Wes Coffey

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.