In a sudden flash of inspiration, Nicole decided to circle wide and head back up the hill. The bear was moving downriver, and she wanted to be where it had already been, not where it was going.
By the time she had moved in a wide circle around the bear, her hopes were soaring and she moved a little more quickly. She was concentrating so hard on watching the brown mass in the river that she didn’t see the cubs until she nearly stumbled onto them behind a mountain birch tree. They had their backs to her and were trying earnestly to pull open a rotting log half buried in the forest soil. They gave one startled bawl, leaped straight up in the air, raced across the ground, and shot up the nearest pine tree like two simultaneously ignited brown rockets.
With a roar that split the mountain stillness, the mother grizzly swung around and exploded into a lumbering run of incredible swiftness. Bare feet forgotten, Nicole leaped into motion, her legs a blur. She covered the tiny clearing in three great leaps, then darted back to her right when the thick trees cut her off. The mother bear didn’t even slow down to check on her cubs—she had the threat to her offspring in sight and was bearing down on it like a missile.
Nicole screamed and changed directions, cutting back down the hill toward the river to get greater speed. But the brown mass of fury instantly corrected her own charge to head her off, closing now at three times Nicole’s speed. Intent only on escape, Nicole did not see the sharp stone protruding out of the soil, and her bare foot slammed down on it with full force. She gave a sharp cry of pain and sprawled headlong, like a baseball player in a desperate slide toward home base. Too close to brake its lumbering attack, the bear overshot her and hit the river in a great spray of water. The momentum carried it completely across the stream, and chunks of turf flew as the animal clawed at the ground, trying to halt her charge and change direction.
Comprehending only that she had been given another few seconds of life, Nicole scrambled to her hands and knees just as a white streak flashed past her, snapping and snarling as it hit the river to meet the onrushing bear head on. Nicole stared for a moment, then cried out with a sob of relief, “Cricket!”
The German shepherd, though outweighed by nearly a thousand pounds, was a flashing fury of its own, darting in to nip at the grizzly’s flanks, then barely jumping clear of a swipe that would have taken her head off had it connected.
“Nicole! Run!”
She jerked around. Eric was running pell-mell down the river bank toward her, pistol in his hand. She leaped up, only to collapse instantly as her foot hit the ground, leaving a smear of blood.
Eric reached her and jammed the pistol back in its holster. “Come on,” he said urgently, jerking her to her feet and putting his arm around her waist to support her. “Let’s get out of here!”
The mother grizzly saw the movement and, with a bloodcurdling roar, caught Cricket with one massive paw and sent her tumbling tail over nose and yelping in pain. The bear crossed the river again in two splashing leaps.
“Run, Nicole!” Eric shouted, giving her a hard shove as he spun around, yanking at the pistol. As it came out of the holster, the bear was on him. He had time only to hurl it into her face as he dove to the side. The gun caught the bear just above the eye, causing her to jerk away, but her paw flashed out as she hurtled past him, catching Eric’s leg in a sweeping blow that turned his diving fall into a head-over-heels crash into the brush.
“Eric!” Nicole’s scream was lost as the bear wheeled around. But once again Cricket smashed into the fight, slashing at the bear’s hind flank and heading off the attack. With an astonished cry of rage, the grizzly swung around to meet her attacker, forgetting Eric. But Cricket had learned a painful lesson. A snarling, snapping fury, she circled the bear again and again, driving her slowly down the hill but always staying clear of those massive, flashing paws.
Nicole reached Eric in a hobbling run. He rolled over, writhing in pain, and she gasped as she saw his upper thigh. A two-footlong patch of his pant leg had been sheared away as cleanly as if cut with scissors, and even as she stared in horror, four bright red streaks blended into one great smear of blood.
“Eric, help me!” She put her hands under his arms, trying to drag him up the hill. “Help me! We’ve got to get away!”
“Get out of here!” he cried hoarsely, trying to pull himself up. Then suddenly his eyes rolled back and he collapsed, dragging out of her grip.
“No, Eric! No!” Nicole sobbed. She tried to drag him but his dead weight was too much to move more than an inch or two.
The battle between Cricket and the grizzly was still raging only twenty or thirty yards from where Nicole and Eric lay defenseless. Another lucky swipe of the paw and Cricket would be—
With a cry of surprise, Nicole spied the pistol lying on the ground a few feet away. She scrambled for it, then hobbled to her feet. Fearful of hitting Cricket, she pointed the gun above the bear’s head and pulled the trigger.
The grizzly jumped five feet sideways with a startled roar, and as Nicole fired again, it broke into a lumbering run into the trees and out of sight with Cricket at her heels. Nicole continued firing blindly, compulsively, until the hammer clicked on already spent shells; then, trembling violently, she let the pistol drop, put her hands to her face for a long moment, then hobbled back toward Eric’s still form.
Chapter 24
Eric’s eyes fluttered open. For almost a full minute he stared up into the trees without blinking, as if in a trance; then his eyes closed again slowly. Five minutes later they opened again, revealing wide, gray pools of pain. Suddenly they widened, and Nicole knew he was remembering. His head turned slightly until his eyes met hers.
“Hello,” she said softly.
He started to lift himself up, but the pain contorted his face, and he sank back again. His hand came up and touched the bare skin of his chest, then ran across his stomach.
“I had to use your shirt for bandages,” Nicole said. “I didn’t have anything else.”
Gritting his teeth, Eric tried again and got up on his elbows high enough to see the crude bandage around his leg.
“There are four deep gashes,” she explained. “There was a lot of blood, but no arteries were cut. I don’t think your leg’s broken.”
He nodded, his head dropping back to the ground. Then he caught sight of another strip of the red plaid material from his shirt wrapped around her foot, over which she had slipped her tennis shoe. His eyebrows shot up.
“I stepped on a sharp rock,” she said with a shrug.
“That’s why you fell. Be grateful. The bear went right over the top of you. It saved your life.”
“You saved my life,” she whispered, tears welling up again.
He sank back to the ground. “And you saved mine. What happened? I must’ve passed out.”
“Cricket held the bear off long enough for me to get the pistol. That scared it away.”
Again a sharp stab of pain twisted his features, causing him to draw in his breath quickly. “Where is Cricket?” he said finally, turning his head to look. “Is she—?”
“She’s limping badly, but I think she’ll be fine. She’s out exploring again now, so she can’t be hurt too badly.”
“Good.” He forced a wan smile. “That’s a ridiculous name, you know.”
Nicole laughed. “I know. When she was a small puppy, it seemed to fit.”
“The Cricket and the Grizzly. It sounds like a fable or something.”
“Is the pain terrible?” she asked, watching the lines etch deeper into his face.
His hand raised slowly to touch the lump behind his ear. “First time I’ve ever been attacked by two she-bears in the same day.”
Nicole dropped her head. “I’m sorry! But—”
His hand reached out and touched her arm. “No, please don’t. I—” He closed his eyes again, breathing deeply to combat the pain.
“So what do we do now?” Nicole asked.
“Make camp here. I don’t think either of us w
ill make it very far for a while.”
“Make camp! With what? Night’s coming on, you don’t even have a shirt, we have no food, no ammunition, no tools—and an angry grizzly is prowling in the neighborhood.”
“Let’s not lose hope,” Eric said. His voice was strained but his eyes were teasing beneath the pain. “I have a knife in the sheath underneath me.”
“A knife?” she said bitterly. “Good. I’ll go hunting.”
“That’s a good idea. We could use some of Cliff’s pain pills and that antibiotic he gave us. A couple of sleeping bags would also be appreciated.”
“Please. I know you’re trying to cheer me up, but don’t. Okay?”
“If I were to provide all that, would you let me call you Nicky without getting angry?”
“Eric!”
“Is it a deal?”
“Yes. Now what are you saying?”
“I left the packhorse tied up in the trees above us.”
Nicole’s mouth dropped open. “But I drove it away when I left you.”
“True. But it only went a few hundred yards and started grazing. I didn’t take time to pack everything, but I got the essentials.”
“Really?”
“Yes. I spotted you lying down by the river from up on the ridge. I was trying to sneak up on you. Then I saw the bears heading downstream. I didn’t dare yell to warn you. I was afraid you’d jump and run. So anyway…” He let the words trail off, and she could tell he was tiring quickly. “Do you think you can hobble up there and find it?”
“I can’t believe it. I’ve been sitting here for an hour worrying about how we’re going to survive a night in the mountains in the open.”
“Now haven’t I taken better care of you than that?” Then he went on quickly. “Sorry. Don’t answer that.”
“How did you catch me so quickly?”
“Cricket. Once she caught on that we were trailing you, I just followed her, and we made good time.”
“I am so glad,” she said, the relief flooding through her again.
“So am I, Nicky,” he said gently. “So am I.” Again a spasm of pain caused his jaw to clench.
“Hang on,” she said, limping to her feet. “I’ll go get the horse.”
Nicole pulled her jacket around her more tightly and held her hands out to the fire. Cricket’s head lifted and she yawned widely, revealing her teeth, then dropped her head again. Nicole reached over and pulled Cricket’s body against her own. Though it was not yet nine o’clock, the chill was deepening rapidly. She turned to look at the dark shape in the sleeping bag next to her and listened to his deep breathing.
The pain pill had put him under quickly, almost before he could direct her on securing the camp. Wrap the food in plastic bags—carefully so as to not attract shuffling brown visitors—build a fire, get enough wood to keep it going all night, hobble the horse and turn it loose. No wonder she was exhausted, hopping around, chopping wood, drawing water from the river.
She had finished fifteen minutes ago, but instead of crawling inside her bag, she had sat and stared at the fire, trying to sort through her thoughts. In a way it would have been easier if Eric hadn’t come. Her feelings had been clear enough up to that point: bitterness, resentment, determination to get free of him. Now? As much as she longed for home and a bath and clean sheets over a mattress, she knew she couldn’t leave him. The image of the mother grizzly bearing down on her, and Eric standing between her and the hurtling fury with nothing but a pistol in his hand, was etched so deeply in her memory that she would never be able to put it fully from her mind. Once he could cope on his own, the debt would be paid, but for now, she had to stay.
But it was more than that. Eric’s words about freedom and individual rights kept battering at her as they had done for the past two days. Today she had come within a fraction of losing her life, and never had it seemed so sweetly precious. Why was it that life meant so little to Eric and his friends that they would risk it so easily? Or was freedom of greater worth than life itself? Had she taken the loss of others’ freedom so lightly because she herself had never lost it? Until this week.
She shook her head, and suddenly her thoughts flashed to the events at the dam—and to Travis. She frowned as she thought of the expression in his eyes when Eric had put the knife to her throat and challenged Travis’s willingness to sacrifice her. At that moment Travis’s eyes had flicked to hers, then to the knife at her throat, and then away, and she knew the answer. He was only ninety-five percent sure Eric wouldn’t hurt her. And yes, five percent was acceptable.
Nicole ran her fingers through her hair, hating how dirty it was, hating the hard ground and the chill air, hating the turmoil churning inside her. She sighed and stood up, wearily tossed four more logs on the fire, and turned to her sleeping bag. As she knelt down to unzip it, she stopped short. Eric was watching her.
“Oh!” she said, startled. “I didn’t know you were awake.”
“How come you’re still awake?” he mumbled, obviously struggling to sound alert.
She shrugged and sat down to take off her shoes.
“How’s your foot?”
“It’s okay.”
“Did you take a pain pill?”
“Yes, just a few minutes ago. How’s your leg?”
He pulled a face.
“Are you ready for another pill?”
He started to shake his head, then caught his breath as the pain hit him. When it passed, he let it out in a long sigh. “Yes, maybe I am.”
Nicole found him a pill and poured him a cup of water from the canteen. She helped him sit up enough to get it down. When she was finished, she crawled into her bag, grateful even for the hardness of the ground as long as she was lying on it rather than standing.
They fell silent for several minutes, both looking up at the brilliant stars spread out like a protective net overhead, until Nicole felt the drug starting to work on her. Or maybe it was just sheer exhaustion.
“Nicky?”
Her eyes came open with a tremendous effort. “What?”
“I…” She heard him sigh.
She half turned in her bag so she could see him. He had his hands under his head, staring up at the stars. “What?” she asked again.
“You are really something else. Did you know that?”
His earnestness caught her by surprise. “Something else? What’s that supposed to mean?”
“I mean today. After all I’ve done to you these past few days. After yesterday at the dam. Why didn’t you leave me?”
She looked down. “You forget, I’m not in very good shape to travel either.”
“And?”
“You saved my life!” she whispered fiercely, shuddering at the vivid memory of the grizzly hurtling down on her. “If you hadn’t come when you did—” She took a deep breath, then turned to look at him.
“If I hadn’t come when I did, that night in your house, you wouldn’t have been in the mountains trying to get away from me,” he said.
“Well, I certainly can’t disagree with that logic.”
“I know, and I’m very sorry.”
She leaned on her elbow and stared at him. “How sorry?”
“We’ll have to stay here for a day or two at least. I don’t think either of us is in any shape to go very far. But then, if you’ll help me get to base camp, I’ll have one of the men take you down.”
“Do you really mean that?”
“Yes, Nicole, I really mean it. I’ll see that you get home again.”
Chapter 25
They’d been there for two long, lazy days. Nicole hobbled around with a makeshift cane, keeping the fire going, getting water, and fixing simple meals. Other than that, they rested on their bags, letting the sunlight warm them as they talked, or lay silent, or dozed off and on. Even Cricket seemed content to take a day off from her wide-ranging explorations to let her body mend.
By unspoken agreement, Nicole and Eric never approached the topics of conversation tha
t laid bare so much emotion and conflict. The Major, Travis, implantation—all were tacitly avoided. Instead they talked of life in the valley, of life before Termination, of what life was like for a girl growing up in Shalev.
This was a side of Eric that Nicole had not seen before—relaxed, pleasant, often showing a wry humor. She sensed the warm affection he had for his family and the steady but pleasant life of the village. And she realized more and more why this eagle had so hated the chains of bondage.
Now, as dusk settled in, she almost wished they didn’t have to leave it all tomorrow, go back to face the pain, the choices, the conflict.
Suddenly Eric rolled over and pulled up into a sitting position with a grunt of pain. He gritted his teeth and tried to stand up.
“Eric? What is it? What do you need?”
“I’ve got to get up.”
“Why?”
“It’s sundown. I’ve got to call the others. They should have a new base camp set up by now. Where’s the radio?”
“It’s with the other stuff. Can’t it wait until morning? You’ll be stronger then.”
He was up now, grimacing with the pain. “No, we set sundown as the time for calling. They won’t be listening any other time. I should have called the night before last, before they moved, but neither of us was functioning very well then. I couldn’t get them last night, so I’ve got to try again. They’ll be worried sick about us.”
She sighed. “Sit down, I’ll get it for you.”
Nicole’s foot still hurt, but she managed to drag the heavy radio to him, then sat down and stared into the fire.
He flicked the switch, waited a few moments for it to warm up, and pressed the mike to his mouth. “Home Base. Home Base. This is Eagle One. Do you read me?”