But after three hours of hiking through groves of spruce, larch, and quaking aspen, she developed the conviction that someone—or something—was stalking her.
She strained her ears but couldn't hear anything out of the ordinary. Frustratingly, the breeze was blowing in the wrong direction for her to catch any scent.
In response, Kara picked up her pace despite the weight and bulk of her pack-out bag. It was nearly as tall as she was and weighed 155 pounds. As she strode along, she spotted the sparkle of sunlight on water through the trees.
Maybe I won't get that swim I wanted, Kara thought, annoyed. But if I walk along the shore, then whatever's tracking me is going to have to come out into the open if it wants to get me.
She was so intent on listening for whatever-it-was behind her that she nearly tripped over a bear cub when she emerged into the waist-high grass of the clearing around a small lake.
Startled, she froze. So did the adorably fuzzy little brown bear. They stared at each other for a long, shocked moment.
Then the bear cub began yowling in surprise and terror.
Oh shit. That's not good. Kara's head whipped up. She looked frantically around the lush meadow with its bounty of white, yellow, and purple wildflowers.
Too late, she spotted a huge grizzly with a blonde head and neck feeding in a thicket of salmonberry bushes about a hundred and fifty yards away, a second bear cub at her flank.
At the sound of her cub's distress call, Mama Grizzly immediately wheeled around and stood on her hind legs. She spotted Kara and roared.
"Uh-oh," Kara muttered.
The cub was still sitting on the grass about ten feet away, yowling its head off, as if Kara had actually done something to it.
"Oh, for God's sake, shut up!" she told it, her heart pounding. "I didn't even touch you!"
At the sound of her voice, the cub bounded to its feet and took off running in its mother's direction.
Mama Grizzly dropped to all fours. Roaring, she charged in Kara's direction, closing the distance between them faster than Kara could have imagined from such a huge creature.
Kara frantically unsnapped her chest strap and shrugged out of her huge pack. She let it drop to the ground with a heavy thump. The bundle of tools strapped to its side rattled loudly.
She reached for the canister of bear spray attached to her belt, pulled it from its holster, yanked off the orange safety tab, and aimed it in the direction of the charging bear.
The canister seemed awfully small and inadequate against the outraged bulk of dense fur, teeth, and claws making a beeline for her.
Even worse, Kara instantly realized that the wind was blowing in the wrong direction. If she tried using it now, she'd be the one who ended up with a face-full of pepper spray. Not the bear.
"Oh great. Enjoy a little hot sauce with your raw coyote," Kara told the oncoming bear. Her words were brave, but her voice shook and quavered.
I am so screwed right now.
Kara's coyote was screaming at her. Run! Run now!
Kara's human instincts were in full agreement with her coyote half.
But Kara knew that grizzly bears could outrun almost anything. She might have had a chance in her coyote shape, but the bear was closing the distance between them so rapidly that she'd never complete her shift in time.
Don't ever try to outrun a bear, Carl's voice said in her memory. Retreat slowly. And spray it in the face when it gets close enough.
Never taking her eyes off the advancing bear, and still clutching the canister of bear spray, Kara forced herself to take big, slow steps sideways and backwards, hoping to put the wind at her back so that she could use the spray.
Unfortunately, the wind was blowing from the direction of the lake, which was the opposite direction from the dubious refuge of the tree line.
As she moved, she talked to the bear, trying to keep her tone firm and even, when what she really wanted to do was scream in terror.
"Hey, bear! Stop right there, okay? Shoo! I wasn't going to hurt your babies, honest. Just stop right there and let me leave. I'm leaving, see?"
She felt ridiculous talking to this huge, hairy mountain of rage and fangs, but both Carl and the wildlife biologist from "Fish and Fur," as the smokejumpers liked to call the state departments of fish and game, had emphasized speaking calmly to a bear if you ever encountered one unexpectedly.
Kara risked a quick glance over her shoulder. If she could only reach the dubious shelter of the trees before the bear reached her, then she might be able to outrun it.
Maybe an Ordinary human couldn’t run faster than a grizzly, but coyote shifters were damned fast, even in their human shapes. And agile, too—in the shelter of the forest, Kara could use the trees to her advantage, dodging and weaving around trunks and bushes, forcing the bear to slow down as it pursued her.
If she was very, very lucky, it would give up the chase sooner rather than later, not wanting to leave its cubs unattended in the meadow for too long.
But first, she had to get to the trees before the bear got to her.
Her wilderness survival training had taught her that if wind conditions were favorable, bear spray was effective at close range—five yards or so—but with the wind at the bear's back instead of hers, Kara needed that obstacle course of tree trunks to tilt the odds in her favor.
Now a deep, familiar voice was shouting her name from somewhere behind her.
The sound of Mike's voice made the grizzly slow down and look around suspiciously.
Then disaster struck. The heel of Kara's logger boot caught on something in the grass, and she went down on her ass with a teeth-rattling impact.
Oh shit oh shit oh shit. The voice chanted in her head, keeping time with the heavy drumbeat of her heart pounding in her ears.
"Don't come any closer!" she screamed at the top of her lungs as she scrambled to her feet. "Bear!"
Holding the useless canister of bear spray in front of her like a talisman, Kara continued her retreat to the tree line. Her shouts had refocused Mama Grizzly's attention on her, and the big grizzly began lumbering towards her again.
Behind Kara, Michael's voice changed as he approached, his tone deepening and the words becoming less distinct.
Mama Grizzly was closing the distance fast. Kara threw a glance over her shoulder at the tree line and decided to make a run for it.
She whirled and launched herself desperately towards a cluster of bushy spruce trees fifteen feet away, summoning every bit of speed from both her human and beast halves.
Just then, a deafening roar erupted ahead of her.
A giant bear, its fur a dark brown that was nearly black, charged out of the tree line towards her.