Night of the Grizzlies by Jack Olsen Read Free Book Online Page B

flies!’ Then he wanted to know if I had gotten a look at the bear’s teeth and whether there was any tartar on them and what color the eyes were and I said no, I hadn’t observed any of those important things. But then I told him that they should destroy that bear, because it was too bold and the fear of man had gone from it. I said if you don’t, the federal government is liable to have one .of the darndest lawsuits that they ever had if this bear kills. This boy said something to me about preserving the species, and I said, how many sharks do we have to have in the ocean to preserve the shark species? I told him I thought the park spends too much time thinking about the preservation of the species and to hell with the preservation of the people.”
    The upshot of this confrontation was a crisp report in the park files. “This is probably the same bear which hangs around Kelly’s Camp,” the report said. “No real damage reported; just rummaging for food... ” The report was filed; no action was taken.
    Not long afterward, Teet Hammond was being visited by a good friend, Lou Feirstein, a Montana lumberman and rancher, when the telephone rang and one of the Berry children announced that their mother was off shopping and the bear had arrived. What should they do?
    “Just wait right there, honey,” Teet said. He and Feirstein grabbed up rifles, walked to the big house, and tiptoed through the front door to a rear bedroom that overlooked the trash cans. The bear was only six or eight feet from them, going about its business of pilfering garbage and swatting millers, and all that separated men from grizzly was a window with tiny panes. Wordlessly, Hammond and Feirstein stretched out on the cot in the darkened room and sighted their rifles on the bear’s head from a prone position. But no shot rang out; each man was waiting for the other. Teet was troubled by the memory of a woman in the camp who thought the grizzly was cute. One day, when the bear was standing just outside the window, the lady had tapped on the pane and said baby words to the big teddy bear. What would someone like that say if he blasted the animal’s brains out? Teet held his fire while he puzzled out the situation. Finally, he said, “You know we’re not supposed to shoot him unless he comes in a building or destroys something.”
    “I’m just a visitor, and I’m not supposed to shoot him at all,” Feirstein said, “but I sure would if I owned property here.”
    The two cronies watched the bear through their sights for ten minutes, then ten minutes more and ten minutes more. Once, the grizzly flew into a rage over nothing and slapped the window in front of their eyes, but the thick glass held, and just as suddenly the bear returned to its battle with the garbage cans, turning them upside down and scattering the smelly refuse all over the ground. When it appeared that all the edibles might be gone and the bear about to go on its way, Hammond said in a soft voice to the visiting rancher, “I’ll tell you how we can do it and nobody’ll ever know who shot him, Lou. We’ll count one-two-three, and we’ll both pull the trigger, and we’ll blow him in two.” But before Lou Feirstein could comment, the grizzly was gone.
    When August 1 arrived, the inhabitants of Kelly’s Camp recapitulated the bear’s pattern: Since the middle of June, it had visited the place some fifteen times, starting at first in a cycle of every three days, extending this to four, and now arriving every fifth day on a rigid schedule. But then a ranger dropped by and told some of the residents, “You shouldn’t be having any more trouble. Your bear’s at Trout Lake, tearing up camps.” For the first time that summer, Kelly’s Camp relaxed.

That Summer: Trout Lake
    F our miles up and over Howe Ridge, the place called Trout Lake was popular with fishermen because of a peculiar combination of circumstances: It was close enough to an automobile road to be reasonably