Free Off the Grid by C. J. Box Page B

never told you his solution?” she asked, arching her eyebrows.
    “He died before he could,” Joe said. “A grizzly bear killed him in his hunting camp last fall.”
    “Oh, very funny,” she said. Then she thought about it and her tone changed. “Last fall? Was it up near Dubois?”
    “Yup.”
    “GB-38. I wasn’t tracking him, but the other research team said that the old man hadn’t hung his camp meat in the trees far enough away from his tent. They said GB-38 must have been drawn to that elk camp because of that man’s bad practices.”
    “That must have been it, all right,” Joe said.
    “If you’re being sarcastic . . .” she began, but stopped speaking inmidsentence because she noticed Joe had dropped the subject and was pointing off to the side of the skinny game trail they were on.
    •   •   •
    T HE GROUND WAS CHURNED UP between the bases of a half-dozen pine trees as if someone had brought in a piece of heavy machinery. At the edge of the disturbance was a large mound of fresh dirt, dry branches, and turned-up mulch.
    Twenty feet from the mound, a scoped hunting rifle was leaned carefully against a tree trunk, as if someone had taken the rifle from his shoulder, propped it against the tree, and started to relieve himself or light a cigarette.
    Joe whispered, “You know that sometimes they bury their meat in a cache for later.”
    White nodded, her eyes wide. “Do you think he’s in there?” she asked, gesturing to the mound.
    “Yup,” Joe said. He could see glimpses of bloody flesh and clothing through the crosshatched branches.
    To confirm that they were where they should be, she asked Mead, back at the van, to read the coordinates.
    “Yes,” Mead said. “You’re right on top of the volunteer location.”
    Joe bent over and dug a GPS tracking unit from the upturned soil.
    “Is this the one you gave to Bub?” he asked quietly.
    She nodded that it was.
    Her radio crackled alive. “Jess, GB-53 is coming back. Can you hear me?”
    She raised the radio. “Yes, I can hear you. Are you sure about GB-53?”
    “I’m sure. He’s coming fast.”
    Joe said, “He knows we found his cache . . .”
    •   •   •
    R OJO TUGGED BA CK on the lead rope in Joe’s hand and snorted through his nostrils. The gelding could either hear the grizzly coming or smell its scent. Rojo’s eyes showed white as they rolled back in his head.
    “Whoa, whoa,” Joe said, trying to calm his horse.
    “What do we do?” White asked with pleading eyes.
    “Get ready,” Joe said. He managed to coax Rojo to the side of the trail and he quickly tied him off around the trunk of a spruce.
    “I can hear him coming,” White said, fumbling for the bear spray she had clipped to her belt. She mishandled the canister and it fell to the ground. “Oh my God . . .”
    Joe could hear him, too. GB-53 was coming up the trail like a freight train, snapping branches and shouldering through dense brush. There was a guttural
woof-woof-woof
that sent Rojo into a kicking fit. Joe wasn’t sure his horse wouldn’t break the lead rope or pull the tree down on top of them all. Needles in the pine tree rained down. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw White scramble for the canister and inadvertently kick it farther away from herself.
    Joe had his bear spray canister in his right hand and his shotgun in his left. The bear was coming so fast he didn’t know which one to toss aside. He could feel the ground vibrate through the soles of his boots.
    Glimpses of a heavy, low-to-the-ground dark brown form strobed through the trees to the south. The speed of the bear was incredible,and Joe recalled that a grizzly at full speed could run down and catch a quarter horse in full gallop.
    There was no way they could get away before the bear was on them.
    What happened next took place in seconds.
    The grizzly crashed through the brush less than fifteen yards away and stopped. Joe could see the bear’s tiny eyes set in its