it in the mud and over smooth rocks wouldn’t hurt it at all.
They hustled down the now trodden path and burst into the clearing. And stopped dead. It took a second to register: where the pile of gear had been at the edge of the cliff was a scattering of debris, freeze-dried foil packs torn and littered over the grass, two of the blue plastic barrels clawed open and spilled, the other two barrels…gone. The ones with their clothes and cooking gear, tarps, pans, warm dry pants and jackets, wetsuits—vanished.
Jack swore. Wynn said, “Bear. Jesus.”
Jack didn’t say another word. He walked to the exploded food barrels, kicked a lid over with the toe of his boot. It was scratched and mangled. He squatted, tipped up the barrel: empty. Same with the other. Macaroni was scattered in the weeds, the Ziploc torn. The gear had been six feet from the edge of the rock ledge overlooking the falls. Too close maybe. Whatever it was had evidently kicked the two nonfood barrels over the edge. One of the lids lay in the sun. It was scored and gouged.
Neither of them said a word. The implications were dawning: that they had ten days at least of river to go and no food save the two days’ worth in their emergency box; that they had an extra person, injured, and no extra warm clothes. Even the wetsuits and the spray skirt that kept water out of the boat were gone. Wynn whistled, a long, downward-sliding exhalation. After a minute he said, “Guess we shouldn’t leave food alone in bear country.”
Jack straightened and let his eyes wander over the clearing. Then he walked it, zigzagging among the wreckage.
Wynn said, “What are you thinking, Cap?”
“Gimme a minute.”
Wynn did. He watched Jack turning the scene over in his mind. Finally Jack said, “I didn’t see any bear tracks.”
Wynn said, “It’s dry out here in the sun. Just rock and scrub.”
“Yeah, but even when there’s not a bedded print you’ll see scrapings where they’re getting purchase. I don’t know.” Jack picked up a lid. “You ever seen a cooler torn open by a bear?”
“No.”
“I have.”
Wynn walked over. He felt like he was sleepwalking. None of this made sense. “Look,” Jack said and knelt, and Wynn knelt beside him. “When a bear tears open a container, to him it isn’t no different than a tree. He’s been tearing open trees for a million years. A plastic cooler, some poor sonofabitch’s car with peanut butter in the trunk—it’s all the same to him. His claws dig in somewhere and rip up or down, the way he claws up a root or down on a termite nest or a honeycomb. The claw marks make a continuous line. Look.” Jack had the two black plastic barrel lids in his hand. He fitted one, then the other on the mangled top of the barrel and turned them slowly until the one snugged down tight. “The claw marks, if that’s what they are, don’t line up.”
“You think it’s something else?”
“Or someone.”
“Whoa.” Wynn sucked in his breath. It had taken him a while, longer than usual, to follow Jack’s train of thought. He said, “You think Pierre tried to kill his wife. Like you said. And then threw all our shit in the river because we got on the radio and told him we found her alive.”
Jack shrugged.
“That’s crazy, Cap. Jesus. Out here that’d be like attempted murder. I mean tossing someone’s provisions.”
Jack turned. Wynn had never seen him look so agitated. Not when he’d decked the man in the bar; not when one of their English profs had said that western ranchers acted tough and independent but were actually on the teat of all sorts of government subsidies.
“It’s a death sentence,” Jack said. “Or meant to be.”
Wynn didn’t say anything. He fingered through a few of the empty food packages and said, “I think he’s scared of us. He seemed panicked. The way he kept his hand on the gun. He thought we kidnapped and killed his wife in the fog. Like some Deliverance shit. He’s not sure, anyway. Or maybe when we didn’t come back last night he panicked and took off for help, like he wanted us all to do.” Wynn shuddered. “This was a bear. When I imagine a camp torn apart by a bear, it looks just like this.” He stood, huffed. “Cap, how many trip accounts did we read where a bear came into camp? It