There Will Be Bears by Ryan Gebhart Page A

post the ad.
    Two Taylor Swift tickets for sale. Second row seats. 250 bucks for the pair
.
    Within minutes, my phone moos.
    “Hello?”
    “Hi, I’m calling about the Taylor Swift tickets,” says some girl.
    “Yeah, I’m selling them for two fifty.”
    “Is there any way you could sell them cheaper?”
    “How much cheaper?”
    “All I have is two hundred.”
    “Two
hundred
? These tickets sold out in fifteen minutes.”
    “I know, but they’re for my brother.”
    Oh, my God, is this Ashley?
    She goes, “He said he’d go with me if I got tickets.”
    It’s got to be her. This is too good. I say, “Well, maybe we could make a trade.”
    “Um . . .”
    “Tell you what — two hundred bucks for the pair, but you got to throw in your Nintendo DS Lite.”
    The other line goes silent. “Tyson?”
    Now I’m laughing. “You can pick up your tickets at thirteen fourteen Corona Drive.”
    “Tyson!”
    I hear Ashley scampering down the hall.
    With one hand on the knob, she says in the doorway, “You have Taylor Swift tickets? How did you get tickets?”
    I wave them at her. “Told you I was a bigger fan.”
    She goes for them, but I pull away.
    I say, “Do we have a deal?”
    “Wait, you’re not actually going to sell them to me.”
    “Uh-huh.”
    She sits down on the bed next to me and says, “The whole reason I wanted to buy these tickets was so we could go together. Now we can.”
    “Yeah, but I need this money to buy my Halloween costume.”
    “Why are you spending so much on a costume?”
    “ ’Cause it’s awesome. And then me and Gene are going on our trip.”
    “Tyson!” She jumps to her feet. “There’s no way Dad’s letting you go.”
    “Yeah, he will, when I tell him we’re going to the Caribou-Targhee National Forest.”
    “But that’s in Idaho.”
    “Check this place out.” I flip open my laptop to their website. “Me and Gene are going fishing, and they have horseback riding and you can even pan for gold. Fun, huh?”
    She gives me this knowing stare. “Are you really going to Idaho?”
    “That depends. Are you cool?”
    “Huh?”
    “Are you cool? I mean, are
we
cool?”
    “Um, yeah. We’re cool.”
    “It’s where Dad
thinks
we’re going.”
    “Tyson, no. You can’t go to the Tetons. There’s grizzlies up there.”
    “I know.”
    “Haven’t you seen the news?”
    “Whatever. That was, like, a week ago.”
    “No, no. The couple from Ohio.”
    “Huh?”
    “This couple from Cleveland were in their tent and a grizzly bear knocked it down and killed them.”
    “What? When?”
    “It was all over the news this morning. It happened in the Tetons yesterday.”
    “Yeah, right. You’re just like Mom.”
    She takes my laptop and shows me the headline story on my home page.
    Bear Attack in Bridger-Teton National Forest Kills Two Hunters
.
    I read the headline over and over, trying to process it. This happened in the exact place Gene and I will be hunting. And all I can picture is Sandy, the fur around her face matted with blood and her belly engorged with human body parts.
    I go, “They just meant a bear
attacked
two hun —”
    “Killed,”
Ashley stresses. “You can’t go. I don’t want you to get hurt.”
    “I’m going.”
    “But why?”
    “I have to.”
    “No, you don’t.”
    “Ashley, you don’t understand. Even if there were fifty thousand bear attacks this year and I had a ninety percent chance of getting eaten alive, I would still go. Yeah, I’m scared. Of course I’m a little scared, but what would Gene say? He’ll probably never get to go hunting again.”
    “Please, Tyson. Please, please — you can’t go.”
    “There really isn’t anything you can say to stop me.”
    “I could tell Dad that you’re lying to him. Think you’d be able to go then?”
    “Ashley. Come on, I thought we were cool.”
    “You don’t realize it now, but I
am
being cool.”
    My phone moos. Another local number that I’ve never seen before.
    “You could tell