I hear some rocks clattering, and so does the bear because it turns in the direction of the noise. Derrick is at the edge of the landslide now, where the bear had been tearing through one of our food bags.
I don’t know if he sees the standoff we’re in, but now he’s yelling, “Hey, bear,” just like we were.
My mind is a confused fog. None of the bear encounter training has prepared me for this. Do we continue to shout? Do we remain quiet? Do we wait to see what the bear does now that Derrick is yelling? But if we wait and the bear charges, it’ll be on us in less than a second.
I wonder what Shannon and Brooke are thinking. I glance at each of them and raise my eyebrows.
“Rocks,” Shannon mouths, then points down. I don’t know if Brooke can see what Shannon said, but she definitely saw where she pointed because she quickly bends forward and picks up a fist-sized stone. Shannon and I do the same. Now I’ve got the wand in one hand and a rock in the other.
Do we throw them while the bear is focused on Derrick? Is that Shannon’s plan? Or do we use them only if the bear advances on us?
Shannon cocks her arm back and waits for us to do the same. Derrick is still yelling, “Hey, bear,” and the bear continues to look in his direction. And the wind is still blowing in our faces.
Shannon lets her rock fly, and Brooke and I follow with ours. Shannon’s rock hits the bear square in the back, and as the bear turns, Brooke’s rock nails it in the side of the head and my rock hits its shoulder.
The bear drops to all four legs and scrambles straight over the rock slide toward the lake. When the bear gets to the edge of the lake, it splashes into the water and starts swimming toward the opposite shore, which is steep and shaded, with pockets of last winter’s snow still present.
I drop the wand and let out a breath that I didn’t know I was holding. Brooke takes a couple of steps in Derrick’s direction.
Then I hear Shannon’s voice behind me. “Theo. Theo. Stay with us.”
CHAPTER 9
“HEY,” DERRICK SAYS.
I look up from where I’m kneeling next to Theo and shake my head. Shannon and Brooke are sitting on either side of me.
Shannon says, “We lost him.”
Derrick takes off his pack and sets it down. “Did a bear get him?”
“The avalanche did,” I say. “It might’ve gotten everyone”—I pause because I can feel my voice starting to crack—“except us.”
The wind is still blowing, and now that we’re just sitting and not moving around, I’m starting to cool off. A shiver runs up my spine.
“What do you mean, everyone?” Derrick asks.
“Look around,” Brooke says. “The whole camp is buried under tons of rock. It took forever to dig Theo out. And it was all for nothing. We almost got mauled by a bear, too. You chased it right toward us.” Brooke frowns.
“I didn’t know there was a bear until I saw the mess down there.” Derrick points to the edge of the landslide where the bear tore into the food bag. “Even then, I didn’t know it was still around. Don’t blame me.”
“No one is blaming you.” Except maybe Brooke, I think but don’t say. “I—”
“We have to bury him,” Shannon says softly. “Or else scavengers will get him. Ravens. Wolverines. Bears.”
“No way. We just unburied him,” Brooke says. “I don’t want—”
“You are so sick,” I shout. “Don’t you care about anyone but yourself?”
“I worked for hours moving rocks when he was barely alive,” Brooke shouts back. “I stayed here when the bear approached. I put his life before mine just like you did. But now that he’s dead, what’s the point?”
“The point,” Shannon says softly, “is that the more scavengers are attracted to this spot where the camp used to be, the more likely that we’ll keep having encounters like we just had.”
“Plus,” I say, “it’s the respectful thing to do. Eventually his body is going to get hauled out of here. His parents are going to see it.”
“Dudes,” Derrick says, “let’s quit wasting time and energy arguing and get the job done.” He sets his bear spray down. “Now, how do we want to do this?”
We decide to cover Theo with small rocks and use the wand as a marker for where he’s buried. As we work, Derrick recounts what happened to him during the earthquake, which is pretty different from what happened to the rest of us.
“I was finally asleep after being awake most of the night when the quake rolled me around and threw me up toward the ceiling of my tent,” Derrick explains. “I thought maybe a bear was batting me around. I was fighting to get out of my sleeping bag so I could reach for my bear spray. Then I thought I should just stay in my bag because it’d offer a layer of protection against the bear, so I curled up and pulled the drawstring tight. The ground kept rolling under me, and that’s how I figured out it was an earthquake.”
After the rolling stopped, Derrick stuck his head out of the tent and then stood up. The ground hadn’t gotten all split up around his campsite like it had at mine and Brooke’s. Through his binoculars he saw that all three of our flags were still flying green. Since he was dead tired from last night, he went back to sleep for a while. He remembers hearing some jets and maybe some helicopters while he tried to get back to sleep. When he finally got up and hiked to the spot where he could see the camp, he saw the monstrous collapsed mountainside of rocks, so he packed up as fast as he could and headed down.
We are all sharing a moment of silence around Theo’s temporary grave when it starts to rain lightly. Derrick is the only one with his pack and bear spray.
“We need to get our supplies,” I say, “before we freeze.”
Brooke points across the lake and up toward her camp. “I’m beat. I don’t want to hike all the way back up there right now. Besides, someone will rescue us. Our parents will make it happen.”
I think about having Brooke stay here while we pack up her camp, but we’ve got one canister of bear spray among the four of us and we know there’s at least one bear in the area. Plus, with the rain, it’d be easy to freeze to death even in the summer if the temperature dropped.
“We all need to go,” I say. “You stay here with nothing, and they could be recovering your body instead of rescuing you.”
“Easy for you to say,” Brooke responds. “You live to run.”
“He’s right,” Shannon says. “Right now, without any of our gear, we need to move to just stay warm.”
“Let’s do it this way,” Derrick says. “We all hike to Brooke’s camp. Once we have her bear spray, two of us hike to Shannon’s camp and two of us hike to Josh’s camp. And then we all meet back here.”
“I’m game for that.” I nod once. The rain is starting to chill me, and I want to get moving.
“Good idea,” Shannon says. She stands up.
“Whatever,” Brooke mumbles. “Like any of us have a choice.”
We are about halfway across the rock slide when a set of jets screams across the sky. Then in the distance both to the left and right of the jets we see squadrons of helicopters. They are far enough away that we can’t see how many there are, but they make that unmistakable whop-whop-whop helicopter noise. Then another set of jets flies overhead.