There Will Be Bears by Ryan Gebhart Page B

right. There is no barricade, nothing to prevent us from falling hundreds of feet into the massive lake at the bottom.
    Gene pulls over to the shoulder as an oncoming truck appears from beyond a bend.
    “I’m gonna take a leak,” he says, then gets out.
    I open the door to join him, but a small piece of ground comes loose beneath my foot and tumbles down the cliff. I guess I can hold it until we get to the ranch.
    Gene looks like he’s in pain as he gets back in.
    “You okay?” I say.
    “I’m fine.” He breathes in deep a few times and blinks a bunch, like he just spaced out. He gets back on the road, which is getting worse the farther along we go. As we go higher up, the ride gets so bumpy I can feel the vibrations.
    He coughs and his eyes get red.
    “You sure you’re okay?”
    “Of course.”
    The vibrations get so extreme that the truck slides at a curve, then tips a little on my side. Gene presses harder on the gas, and the engine revs up. I grab onto the handle above the window, squeeze my eyes shut, and brace for whatever’s going to happen next.
    Gene gives a nervous laugh. “That’ll wake you up.”
    I open my eyes. My hands are tingling and cold. Everything’s okay.
    Snow begins to fall.
    What if no one’s at the ranch? What if there aren’t any horses? Or worse, what if there isn’t even a
ranch
? We’re going to be stuck out in the middle of nowhere with a broken-down truck and no one to rescue us.
    And then Sandy will come.
    When the road levels out, I say, “Ashley was afraid that we might run into a grizzly bear.”
    “Are you afraid of grizzlies?” he asks.
    “No. Of course not.”
    “They scare me to death. Haven’t I told you my grizz encounter stories?”
    “You told me one decapitated your horses.”
    There’s this deepness to his eyes like he’s looking at his memories instead of the road. He always gets excited at a chance to tell a story. “There was this other time I was hunting with some coworkers and we rode up to this place called Hackamore.”
    Hackamore Creek. That’s where the Oklahoma girl got her legs broken.
    He continues, “We got off our horses, and my guide and I went up a hillside that was covered in this really thick black timber. We were climbing over felled trees, hacking through overgrowth and branches. When we reached the top of this hill, we found the elk herd. There must have been close to two dozen. Just as I’m aiming my rifle, they all take off running. Then this big, mean bear — and she was solid. Just pure muscle. She comes huffing out of the trees —”
    “How big was she?”
    “
Big
. Like a couple of idiots, we haul it down that hillside, and sure enough we see her following us. We’re screaming and hollering for our lives, and she finally backed off when she saw the other hunters at the bottom of the hill.”
    “Was it Sandy?”
    “Yup. She was mean even back then.”
    “I thought bears normally leave people alone.”
    “This one don’t like people.”
    “Why?”
    He nibbles at one of his fingernails, then rolls down the window and spits it out. Maybe because he’s nervous, too. “Some bears are just nasty.”
    “Do you think we’ll see her?”
    “I usually see her once every other year. Flip a coin. Heads we see her and tails we don’t.” He hands me a penny from his cup holder.
    I flick the coin, catch it, and smack it against the top of my hand.
    “So what is it?” he asks.
    It’s Abraham Lincoln’s decapitated head.

Our ranch is the very last on the road. With its tractors and flatbed trailers rusting away in overgrown grass, this place would be perfect for a horror movie.
    Gene stops at the locked metal gate, and an engine growls to life next to the barn about a football field’s length away. An ATV hurries through the pasture where horses are grazing in the snow and stops on the other side of the gate.
    “Hello, there,” the guy says. He’s stout and tall, maybe midfifties, and wearing a camouflage hat