Three-Inch Teeth

Content Warning: This section of the guide includes discussion of graphic violence, death, and animal death.

“The late-afternoon sun dappled the water and ignited the river cottonwoods and buckbrush along the bank with intense golds and reds. It almost hurt his eyes. A slight breeze rattled through the drying leaves and hundreds of them had detached upriver and now floated like a tiny yellow armada on the surface of the water. Above him, a bald eagle in a thermal current glided in a lazy circle.”

This passage is an example of C. J. Box’s use of description and visual imagery to evoke the landscape of Wyoming, and it also contains a note of foreshadowing. The beauty of the moment “almost hurt[s]” Clay Jr.’s eyes, suggesting that such perfection cannot last. An eagle circles overhead, an omen for the impending arrival of an apex predator. Soon afterward, Clay will be fatally attacked by a grizzly bear.

“Are people more important than the grizzly bear? Only from the point of view of some people.”

Edward Abbey (1927-1989) was an American author and essayist who passionately advocated for the environment. These famous lines from him imply that there is no clear answer to the conundrum of whether human lives matter more than animals. The “superiority” of humans, Abbey implies, is a matter of subjectivity. Box uses the quote as an epigraph for Part 2, illustrating the novel’s theme of The Dynamics Between Humans and Nature.

“Something primal had infected him—the very real possibility of being mauled and killed by a predator over twice his size and weight. A predator that had taken out a human much younger and fitter than he was.”

Joe’s feeling of dread after the grizzly killed Clay Jr. explains why shaking off the animal attack is so difficult for affected locals. Unlike visiting hunters or activists, the locals are in mortal danger of being ripped apart by a much bigger animal.