Novelists have imagination. It’s a good thing, because we usually have not experienced many of the things we put in our novels. For example, I’ve never ridden a bull, but I’ve put professional bull riders in my books. So, research is necessary to be a good writer.
In 2016, when I visited a Montana dude ranch, I learned the wranglers who led trail rides carry bear spray. Good reason!
A 2017 article in Montana Journal covers the whole reason hikers or riders need to carry bear spray in areas where they may encounter bears.
To the uninformed, “bear spray” is the non-lethal deterrent many hikers and hunters carry to thwart bruin attacks or to confront bears behaving in defense-driven incidents. Another salient fact worth noting to debunk the myth of the Old West—the vast, vast, vast majority of grizzlies do not view humans as prey. The vast, vast, vast majority of close encounters with people involve bears that are: 1. instinctively engaging a perceived threat to cubs; 2. surprise encounters when they can't smell, see or hear us as we amble into them, as when they are feeding on a carcass, in a berry patch, walking along a river when there's a lot of white noise from rushing water, or sleeping in their day beds.
Here’s a video from the 2017 article that describes an encounter with a grizzly bear where the hikers deployed bear spray.
So, of course, in one of my next western contemporaries, I had to add a grizzly bear. Slade Heston comes from Kentucky. He’s a real city slicker. Agreeing to accompany heroine Laurie on a hike, he remembers to carry bear spray.
They hadn’t gone far when he heard rustling in the underbrush. Slade looked to his left beside the trail and his steps faltered. A brown bear puffed and grunted and stared at him with beady black eyes. Laurie stopped, and he bumped into her, catching her right arm in a fierce grip.
“Oh, dear God!” Her voice was low and crackled with fear.
Frozen with dread, he swallowed the urge to flee. He didn’t see any cubs. Maybe this wasn’t a sow. So maybe that was a good thing. But if this guy had a fresh kill nearby, Slade knew their lives were in danger.
A span of several heartbeats passed with the bear standing his ground, not moving an inch. Neither did they. Heart thudding in a dreadful beat, he tried to recall Hank’s words. Don’t run. Always carry bear spray.
That’s it! He fumbled for the can of bear deterrent hooked to his belt. It was the size of a giant canister of aerosol hair spray.
“Get behind me, Laurie,” he ordered, but she didn’t move.
He jerked her behind him, and at the same time flicked off the plastic safety. His hand shook as he extended his arm with his thumb on the trigger. Fearing to lose his grip, he grabbed the bottle with two hands. At that moment, the mass of angry brown fur charged.
Slade’s heart slammed into his throat. He deployed the bear spray, tilting the can downward toward the animal, not straight at it, and whipping the can back and forth. The cloud rose in time to hit the rushing creature in the eyes and nose with an acrid fog of mist. In a split second, the bear veered left away from them and vanished into the underbrush.
“Let’s get the hell out of here!”
Trembling, Slade grabbed Laurie’s hand and started down the trail at a fast walk—a very fast walk.
Take a look at my romantic mystery series Ghost Mountain Ranch to read more about Slade.
https://books2read.com/SladeGhostMountain
3 comments:
Will have to keep the bear spray in mind. Hubby and kiddo mountain climb, but sometimes at the base they have to walk through woods to get to the trail. Thanks for the tip and great excerpt!
This was a fun read. It's these kinds of researched details that make a story interesting. - Melissa Maygrove (I'm having trouble posting comments to blogs right now.)
I fixed my commenting problem. Yay!
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