Wes Coffey
π€ SpeakerAppearances Over Time
Podcast Appearances
I raised my rifle.
My headlamp beam swung across the deadfall.
There was something on top of my brother.
I'm going to try to describe what I saw, but understand I had maybe two seconds of vision before I did what I did, and my brain wasn't processing information well.
Two seconds, I shot it.
I had a Winchester Model 70 chambered in .30 caliber, boat tail soft point, 180 grains.
At four feet, the round would pass through a grizzly's skull and out the other side.
I shot it in what I thought was the back of the head.
It didn't die.
I'll say that again.
It didn't die.
What it did was make a sound, a sound that I will hear until I die.
It wasn't a scream, and it wasn't a roar, and it wasn't any noise I have a word for.
It was the sound of something that had never been hurt before being hurt for the first time.
It came out of it in a shuddering wet bellow, and it rolled off my brother, and it crashed through the timber away from us.
I emptied the rifle after it.
Four more rounds.
I don't know if I hit it again.
I don't think I did.
Then it was gone.