Welcome to the month of May and Tuesday Tales. Around here, spring is still struggling to find her footing. Each week, a select group of author friends share a snippet from their current works in process with you, creating a scene designed around a specific word prompt. This week, our word prompt is SUNSHINE. Each scene is approxinmately 400 words long. I’m working on a cozy mystery called The Case of the Missing Prince. It’s a cold case filled with secrets and political intrigue which will require every ounce of my sleuth’s abilities to solve.
This week’s scene introduces you to Banff National Park’s denizen living legend. For the record, had I known about this guy, there is no way on Earth that my sister-in-law would’ve gotten me to go on a hike on the other side of the bear gates! Lucky for us, the Boss, was occupied elsewhere that day. Enjoy!
“This place is new and privately owned,” Hank stated. “They’re the top rehab center but mighty pricey. Got family in there?”
“No,” I shook my head at him since I could see his eyes in the rearview mirror. “When Leo disappeared, he was climbing with four other men, including Viktor here who broke his leg.” No need to go into details about crush injuries. “While two of the others are back home recuperating, one was more severely injured and required additional care.” I was careful not to mention where home was.
He nodded. “A couple of people were killed, too. My nephew—he’s in the last year of his forestry management degree—does a lot of hiking out that way. He and the other people in his class assisted in the perimeter search.” He chuckled. “Ned and a couple of his friends worked the ten to fifteen kilometer section. Didn’t find anything, not that they expected to. Lots of rough terrain there. Their last day, they spotted the Boss out fishing. They stayed a safe distance away, believe me.”
Viktor turned in his seat. “The Boss?”
“Yeah. He’s what you might call Banff National Park’s living legend and dominant grizzly bear. Officially, he’s Bear 122. He’s close to 30 years old, big, even for a grizzly, weighing about seven hundred pounds, and a horny bugger since they figure he’s sired 70 percent of the cubs in the park. He’s usually the first bear to come out of hibernation each year, lured by the early rays of sunshine in his cave. Folks in the area set spring by him not some damn rodent back east. A few years back, he got hit by a train and walked away from the collision. He’s learned to stay away from the rails when he hears the whistles. My nephew often hikes in that section of the park, but it was the first time he saw him. It seems the Boss, like Big Foot, is a mite shy when it comes to humans, but he won’t walk away from a fight with another Bear. The park rangers claim there was quite a dust-up this past summer between him and old Split Lip who occasionally wanders into his territory. While he’s been known to eat black bears, as a rule, he sticks to berries, roots, smaller mammals, and whatever he can steal from the wolf pack in the area, especially at this time of year when he’s fattening up for winter. Not sure how your man would’ve fared if he’d come across him.”
Don’t forget to check out the other Tuesday Tales.
Living the Dream 