The Hunted... (a short story inspired by Kristen Slice's photo)

Jake casually rested the shotgun against his shoulder. His back pack was starting to weigh heavy on his back, but they had the scent, and had been tracking it forty miles over three days. Bogart was as impatient as always, tongue hanging out, panting, tail wagging. They were getting closer, and stopping now would lose them valuable time.

The sun was slowly lowering in the sky now. A few hours past midday. A few more hours, and they would have to find a place to camp. Jake was hungry, and no doubt the dog was famished too. But they were hunters, who worked well off each other and knew each others limitations. The dog had stopped before, not because he needed to, but because he had seen that Jake needed to. He had done the same for the dog. Jake and Bogart were a team.

The brush was thick and noisy underfoot. The hunted must have known that they were tracking it. This was no ordinary bear. He was intelligent. Clever. And evil. He had attacked 2 people in the town, and the local radio station had nick named him Yogi, "as he is not your average bear". It was a stupid radio show with a stupid DJ who'd come up with a stupid name. Yes, he was not average. He was intelligent. Clever. Careful. Calculating. He'd been shot twice by the rangers and survived. They should have named him Hannibal. And he was still out there.

Jake and Bogart planned to bring him down.

The dog stopped. Tongue in, tail still. Nose pointing due north.

Jake slowly slipped his back pack off and dropped it silently to the forest floor. He brought the shotgun around and silently made his way to the dog. They were at the edge of small clearing and there, stood in the sun shine about twenty feet away, was the bear. And it was staring straight at them, it's fur raised, head low. It knew they were there. It knew they were coming. The hunt was over.

Jake raised the gun to take aim just as the bear started to charge. Bogart knew not to run in to the line of fire, so started to bark ferociously at Jake's side. The bear took no notice.

The crack of the gunshot echoed through out the forest, followed by another straight after. The dog's barking followed and the birds in the trees took flight. And then silence.

The bear was never seen again. It never came back in to town, or seen at camp sites or on the trail. And neither was Jake or Bogart. It's said that in the pitch of night, you can hear the gun shots and the dogs bark. Hunters and hunted reliving their final confrontation. Or perhaps they are still hunting, roaming the forests looking for each other, never quite finishing what they had started...