Tanner took a break from his mineral survey to drink some water and get out of the sun.\u00a0 He was in the Beartooth Mountains and recent discoveries of rare earth metals had provided him with some summer employment to help him pay for his coursework in mining engineering and mineralogy at Yellowstone University.\u00a0 He was a 23-year-old graduate student and between his gigs as a teaching assistant and driving a snow plow in the winters he kept himself almost fiscally solvent.\u00a0 But this survey work was more what he wanted to be doing with his time.\u00a0 Typhon Industries employed most of the population around the town of Boghadair and technically Tanner was already an employee with an equity account but he\u2019d have to wait until his schooling was completed to get his hands on any of the credits accruing in that account.\u00a0 So, this survey work meant the difference between hamburgers and pizza a couple of times a week or just cheap noodles night and day.<\/p>\n
He was standing on a rocky slope that descended onto a flat highland covered with wildflowers.\u00a0 There was a small lake and woman was at the water\u2019s edge washing her face.\u00a0 But what caught his attention was past the woman in the distance was a large grizzly bear and it was running directly toward the woman.\u00a0 He approximated her distance from the bear as half a mile and his distance from her as a little more than a mile.\u00a0 He screamed a profanity, dropped his water bottle and started running toward the woman as fast as his legs would carry him, screaming to her as his breathing would allow while running.\u00a0 The bear was moving at about twenty-five miles an hour and Tanner might be doing ten but his repeated screams of, \u201cBear!\u201d finally caught her attention and she looked around to see the bear and began to run directly away from it.\u00a0 Unfortunately, this was not toward Tanner but at almost a right angle from him.<\/p>\n
Tanner gave a cry of frustration at this unfortunate circumstance and tried to figure out how he could run to end up between the woman and the bear.\u00a0 In his confusion he just ran after the woman.\u00a0 When the bear was only a hundred yards from the woman it suddenly spasmed in mid-stride and tumbled to the ground.\u00a0 Tanner was only slightly closer to the woman than the bear but luckily the bear\u2019s receiver had finally registered the signal from his bear protection transponder.\u00a0 The bear saw him running off at an angle and according to the algorithm in his controller ran off as fast as he could.\u00a0 He wasn\u2019t running directly away from the woman but pretty soon the diverging tracks would put Tanner between the bear and his former prey.<\/p>\n
Pretty soon Tanner caught up to the still running woman and told her she was now safe.\u00a0 It took her a few minutes to catch her breath and get over the terror she had experienced but when she seemed calmer, he starting yelling at her, \u201cLady what the hell are you doing in grizzly country without bear protection?\u00a0 If I hadn\u2019t seen that bear charging it would\u2019ve gotten you!\u201d<\/p>\n
The young woman was shocked to hear him so angry, \u201cI have bear protection.\u00a0 It\u2019s in my car.\u201d\u00a0 He was confused, Where\u2019s your car?\u00a0 She pointed east and said, \u201cAt the road.\u00a0 I wanted to climb up the slope to see the lake.\u201d\u00a0 He was stunned, \u201cThat\u2019s two miles away.\u00a0 The transponder only has a range of a mile.\u00a0 You would have been killed.\u201d<\/p>\n
She began to cry and Tanner started to notice that she was probably about his age and he felt guilty for yelling at her.\u00a0 And he also noticed that she was very pretty and this seemed to make him feel even worse about yelling at her.\u00a0 He said, \u201cLook I\u2019m sorry I yelled I guess I was just scared for you and I got too excited.\u00a0 I\u2019m sorry, okay?\u201d<\/p>\n
She pulled out a handkerchief and dried her eyes and nodded her head, \u201cOkay, it\u2019s alright.\u00a0 I guess you did save my life.\u00a0 Thank you very much.\u201d\u00a0 There was an awkward silence while both of them tried to figure how this meeting would end.\u00a0 Finally, Tanner said, \u201cLook I need to walk you to your car so you\u2019ll be safe.\u00a0 And from now on please carry the transponder wherever you go outside of town.\u00a0 Are you staying in Boghadair?\u201d<\/p>\n
She nodded again, \u201cYes, I\u2019m working on a mineral survey project and have to start work tomorrow.\u00a0 I was just enjoying a little sightseeing before starting work.\u00a0 Tanner\u2019s brain clicked through all of this and he said, \u201cAre you Pat Tollens?\u201d\u00a0 She said, \u201cYes, how did you know?\u201d\u00a0 He replied, \u201cI\u2019m Tanner Carrero.\u00a0 You\u2019re my summer intern.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Tanner took a break from his mineral survey to drink some water and get out of the sun.\u00a0 He was in the Beartooth Mountains and<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[241,1289,1263,237,4,242],"tags":[1290,265,3675],"class_list":["post-33436","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-book-reviews","category-fiction-by-me","category-stuff-that-personally-interests-me-miscellaneous","category-reviews","category-sff","category-sff-book-reviews","tag-my-fiction","tag-science-fiction","tag-yellowstone"],"yoast_head":"\n