Blood lure

"Naturally." A

"And you figure this Balthazar really was a high school student, not just some guy?"

"Maybe not high school but young. He never made any attempt to show me what he knew. The more education you get, the more irresistible that becomes."

"Six or eight weeks ago," A

"Several more e-mails like that," Joan went on. "Late July around then. Then no more for a week or so. Then the map idea comes up. The questions become very specific. Where the bears eat, when."

"About this time we're packing to head out for the first round of DNA traps. Same time as the truck and horse trailer are found abandoned," A

"Yes. Near as I can figure."

"And you told him…"

"Flattop burn, glacier lilies."

"Then we go down with the dead woman and you've got mail."

"I tell him Cathedral Peak for army cutworm moths. And, in a week or so, Flattop, west side, huckleberries."

Rory pushed up beside them. "You think some guy is trying to trap a bear or something? Like to put in a side show?"

"Not exactly," A

Rory came and went. Napped in the last of the sun. A

Once Joan nudged A

A quarter of an hour later a small grizzly sow, probably not quite three hundred pounds, came from higher up. She was a rich brown, almost the same shade as the black bear who, like many of his compatriots, was black only in name, not in hue. With her was a single cub, one born this season.

The cub ran after her, nipping and tugging at her ankles. A

Half an hour more and A

Ten minutes before sunset, when down-canyon winds, the night breath of the mountains, was chilling the back of A

"Oh, my heavens," she said. "He's a god. I must apologize to the lab at the University of Idaho."

"Where?" A

"Shh. There. Twenty degrees west of the last tree. Closer in. There. Rory!" she hissed. "Wake up. Come up. Bring your glasses."

A

"See him?" Joan whispered to Rory, who had belly-crawled up between them. "An Alaskan grizzly."

The magnificent creature was no more than twenty yards from where they lay. He had been feeding on the huckleberries that grew thick through a low cut in the hillside, little more than a ditch, but sufficient to hide him from sight until he stood up on his hind legs.

"I see him!" Rory hollered, sudden and loud in his excitement.

"Shh," Joan hissed, but it was too late. The great golden head turned in their direction. The nostrils flared and the huge paws twitched. Even at a distance of sixty feet, A

Brown eyes looked at the three of them, locked with A

The black bear, the sow, even the little cub stopped feeding. The black bear huffed and snorted, the sound an unhappy pig would make. For an instant it looked as if he would stand, meet the challenge. Then he chose the better part of valor, turned and loped away, quickly hidden by the ensnaring tangle of brush.

The cub squeaked and hopped in excitement and earned a stern cuff from its mother. Silence settled back, unbroken by the noises of foraging animals. Unbroken by the sound of breathing. Consciously, A

Crack. Crack.

Not nearby but carrying clearly in the still air; the sound of twigs breaking, or of wood on wood. The sound A

Crack.

The great golden bear looked back at A

"You go," A

"A

"You fucking go!Take Rory." A

"Don't let him run," A

Crack.

Again the bear roared and dropped to all fours, never once looking away from A

Fleetingly she wondered if she'd been wise sending Rory and Joan away. Bears were less likely to attack groups. There were records of grizzlies attacking groups of three and four but it was less common than attacks on a single person.

But this wasn't a regular bear. Joan knew it too-or sensed it. That's why she'd gone.

For a moment the bear waited, huge golden paws flattening the grass, his great head swaying from side to side as tiny bear thoughts in his small bear brain shook into alignment. A

She slipped the can of bear spray from her belt. Coming from behind her was rustling, then a thump. Either Rory or Joan, like a Japanese maiden in a horror movie, had tripped and fallen while fleeing the monster.

The great bear heard it too. His head ceased to sway. A roar built in the massive chest as his eyes focused to the left of A

"Hey bear, hey bear," she shouted.

Crack. Crack. Crack. A low whistle.

The grizzly charged. Never would A