Sturm looked at Frank. Frank knew what he was thinking. They had just about cleaned out the meat from the freezer behind the barn, and Frank wasn’t sure where or how Sturm was going to find more. He was wondering how in the hell they were going to scrape together 80 pounds of vegetables and berries. Forget salmon. The bear could eat lamb or hamburger just like the cats or it would go without meat. And that 80 pounds, that was just for one day. Sturm was wondering how they were going to feed this thing for a week or more.

“Bo-Bo’s just like a big ol’ puppy dog. Throw him in a corral. He’ll be just fine.”

“No disrespect intended here, but there’s no goddamn way I can just let an eleven hundred pound grizzly bear wander around my town,” Sturm said. “At least, not until you’re ready to hunt.”

Girdler pulled on his beard like he wanted to make sure it was still attached.

“You sure you want to shoot this bear of yours?” Frank asked.

Sturm shot him a warning look, but Girdler said, “Sure as I’m standing here, son. Shit, I would’ve shot him long time ago, but I wanted him to get as big as possible for the hide.”

“And the teeth,” Sturm added.

“Hell yes. The teeth too.” Girdler found some more hair to chew on. “Just couldn’t bring myself to shoot him in the pen. Didn’t seem right somehow. So when I heard about this particular hunt you folks got going here, I thought…well, this was just what I was waiting for.”

Sturm finished his beer. “Then we need to find a place to keep it. Let’s get my girls moved—I want them awake and hungry for tonight. Then we’ll go for a ride. See what we can find.”

* * * * *

By noon, Lady and Princess were sleeping safely inside their distorted, bulging cage that grew out of the back of Sturm’s barn like a cancerous spider web. One door opened into the barn; the other into a large corral. Before they had left, Jack and Pine had drilled iron poles into the posts and lined the whole corral with hog panels, creating a square cage, nearly a quarter acre total, with walls over eight feet tall.

But this corral, this new cage, this wasn’t for the grizzly. It had been built without Frank, so Frank could only guess that it was some kind of exercise yard for Sturm’s new pets. Frank wondered if he should mention that eight feet of fence wouldn’t hold the lionesses. Hell, if Lady and Princess had a mind to, they’d be over that fence in less time than it took for Sturm to spit.

Frank kept his mouth shut. Sturm probably already knew this, and besides, Frank was still pissed. And more than a little scared. He couldn’t read Sturm, couldn’t see how the pressure built. Yesterday still made him feel like a loyal dog who’d been kicked for no apparent reason by a previously kind and considerate owner.

He practiced his smile more and more.

* * * * *

Theo drove Sturm’s pickup, windows down, one arm out the window. He took the trip slow and easy, as Sturm and Girdler were in the back, sitting on ice chests full of beer and ice. Neither one paid the heat any attention, just told jokes about niggers, politicians, beaners, fucking stupid Polacks, Kikes with their money, and dumb cunts. They’d laugh and fling their bottles at street signs, the few cars left, and the buildings.

Theo drove so slow there was no breeze. Frank wished Theo would roll up the windows and turn on the A.C., but Theo wouldn’t even look at him, let alone speak to him. Even though the back window was open, so Theo could hear his father, the afternoon air slid over Frank’s skin like a slug, leaving a sweaty slime.

First stop was the taxidermist, so Sturm could show off the tiger’s hide.

Theo pulled up and parked in the middle of the street. Before the pickup had fully stopped, Sturm jumped out, hollering, “Didja know—” and stumbled. His boots stuttered along the asphalt and he fell heavily onto his knee and hip, like a chair leg had just collapsed on him.

Girdler laughed.

Frank flinched. He couldn’t decide if he should run over and help Sturm find his feet, just like at the vet hospital, but if Sturm had actually gone and had too many beers, it might make him mean. And the last goddamn thing Frank needed was to piss off Sturm.

But Sturm just laughed too and found his feet in a rolling motion, said, “Didja know a chink girl’s pussy is sideways, like their eyes,” and laughed along with Girdler. Giggles burst out of Theo like snot bubbles.

The taxidermist shop smelled bad. Worse than bad. Like a freezer full of meat after the power had been out a week. Frank wondered if it was the taxidermist himself. He was wearing the same spotless faded overalls, the same rigid white long-sleeve shirt. Frank wasn’t sure if this was simply the man’s uniform, if he had a closet full of identical clothing, or if this was the actual clothes he’d been wearing a week ago.

He poked around the shop while Sturm and Girdler inspected the striped hide, and realized that most of the smell was coming from a large bubbling pot in the back, where the taxidermist was boiling the tiger skull.

* * * * *

The next stop was the town pool. When Sturm told Theo where to go, just north of the high school, Frank was surprised a town this size had a town pool, but didn’t care one way or another. He was seriously considering jumping into the water, clothes and all, but when they unlocked the gate and went inside, they found the pool quite empty, just an echoing hollow husk of concrete, surrounded by a ten-foot chain link fence.

“Think this’ll hold a grizzly—sorry, a Kodiak?” Sturm asked, standing at the lip of the deep end, his voice booming off the blue painted concrete.

The deep end was certainly big enough. Over 30 feet wide, the flat bottom gently sloped down from the shallow end, leveling out at fourteen feet beneath the pool deck. Stagnant, green water waited at the very bottom.

The problem was obvious to everyone. The bear could just walk up into the shallow end, a larger rectangle set at a right angle to the deeper part. They would have to construct some kind of wall; otherwise the bear would simply stroll right up and tear through the fence like a fork through toilet paper.

* * * * *

The auction yard was next. Sturm led them to a large room with a high ceiling where they’d kept the original lioness that Sturm had fought and killed. It had one door. The floor was concrete, with two drains set into it. Tiles covered the walls four feet up, giving way to a series of small windows covered in thick wire.

“This’ll work,” Frank said. “This’ll work just fine.”

“You sure you don’t have, I dunno, someplace outside?” Girdler asked.

Frank said, “We’ll put some straw down for him, make him as comfortable as possible.”

“Frank’ll make sure your bear is comfortable,” Sturm said. “He’s a regular goddamn Florence Nightingale for these animals, believe me.”

“It’ll just be for a few days, right?” Frank asked.

“Guess so. Just wanted him outside, in the sun, for as much as possible…before the end,” Girdler said. “It’s a matter of respect.”

“Of course,” Sturm said, reaching up to pat Girdler’s shoulder. “I understand respect.” He was silent a moment, then said, “Let’s get out of here and have ourselves another beer.”

* * * * *

On the way back to the ranch, they stopped at the gas station. Theo stayed outside and filled up the truck. Frank wished the Glouck boys would fire some BBs and rocks at Theo, but the dead tree was empty.

“How’s business, Myrtle?” Sturm said.

The woman with the shocking red hair shrugged in her kingdom of cigarettes and lottery tickets. “Kinda’ slow, Mr. Sturm.”

Frank stopped and waited just inside the front door, hands in his pockets, head down, bill of his cap obscuring his face. The place was even more cramped and hotter than before. Girdler hit the end of the first aisle, found a few beers in the cooler, and Frank realized that between the two coolers, in the left corner of the of the ceiling, perched a round, concave mirror like the Glouck’s TV satellite’s younger cousin. Myrtle’s curving face appeared in the distorted mirror, staring right at him. Hatred haunted the lines in her face.