Chasing a Blond Moon(129)

They located a small log, about six feet long with a four-inch diameter. Service hoped it wasn’t dry, climbed up the side of the roots, planted the bottom of the limb under the animal’s wedged shoulder, and heaved upward.

“Any movement?” McCants asked.

“Shit,” was all he said. He pushed harder, lifted more, moved his foot, braced to get a better grip, and heaved. The harder he pushed, the more he felt his traction giving way, until he lost it completely and suddenly bounced off some roots and slid down into the crater. The bear flopped awkwardly and came to rest against him.

McCants held out her hand to help him up. “Born engineer,” she said.

He looked at the smelly animal and said, “Use a toothbrush.”

He wiped rain from his eyes with the back of his muddy hand, grabbed the bear’s front paw and jerked, but the animal moved only slightly.

McCants grabbed the other paw in her hands and pulled until the body shifted.

Service sat in the muddy crater, rain soaking him, running down his neck. “Check it,” he said. He was getting tired and cold.

She got on her knees on the bear’s other side, said, “One entry.” Then, “Two.”

He breathed relief.

“We should get a four-wheeler,” she said, “haul it out, dig out what we need in the open.”

“Let’s just do it,” he said, “I’ll gut it. Help me get it on its side.”

He tugged on his gloves, got his knife from his pack, made an incision at the neck, slid two fingers into either side of the opening and cut steadily down the animal’s belly to its genitals, where he made a cut to the right and another to the left. Making the first incision was simple, but warm air rolled out into the rain and the fetid smell of blood and broken organs enveloped him.

He reached into the bear’s neck cavity, up to his shoulders, severed the wind pipe, put the knife aside, reached in with both hands and ripped down on the viscera, tearing them loose en masse until there was a slippery, steaming heap at the bottom of the animal. He shined his light into the rib cavity and saw immediately where one bullet had penetrated.

“One got through,” he said. He knelt and used his knife to separate the organs, found the heart, intact, and examined the lungs. Nothing. He looked at the stomach, found it badly broken. “Gut shot,” he said, making a face. He pawed around until he found the gall, cut it out and handed it to McCants. “Evidence bag,” he said.

She gave him a questioning look, but bagged the organ and turned to her own work. “The second round is higher,” she said. She took out her knife and started probing through the hide on the other side of the carcass while he checked the other side of the rib cage. The bullet that hit the stomach had not gone through into the other side. McCants said, “Got it! Low neck by the shoulder.” She held up the bullet, “Pancaked.”

“The other one’s got to be somewhere in this slop,” he said. “Toss me a couple of trash bags from my pack.”

She threw them to him and he stuffed one inside the other, then opened the double bag and began piling viscera into it. When the body cavity was clear he rubbed his hands around the bottom, which acted like a reservoir, illuminated the interior with his light, looked for a bullet, found nothing. She gave him a small hatchet from her pack and he hacked through the pelvic bones, began scooping pooled blood out of the reservoir like he was paddling. When it was as empty as it was going to get, he raked slowly through the liquid with his fingers several times, felt nothing.

“Are those bags going to hold?” McCants asked.

He said, “Go back to your truck, grab one of my canvas tarps and more trash bags, back your truck down to the swamp edge. We can work better out there.” He handed her the spare keys to his Yukon.

“I’ll be quick,” she said.

He cut a stout stick, wrapped the end of the plastic bag around it, fixed the handle with duct tape from his pack, tested it. Hefty but moveable. The guts weighed close to a hundred pounds, more with the rainwater that had gotten in. He put on his pack, lifted the handle toward his chest with both hands, and started the haul, centering the load between his feet, bending his knees, lifting and sliding sideways six to twelve inches at a time. Lift, move, stop. Lift, move, stop. His broken finger was throbbing, his bloody, sopped glove slipping on the handle. He had to stop frequently to wiggle his fingers and bend his wrists to release cramps.

McCants met him halfway to the clearing. He was kneeling, legs splayed, the bag between them, rain pecking relentlessly at the plastic.

“Tarp and bags,” she said, holding them out to him.