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the spotting scope said. “It went into the willows when we pulled up.”
    The tall bushes filled a stream-side depression a hundred feet long and half again as wide.
    The second spotter spoke without taking his eye from his scope. “It won’t come back out,” he said. “Not as long as all of us are here.”
    â€œBlack or brown?” Chuck asked.
    â€œBrown,” the first spotter said. “We got a good look at it. It’s a grizzly, all right.”
    â€œBlack bears can be pretty light colored.”
    The man squinted at Chuck. “This is my nineteenth summer spotting in the park.”
    â€œDid you hear that, Daddy?” a boy’s voice asked from among the onlookers. “A grizzly! There’s a grizzly bear in the bushes!”
    â€œYes, Henry. I heard,” replied a man in his late thirties, the nine- or ten-year-old boy jumping up and down in excitement at his side.
    The man wore an urbanite’s idea of a wilderness visitor’s outfit: khaki slacks and an oiled-cotton jacket featuring shoulder epaulets and shiny brass snaps at the wrists. “My son wants to see the bear,” the father said to the pair of men standing behind their spotting scopes.
    â€œToo bad,” the second spotter said, still without removing his eye from the scope.
    â€œIt’s right there in the bushes?”
    â€œIt’s waiting for everyone to leave.”
    â€œWell, then,” the man declared, “I’ll flush it out.”
    The father nudged the boy to the side of the woman standing next to him, then strode off the shoulder of the road and along the stream bank toward the willows.
    The second spotter removed his eye from the scope for the first time, watching the father’s progress. “Wouldn’t do that if I was you.”

7
    I promised my boy we’d see a grizzly bear,” the man called over his shoulder as he walked away from the road. “That’s why we drove all this way.”
    Chuck gathered Carmelita and Rosie to him, his hands on their shoulders. “Idiot,” he muttered in Janelle’s ear.
    â€œShouldn’t somebody stop him?” she asked.
    The man was fifty feet from the road now, nearing the willows.
    â€œToo late. Besides, it’ll just run away, like he wants.”
    â€œYou’re sure?”
    â€œI’m pretty sure.”
    Despite Justin’s declaration last night that grizzlies were unpredictable creatures, Chuck knew Yellowstone’s famed predators to be precisely the opposite. As Lex had noted over breakfast, when presented the opportunity to attack or flee, grizzlies almost always fled, even sows protecting their cubs. On the rare occasions they did go on the offensive, they were usually startled, and were prone to attack only those traveling alone or in pairs.
    Given the absence of surprise and the two dozen onlookers at his back, the man faced virtually no risk from the hidden grizzly. Even so, Chuck held his breath as the man neared the thicket. He slowed, shortening his stride, then stopped before the wall of willows. The bushes stood fifteen feet high and grew so close together it was impossible to see more than a few feet into their depths.
    â€œHey!” the man hollered.
    Seconds passed. Nothing.
    â€œHey,” he repeated with less certainty.
    The woman with the boy stepped forward. “Russell,” she barked. “Get back here this instant.”
    Russell responded by straightening to full height and stepping forward, parting the pliant stalks in front of him with his hands. He disappeared into the willows, the tops of the spindly shoots waving as he wormed his way deeper into them. The willows stopped moving ten feet into the dense stand of brush. “Hey,” he said again, his voice faltering.
    In silent answer, a three-foot section of willows quivered with movement near the far end of the thicket.
    A collective gasp rose from those gathered at the side of