Shadow Days (9 page)

78

I pushed my pack off my shoulders and tossed it on the ground in front of me, hoping the trail mix within would distract it.

No interest.

I took two steps backward before the bear barreled at me like the force of nature it was.

Air fled my chest when the bear hit me, laying me flat out on the ground. I rolled onto my side, trying to remember what I was supposed to do.

Curl into a ball. Protect your head.

My muscles didn’t want to move. I reached for my legs, trying to pull them up to my chest. My hands touched warm liquid. Though I didn’t feel pain, I knew it was my blood. The lack of pain meant I was in shock, which was very, very bad.

Strange flashes raced through my mind. A sting of guilt when I’d seen the NO TRESPASSING sign at the trailhead. The burnished autumn day, perfectly balanced between warm sunlight and chilled breezes, carrying me up the mountain slope. The solitude and silence of the towering pine trees. A low snuffle turning my head, alerting me to the approaching bear. Shock, followed by denial: there are no bears in this part of the Rockies. Only ghost grizzlies—sightings that no one believed were real. I’d read the guides. I knew this terrain.

Disbelief had locked my knees, holding me in place. Denial gave way to hollow fear as the grizzly sighted me, its snuffling becoming growls, its gait lumbering but aggressive.

My choices. My mistakes. The wrong turns I’d made. I’d let obsession drive me here.

A final thought raced through my mind:
I wish I’d never moved
to Vail.

79

Thank you to everyone who befriended Shay

on facebook, particularly:

Melissa Nataly

Victoria Elizabeth Sutherland

Liz Woodworth

Rachel Davis

Traci Olsen

Anthony David Tobias Swift-Washington

Lindsi Coleman

Emily Dye

Jessica Spetolli

Stefanie Painter

Beck Boyer

Courtney Rae

Jessica Stewart

Patrick Nottingham

Stephanie Takes-Desbiens

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