect is not good. Everyone knows, but what we want to know more about is just how bad it is.

Kim looked at her pocket map and compared it with the data on her handheld GPS. She pressed the button on the GPS, saving a marker, noting her current location and how far she had come in one day. She felt impressed with her progress. This is the farthest I’ve traveled in any single day. Within a few seconds, and before she had any time to feel too impressed with her endurance and stamina, she calculated in her head that her chance to see the bear again today would evaporate fast in the next hour.

I need to hurry and cross a few more ridges. This is probably, no, very definitely the last time I might see the grizzly bear today. I also need to make it to ridgeline GC08, and over before dusk and set up camp for the night.

She looked down a shallow valley to her left front, which she knew tracked east in the direction of what she knew to be a frozen lake.

Bitei Chaywonoo Lake, the map said.

Ghost Spirit Lake, Kim said translating. Our bear must have crossed it before. It weighs maybe 1200 to 1300 pounds, so I guess the frozen lake won’t crack and fall in when I get there, she told herself smiling.

She hiked on for almost an hour through a long patch of tough rocky and snow-covered terrain, turning and changing directions to avoid cliffs, ravines, frozen waterfalls, and frozen streams. When she finally made her way down to the lake, Ghost Spirit Lake, she stopped. She sat on a fallen tree log and pulled out a small piece of turkey jerky, some granola, and drank some orange juice. There was no sign of the grizzly bear.

Her doctor’s orders were to eat something every three hours or so to keep her blood sugar steady. From where she sat at the lake, she thought it would take her another three hours to make it across the lake and up and over the last low ridge. That’s where she wanted to sleep for the night, on the backside of the ridge safe from the harsh night winds.

It’s a long way to go, she decided. I don’t think I can cover that distance before nightfall.

She checked and found she had a cell phone signal. Magnificent! she thought. She dialed out.

Ranger Station 219, Dillon speaking, a young man’s voice answered.

Hi, this is your friendly, neighborhood, grizzly bear lady checking in.

Of course, it is, the voice on the phone said back. There’s really nobody else calling us this time of year in the mountains except you Kim. It’s been six days and I thought I was going to have to come looking for you again.

No, I’m fine, Dillon. I got a signal finally, so I figured I better check in with you.

Are you okay? Did you find our bear?

Again, I’m fine. And yes, I’ve found him and I’ve been tracking him for days. I’m pretty sure I can tag him with a GPS tracker dart, but I’m going to need to come in for a break before I give it a try. Do you feel like some company?

Of course, I do. You’re always welcome here in my station, but my calendar says you’re not due back until tomorrow.

I didn’t hike as fast and as far as I thought I could and I’m not going to make it to my final checkpoint before sunset, so…

So, you figured you’d give me a call for a ride in?

You say that like you mind.

No, I don’t mind at all. I’m actually glad you’re coming in now. With you back here safe, I’ll worry less.

You’re always so sweet to me, Dillon.

Kim, we can say, I’m doing my job if that makes you uncomfortable.

No, I like the way you said it the first time, Dillon. So yes, I’ll come in for the night, but I need to get back out tomorrow.

Can’t you stay in for a full day?

No, I better not if I want to catch up to this grizzly bear this year.

How do you plan to find him again if you come in for a day?

I think I have our bear’s pattern figured out. I’ve been researching and studying this bear for three years. This bear basically patrols a large territory, a very large territory, but there is a pattern to it. If I’m not mistaken, then I’ll find this bear back near Miner’s Peak in a few days. I plan to be there when he gets there. I really think I can tag it this time before I have to head back to Portland.

I hope you do tag it. Have you seen Old Man Jones?

Kim paused and then said, No, I haven’t seen him.

He hasn’t reported back in yet. So, if you do run into him, I sure would like to know he’s okay.

I’m sure he’s fine, Kim lied. He’s got his pack of hounds with him.

Kim had crossed paths with Old Man Jones three days ago, not more than 150 yards from where she sat now and she knew