Gros Morne Justice
by Walter Mallory

Jack sighed. Calvin was over an hour late, so he decided to drive over to the park area.

The first thing he noticed when he reached the bait site where Rick had first hunted was Calvin’s truck, empty but idling. There was something about the empty truck in the darkness that made Jack feel uneasy.

He took his 12-gauge semi-automatic out of its case and loaded it, a Remington that he had owned for over ten years. He had bought it from a hunter with his outfit. It was not registered, and he figured he never would register the shotgun; the new federal gun registry was, at least in his mind, a waste of time and money. He turned off Calvin’s ignition and lights. As he listened beside the truck, Jack heard a familiar, dreaded noise.

It was the sound of a bear clawing and snapping its teeth, a sound that Jack knew well not to ignore. The animal was warning him to stay away. He fired a warning shot, but instead of hearing the bear running away, he heard faint brush movements. The sound told him that the animal, being an ambush hunter, was stalking him and waiting for him to move to a place ideal for surprise attack.

“Calvin,” Jack called. “Calvin, you out there?”

He knew now that there was no sense trying to hide from the bear. It was already positioned to blindside him.

Jack called his son a few more times, but there was no response. Taking a flashlight from Calvin’s truck, he guided himself down the path into the thicket of alders and pine, following the bear’s sound, stepping slowly and quietly until he heard again the loud click-click and snapping of teeth. He shone his light toward the sound, which seemed to be coming from a spot some twenty yards from the bait site. There Jack spotted Calvin’s bait pails tipped on their sides. A few feet ahead of the buckets, on the ground, a dark red stain glistened in the flashlight’s glow.

Jack saw wet blood smeared on the bark of nearby trees. A few yards up the path, he spotted something. Turning to the side of the trail and standing at an angle, he discerned that the pathway had been cleared by a large animal. The fir trees made it difficult for him to identify it. He pushed his way through the thick boughs, stepping on something soft that gave way under his weight. Not knowing whether it was alive or not, he jumped, frightened. Regaining his composure, he focused the flashlight beam on the spot.

It was Calvin.

His son was lying face down, and in the flashlight beam, the body showed fatal mauling. Jack rolled him over and saw that one side of Calvin’s face was deeply clawed and bloody, and where his eyes had been were now dark and empty holes of black horror. The lower part of his body was mutilated from savage tears to the stomach and upper thighs.

His son was gone. Right then and there he wanted to guarantee that the bear that had killed his son would never attack another human being. He felt tears in his eyes, but they were not the tears of grief. They were the tears of a man so angry he could barely see anything. He was seized with the desire to kill someone or something, and the bout lasted for several moments, as he groped aimlessly about the clearing.

Within seconds, there came a warning of possession. The bear that had killed his son was claiming exclusive rights to its meal.

“Woof.”

Suddenly, the bear charged him from the right side of a dark clump of alder, closing in on him in a fraction of a second with one whooshing black motion. There was just enough time for Jack to point the 12-gauge’s muzzle at the sound and fire, pumping and firing again and again at the black shadow until he heard nothing more but the echo retreating through the blue-grey smoke. When the air cleared, he took the flashlight and inspected the claw prints of the bear. By the size of them, he estimated the bear to be well over two hundred pounds.

But now with an empty weapon, Jack knew he should hurry back to his truck. It was too dangerous to remain at the site. It was unlikely that the bear would soon be back to chance more hot lead, unless it was very hungry or had a cub around the area. There was nothing more he could do for Calvin but take him out of the woods.

It took him a few minutes to get the body back to the truck. He laid his son on the ground near the side of the pathway, and for a moment closed his eyes, trying to compose himself and regain his breath. It was a close call, he thought. Damned bear! I hope I killed that bitch!

Then the bear reappeared.

Fearing for his life, Jack left Calvin’s body and jumped in the truck, turning the key to the ignition. He blew the horn, turned on the headlamps and rocked the truck back and forth. In the scattered light he could see dark red smears on the bear’s fur. None of the injuries, so far as he could tell, seemed close to being fatal; he had struck the animal only enough to enrage it. The creature was standing directly in front of the truck. It was the angriest bear he had ever seen. Fanged and clawed, it was a terrifying image of doom. But Jack’s instincts to fight or to take flight instantly converged, and he slid the gear into drive. He was about to press the accelerator when something behind the bear caught his eye. It was a cub, about sixty pounds, with white markings on its chest.

The sow jumped on the hood of the truck and smashed the windshield with her powerful paws. The claws missed his face by inches. In one fluid motion he flipped the gear in reverse and stomped on the gas pedal. The sudden shift caught the sow off guard and it rolled off the hood onto the ground. Jack wheeled the vehicle around and shot down the road to the highway. In his rear-view mirror, two dark silhouettes quickly retreated into the semi-darkness.

He stopped, a sudden fire flaring deep inside his chest. Tears blurred his vision and his chest heaved. He would be back there soon enough.