Free Cold River Resurrection by Enes Smith

cousin. Man. Much more dangerous of a critter than anything has ever come ‘round walking in these woods.”
    “Amen, Little Brother. Amen.” Nathan shouldered his rifle, a .308 caliber sniper rifle with scope, bipod and sling. Smokey did the same with his. They would be able to reach out and touch someone a long way off if need be, a half-mile or more. They both knew this was no longer a search and rescue mission. This was a hunt for bodies and the person or persons who put them there.
    They picked up the trail of the rescuers and backtracked, easy to follow since there had been six of them carrying a litter and not trying to hide sign.
    Smokey took one last look at the Suburban and they dropped off the landing into the forest. They walked out through a logged-over area with the new trees growing up about head high, and then into the forest, the white glaciers of Mt. Jefferson gleaming at them through the trees. The first mile was all uphill and he stopped in a small clearing, the waters of the Whitewater River down to his right. He looked over at Nathan as he came up.
    “You got some sweat coming down there, Big Brother.”
    “Not as much as you, Little Brother. Maybe you need to go on a diet. Eat more roots and berries.”
    Smokey laughed and watched as Nathan looked at his GPS unit.
    “Another ten yards, almost due west, where she was found.” He put the GPS unit in a bag on his belt. “Beyond that, another couple of hundred yards to where the Air Rescue guy found her pack and sleeping bag.”
    Smokey leaned over the log and peered into Jennifer’s hiding place. He reached down to his belt and removed his flashlight. The place in the rocks where she had wedged herself seemed incredibly small.
    What a warrior she is.
    He slid backwards off the log and looked at the scratches, the bark removed in some places, the scratches deep, wide apart.
    “Mr. Anahuy was a big’n,” Nathan said, bending down, looking at the tracks. “Looks like he was all of five hundred pounds, big for a black bear. This little woman, she’s a fighter, most people would’ve given up.”
    “Yeah,” Smokey said. He stood by the log. When Jennifer was here she had been on her last night, her last day, delirious, dehydrated, not sure where she was or even if she was. Her fight with the bear was instinctive, as old as man and woman, as old as mammals, fighting with instinct and adrenalin and fear and tooth and claw and muscle, no pain felt, to quit was to die. There was no calling 9-1-1 here, no yelling for help, no flagging down a cop, no locking the doors. This was down and dirty doing or dying.
    I admire you more, little girl, Jennifer. Wish I had known you. Get well.
    Smokey looked at Nathan and shrugged. “Let’s go to where the pack was found.”
    Nathan led off, Smokey looking back at the crisscrossed logs where Jennifer fought with the bear and stayed her last night. He shook his head. Nathan was tracking uphill, through the trees, stepping around brush and over an occasional log, the Ponderosa Pine trees towering over them.
    Nathan stopped in a clearing, brush and windblown trees giving an opening to the sky.
    “Here. The Air Rescue Squadron guy found the pack here.”
    Smokey looked up at Mt. Jefferson. The sun was sinking over the top.
    “Gonna be dark in less than an hour.”
    “I guess we move on, to the sleeping bag, check out the track in the dark. Might work better,” Nathan said. They found the sleeping bag in ten minutes, using the GPS to guide them, finding a few tracks as they went.
    At the sleeping bag, Nathan eased off his pack and dropped to his knees. He was looking for sign of Jennifer, so he could start tracking her. He looked around, slowly, out two to three feet, and turned in a circle to find her track.
    “Fuck.”
    “What?”
    “ Anahuy brought her bag here, no sign of Jennifer. We have to go back to the place where she was found.” Nathan picked up his pack and started back to the east, back toward