Old Nick.

The mother bear knew he was there. She was agitated by his presence, snorting at him to warn him away, but he wasn’t going.

Her senses were fine-tuned to everything within a few hundred feet of her cubs; animals that viewed her cubs as a potential meal; humans; and other bears, especially the large males that would kill her cubs to bring her back into heat when that time came around again. But that, coming into ‘heat’, wouldn’t happen if she had cubs, so the potential mate decided that the cubs would have to ‘go’.

She would kill a male bear if she could, to protect them, or would die, doing so, and the male bear knew it.

This new threat; a young human, was at least a familiar scent to her, part of her territory. Not much threat, here, but his presence still put her on edge.

‘He’, did not have the smell of death about him that some other humans, in and out of her world did, as they hunted her. He was a well-known smell to her, sharing the same area of forest over the years as they moved around, following the same trails, their paths often crossing while avoiding each other, but she was still uncomfortable.

Other humans had been hunting her. Time and again their smell had been overlain by that of this young one, and another human related to him. Then, the first smells had gone; chased away, overlain by these other two. She hadn’t understood it. She didn’t need to. It just, ‘was’. She had but two thoughts: her cubs… and surviving.

This human seemed as wary of her, as she was of him, and with good reason. She would not hesitate to defend her cubs, and he knew it.

Now, she had another concern. One of her cubs was trapped, and she was frantic, torn between both cubs.

Mat Bowland had been walking home along a familiar and well-worn trail from the Gunnison cabin down to his own home, a few thousand feet lower and about five miles away on the bank of the river. It was hot, and he was looking forward to wading across the river, rather than taking the rope suspension bridge that he and his father had constructed.

His father and mother had begun their married life there, twelve years earlier when they had taken it over from his grandfather.

His father was a contractor and heavy equipment operator, moving boulders, gravel and sand, from Glacial Eskers that had once been part of the Glacial history of much of North America, as well as grading unsurfaced highways and, of course, snow removal throughout the usually severe winters. He also served as a guide on wilderness adventures during summer, as well as teaching survival skills in the woods at any time of year.

He knew the woods, and he respected all of the creatures that called it, ‘home’.

He’d also worked to teach his son, Mat, and his daughter, Diane, five years younger than her brother, those same skills as they’d grown up. Both, had been attentive pupils.

Mat, now ten years old, would be up at the cabin several times over the summer, staying with his aunt… his father’s sister, and her children, close to his age.

Diane, was still too young for that long walk, but she often rode on the back of his trail bike when he used that, to get up to the cabin to stay with their aunt’s family for a few days. At those times, Mat was her shadow; her ever-present protector, never being separated from her.

He took that job seriously, having a sense of responsibility that belonged to a much older individual. He loved his sister. He well knew the dangers for them both from larger animals, so he kept his eyes open.

When the Gunnison family returned to the city, before the heavy winter snows closed everything in, he and his father would close up the cabin for the six months of winter. They would also open it back up again the following spring, after they’d groomed the forty miles of wood’s road to get into it, to remove the fallen trees, large rocks which had fallen down from Indian Caves Bluff, or had rolled down with the swollen torrents, and ensured that the fords across the many mountain streams were passable after all of the winter damage.

Now, Mat watched the mother bear and her cubs, being careful to avoid them and to watch them from a distance while not being detected, if he could, but this time he couldn’t. He’d had to get close to see what the problem was, and she’d detected him.

He’d known that something was seriously wrong by the sounds being made. Those sounds could also bring in a larger bear, or other predators, always curious about the sound of any animal in distress, and sensing an easy meal.

The cub wasn’t caught in a trap; one of the ways that poachers in their scramble to harvest animal parts for the demand from Chinese medicine used, until they had been discouraged by Mat’s father, and by Mat himself.

‘Discouraged’ was a euphemism for what had happened to them. They’d been lucky to survive, and it had cost them dearly. It had cost them almost everything.

They’d laid out salt blocks and set traps of various kinds, including poison darts which would bring anything down, once they were triggered.

Mat and his father had watched the poachers over a period of days, as his father taught him how to deal with them, and to disable, and to turn their own devices against them.

That, had been unnerving for them, the hunters realizing that they had become ‘the hunted’.

The poachers had soon recognized what they were up against; that they were being watched, their camps and vehicles, sabotaged.

After laying other traps and devices to injure these individuals, but to no avail, other than to invite even more retaliation which crippled a couple of them, they decided to leave the area before they were too badly injured themselves, or lost their lives, but they did not leave quickly enough to evade the law, which apprehended them as they tried to get out.

To Mat and his father, it was a matter of ‘values’, and of protecting that which could not protect itself. If what they did, injured a poacher, then so be it. When it came to poachers attempting to kill animals, not for food, but to harvest body parts, it was open season.

Despite that bad experience, and the wide publicity, poachers still, sometimes, roamed these mountains, often flying in and out from helicopters, less easily apprehended, rarely staying for longer than a couple of days to avoid detection if they could.

They rarely succeeded.

The word went out. Keep away from that ‘Van Horne’ area if you valued your life.

Mat had been cautiously drawn to the plaintive noises made by the three-month-old bear cub, and the frustrated grunts by its mother as it was torn between one cub, and the other.

He saw the problem.

The mother bear had lost one of her cubs down the smooth rock face; the male cub, as it had slipped into a jumble of boulders, below, in its curious and careless explorations.

Mat watched her attempts to get to it as it struggled to respond. The mother couldn’t get close enough to grab it by the neck and lift it out. She could not risk falling, herself.

Soon, the mother would be forced to give up, and leave that trapped cub behind when it fell silent. That, was nature’s way. Protect the living.

Mat didn’t want that cub to lose its life like that. Everything deserved a chance at life. His father had taught him that, as well as to always be cautious of bears, especially of those with cubs. He’d spent two autumns in the woods with his father and had learned how to survive alone in the forest for weeks at a time if he had to, and, how to behave around wild animals. Always to respect them.

From 100 feet away and in a relatively safe place, Mat could see the situation clearly. Without help, the young male would die, slowly slipping farther and farther down into the rocks and his mother and sister would have to leave him.

Mat did not have much time. He was still two hours from home after setting out from the Gunnison place, much higher up the trail, and there were only three hours of good daylight left. There was not enough time to go for help. The Gunnisons couldn’t help him, and his own home was too far to go for the help he needed, and to return.

He was on his own. This was a problem he would have to solve by himself without getting killed by the protective mother bear, a ten-year old grizzly, 500 pounds of maternally protective energy, in top condition. She had to be, to fend off one of the more persistent males, much heavier than her, and who constantly followed her.

She had a radio collar on, that he’d helped with, for her protection, but that didn’t help him now.

The jumble of basalt boulders that the cub had slid into, was a warren of openings and crawl spaces that he and the Gunnison boys often investigated in their imagined hunt for pirate treasure, or when they were hiding from imaginary enemies.

Neither the cub—which would be a bundle of fear, anger, and claws and teeth—nor the mother, would be able to get to him if he did it right, as long as the mother didn’t detect him too soon, and before he crawled to where he needed to be, in those boulders, and out of range of her ability to get to him.

‘He’, could go, where ‘she’, could not.