About 2 miles down rt,28 was a gas station so we pulled in and filled up. Bart went in to pay while me and Tom sat in the car finishing that cigarette and listening to Fire on the mountain on the 8 Track. Bart comes out with a brown paper bag (remember those) and sets it down on the front seat next to me, so natch I take a peak inside. Theres a half a dozen twinkies, a big bag of lays original potato chips and a 6 pack of Budweiser, he looks at us as he drives away and says "for later", Tom says good thinking bro, and I says, what the fuck, no Rolling Rock? So we continue north on 28 about 10 miles and finally hit the township of Speculator, which consists of a huge dump site, a town highway building which just happens to be the home of that plow truck that followed us the other night with you guessed it the driver and wing man yelling for us to wait they'll be right behind us. We just keep driving. We come to the turn off that is on the map are bar buddies give us, drive about another mile down the road and sure as shit theres the pull off to the state land they told us about. Things are looking good.

  Bart gets out and walks around back to open up the trunk, I look in the back seat and theres Tom with a twinkie half sticking out of his mouth and another in his hand. Your disgusting you know that, and he says "wha I god da munthies". I say, you got another one in your hand, give me one you selfish son of a bitch, he says "otah here you doh". I take it and another one and put them in my pocket, with all this snow, something tells me were going to need some energy later and I suggest that to everyone. Were all standing behind the Torino unloading are guns, jackets, gloves, ect. ect. ect. Tom lights up another cigarette and passes it around. We decide to talk out a stratagy. We decide to walk in a bit, then split up about 150 yards apart and walk north east towards the dumps, the dumps being roughly 2 miles NE of were we are. We decide to meet at the dumps (which is nothing but a big hole in the ground filled with garbage) in about 2 hours, so off we go, cocked and loaded for bear. Barts toating a Mossburg 30-06 w/scope, Toms got an old Russian Mauser 7.92mm, and I have Marlin 44.4 cal. w/scope. The stratagy was to walk paralel from one another untill we find bear tracks, then follow the tracks to the bear, then shoot the bear. Huh, sounds easy enough.

  We get about 100 yards into the woods when we spot these huge set of deer tracks heading east, and theres a pile of deer shit shit there that looks pretty fresh. I bend down and scoop up a handful of them nuggets and sure as the shit in my hands they are fresh, they're still warm. I smell them and says, he's been eating Aspen buds, Tom looks at me says, you can tell that by smelling them? Bart smacks him on the back of the head and says, you idiot theres no Aspins around here, and I said, yah there is, theres a stand right there. As they turn to look at the Aspins up pops this buck and was gone before we could even bring our guns up. I mean he was like greased lightning, fik'in gone like a fart in the wind. We decide to stay put for awhile to let him calm down then Bart was going to track the buck since it was heading in the general direction of the dumps. Tom lights up another smoke and we ramble on about going back to Alden with both a buck and a bear strapped to the Torino.

  Well about 20 min. later off we go, Bart to the left and me and Tom continue down the trail bullshiting away. About a half a mile up the trail Tom says hey dude whats that? I look at him and he's looking staight ahead. I look closer and see what looks like a snowmobile went across the trail about 40 feet in front of us. We walk up to it and it's a trench cut through the foot and a half deep snow about 3 feet across and theres the biggest set of bear tracks I ever seen, hell the only set of bear tracks I ever seen. Thats a lye, I seen a set up in Canada once and they were as big as these. I knew they had to be bear cause they were 4 inches across and 6 inches long. We just stood there and stared at those tracks for a good minute then we both thought the same thought at the same time, we started looking around are general direction just in case it was watching us like that buck was, but there was nothing around but us, with our hearts pounding out of our chests. I crawl right down into the trench and take a handful of snow and take a wiff, female I says, about 400lbs.. Tom looks at me and opens his mouth to say something then shuts it. He's catching on.

  Tom asks what do you want to do dude, split up? I thought back to something my grandpappy told me once, "so if you ever go bear hunt'in take along a friend, I ask why? In case you get hurt he can help you? and he says no, if you get chased by a bear, you don't have to out run the bear, just the friend your with". So with that in mind I say "nah, lets stick together". Tom goes, you lead, your the better tracker, I said fuck man a blind man can follow these tracks. I can still to this day remeber clearly walking those tracks, our senses were at there keenest, heart pounding, looking everywere, smelling the air. It was pretty exilerating. We walked a mile that took about 2 hours when we spot this old farm house off to our right. I look at Tom and Tom looks at me and I says, you thinking what I'm thinking, and Tom goes, fuk'in aye dude I'm froze.

                                                                                         to be continued: