THERE'S A BEAR IN THE WOODS

by ardavenport

Squad Fifty-One rolled to a stop at an old two-story white-painted wooden house at the end of the tree covered dirt road. Big tufts of dry grasses dotted the yard, but the brush next to the isolated structure was properly cut back. Johnny and Roy climbed out, running around to the side compartments for their equipment. Roy got the drug box, Johnny the biophone.

Nobody came out to meet them.

Squinting in the midday sun under the rims of their fire helmets, they looked around. It was rare that someone didn't come running when they heard the siren.

"That's strange." Roy led the way up the front porch steps. The faded paint was pealing on the floor boards, but not too badly. The house looked old, but lived in.

"Fire Department!" Roy banged on the door and called out loudly. "Fire Department!"

Johnny peered over the side of the porch railing, trying to see around the house and then went to the other side. He turned back to Roy and shrugged.

"Well, maybe they're out back and can't hear us." Roy led the way back down.

"I don't know why they wouldn't hear the siren."

They tried to go around the side of the house, but there was a chain link fence extending out from the corner of the building.

Roy called out. "Hello!"

They went to the other side of the house, but there was more chain link fence and a shed with a padlocked door. Baffled, they went back to the squad, bright red in the middle of the open, dusty tan space in front of the house. Roy opened the passenger side door.

"I'm going to call in the address. Make sure we've got the right place."

Johnny paced around on the other side of the squad, squinting at the fields and trees beyond the yard in the morning sun.

"Dispatch, this is Squad Fifty-One. Can we have a confirmation on the address. There doesn't seem to be anyone here."

Nothing. He checked the radio. It was on.

Johnny impatiently peered around at the fences and other run down structures. He tensed. Something had moved in the shade between a wooden shed and a big clump of bushes.

Roy looked past the house. Hills. They had to be in a dead zone. They might have to drive back down to the main road just to check in. He froze, eyes going wide.

"Uh, Johnny! Uh. . . . bear!"

Johnny whirled around, opening the driver's side door and jumping in, throwing the biophone on the seat. "Close the doors, roll up the windows!"

"You don't have to tell me that twice." Roy slammed the passenger side shut and hastily cranked the window up, his eyes still on the large black bear that had come lumbering out from the shade of big clump of a bushes beyond the house.

Johnny started the engine.

Wham! Thump! Thump!

Roy sat back. Staring at the bearded man pounding on Johnny's door.

"Come out of there you varmints! You ain't gonna come here and kill my Sophie! Get out of there!" He wore a plaid shirt and shook a rifle at them in one blood-spotted-white bandaged arm. "You're not going to get my Sofie!"

Gage put the squad into reverse, accelerating backwards into a sudden jolting stop and then a hard left turn completely around and back to the road they had come in on.

"Johnny!" They went back through the wide gate, the squad bouncing over the dirt road. "What are you doing? There's a bear back there!" Roy heard a woman's voice shouting.

"Well, maybe that's who Sofie is." He kept going, eyes forward on the road.

"Johnny! He was injured. And there's a bear!"

"Yeah, and he was shooting at us!" Johnny turned the squad to the right.

Roy peered back through the window. The house disappeared behind the trees. "What do you mean shooting? I didn't hear any shots!"

"What do you think he was doing with the gun?" Johnny swerved the squad to the left on the winding dirt road and they bounced with it. He glanced toward Roy, his expression worried. "There was a bear?"

"Yes! That's probably why that guy had the gun!"

Johnny blinked, looking worried. He slowed down, then braked. The squad stopped in a sunny patch of road, shade trees before and behind them.

"You're going to have to drive, Roy." Johnny leaned forward on the steering wheel.

"Johnny, we have to go back! That man was hurt!"

"Roy, that man was shooting at us! Ow!" He pulled something up from his calf. "With this!"

Roy stared down at the silvery dart Johnny held out to him. He took it and turned it over with his fingers. It was the kind of tranquilizer dart used on wild animals.

"He must have been trying to hit the bear." But Roy did not feel so certain. The man with the gun pounding on the side of the squad had been angry at them. He hadn't been asking for help.

"Roy, I know when someone is pointing a gun at me! And he wasn't shooting at any bear!" He suddenly sat back, eyes closed, arm over his forehead, pushing the fire helmet off his head. It clattered down over the biophone on the seat between them.

Roy grabbed his shoulder. "Are you okay?"

Johnny dropped his arm and blinked upward. "I don' know."

Roy put the dart on the dash board. Hastily getting out of the squad, he ran around to the other side and opened the door.

"Come on, move over."

"Huh?" Johnny blinked and squinted back at him. "Oh, yeah." He slid over, pushing the drug box and the biophone next to him.

Honk!

"Sorry."

"It's okay." Roy got in and closed the door. "See if you can get anything on the radio." He started the engine. The squad moved forward again.

Bracing himself against the dashboard to keep from falling forward, Johnny reached down for the mic. "Dispatch, this is Squad Fifty-One. How do you read?"

"Squad Fifty-One, we read you loud and clear."

"Squad Fifty-One requesting assistance from the County Sheriff. Also Animal Control to capture a bear."

He lowered the mic and let his head drop.

"Squad Fifty-One, Repeat."

He could feel it . . . . whatever had been in the dart. He felt light headed, his heart pounding, arms weak.

"Johnny?"

Roy's hand closed over the mic that Johnny stared down at and pulled it away, the white curled cord trailing over his knees.

"Dispatch, this is Squad Fifty-One. Repeating. Require assistance from Sheriff's deputies and County Animal Control. Animal bite victim is trying to capture a bear with a tranquilizer dart gun. But he became violent and fired it at us. Also, we have a Code I."

"Ten-Four, Squad Fifty-One."

Roy's hand, with the mic, passed under him again, over his knees, dragging back the cord again. The hand grasped his shoulder, pushing him up and back. The hard seat back stopped him, his head falling back, hitting the rear window glass of the cab. Scratches and little marks marred the gray roof and blue sky flashed in through the top of the wind shield through the spray of tree branches passing by overhead.

"Johnny?" The hand on his shoulder squeezed hard, but not quite tightly enough for him to really feel it. "Hey, stay with me."

"Okay." He answered with no meaning, his head wobbling with the motion of the squad on the rough road. He was not okay. But saying that he was okay was better than not saying it.

He bounced with the squad over a large rut in the dirt road and slid to his left. Roy's arm and shoulder stopped him.

"Hang in there."

His mouth moved around another 'okay' but the word didn't come out. This was really serious; he did not know what he had been hit with, or how much. But it already smothered him with an anesthetic lassitude. His heart still pounded, undeterred, and he wondered why he didn't feel cold.

Roy's shoulder, unyielding bone and muscle, pressed unevenly on the side of his face. Eyes forward, he saw the road, Roy's arms, hands on the steering wheel. There was dust, a turn. The squad emerged from the shadows of another clump of trees into sunlight. He squinted and blinked, the light flashing and vibrating.

"Squad Fifty-One, - - eriff's - - - - orts - - - car - - - dy in your vicinity - - eet - -at - - - - oad."

The syllables came to him as familiar tones, but their purpose fragmented. They had meaning, but he knew that their importance was not dependent on him, so it was easy to let them go.

Roy moved, pushing against him and speaking, his voice, more real and closer than the tinny radio tones. He limply slouched down so he stared forward at the bottom of the steering wheel and the dark space under it, his face sliding lower on the side of his partner's blue uniform shirt until his nose squashed down onto Roy's lap.

The squad stopped, the motion pushing him forward, but something pulled him back. Roy's voice spoke above him and then the last support under his face left him and he slid down further, his eyes staring at pale seat upholstery, smooth, warm and nice on his cheek. There was a cool breeze on his hair.

Voices. Roy and another, unfamiliar and quiet. Mostly he heard Roy.

Something pulled on his legs, finally stirring him to move, though his limbs were uncooperative and heavy. He rolled his head and saw down the length of his body, stretched out on the bench seat of the squad, the passenger door open, his feet sticking out from it. Above, all he could see was the driver's side door frame and intense blue sky above. Roy, upside-down, appeared. His chin looked especially round from that angle. There were more talking sounds high above him. And poking and prodding of his body far below.

Johnny squinted and blinked. The sky brightened, bluer and bluer, the intensity of it completely blotting out Roy. Bluer and brighter . . . . .

. . . . . bright and white.

"Johnny?"

Johnny squinted and blinked. The white ceiling tiles suddenly dimmed to normal. Even the florescent lights weren't too bad. The head of a woman, her short graying hair crowned with white . . . . he knew her name . . . . . . she didn't work in Rampart's Emergency Department often, only when they needed extra help from upstairs. She was . . . . from upstairs. . . .

Turning his head on the pillow, he couldn't lift it but he saw the hospital room, white privacy curtain hanging on the right, blue blanket covering him. He felt queasy and limp.

"Johnny. Can you tell me where you are?"

"Yeeeeaaah."

He knew where he was. He just wasn't sure about where he'd been.