Chapter One
“We wouldn’t have to create a world on other planets if we just took better care of the world we have right here,” Josephine Wentlandt could feel her voice rising.
She was well aware that the bulky man, in need of a shower, that sat in front of her was pushing her buttons on purpose, but still, she seemed bent on arguing with him.
“Why come all the way up here? Why not go to Washington if you want to make a difference?” The man was ruddy faced and Jo could smell his armpits from three feet away.
“Can I get my check?” she turned to the bartender.
“Because,” she stood and took out her wallet, “change doesn’t just happen in Washington, it happens right here.”
Once out of the bar Jo could think more clearly. It was a cool Montana evening with just the right amount of chill to keep things fresh. In truth, Jo had never been to DC and had no immediate plans to ever go. She liked living in a small town where there were far more wild animals than humans, and the only reason she cared so much was because she wanted to keep it that way.
Jo had put back three beers during her dinner, since the man next to her had been buying them, and now she was feeling buzzed.
Where had Rick gotten off to? Jo wondered as she looked around. He was supposed to meet her for dinner. Rick had been the one to organize the protest against the Porter Company. An intrinsically optimistic man, he was really quite good at launching a vitriolic protest. He’d managed to stop work for the Porter Company employees for three days when their protest began.
As the state of Montana became increasingly insolvent, the Porter Company had swooped in to buy up land that had been previously protected for conservation purposes.
Jo had spent her whole life in Montana. She’d gone to school for wildlife ecology and forestry, and though she certainly appreciated the global perspective, her true passion was for her home state.
The snow-covered peaks she now looked at had begun forming over 170 million years ago. Jo took in a long breath savoring the smell of the ponderosa pine trees even as it mixed with the smell of pale ale that still clung to her.
"Ok," Jo turned and began walking back through the trees toward the camp of fifteen-odd protestors. Rick had managed to get a good amount of media coverage for their small group as it stood against a giant company.
Jo walked into what should have been their camp and stopped. The beer had made her head foggy and she tried to shake her brain free. The camp was deserted.
The twelve other tents were now gone, the jeeps and trucks of the protesters were nowhere to be seen. Only two tents now stood—Jo's yellow canvas and Rick's blue. What was going on?
She walked over to Rick’s tent and looked in. It was empty but his things were still there. Where had everyone else gone?
Jo did a full turn, looking for some clue to the mystery. Had Rick called their protest off? Had Porter Company given in to their demands to cease and desist? Jo walked out of camp, down a little piece of road, and up a small turn off where Rick usually parked. His big blue sedan was still there.
After looking in the car and finding nothing off Jo turned and began back toward camp. Her only solution was to wait and hear what had happened directly from Rick.
On her right, a small light sparkled through the darkness and the thick trees then went out. Jo moved off the road and into the forest where she'd seen the flickering light.
“Negotiations are over,” a hard voice sailed through the darkness. Jo squinted, not recognizing the owner of the voice.
“If you think we’re going to hand this over to you …” Jo moved forward more quickly now, she would recognize Rick’s voice anywhere. She took a step forward and into view of the back of Rick’s head. Jo watched as the first speaker turned, gun extended.
It all seemed so implausible… unreal. Jo would think back on that moment many times over. If she’d only been able to act faster, to do something… but she’d not even been able to process the sight of the man holding a gun.
In one more second the man pulled the trigger and Rick’s head whipped back. Blood splattered the trees around him. It was so unexpected, so drastic, that for a moment Jo thought it couldn’t possibly be real at all, just a figment of her imagination.
Jo heard a scream in her ears, but barely understood it to be her own. It was in those few seconds when the man turned his attention to Jo that reality came into focus.
The gun began to lift again and Jo began to move. She heard the first shot as she ran straight into the forest.
It was dark. Too dark to see properly and she fell over roots, leaves, branches, logs.
Her movements were chaotic at best.
She heard another shot fired into the night and Jo's body began to move faster. Her brain was beginning to understand the importance of her movements and suddenly she was pushing forward into the trees with all of her senses on high alert.
The man, who was that man? He worked for the Porter Company, of that she was certain, but she couldn’t remember his name or his position.
Jo’s lungs burned but she didn’t slow down. The sound of the man following her began to fade but still Jo didn’t stop. She knew that the more distance she could put between herself and the man, the better her chance for survival. It was dark enough to make it hard for him to follow her.
It felt like years of running blindly into the forest before she thought she might have lost the man.
When Jo came out onto the lake she finally let herself stop. It had to have been hours that she'd been traveling, or else she'd been moving very fast.
Her chest was heaving and her legs, though quickly turning to jelly, were still ready to run.
She tried to silence her gasps so she could listen for signs of movement but her lungs wouldn’t slow.
Finally, as her body began to normalize, Jo was able to listen to the world around her. There were the usual sounds of wildlife but nothing that spoke of a killer on the loose.
She leaned her head back and closed her eyes. Forward, she told herself. It wasn’t time to stop yet. She broke off to the right moving around the lake.
It was almost dawn when Jo stopped walking for the second time. She sat on a log and stared into the changing sky.
She’d been forcing herself not to think of what had happened. She knew she had to focus only on the next step and then the next. But as she sat down the entirety of the night swept over her.
A sob overwhelmed her body. Hot tears rose in her eyes and began to stream down her face. Her body felt like the air was being punched out of it. Her head throbbed. Jo pushed the palms of her hands onto her eyes. The cold sharp air hit her face and neck.
Just as another sob wracked her body she heard something that made her stop mid-sob. Her breath stuck in her throat. She’d heard the cry of an animal.
Jo held herself as still as possible. A thudding through the ground shook the log she sat on and vibrated up her body. Jo slowly looked up from the ground.
Moving into the opening in front of her stood a giant grizzly bear. Jo sucked in her breath. This was no ordinary grizzly. Jo had run into bears many times in her life, but she’d never seen anything even close to the aberration in front of her.
There was an old wives tale about a giant grizzly that roamed these woods, but Jo had only heard the most ridiculous liars ever claim to have seen such a bear.
Now, Jo looked up to see a grizzly that defied anything she’d ever seen before. He stood ten feet tall and must have weighed well over a thousand pounds. His paws were larger than her head.
Her body trembled as the bear moved toward her. All of her normal good instincts were falling away and, if she hadn’t been frozen to the spot in fear, she probably would have run off screaming.
The earth crunched under the bear’s massive steps. She could smell its hot breath from fifteen feet away and it was still moving closer.
Jo usually traveled the woods with a bear spray but she had nothing with her now. There was no tool that would get her out of this encounter. She knew all the best practices, don't make eye contact, don't yell, don't run, curl up on your side or lie flat on your belly… Jo sat frozen in her spot.
Her eyes moved from his massive paws and lifted up along the body of the hulking animal. The grizzly was getting closer.
Was he just curious about the human in his territory? This had to be a male bear based on size, and the most aggressive bears were usually females with babies to protect.
The animal made a sound that Jo felt she understood. Without thinking about it, her eyes lifted.
The grizzly was looking at her with a strange expression, a curious gaze. It seemed possible that she read something else in that look. It felt like… sympathy. Jo looked straight into the animal’s eyes. The bear moved no farther and Jo felt a shuddering breath escape her.
It was probably only a few seconds that they stood like that, their eyes locked, but it felt like eternity.
Look away, look away, Jo kept telling herself, but try as she might she could not look away. She felt something passing between her and the grizzly and it was as if they were trapped in time and space together, just them.
Then, just as quickly as he’d come, the grizzly left. He thundered off into the forest and Jo watched the shaking trees quiver as the only sign of his retreat.
“I’m alive,” she breathed. She looked down at herself then over at the huge paw prints left in the mud, the only sign that she hadn’t dreamed the creature.
Jo opened her mouth and let out a shaky breath.