“Yes, sir, I sure do. I’ve had enough of this figuring for today.”
“You have, have you?” I asked in a sardonic tone, raising one eyebrow.
Oscar shrugged. “I been working hard on it all morning. I reckon I deserve a break.”
I sighed. “I suppose we both do. Now tidy up your work, and we’ll head out.”
As we rode through the peaceful woods, we listened to the horse’s grunts and heavy breaths, the thud of their hooves on the snow accompanied by the occasional snap of a branch or twig, and the noises of woodland animals. Seems we weren’t the only ones who’d decided to venture forth after the bad weather.
“’Tis a beautiful place, ain’t it?” Oscar said, gazing about him from under the brim of his hat. “Sometimes I can’t rightly believe how lucky we are to live here.”
“Me neither. We’ve fallen on someone’s kind graces, and that’s a fact.”
Oscar smiled at me as the air was split by a low growl and a sudden scream.
“Jesus, what the fuck was that?” he said, his smile disappearing as he struggled to control his horse.
Dixie shifted under me, too, unsettled and alarmed.
We were almost at the spot where the trees opened up onto Clarence and Irene’s place, and a shiver traveled down my spine.
“Oh fuck. Come on!” I got control of Dixie and spurred her toward the sounds. We broke through the trees and into the clearing and faced a dismal sight.
A huge brown bear stood on all fours o’ertop of someone—Clarence, I reckoned—who lay in blood-drenched snow between the barn and the house. Movement drew my gaze to the door of the house as it opened, and Irene stepped onto the porch in a brown and red dress with a rifle on her shoulder.
All I could think for a god-awful second was that if Irene missed and only made that bear madder, she was gonna be next—or we were.
I pulled Dixie up and grabbed my rifle from the holster of my saddle, lifting it to my shoulder as a flash and a bang sounded ahead of me, then another.
The bear turned toward Irene and made a move to go after her, but I pulled my trigger and lodged a bullet in its neck, beside the one that Irene had already put there.
The bear screamed in pain and fury and turned as if to come for us. It took one step then fell to the snow as its lifeblood leaked out onto the white drifts like tipped paint on a snowy canvas.
“Clarence! Oh God! Clarence!” Irene hollered as she lowered her gun and ran forward.
I slid off Dixie and ran to Clarence. Irene had dropped to the snow, her hair loose and wild, her movements sure and quick as she checked him.
“He’s alive, Jimmy!” Irene said as I approached. “But he’s hurt.”
She’d kneeled down in the snow and laid a hand on Clarence’s cheek as she examined the rest of him.
“It’s my leg. My thigh!” Clarence groaned, his lids fluttering as he tried to remain conscious. “Bastard got me good. Would’ve taken my balls if I had any…”
Irene glanced at me and said, “Shhh, it’s all right. Jimmy and Oscar are here.”
Clarence seemed to see me then and smiled weakly. “Good timing,” was all he said before he passed out.
I was too busy attending to Clarence’s wound to pay much attention to his words, and I figured he was in shock and might have said some things that didn’t make sense. I didn’t have time to analyze it or wonder what he’d meant. I pressed down on the bloodied cloth of Clarence’s trousers to stay the bleeding.
“We need to get him inside.”
“Is the bear dead?” Oscar said, holding Onyx’s reins as he stood beside me and stared at the pile of brown and red fur with trepidation.
I followed his gaze and nodded. “Yep. He won’t cause us any more trouble. Reckon he’s caused enough.” I looked at Irene. “I need a long cloth so’s I can wrap his wound and stop the bleeding, then we’ll get him into the house.”
“All right.”
While Irene was getting what I needed, I glanced at Oscar.
