Yellowstone Standoff. Scott Graham

days ago. Standing side by side in the front yard, bear-spray cans at arm’s length, all five of them had pressed the buttons on the top of their flashlight-sized canisters at once. The pressurized cans hissed and a red fog formed in the air in front of them. They stepped forward and took a sample whiff of the spray as it dissipated. Even in its dispersed form, the aerosolized pepper burned their noses and set their eyes watering.

      On Justin’s phone, the video feed remained fixed on the meadow and pines while the terror-filled voice of Rebecca, the young woman, came over the speaker. “Joe!” she screamed. “Joe!”

      Justin narrated. “She did what the guy wanted. She backed off. The Incident Team figured it out when they reconstructed the event.”

      Two sharp pops sounded.

      “That’s the griz,” Justin said, “snapping at the spray.”

      Chuck pictured the brown bear’s powerful jaws and jagged teeth, saliva flying. The pepper mist should have turned the animal away.

      “Back!” Joe yelled.

      The bear snarled. The warning nature of its initial woofs was gone now, replaced by long bursts of deep, bellowing roars.

      The sounds of a struggle came over the phone—exhalations, scuffling feet.

      Joe screamed in agony. “It’s got me,” he screeched. “Rebecca. It’s eating me! It’s eating me!”

      “Joe,” Rebecca moaned. “Joe.”

      “Run,” Joe cried. “Rebecca. Run!”

      Chuck shot a sidelong glance at Justin, who gazed at the screen, the phone steady in his grip.

      Growls and indistinct noises came from the speaker. Chuck’s gut twisted.

      “She didn’t know what to do,” Justin said. “No protocol existed for her situation. The spray had always worked.”

      “Oh, my God,” Rebecca cried. “Oh, dear God. Joe!”

      “She wouldn’t leave him,” Justin said. “Gotta give her props for that.”

      “Bear!” Rebecca yelled. “Leave him. Leave him!”

      “The griz went for the guy’s abdominal cavity,” Justin said. “She stayed. She should’ve run. I bet she’d have gotten away.”

      “Bear,” Rebecca said. Her voice was little more than a whimper now. “Bear.”

      There came a long pause. Chuck clenched his hands at his sides, his fingernails digging into his palms.

      Rebecca screamed, loud and shrill. Her cry died in her throat, followed by snarls and sounds of ripping and snapping.

      “Stop,” Rebecca managed. Then, two final words, half cry, half sigh: “Please. No.”

      Silence. The video feed remained steady on the field and forest.

      “Keep watching,” Justin said. “This is the creepy part.”

      Half the bear’s body appeared on the screen. The animal stood in profile, looking across the meadow.

      When the next frame appeared, the bear had turned to look straight at the camera.

      Chuck stared back at the creature—its massive, furred head and short, dark snout glistening with blood; its stubby ears, the notch plainly visible in its right flap; its blond hump, lit by the midday sun, rising between its wide shoulder blades.

      The hunter in Chuck focused on the precise spot between the eyes where an adult grizzly was sure to be brought down by a bullet.

      But researchers weren’t allowed to carry firearms in the park.

      The bear continued to stare at the camera.

      “It’s almost as if it’s posing,” Justin said. “Is that bizarre or what?”

      No further sounds came from the wolf researchers. Three seconds later, the bear was gone, the camera back to recording the sun-dappled meadow, the lodgepole pines covering the distant hillside.

      “That’s all,” Justin said. “Those poor wolfies.” He tapped his phone with his fingertip. Its face went dark and he shoved the phone back in his pocket. “By the time the posse showed up, the grizzly had split.”

      “They tried to track it, from what I read,” Chuck said.

      “Yeah. But it rained later that day and they ended up losing the trail.”

      “They haven’t spotted it in all this time? Even with that notch in its ear?”

      “They’re still trying.”

      “It’s been two years.”

      “Grizzlies cover a lot of ground—and there’s lots of ground out there for them to cover. Lamar Valley alone is forty miles long, almost all of it roadless. It’s not like civilization starts right up at the park boundary, either. At this point, everyone figures the griz is so deep in the Absaroka wilderness east of the park no one will ever see it again.”

      “That’d be fine with me.”

      Justin gave Chuck a calculating look. “I’ll bet. I hear your wife and kids are coming with us tomorrow.”

      “And my research assistant, my wife’s brother. My contract calls for a quick recon, a few days at the site. We were planning to backpack in on our own from the south, over Two Ocean Pass. Then Hancock told me about the research teams basing out of Turret Cabin this summer, everyone together.”

      “Grizzly people and the wolfies and geologists and meteorologists and the new canine-tracker guy and the Drone Team—and now you, too.” Justin’s mouth twisted. “Going to be a whole herd of us out there.”

      “The site I’ll be working, at the foot of Trident Peak, is only five miles from the cabin. The timing turned out to be perfect. I was glad to join in, to be honest.”

      “Sounds like a peachy little family vacation for you.” Justin lifted an eyebrow. “Assuming the killer griz is as long gone as everybody says it is.”

       3

      All of you will use Turret Patrol Cabin as your base of operations for the summer,” Chief Science Ranger Lex Hancock announced to the three dozen scientists seated on folding chairs in the Canyon meeting room.

      A collective groan rose from the researchers.

      Chuck sat in the back row beside Clarence, who’d slipped into the room behind Lex, just after eight. Justin sat a few rows ahead and to the left, with the other Grizzly Initiative team members.

      Clarence shoved a length of black hair behind his ear, revealing the thick silver stud set in his lobe. He cast a questioning glance at Chuck, who shrugged, waiting to see how the ranger would respond to his disgruntled audience.

      Lex stood at a podium at the front of the room, flanked by American and Wyoming flags, his appearance as crisp as Chuck remembered from the years they’d worked together during Lex’s climb up the ranger ranks at Grand Canyon National Park. Lex’s gray hair was combed back from his high forehead, his mustache neatly trimmed. Despite the jowly cheeks framing the sides of his wrinkled face, he stood erect, shoulders straight, aging body fit beneath his pressed, green and gray park service uniform, brass badge shining on his chest. As chief science ranger, Lex oversaw Yellowstone’s scientific research operations while his boss, Park Superintendent Cameron Samson, served as Yellowstone’s public face.

      Lex waved his hands for quiet. “Now, now. I know this comes as no surprise to any of you. And I don’t necessarily blame you for your complaints—which I’ve been reading online.” He furrowed his bushy eyebrows at his audience. “Rather than complaining, might I suggest you instead welcome the opportunity to work in the backcountry at all this summer?” The room grew still as the ranger went on.