Deer in the Headlights by Levi Johnston

Author:Levi Johnston
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: simon & schuster

12

Tank and Rex

I walked along the narrowing trail and sensed my problems with Bristol, and my desire to see Tripp, sneaking back into my head. That had to stop. I was alone and needed to pay special attention. If a bear was behind me and I wasn’t on top of the situation, I’d be fucked.

I was getting closer to the bear bait. The goodies were in my giant hunter’s backpack. My eyes darted from the trees on one side of the path to the other.

Why did it feel like spiders were crawling around on the back of my neck? I couldn’t stand spiders. Now it wasn’t only my scruff. My skin felt like I put it on inside out that morning.

I kept moving.

Had I heard twigs breaking? It could have been a squirrel—or a bear. I don’t know how they do it, but these massive animals—black bears weigh three times as much as I do—move without making a sound.

Bears are suspicious of bait because it’s unnatural. They hunch up, come in slowly, or they hide and wait. If you are in a tree stand and you make any noise or even cough, they aren’t going to show their noses.

When we are walking toward a bait, we know bears could be around even if we don’t hear or see anything. I’ve heard the water slushing under their paws, but not them.

I swung to the left and was screwing around with my gun as I glanced to the right where I looked two minutes ago. Now a bear was sitting there, looking at me.

What’s up? its expression said. Upon a closer look at its body, however, I began to think the bear wasn’t quite as chill as I thought. It had a mass of guard hair all standing on end, stiff like porcupine quills, menacing. I should have brought someone with me to watch my back.

I love bringing folks out to the woods and showing them a good time. That wasn’t why I used to hunt, but it is now. My dad was a guide when I was a kid, and when people asked, it’s what I used to say I wanted to be. I may still end up in that role. To be a guide in Alaska, you need five years’ hunting experience, and I’ve certainly got that covered. I need to get eight recommendations for the 125 in-field days of work as an assistant guide. I’d also take the registered field-outfitter exam. I’d need to show competency in field procedures. Once I’d been guiding for twelve years with ten recommendations from my clients, I could apply to become a Master Guide.

The bear in front of me was in a way assessing my expertise. She still wanted to get at that bait. I snuck a peek and saw a dribble of molasses on the side of her lip. I knew it was a female bear. She wasn’t wearing nail polish and didn’t have a polka-dot bow on the top of her head, but I could recognize her gender by her fine skull and delicate ears.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.