Mysteries in Our National Parks: The Hunted: A Mystery in Glacier National Park

CHAPTER THREE

The road flowed over the mountains like a silver creek—here dividing homesteads, there cutting through wild pine and underbrush that crowded right to the edge of the asphalt until the road emptied into ranchland again. To Jack, it was strange to see so many private homes and cultivated fields at a national park, but his dad had told him the homesteads had been bought long before Glacier had been created as a park, so the families who were already there got to stay. Jack wished people hadn’t marred the natural beauty, but then again, he’d jump at the chance to live in one of those log cabins that glowed with warm, yellow light in the midst of grassy meadows. He guessed he couldn’t get too mad at the people who wanted to stay put.

“How much longer?” Ashley groaned.

Peering at the map, Olivia answered, “It looks like we’re still about 15 miles away, and they told me the final six miles are going to be pretty rough. I wish that Dramamine worked on you better—you’ve always had to be different, haven’t you?”

“Rougher than this? Great!” Ashley moaned louder, clutching her stomach.

Jack knew what his sister meant. With the trailer hitched to their car, it seemed every bump gave them whiplash. Ashley always got queasy from rolling motion.

If the road ahead was even worse, she was really in for it. He was about to ask his dad if there was another way to the campground when their car slowed at a small ranger station that was not much bigger than a shed. A thin, weathered woman in a ranger hat leaned out of an open window. “May I see your park pass?” she asked.

“This is Olivia Landon, and I’m her husband, Steven, and that’s Ashley and Jack. We’re here from Jackson Hole, Wyoming—”

“Oh, yes, we’ve been expecting Mrs.—I mean Doctor—Landon. Hi, kids, welcome to Glacier.”

Ashley gave a faint wave as Jack said, “Hi.”

The ranger’s skin had tanned to a nut brown, which made her gray eyes look extra bright in her square face framed by blunt-cut gray hair. Her hands looked rough but strong, and the muscles of her forearms stood out in thick ropes. According to the tag on her uniform, her name was Jane Beck. “Weird thing about those missing baby grizz,” Jane said, leaning from the booth. “I’ve been watching for them but haven’t seen a single second-summer cub in, oh, I don’t know how long. I’m glad the officials brought you in to help figure it out, Dr. Landon.”

“Call me Olivia. Have you tracked any mother that still has her cubs?” Olivia leaned forward so that she could look the ranger in the eye.

Jane pushed her ranger hat back on her head. “I saw one in the area a while back with two cubs, but then all of a sudden the mom showed up alone. Early spring, I saw another sow with one cub. The mom had an odd coloration, something like a rugby stripe, so for fun I named her Polo and her little baby Marco. Anyway, I’ve seen her a couple of times since, but Marco’s been missing. Then there’s a ginger-colored mom with two babies, but I haven’t seen them in ages. Hold on, just one minute.” Jane’s head disappeared, then reappeared with a map and a key. “Figured I’d better get your stuff, since it’s getting close to dark and you’ve got a camper to set up.”

Pointing to the road beyond, she said, “Up ahead, where the road makes a T, take a right. You’ll be going through a burn area, then it’ll green up again. Quartz Creek Campground’ll be about ten miles south of here, on your left. The camp is officially closed until the first of July, which means the entrance is chained—you’ll need to unlock it to get in. When you leave, just chain it up again.”

“No problem,” Steven told her, taking the key from her outstretched hand.

“One more thing. There’s a ranger station farther south from where you’ll be staying, maybe four or five miles past. Other than that, you’ll be all alone.”

“Great—exactly what we want,” Steven nodded.

“Alone as in people, but not alone as in bears. Adult grizz are still in these parts, so be careful.” Holding up her hand, she ticked off the points on her fingers: “Don’t leave food anywhere they can get at it. Keep your garbage locked inside your car at all times. Always walk in pairs, even when you’re going to use the outhouse. Make noise when you hike. I’m sure you know all of this, but I’ll feel better if I tell you one more time. Now, is there anything else I can help you with?”

“I’d like to interview you to find out more about what you’ve observed with those mamma bears and their cubs,” Olivia told her.

“Sure. I’ll be here tomorrow if you need me.” She touched the brim of her hat and said, “I hope you can solve this mystery, Dr. Landon. For us, the grizzlies are like family.”

As their car bumped along the road, Jack watched the land change in the waning twilight, not gradually like a suburb changes into a city, but suddenly, like the sea to a shore. Gone were the cottonwood trees and the endless lodgepole pine; gone were the islands of wild grass that bent their stalks to the wind and the clusters of wildflowers that dotted the meadows as if they were buttons on a silk dress. In their stead were the remains of charred trees, lifeless and silent. It felt to Jack as though he were entering a cemetery. Blackened spikes reached into the air, some erect, some broken into crazy angles, others toppled one against the other like fallen tombstones. There was a hush in the car as they stared at the charred emptiness.

“What happened?” Ashley breathed.

“A lightning strike.”

“Why didn’t the park people put it out?”

“You know, they used to put out every fire they could,” Olivia answered, “but the truth is, it’s a lot better for the environment just to let it burn.”

“I don’t get it,” Ashley protested. “Why is it OK to let trees get killed?”

Steven quickly glanced over his shoulder and told Ashley, “I know it seems bad, but letting the land take care of itself is the best way to preserve it in the end. It’s better for the trees, the other plants, and especially the animals. Like the bears. I’ve learned a lot about them since your mom’s been doing her research. Did you know that grizzly bears don’t really like the woods? They need open spaces—meadows and rangeland.”

Shrugging, Ashley said, “So, what does that have to do with letting a fire turn the forest all ugly?”

“Everything,” Olivia answered, twisting around in her seat. “When the settlers came into Montana and took over the lowlands for farming and grazing, the grizzlies had to move. They fled to the mountains, and they’ve adapted to living here, but it’s not their first choice. So the grizz tend to hang out in the open places in the forest. You’ve seen a lot of meadows up here, right?”

Jack nodded. Glacier’s thick woods were like a sea of evergreen broken up by meadow islands. He’d seen small lakes that shone like mirrors in the sun, lots of open grassland, then thickets of woods dotted by meadows again.

“OK,” Olivia went on, “follow me here. The fires clear out space, meadows spring up in that space, and the grasses bring the little animals and a place for the huckleberries, which, in turn, bring the bears. Do you see how it’s all connected?”

“The circle of life,” Jack chimed in.

“Exactly,” Olivia nodded. “The circle of life, which we shouldn’t mess with. When the parks used to put out fires, the forests got heavy with dead trees, and the meadows were getting all crowded out. It took a while for folks to figure it out, so now when there’s a fire, it’s allowed to burn. And pretty soon Mother Nature will put it all back together again.”

“Hey—do you think the missing baby grizzlies might have been killed in the fire that was here?” Jack asked, thinking that nothing much could survive the devastation of a searing forest fire. “Maybe that’s what happened to them.”

“No, believe it or not, forest fires aren’t anything like what you’ve seen in the movie Bambi, where all the animals are running for dear life. Most of the animals leave ahead of the flames, and a few burrow underground and aren’t even scorched, unless it’s a really hot burn. That’s not why the baby grizz are disappearing.”

A shadow crossed Olivia’s face, and Jack noticed smudges underneath her eyes. She was worried about the missing cubs, he knew. She’d spent countless hours researching the information the park had given her. All the way to Glacier she’d reviewed the material, studying bear-sighting records and weather patterns and bear-mortality numbers and plant-growth statistics, especially about the abundance of huckleberries, because they are the bears’ favorite food. Doggedly, she’d searched for a clue the park officials might have overlooked. So far, she’d found nothing.

Tiny lines gathered in Olivia’s forehead as she crinkled her brow. “You know, I can’t help thinking about little Marco, and what’s become of him. Jane’s right: The grizzly are a threatened species here in the lower 48, and we can’t spare even one of them. I just wish I knew what I was looking for.”

“You’ll fix it,” Jack assured her.

“I hope so. Somebody’s got to, or the number of grizzlies in this park will be seriously impacted in a few generations, and that would be a terrible loss to everyone.”

“Except to the people who get eaten,” Ashley muttered, under her breath. “Nobody cares about what happens to them.”

“What did you say, Ashley?” their mother asked.

Ashley slumped in her seat. “Nothing.”

“She said, ‘Nobody cares about the people who get eaten,’” Jack offered, miffed that his sister sounded as though she didn’t worry about the baby bears.

“Jack!” Ashley cried, punching his thigh at the same time their mom called out, “Ashley!”

“Hey!” Jack told his sister, “Knock it off!”

“Well, you shouldn’t have told Mom.”

“Then you shouldn’t have said it!”

“Ashley,” their mother began, but Ashley said hotly, “People do get eaten by grizzlies, so maybe it’s better if the grizzlies go live someplace else! Why doesn’t anybody care about the poor visitor who turns into bear food?”

“Sweetheart, we can’t push the grizzlies out of Glacier just because people want to hike here—the bears need someplace to live, too. You know, this isn’t like you. You’ve always loved every kind of animal.” After a pause, their mother asked gently, “What is it, Ashley?”

When Ashley didn’t answer, Jack stared at the floor of their car. His sneaker had a smudge of mud on one side that he rubbed against the floor mat. It was obvious Ashley was really bothered by that stupid grizzly book, but he’d told his sister he’d keep quiet about it, and that was almost the same as a promise. The best he could hope was that she’d spit it out and get the whole thing over with.

Outside, the living forest had returned, gray-green in the half-light, branches melting into other branches to create an awning of pine. Their Jeep pitched along the road, the front end bucking up first, and then the back end, like a crazed bull in a rodeo; then left to right, swinging wildly like a boat in rough water, at times scratching against the wild roses that flowered along the road’s edge in bright pink splashes against the green. Ashley sat, sullen, her arms crossed over her white T-shirt in a tight clamp. Two braids bounced against her shoulders as the Jeep bumped along; Jack noticed curly bits of hair had managed to escape from her part to create a fuzzy halo. Her mouth was pressed shut as if to keep any sound from escaping.

“Aren’t you going to talk to me?” Olivia asked.

Come on, just tell her, Jack pleaded in his mind. It’s not that big a deal. You’re only making it worse.

“She’s not saying a word, so now I know something’s wrong,” Steven teased. “Hey, Ashley, I saw that look. You just rolled your eyes right at the ceiling—I can see you in my rearview mirror. Help me out here—isn’t Jack the one who’s supposed to get temperamental? He’s the almost-teenager. Technically, there’re three years to go before you go moody on me.”

“I’m not moody—” Jack protested.

Ashley snorted, “Yeah, right,” at which Jack reminded them that it was Ashley they were talking about, not him, to which Ashley replied that he, Jack, was always bossing her around. At that, Jack blurted out, “That’s because you don’t listen and do what you’re supposed to. You went right on and read Night of the Grizzlies and got all freaky. Now you’re ruining the vacation for the rest of us ’cause you’ve turned into a bear psycho.”

His mother’s mouth made a small O as she thought a moment, then said, “Night of the Grizzlies—is that what this is about? No wonder you’re so spooked.” Olivia turned around in her seat so that she could look Ashley full in the face. She didn’t appear to be the least bit annoyed that Ashley had read something she wasn’t supposed to. Instead, an expression of concern filled Olivia’s face as she centered her chin over the back of the headrest. “Ashley, listen to me. The grizzlies that attacked those girls were fed by people all the time. That was the problem. They’d totally lost their fear of humans. You’ve got to remember that the tragedy happened a long time ago. Bears are managed very differently now.”

“How?” his sister asked softly. Her eyes, wide and dark, were fixed on her mother.

“Well, in just about every way. Trust me. The park would never let that kind of thing happen nowadays—a bear like the ones in that book would be taken out of Glacier so fast it’d make your head spin. Today’s Glacier grizzlies are truly wild, which means they steer clear of humans, just the way nature intended. Like I said, leave them alone, and they’ll leave you alone.”

Biting the edge of her lip, Ashley said, “OK.”

“Good. And I hope you’ll also understand that when I tell you not to do something, it’s for a reason. You’ve wasted a lot of energy over this. It could have ruined your stay in this beautiful park.”

“You’re right,” Ashley agreed, relieved she was being let off the hook. “Thanks, Mom.”

Olivia sat forward again and buckled her seat belt. They pitched and swayed the next four miles in silence, Ashley ever more queasy, Jack deep into his own thoughts. Suddenly, his father announced, “There’s the sign—Quartz Creek Campground. Hey, kids, try reading that out loud five times really fast.”

“Quartz Creek Campground,” Ashley began, “Quartz Cweek Cwampgwound, Courts Cweek Cramp—I can’t say it! Jack, you try!”

Jack’s tongue felt all turned around inside his mouth as he tackled the phrase, but he didn’t mind such silliness. He was glad the storm between him and his sister had blown over, that they were laughing and back to normal, with nothing more to worry about than keeping the mosquitoes away. He was still smiling as he grabbed his soda can from the backseat, where Ashley lingered while Steven and Olivia got out to unlock the chain stretched across the entrance.

“Hey Ashley, why are you sitting in there? Aren’t you getting out?” Jack asked, gulping down the last of his soda. Warm fizz bubbled against the back of his throat.

“Sure. Now that you and I have a second alone, I just wanted to say one thing.”

“What?”

Ashley leaned over so that her braids skimmed the backseat. Her face was so close to Jack’s that he could feel her breath on his cheek. “I’m going to act just as nice to you as I ever did, but—” She took a breath. “I will never, ever tell you anything again as long as I live.”

With that, she gave him one last look, got out of the car, and shut the door so softly it hardly made a sound.

CHAPTER FOUR

“Each of you kids grab a flashlight. Stand at the edges of the flat area. Hold the flashlights toward me so I can see where to back in.”

Dusk faded quickly into darkness as Steven pulled forward and backward several times, trying to position the trailer. Finally he got it on a nice, level spot. Then, by flashlight, he disconnected the trailer hitch and drove the Jeep out of the way, parking it next to a tall stand of Douglas fir.

“Now the hard part,” Steven announced. “Wish we’d gotten here sooner so we’d still have a little daylight. Oh well….”

Jack and his dad worked as swiftly as they could. After they lowered the bottom section of the camping-trailer door, they released the latches that held the top down for travel.

Meanwhile, Olivia had crawled inside the Jeep. She pulled boxes from the tailgate and turned to hand them to Ashley, except, where was Ashley?

“Holy cow! What was that?” Jack exclaimed. Out of the corner of his eye he’d caught sight of a dark shape exploding past him into the trees and had heard the snap of branches as the shadow disappeared into the underbrush.

A beat too late, Ashley answered from the darkness, “It was nothing.”

“What do you mean nothing! It looked like a big dog or—”

“I saw it too,” she said. “I was almost right next to it. It was a…baby deer.”

“Are you sure?” Jack didn’t know exactly what he’d seen rushing past him, but it hadn’t looked anything like a fawn. And Ashley was acting strange again. “How could a baby deer be right next to us when we’re doing all this work on the trailer?” he asked her.

“Why don’t you come check it out, and then you can tell Mom and Dad all about it,” Ashley said, with a hard glance in his direction. “I’m telling you what I saw. I was right here.”

“OK, OK. A baby deer. The weirdest baby deer I’ve ever seen, but whatever you say, Ashley.”

“Jack, we need to crank up the top now,” Steven called. “Make sure none of the canvas gets caught on the edges at your end.”

Still muttering to himself, Jack rotated the handle that raised the roof of the camping trailer. Fully opened, it stretched tall and spacious: metal roof, canvas sides, metal base. There were two pull-out queen-size beds, one at either end, plus a smaller bench with a mattress providing comfortable sleeping for all the Landons. Steven joked that compared with real, rough-out camping, staying in their trailer was like renting a suite at a five-star hotel.

Olivia had already gone inside to set up the sink and stove top. She stacked plates into the cabinets, then unrolled all their sleeping bags onto the beds. Steven and Olivia would share one of the queens, and Jack and Ashley would take turns sleeping on the other queen and the bench.

“Hello, anybody home?” It was a woman’s voice, but all Jack could see was a flashlight beam dancing against the dirt path. “Thought I’d check in to find out if you need anything.”

Olivia came to the door holding an oil lantern that gave enough light to reveal their visitor—a park ranger in her twenties, dressed in the Park Service uniform: a Smokey Bear hat, gray shirt with badge and name tag, and dark green pants. Even in that dim light, Jack couldn’t help noticing how pretty the ranger was. Beneath the hat brim, brown hair barely skimmed her shoulders. Her eyes were friendly and her smile bright.

“You must be Olivia,” she said. “I’m Ali. I’m at the Logging Creek Ranger Station just a few miles south of here. The plan says that I’m supposed to pick you up tomorrow morning to drive you to park headquarters. So….” She looked up at Olivia, who was standing in the doorway of the trailer. “Is there anything I can do right now to help you set up?”

“Thanks, but I think we’ve got things under control,” Olivia answered and introduced Ali to Steven and Jack. A look of concern passed over her face as she said, “Steven, where’s Ashley?”

“I don’t know. I thought she was with you, setting up the inside stuff.”

“And I thought she was helping you and Jack. Ashley!” Olivia cried, then again, louder, “Ashley!”

“I’m right here, Mom. Don’t worry, I’m coming. I was down there by the creek, looking at the water.” Ashley emerged from behind a stand of pines, acting sheepish that she’d been caught loafing when there was work to be done.

“Ali, this is my daughter, Ashley, who knows better than to go off alone in the woods. Ashley, meet Ali. I was about to say that we’re going to build a campfire so we can toast a few marshmallows. Can you stay awhile, Ali?”

“Sure. I never turn down marshmallows.” Ali joined the Landons as they scouted for firewood by flashlight, moving noisily through the underbrush, snapping branches and twigs beneath their feet, trying not to trip over roots. Jack was surprised that Ashley didn’t stick close to any of them; actually, for a few moments, he didn’t see her at all. Then she turned up and dumped a meager armload of firewood on the ground.

When they got a small, steady blaze going and Olivia brought out the toasting forks, Ashley speared the soft, white marshmallows, one after the other, onto the prongs of the forks, and handed them around.

All of them settled on fallen logs close to the campfire, Jack between Ashley and the ranger. “My sister always burns marshmallows,” Jack told Ali.

“I do not!” Ashley cried.

“Maybe you just like the outsides all black and crusty,” Jack teased. “Cremated marshmallows, Ashley’s favorite kind. You ought to get some tiny little urns for them so they can rest in peace.”

“Jack, let up,” Steven warned, shooting him a look. “We have a guest. Ashley, you’re such a great storyteller, why don’t you tell us a campfire story?”

Ashley’s expression was innocent enough, but Jack could hear the bite in her voice as she answered, “Let’s let Jack do it. My brother, Jack, just loves to tell tales, especially to Mom and Dad.”

“Really?” Ali asked. “I’d love to hear you tell a story, Jack. It’s a perfect night for it, dark and quiet, with this nice campfire. Before Glacier became a national park, Native Americans probably sat around a campfire just like this one—maybe right on this same spot—telling tales about animals and hunting and brave deeds.”

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