The bear bristled and sat straighter, its back still to Ben. He turned slowly, his head lolling around as the tranquilizer began to take effect. Mo wouldn’t charge him. The projectile dart alone wouldn’t have alarmed the bear any more than if a small branch had fallen on him, but Ben knew the two milligrams of Etorphine and acepromazine maleate compound the dart had just injected into the side of the bear would be more than enough to drop it.
Ben waited, not wanting to alert the bear. Angering or exciting an animal just before they fell asleep would cause undue stress, and it may even put them in danger. After a few more seconds, the bear let out a low moan as it stood on its hind feet. It turned in a circle, unsteady on its feet, then fell back to the ground. The grizzly lay down on the damp leaves, and his head fell to the forest floor.
Ben waited a full minute, then stepped out of his hiding spot. He pushed through the bushes, not bothering to spread the brambles apart before he walked forward. He crossed the clearing and stood next to the animal.
"Sorry about that, Mo," he said softly. "Let's get you back up north again." He removed the small CO2 cartridge from under the barrel of the rifle and dropped it in his pocket. He crouched down and found the red feather-tipped dart protruding from the bear’s left flank.
The dart was expensive and reusable, and the department prohibited rangers from leaving them in the parks, even if they were damaged or destroyed.
Ben unclipped the walkie-talkie from his belt and rotated the knob at the top.
"This is Harvey Bennett," he said into the device. "I've got Mo dropped up here; requesting assistance to get him cleared."
The radio crackled, then came to life.
"Affirmative, Bennett, thanks. We're sending out a crew — tag the location and stand by for location verification."
Ben replaced the radio and removed his phone. He opened an app on the home screen and clicked around a few times, setting his current location into the device's memory, then turned on the GPS beacon.
Within minutes, a crew of four men and two women arrived at the campsite and began strapping the grizzly onto a board.
The rangers would move Mo to another area of the park with less human traffic. He would eventually wander down again, drawn to the enticing opportunity ignorant campers left him.
This was Mo's third repositioning, and Ben was worried it would be his last.
Don't come back down here, Mo, Ben willed the sleeping giant. I won't be able to help you out again.
Chapter Five
The Chevy hiccuped over an invisible pothole in the road, and the aging suspension compensated with a clicking sound and a groan. Ben pulled the truck to the left, easing it back to the center of the small dirt road. He reached out instinctively and turned up the radio, the country song already blaring through the strained cabin speakers.
“You really don’t like to talk, do you?” Ben’s passenger yelled. The young man sitting to Ben’s right glanced over at him.
Ben kept his attention on the uneven road lying before them, not responding. Carlos Rivera turned back and looked out his side window. Over the past hour, Ben had hardly spoken, and what he had said was mainly instructive, telling Rivera to “call in to base” or “check Mo” in the truck bed. Rivera complied each time, but his offers to engage in conversation had been met with silence.
They drove on for another fifteen minutes, moving slowly over bumps and holes in the road. Finally, Ben pulled off the road and began guiding the truck over a small plain toward the edge of the forest. Behind it, a small mountain lifted itself from the flat ground, shadowed by Antler Peak to the north. As they drove, Ben took in the surroundings — it was beautiful, pristine. He took a deep breath and turned the radio back down.
“No, I don’t much care for talking,” he said. Rivera looked over and frowned as Ben continued. “I guess I always feel like I don’t know what to say. You’re a decent kid, Rivera. Thanks for helping out today.”
Rivera nodded, surprised, as they pulled up to the thick tree line. The section of woods in front of them stretched around the base of the mountain, ending about halfway up and turning into a scraggly patch of saplings and bushes. Ben maneuvered the truck backwards into a gap between two trees and jumped out. He unhitched the tie-downs on the side of his truck and waited for Rivera to do the same on his side.
Ben moved to the rear of the truck and started to pull the tailgate down.
“Did you feel that?”
Ben looked up at his partner. Out of nowhere, a heavy bass note rocked the ground at their feet, and Ben felt a pressure of sound burst through his head. The deep sound grew to a deafening tremor, then quickly died, reverberating through the trees.
“What the —” Rivera backed away from the truck, looking to the east and squinting through a strand of trees. His eyes grew wide. “Ben. Look.”
Ben followed the younger man’s gaze and saw a smoking mass growing from the horizon upward. The cloud billowed outward, growing wide and lifting from the ground.
Neither man spoke, but both stood silently staring at the mushroom cloud floating into the sky. Suddenly an earthquake tore through the trees, ripping roots and stumps from the ground and lifting the truck into the air. Ben’s body was thrown thirty feet head over heels, and the earthquake’s intensity grew. The ground seemed to be coming alive, and Ben felt his insides churning as the force of the impact, coupled with the earth’s vibrations, shook every muscle in his body.
He forced himself to sit up, trying to get his bearings. The truck lay on its side close to where he’d parked it, but now a widening gap was opening in the earth directly in front of him. The line grew and inched forward, cracking the dry soil and rocks as it approached the vehicle. Ben stumbled backwards, trying to stand.
We have to get out of here.
He finally found his balance and turned to look at the crack that had opened in the earth. It was wide and deep, but no longer seemed to be growing.
Ben waited for the massive wave to die down fully, then walked back toward the truck. The bear’s cage had toppled over the edge of the truck and now lay upside down nearby. He broke into a run and came up to the animal’s pen.
Working frantically, he unlocked the padlock on the door and unlatched the two enclosures. He swung the door open and reached in.
Just as he did, he ripped his arm back.
Good way to lose a hand, he thought. He looked into the cage to find the grizzly unmoving, but breathing. The great beast was still unconscious. Satisfied, Ben backed away from the pen and turned to the upended truck and the large crack in the ground.
Can I turn it over? he thought to himself. Maybe both of us…
Ben whipped around. Where is Rivera?
He spun in a full circle, at once looking for his fellow ranger and also taking in the devastation surrounding him. A mere thirty seconds, and the ground had lifted, been pushed together with cataclysmic force, and fallen back down again. Trees had fallen in front of one another, trunks battered and smashed in half. Boulders that had rested in place for a millennia now sat disturbed, some cracked and broken.
“Ben! Help!” Ben heard Rivera’s voice from somewhere on the other side of the truck, and he ran toward it. Coming near the edge of the new crevasse, Ben could see that the earth actually sloped downward for about twenty feet before it dropped straight down into a fissure.
It was this fissure that Rivera was holding onto. Ben saw the man’s white-knuckled hands gripping a tree root that was jutting up and over the open space above the cliff, and as he stepped to the edge, he could see Rivera dangling below.