Hard Ground by Joseph Heywood Page B

knelt near the bear, careful not to get too close. Bears were quicker and more agile than they appeared to be. “What’s your problem, Henry?” No idea why that name came to mind or why he’d be thinking of Herman’s Hermits and their classic song. He hated Herman’s Hermits, the mop-head British twinks.
    He went back to the dep. “Get us a couple hundred-yard gap to let the little guy make a move. When he’s gone, we can let people go on their way.”
    â€œWe’ve already got a lot of pissed off motorists,” the troop said.
    â€œLet’s deal with what we have to deal with first. They’ll get over it.”
    Imus pulled his shotgun out of its case, unloaded the slugs and buckshot, and replaced the killing ammo with cracker shells. When the traffic was rearranged, he walked over toward the bear and fired a round. The bear pawed listlessly at him. Three more shots earned only an irritated chuff. Imus took off his hat, spread his arms like a scarecrow, and ran yelling at the animal, which hopped off the road but only onto the grass just off the shoulder. Imus drew his .40 caliber Sig Sauer and fired rounds into the dirt on either side of the animal. Nary a flinch. Shit.
    â€œJust shoot the sucker,” the deputy said. “It ain’t like we got all day here.”
    In thirteen years Imus had been forced to euthanize two problem bears in school zones, and he had trapped and relocated five others, all of which had later been treed and killed by houndsmen. This was his eighth bear, and no way was this little guy going to die. In the past he’d made the mistake of telling people where he released animals. Not this time. He knew this might not be a cause-and-effect deal, but it felt that way. Not this time. “ I’ll take care of it,” he told the deputy with a snarl.
    â€œYou ain’t got the stomach to put it down?” the deputy asked sarcastically.
    Imus’s icy stare shut him up. “Joke, man,” the deputy said weakly and turned away.
    â€œWould be easier to shoot the damn beast,” a troop argued.
    â€œWe are not shooting En-ree,” Imus said assertively.
    â€œWho the fuck is En-ree?” the troop asked.
    Imus ignored him, watched traffic normalizing into two lanes, and headed for the field office to fetch a culvert trap, which he hooked to his truck. He stopped at Fernie’s Pizza and got a half dozen of last night’s fare from the morning pitch pile sale, gassed up his truck, and bought a bag of bite-size Baby Ruth candy bars.
    The bear was exactly where he had left it, contentedly watching traffic from his roadside vantage. Deps halted traffic again, and Imus backed the trap toward the animal, stopping it twenty feet away on the road shoulder. He lifted and set the rear hatch, connected the bait trigger, and dumped three pizzas inside. When the animal stepped on the trigger, the hatch would slam shut behind it and lock him in.
    The bear watched his every move, and when Imus tossed a piece of pizza toward it, the animal stood up, waddled lazily over, and wolfed it down. Imus backed up toward the trap throwing pizza chunks and finally pitched the biggest chunk into the cage, stepped forward, and held out a piece to the bear. When the animal stepped forward, he pitched the piece into the trap, and the bear sailed past him, went to the pizza, and stepped on the trigger. When the door came down, the bear was busy scarfing down pizza, drool cascading from his tan snout.
    A TV crew from Channel 6 News had arrived on site and had recorded the whole sequence. When the bear went into the trap and the door came down, onlookers whistled and cheered and whoop-whooped, and drivers honked horns, like Imus had just scored a touchdown. A female reporter came over pointing a boom microphone at him, but he begged off any kind of interview. There was still a traffic hazard, and he needed to get the animal relocated pronto.
    â€œHow