Page 29 of Taming Her Bears

The hackles on my back were standing up like porcupine quills. I felt if I had to hold back any longer, I was going to explode. Just when I was about to let loose, signal be damned, somebody screamed; if you could call it that. It was a horrible, shattering sound, two pitches higher than a normal man’s voice, followed by a long, sobbing, pleading wail. That was the signal.

I reared up on my hindlegs, the guard hairs shooting down my back like spikes, the great scruff around my neck bristling with fury, my lips curled back in a savage snarl. I roared. For one moment, all activity was suspended. Even the drugged girls opened their heavy-lidded eyes in wonder. The chef, who had been clearing clutter made from wine glasses and plates, pissed his pants. My vile, hated, sworn enemy fumbled for his sidearm, three seconds too late. I squeezed his shoulders with my front paws and opened my mouth, letting him get a good whiff of my hot, wild breath, then closed my jaws slowly over his neck and squeezed. I wanted him to understand, in his final seconds, what it was like to be meat.

The degenerate business tycoons were pressing as close to the wall as they could get. If it had been a possibility, they would have pressed right into it. Mr. Prick Nose was still leaning against the daybed but had sunk to his knees. The captain’s instructions drummed dimly in the back of my mind. We were only to take out Denisovich and his men. We were to leave the mucky-muck’s to the higher-ups. I just couldn’t make myself care enough to listen. I gave Mr. Stinky Fingers one long slash across the face with four razor-sharp claws. He might live through it. Some people did, but they never forgot what happened.

I trotted back to the service door and looked out toward the main deck. It was gloriously splendid. Absolute mayhem. The rest of the team had already polished off the crew. The panicked guests didn’t have the wits to do anything except scramble for shelter and cower. We were to terrify them. Remaining on my hind legs, I thundered out, my bass voice ricocheting across the stairway.

I must have been their worst nightmare: a solid white bear with splashes of blood running from his throat to his stomach, standing up to his full height, like a twelve-foot heavyweight boxer in a fur coat. Nobody moved. Nobody lifted a finger. There were a few slobbering sounds, and I believe someone was praying. My voice boomed out in an air-shattering roar and the three bears behind me stood up on their hind legs, with the captain topping my size by two inches. His enormous shoulders swelled under the great hump on his back. His black lips wrinkled away from a double row of serrated, carnivorous teeth, meeting with a massive jaw. He was primal. His race was ancient. It soared through the flashing black eyes. His roar was a roll of thunder, answered by the others as a background chorus. It echoed through the yacht, already shuddering with the horrors of its new-found ghosts and mingled with the natural sounds of the ocean’s wildlife.

Just as the captain had predicted, somebody, either unwittingly or willfully, shot a flare. If they were unwitting, they shot it because they thought it was a gun. If it was willful, they probably reasoned it was better to face the Canadian guard than four bears. Whatever the reason, it was a good time to make an exit. We jumped over the rail and hit the water simultaneously.

Eventually, someone did find a gun. A few shots rang out, but by then we were a half-mile away from the yacht. No little girls went tumbling over the side of the boat, so it was a safe bet the congregation of spineless human refuse were not about to compound the problems they were already facing by adding murder charges. We paddled noiselessly in smooth, clean V’s, only our heads showing above the water. From the distance, we could be any marine animal. We swam silently, putting as much ocean as we could between ourselves and the yacht before the Coast Guard came.

We heard the first helicopter just as the island was coming into clear view. Another clattered in, its propellers shrieking, engines whining, rumbling through the air. I turned my head to look back. The yacht was no more than a tiny toy bobbing on the ocean, with two tiny choppers hovering overhead. Streaming toward it were three tiny boats, all so small, they looked like a swarm of gnats. The captain nudged me, and I turned purposely back toward shore.

I could tell by the warm current that we were going into shallower water. The captain veered toward a small depression in the outward swing of the rocky strip of land and entered our hidden cove. TheUrsawas nowhere to be found. We had hoped they would leave, but had not really expected them to. A small suspicion had lurked that they would defy us because Natalia was involved, and that was what she did. Josh snorted in what could only be interpreted as relief. The boat probably lit out with the first sound of chopper blades. Those were Pete’s instructions. I wondered how well he was keeping Natalia at bay.

I felt my feet claw at a sandy bottom that gradually rose until I was padding through seven inches of water to a thin strip of beach. I ambled through the brush unhurriedly, listening to the soft snuffle of the others shouldering their way through the forest matting. Once we were in the dense woods, we sat down for a little rest and bear talk.

Lee chuckled low in his chest. “Did you see that? We turned their hair gray. One guy pooped in his pants.”

I rolled back on the velvety moss. “Did you get him, Captain? Did you get Denisovich?”

Josh was scratching his back blissfully against a tree. “I did.”

“You bet he did,” confirmed Darkhorse enthusiastically. “Denisovich tried to get away. He was hanging out around the swimming pool, sitting in a deck chair, soaking that fat gut with sunshine. A couple of his crew were there, some guests and their sun bunnies. He had a girl oiling his skin.

“When he saw the captain, he grabbed her and tried to shove her in front of him in a bear offering. The poor girl was so terrified, she stumbled and fell to the floor, but Josh just ignored her. He walked right past her, showing his teeth and growling. Fat Gut jumped into the pool! Maybe he thought Josh wouldn’t go after him in the water. It was quite a show. Did you drown him or fillet him to death, Josh?”

“A little of both,” said Josh, satisfying his itch with a sigh. “If Pete followed my instructions to the letter, we have a journey ahead of us. I told him not to stop until he was back in U.S. territory. We’ll be mostly on land. I know all the shallowest crossings. If we remain in bear form, we should be back in Ketchikan within three days.”

It was a good thing it was early winter and not mid-summer, or the heat in this southern region would be unbearable while wrapped in a polar bear skin. I stuck to the darkest, densest parts of the woods, which was a good strategy for another reason besides staying cool. The islands were full of brown bears, but from an aerial view, a white bear would stand out like a sore thumb.

We were making good time. One thing about the Panhandle islands, their length consistently ran north to south and their width was always narrow. They chained together so tightly that many of them were a shallow, easy crossing. We were also getting hungry. We had crossed two islands and were halfway through a third when we burst into a clearing covered with blueberry bushes. Josh sighed and sat on his haunches. “Time to eat, ladies.”

I should have been starving. At first, I shoveled the berries in, but the sight of the girls wouldn’t leave me. I understood now how Lee must have felt when he saw the girl tied to the bed. The hopelessness of being unable to protect her. Seeing her horror. The blueberries no longer tasted so sweet and I dawdled, picking at them with disinterest.

Josh waddled over next to me and grunted as he squatted on the ground. “Something on your mind?” he asked.

I scratched at my nose so he wouldn’t see the wet fur. “I saw the girls, Captain. They were all drugged up and put out on display without a stitch of clothes on. These rat bastards were putting their nasty hands all over them. Pretty village girls, some really young. I wanted to kill them all—the rat bastards, I mean, not the girls.”

“It’s good they were asleep,” growled Josh. “They won’t remember it. They’re safe now. They’re being rescued. You did your job well, Roy. C’mon. We’ve got to haul ass a few more islands to make it to Ketchikan.”

The territory was becoming familiar. As we crossed one stream that veined out from the channel, we saw the bits of wreckage from the exploded speed boats, and a few body parts caught up in overhanging brush. We were coming up on the desertedChristina. We sped across the island, lifting our snouts and flaring our nostrils to track her. She wasn’t alone. Clamoring over a hill, we looked down at where she was docked. Anchored beside her, bobbing in the water, was theUrsa.

Had Josh not been in bear form for an entire day, he probably would have popped into it now, but he had spent all his juice on swimming, fighting, and cross-country travel. He took human form before the raft they sent for us arrived. Josh put on his clothes without a word, climbed into the raft and floated to the boat with his arms over his chest, then tramped up the stairs to the pilot’s cabin two steps at a time. “I thought I told you not to stop until we reached Alaskan waters,” he barked.

“Yes, sir,” said Pete, holding up his hand in a painful salute.

“Then who gave the order for you to stop here?”

Natalia handed Josh a cup of coffee. “I did.”

He was eager for the hot brew but sputtered. “You did? You can’t give orders to a military officer. You’re civilian personnel.”

“And a state trooper investigating a civilian crime committed on Alaskan soil.”

“We already talked with a Canadian vessel,” said Pete, coming between the two before they had a real chance to quarrel and Josh had to go through another cooling-off period. “We are here to retrieve our vessel by order of the Alaskan governor.”

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