Grizzly El Oso

Cover Art by Yuri Martell

yurimartell.wix.com/yurimartell

Foreword

Sage Martin could smell the defilement of the beast. He’d grown up in the Montana territory, hunting Grizz. He thanked God he was downwind of the killer, though he wasn’t out of the proverbial woods yet. This was no ordinary Grizzly. It was a killin’ Grizz— it killed for the fun of it, killed just for the sake of killing. Sage knew only one thing to do, and that was to get up a tree, and fast.

Raised by the Comanche, he knew the ways of survival, survival against a man, white, or Injun. But this was no man. This was a killing machine, a creature of God that was master in his domain. Best not challenge or even dare to enter his domain, unless allowed to, and even then, at your own risk.

Sage’s nostrils flared as the stink of the Grizzly permeated his awareness. The hair on the back of his neck rose stiff and fast as he found his tree. No time to lose, he thought, slinging the slim but weighty 45-75 Winchester over his shoulder by its hunting sling. Silently, save for a few rhythmic, metallic clicks, he spun the cylinders of his twin Colt .45s three hundred and sixty degrees down his arm. No empty chamber for safety, he had twelve heavy .45 chunks of lead to deliver, cartridges loaded and ready to fan-off fast as he could.

Jesus have mercy, this bear smells of death. Must get up high and fast if I want to live, Sage prayed, climbing as quickly and efficiently as he could, the first guttural screams of carnivorous dominance and defiance cutting loose behind him, reverberating through the brown, musty smell of the woods. The Grizzly knew a man beast was in the neighborhood. His belly was empty; he was ready to kill, and he was letting the whole forest know it.

Sage Martin found his spot high in the tree, a fork with a branch to lean his back against for support. He looked down to find his pursuer had found him. Looking up, the Grizzly bear tore at the tree trunk, throwing bark through the air like grapeshot. Saliva and blood flew too, as the Grizz even bit himself in his ferocious frenzy. He was desperate. He wanted the flesh of the man, who was now high in the towering tree.

Sage figured he was at least thirty to forty feet up as the bear began to climb. As it did, Sage got a more than better view of the monster that wanted him dead. He felt its intent in his gut, imagined its claws ripping through his soft flesh, the world spinning away in a field of red spray.

The bear’s fur was rough, tattered, and sparse, not full and fluffy like a normal Grizzly. What claws it did have were knobbed, some were torn off, others broken. But the bear’s wild anger, its insane snarls and growls made up for its frayed condition. Still, Sage wondered how the killer could be climbing this tree.

The teeth were chipped and broken off in places. And the eyes, the damn eyes! They were the scariest thing of all. They seemed to glow, to light up with an infernal energy from an unimaginable netherworld. Maybe it was the reflection of late day sun, but the eyes seemed to have fireballs lodged in them, burning out of a dark brain, feverish, full of menace. Flesh and viscera from its latest victim hung swaying, lodged between its teeth; its own blood flowed from the violence of biting, the relentless snapping of its deformed, vicious mouth.

The view of the creature came full through the rear ramp sight of the 45-75 Winchester, cocked and ready to fire. Sage undid the two leather loop straps that held the hammers of his .45 pistols. The bear growled and screamed with each swipe of a free paw, climbed higher and higher, waking up a forest that much preferred sleep just now.

The horizon of trees enveloped the sun as the first 45-75 tore into the bear’s skull, the heavy slug making a whopping, dull, almost sickening sound as it slammed into the cranium. The enraged carnivore yelped in pain, but somehow kept climbing. The Winchester spit out the empty cartridge as Sage, in one smooth action levered another round into the chamber, shimmied some, then grasped with his other hand to get another branch, climb higher in the tree.

Sage felt the hot, foul breath burn his face as the Oso screamed out, swiping with its huge right paw. A talon caught his boot and jeans, ripping fabric and flesh. The cowboy yelled out in pain, as the sun was lost forever, sunk over and into Boone’s mountain. The combatants now fought to the death in the dark.

"Lord God, Creator of all things, help me. If it’s my time to die, then let me die. If not, please help me, for my time draws neigh...

Chapter One 

Sage Martin was heading home, on furlough from the army. He was a scout, raised by the Comanche, born in the Montana Territory. His folks were killed in a Comanche, Sioux, and Cheyenne raid in the winter of 1859. Fortunately for him, the Indians favored captured young male children, and the leaders of the Comanche tribes decided between themselves to keep the boy, to raise him as one of their own. After all, the child, innocent by nature, had not participated in the oppressive, invasive acts of his people.

The Comanche took sage to the Texas plains. Up to then, he’d been raised a Christian by a preacher-man father and saintly mother who had taught him his Bible and commandments. The boy did his best to live life by the laws of Almighty God, to remember from where his salvation came.

Quanah Parker and Old Buffalo Hump, however, brought the boy to his manhood, teaching him the ways of the Comanche in both life and death. Both loved him as a son, and Sage loved and obeyed them both as parents.

As he rode north, he recalled all the good things he’d learned from his Native American family, and at the same time felt relief as he climbed in elevation, coming out of the dry, hot desert climate of Texas up into Colorado, Wyoming, and finally into Montana. It was now late summer, still hot, but much cooler then the Texas Panhandle area would have been.

The year was 1876, the month July, just nigh over one month since Custer lost the battle of the Little Big Horn. Sage pulled into Fort Fetterman in Wyoming to pay respect to his friend and fellow soldier, General George Crook. A dog had run with the scout, a German Shepherd. A fellow scout out of Fort Carson, in the Arizona territory, had given the pup to him. He was a gift from one Caitlin Boyd. Pug Junior ran into the parade ground of Fort Fetterman, just ahead of his master, Sage.

The soldiers on duty laughed as they watched the pup run, jump, and play with the children and soldiers walking the parade ground. Sage, hot, thirsty, and tuckered out, dismounted, tied Old Dollar, his horse, to the hitching rail as several voices rang out.

"Look what the cat drug in, would ya, boys? Why Sage Martin, you old scudder, how the hell are you?" Sergeant Jack Woods hollered, walking up to the scout, hand extended.

"Heh! They let anybody in the army these days. Jack, I’m fine. Now buy me a beer, will ya?" Sage said with a chuckle, shaking the Sergeant’s and several other soldier blues hands, brushing the prairie dust off his clothes with his hat.

Where the hell are you heading to, Sage? Sergeant Woods asked, swinging open the café doors leading into the post saloon.

Montana. Ain’t been home in some time.

"Montana, you say? Watch your rear end. Several troopers came in last week heading to Fort Laramie. They started out with eight troopers, got here with just two, and they were nearly dead," Sergeant Woods said.

Indians, most likely, Sage added.

Nope, not Injuns. A bear.

Woods, we ain’t started drinkin’ yet, so no bull. Not yet, anyway. Okay? Sage Martin said, laughing. 

As I live and breathe, Sage, Woods said, waving his arms high over his head. "a rough Grizzly, plain mean, and ugly. Killed six troopers. One trooper claimed the Grizz was a deformed giant, twenty-foot tall, a monster.