The roar came again, very close. He locked the door, put the key into the ignition and turned it. The headlamps came on instantly, flooding the icy ground as far as the rocks, which looked as flat as stage scenery in their glare. Of the bear there was no sign. He glanced back towards Guthrie's shack. Man and dog had retreated behind the locked door. He put the jeep in gear and started to swing it round. As he did so he heard the roar again, followed by a thump. The bear had charged the vehicle in its frustration, and was rising up on its hind legs to strike it a second time. Will caught only a glimpse of its shaggy white bulk from the corner of his eye. It was a huge animal, no doubt of that: nine hundred pounds and counting. If it damaged the jeep badly enough to halt his escape, he'd be in trouble. The bear wanted him, and it had the means to get him if he didn't outpace it. Claws and teeth enough to pry the vehicle open like a can of human meat.
He put his foot on the accelerator, and swung the vehicle around to head it back down the street. As he did so the bear changed tactics and direction, dropping back onto all fours to overtake the jeep, then cutting in front of it.
For an instant the animal was there in the sear of the headlamps, its wedgesnouted head pointing directly at the vehicle. It was not one of the pitiful clan Guthrie had described, their ferality dimmed by their addiction to human refuse. It was a piece of the wilderness still; defying the blaze and speed of the vehicle in whose path it had put itself. In the instant before it was struck, it was gone, disappearing with such speed that its departure seemed almost miraculous; as though it had been a vision conjured by the cold, then snatched away.
As he drove back to the house, he felt for the first time the poverty of his craft. He had taken tens of thousands