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There was a time in the young dawn when everything lay still and fresh in that hidden place and it was why I had come. At exactly then a rock rolled over a hundred yards up the wash. The sound was clarion and far away so I stood up. Something was walking down the wash in a hurry, stepping on stones and clacking them into others, pushing rocks aside. But whatever it was didn�t have hooves.

In my head the possibilities played out within the halfsecond, but there was some protest because bears never make noise. They are the most soundless animals in the woods, except maybe lions. I couldn�t imagine how quiet a lion must be. With the sound of plowing rocks, a rasp of heavy breathing flowed down the wash. Rapid and harsh and huffing like, well, an old man with a heavy pack trying to make the ridge. Coming fast and not giving a damn. Late for some appointment coveted by big boars.

The boar passed in front of me huffing, freely swinging his big head in time with his footfalls. He was the biggest bear I had ever seen in Arizona. This was the bear with the great foot, the bear looking into my trail camera like he knew. This was the bear I thought about in my sleeping bag, in his country.

It was too dark for peep sights and abundantly light to see he was enormous and fast, heading straight down the trail, into the bush and into my fresh footprint. There was a day when I knew what a boar would do when he came to my fresh footprint but that day had gone and would never be again, gone with bears that never make noise. The boar made my scent line and stopped. Thirty-five yards.

I waited for crushing leaves and springing brush, which would mean the boar hit my scent and hurried away up the opposite mountainside. There was no sound. I opened the pack and felt for the pistol. The pack was black inside and deep up to my shoulder and somewhere in that expanding universe was � flashlight. Was � rangefinder.

I could not see the bear in the brush but there was the sound of him stepping on rock and the rock was in the wash on my side of the trail. He was arcing the scent, looking for whatever had made it. Coming up the hill. He took a couple steps in the wash. The opposite way from away. My thick hand found the bag of almonds.

Skinning knife.

Water bottle.

The stippled grip in Glory. The pistol slid out of the bag and I pointed it at the brush. Where he would come. There was no light for sighting but it didn�t matter and it took a long time before I realized the bear was gone.