(1995) The Oath Read Online Free PDF Page A

pretty far when foraging. Does anyone know if this bear is habituated, used to people?”
    “I understand he’s getting that way, and that’s what makes him a prime suspect. He’s raided the landfill near Swiftwater.” She pointed out the tiny village on the map, again, some thirty miles north of Wells Peak. “And a few homesteads there have had their garbage gone through.” Tracy shook her head, her expression troubled. “But this—attack—well, nobody expected it.”
    “Has anyone checked the site of the attack?”
    Her shoulders sagged, and she looked uncomfortable. “Sheriff Collins and I went up there this morning, first light,” she said. “We didn’t know what we were looking for. We knew Mrs. Benson had come down the Staircase Trail, and we knew there’d been trouble, but—” She paused. “Dr. Benson, it wasn’t pretty.”
    He knew she was trying to protect him. But he needed to hear the truth. “Go ahead.”
    She fumbled just a little, leafed through her notes, and groped for words. “We found the campsite: a small tent, a firepit some distance downhill, two backpacks. The food provisions were properly stored in containers in some trees far from the camp, again, downhill.”
    “Hung on a rope stretched between two trees?” Steve suggested.
    Tracy nodded. “That’s right.”
    “At least seventeen feet off the ground?”
    “Exactly.”
    Yeah, Cliff and Evelyn always did that. It was a standard method for protecting food stores—and campers—from scavenging bears. Not only was the food inaccessible, it was also far from the actual campsite and downhill, which meant downwind at night. So far, Steve thought, they’d done all the right things.
    Tracy found a crude map of the site she’d made while there. She handed it to Steve. “But that’s where we found your brother’s body, down here near the food stores, in a grove of trees about eighty yards from the camp.” The spot was marked with an X.
    Both Cliff and the bear could have been at the food cache at the same time for the same reason and surprised each other, Steve thought.
    “We called the coroner, and he and I packed the body out. It was transported over to Carson General Hospital in Oak Springs for autopsy. We should have the report by sometime tomorrow.”
    Tracy gathered up the notes, put them back in the folder, and closed it with a snap.
    Steve could see that she was finished giving him information, at least for now, so he let it rest. Considering the day she’d had, the horrors she’d seen, the gruesome task of packing Cliff’s body out of the mountains, he didn’t blame her. She had done a good job, too. He was beginning to realize that he’d misjudged her.
    “You’ve had quite a day,” he said quietly.
    “Yes sir. And I’m terribly sorry.”
    “Thank you.” More awkward silence. “That was—that had to be quite a job, carrying Cliff out of there.” Cliff was a big man, as tall as Steve and heavier.
    That didn’t seem to comfort her. She sat there, looking down at the folder and nervously biting her lower lip. Finally she asked, “So what are your plans?”
    “I’ll need to see the—” He was going to say he’d need to see the autopsy report, but this was Cliff he was talking about. Cliff’s body. He didn’t want to envision it. He’d seen what a grizzly could do. He’d seen a jaw removed with one swipe of the six-inch claws, an arm torn away and eaten while the victim was still alive, a complete face lying in a bloody heap in the weeds, a child’s body opened and emptied from the pelvis to the rib cage. No amount of time could dim the images, the sounds, the smells.
    Cliff, dying that way? Steve had to block out any thought of it. “I—I think I’ll, well, someone needs to read the autopsy report and let me know the conclusions. I might look into it myself, but right now, I just don’t know.” Vaguely, he noted that she seemed to be relieved to hear he didn’t want to read the report.