The Wild Inside (18 page)

“Who was the owner?”

“Guy named Rob Anderson. Lives in Columbia Falls. Loved his dog.” He knit his brow. “Logan. That was his name, if I recall correctly—after Logan Pass in Glacier.”

Logan Pass was the passage for the infamous Going-to-the-Sun
Road that cut through the steep terrain and crossed the divide in the heart of Glacier. So much in the area was named after something in or about Glacier. You couldn’t drive far without seeing signs with names like Grizzly Property Rental, Glacier Dental, Glacier Eye Clinic, Northwest Glacier Mechanics, Glacier Bank, Going-to-the-Sun Café . . .“Did Mr. Anderson have any idea who could have done such a thing?”

“Not that I recall. He was totally shocked. Very devastated.” Dr. Pritchard nodded again. “We reported it to the police and they came here to question us, but they never found who did it. Not sure how much time they spent on it, although it did make the paper, and many of my clientele brought up how sickened they were by the whole thing. I believe the entire Flathead Valley was somewhat enraged that someone could, and would, do that to an animal.”

For reasons I can’t explain, I imagined the grizzly I had not yet seen trapped in his heavily fortified cage, still alive, his three- or four-inch claws curling around the thick steel wires. I shoved my hand in my pocket and felt for a quarter among several coins, what felt like a mixture of pennies, dimes, and quarters now. I gripped one of the quarters between my thumb and forefinger. “So,” I said, “Mr. Anderson had no leads to give the police?”

“Not that I remember.” Dr. Pritchard suddenly looked up like he understood why I was before him. “You think the guy who beat the Lab murdered the guy in Glacier?”

“Not exactly.” I brought my quarter out, not sure if it was still the Vermont, and I didn’t bother to check because I caught Dr. Pritchard glance at my hand, so I wrapped my fingers around it and pressed it into the point of my chin. I can’t exactly say why I felt uneasy. I had no bad feelings or intuitions about the man before me. Perhaps it was simply the smell of animal mixed with the medicinal smell that always permeates a vet’s clinic that somehow triggered something inside me: the distant sound of beeps and voices of orderlies somewhere in my memory bank. “As I said when I came in, it’s a long shot, but what we’re
trying to discover is whether or not the guy who was murdered was one of the guys who actually beat the Lab.”

“Oh, I see.” He pursed his lips, his eyes murky with serious thoughts. Then he scratched the side of his cheek and I could hear the sound of his razor stubble like sandpaper. “Yeah, it was a bad thing to happen to a sweet animal. I hope you discover who did this, and if he’s not your guy in the park, that he’s punished accordingly.”

“I hope so too, Dr. Pritchard.” I stood and extended my hand. “Thank you for your time.”

As I left, I glanced one last time and saw him turn to his computer. But he wasn’t looking at it. He was staring at the floor, his head drooped as if I’d zapped his energy—as if he wasn’t expecting to pause on this particular day to mourn the loss of one of his former patients.

• • •

The first grizzly bear I did see subsequent to my father’s death came four years later, right after I graduated from high school. I was still dating Kendra, and her father, Jack, wanted to hike to Almeda Lake up the Middle Fork drainage, which is adjacent to the park, but not in it. Parts of the area where the trail cuts through have been logged, leaving broad, rectangular bald spots on the hillsides that provide thick, brushy areas with huge huckleberry bushes perfect for bears.

I did not know about the clear-cuts and figured the trail was similar to ones in Glacier, broadly buffed out and nicely maintained with open vistas as soon as you gain elevation. The Almeda Lake trail, however, meandered through lower elevation for some time, alternating between dense clear-cut areas where the bushes were over fifteen feet high and Hansel and Gretel wooded forest with green ferns and sturdy ponderosas.

Each time we strode through a clear-cut patch, my chest tightened and my breathing quickened because I knew that this was the most predictable spot to startle a bear. I carried my capsaicin spray as usual
and hurried through the logged patches, the brush scratching my arms and legs. I was frantically expecting a large, furry beast to charge out from the overgrown bushes at any moment and felt calmed each time we made it through one with no surprises. Kendra kept asking me why I was walking so fast. I just ignored her until she got mad and decided not to speak either.

We had just come out of what I figured was the last clear-cut because we were about to hit a turn leading us up and away from the huge scars on the mountainside. I felt relieved, and in my respite, I was just about to reach out to grab her hand and say something sweet (
hey, babe, you put your sunscreen on today?
) when Jack stopped abruptly in front of me and slammed to a halt. I saw him fumble at the side of his fanny pack where the holster for his spray hung.

“Two cubs,” he whispered with a forceful airy quality. “Up ahead. One just crossed right in front of me ’bout ten yards.”

My chest and stomach instantly seized. I could feel my pulse hammer my chest and shoot through my neck in forceful shoves. I felt like I was suddenly being trapped in a shaft with syrupy darkness narrowing around me. I fought the urge to turn and bolt, to just keep running until some light at the end of the tunnel showed.

I felt Kendra dig her fingers into my arm. “Where?” she whispered back to her dad.

Jack pointed down the trail into the shade of the darkened forest. About twenty yards from us, two small moving blobs of fur crossed and disappeared into the brush beside the trail.

Then I heard the grunt—a low guttural sound somewhere between a bark, a woof, and some loud, deep incomprehensible forced exhalation. All noises ceased. I heard no hawks. No ravens or jays. No squirrels. I saw her rise up on her haunches, her height rising against the trees as if she might turn to stone and become one of them—a great sturdy statue in the forest among the firs. She sniffed the air, her head bobbing and slightly angling to the side, one, two, three, four times.
Her paws dangled before her as if she were getting ready to play some grand piano. She woofed again, and somehow I managed to raise my arm, heavy like lead, the spray in my shaking hand.

“Remove the cap,” Kendra whispered.

I fumbled with the top and got the safety off with my left hand. Jack already had his held out before him. I couldn’t speak if I tried. I’m certain I didn’t.

“Let’s go back,” Kendra whispered, her high-pitched voice sending painful reverberations up my spine.

Jack shushed her with an urgency I’d never heard from him before. He placed his forefinger to his mouth. The grizzly stood before us, her broad silvery snout lifted, trying to read the air like braille. Then she dropped back to all fours. Her front feet hit the ground with a boom, and although in retrospect I’m sure it was just my imagination, I could have sworn that the return of her mass to the ground made the forest floor vibrate. She panted three very specific times:
huff, huff, huff
. Then she rocked back and forth, to show aggression, to signal
Don’t mess with my cubs
, and turned and left.

I still couldn’t breathe, and I stood frozen, thick, and trembling. Her skunklike odor strangled the air. We listened, the forest still quiet, save the sound of her large body moving through brush, branches breaking, leaves rustling. We could hear her making her way up the ridge, traversing to one side, then stopping and we’d hear her:
huff, huff, huff
. A heavy, breathy sound that seemed to swing with her body. Then she’d traverse to the other side and do the same. She continued to zigzag from side to side, moving her cubs along, panting three specific times with each pause.

“She’s talking to ’em,” Jack whispered. “Directing them higher up the ridge.”

I was still holding my spray up, my hand shaking uncontrollably.

“You can drop that now.” Jack pushed my arm down with two fingers and stared at me for a moment.

“That was so scary,” Kendra said, then giggled and brought her
hand to her mouth as if she could catch her nervous chuckles in her palm. “But cool. Haven’t seen one that close up
ever
.”

Her voice was too high and loud. I stared at her for a moment, deluges of blood surging in the sides of my neck and between my ears, still semitrapped in a dark shaft, but I could make out some light and that light took on the fuzzy form of her round, flushed face and buttery-blond hair.

I could hear Jack announcing that we’d wait ten minutes to give her and her cubs time to clear the ridge and then continue our hike. I tried to say something, attempted to form the beginning of my sentence starting with
I
, but couldn’t form the word, my throat swollen with nausea and acrid fear. Somewhere in the back of my head I could hear the sound of crunching bone.

I quit trying to speak. Instead, I turned and began walking down the trail toward the car with Kendra yelling in a squeaky voice, “Where are you going? Wait. Jesus, Ted, what are you doing?”

I kept walking until her voice became a distant vagueness. I made it around the bend before I threw up what was left of my breakfast beside the overgrown trail.

A hint of nausea accompanied that image in my mind for a beat before it kindly vanished when I returned to headquarters. Ford and Monty were discussing something in the office. When I walked in, they both abruptly quit talking, and I couldn’t tell if I was imagining it or not, but Monty’s face seemed to flush and his eyes shifted toward the floor as if I’d caught him tattle-telling on me for god-knows-what.

“Hello, Systead.” Ford stood. “Good to see you again.”

Something bitter formed in the back of my throat, and I glanced at Monty, who was sorting through some papers.

“What can we help you with?” I purposely used the plural pronoun, although I can’t exactly explain why, other than to somehow claim Monty on my imaginary side.

“Not a thing. Monty here’s already been more than helpful.” Ford
smiled at him, and again, Monty looked shy, as if he’d somehow betrayed me.

“That right?”

“Yep, I’m all up-to-date. So about this bear.” Ford blew out a loud breath of air. “We’ve decided that even if he doesn’t produce this bullet you’re searching for, that we will eventually be putting him back into the wilderness. He needs to begin heading for the high country.”

“And this was your decision?” I asked.

“The committee’s and mine. And don’t worry, I’ve run it past Sean Dewey.”

I didn’t want to speak because I knew anger was boiling inside of me at the mere mention of Ford going above me to my boss and the idea that I might be without crucial evidence because of a decision prompted by Ford. Dewey knew that getting a slug was of utmost importance. I was certainly aware of the need to get this bruin back to his fall schedule, but there seemed to be something directed at me from Ford that smacked of a blatant disregard for what I was trying to accomplish. I was having a hard time not taking it personally. Ultimately, I knew final bear decisions rested with the super, but I was prepared to fight him because at this point I needed that slug even if I had to put someone behind that bear’s ass with a plastic cup for the next week. “You mean the bear review group?”

“Yeah, Bowman, Smith, and that cadre.”

Uh huh, I thought, who the hell uses the word
cadre
? Suddenly, I wanted him to leave. “All right then.” I picked up a random file off the long table; I had no intention of having that bear let loose without getting my hands on the slug used to kill Victor Lance. “I’ll talk to Bowman and Dewey.”

“There’s no need. We’ve already discussed it. We’ll make sure he’s got a GPS collar on him,” Ford said.

“Good.” I humored him and opened the file, still not taking in a single word from it. “Back to work then,” I said.

“Actually, if you don’t mind. How ’bout taking a little walk with me.”

I raised my brow. “Sir, with all due respect, I’m a little too busy at the moment for a walk.”

“Just a small one.”

I glanced at Monty, who was still looking down at the papers before him. I tossed the file back on the desk and followed Ford out, thoroughly irritated that this guy had some in with Sean. I had to play nice with him because Sean wanted me to and because I couldn’t afford to irritate any higher-ups in my department by upsetting park superintendents. We went out the back doors of the headquarters, across the parking lot to a path that led through a group of thin birches. Pale yellow leaves scattered the ground over a blanket of fallen tamarack needles. The crisp air hit my cheeks and a wet, earthy smell filled my nose.

“So,” Ford began, “Monty’s told me that Lou Shelton is Victor’s uncle.”

“That’s right.”

“And that when you questioned him, you got him a little riled up?”

“I’d say he got himself riled up.”

“Well, Ted. Mind if I call you Ted?”

I shook my head. But I did mind.

“Here’s the thing, Ted. You know that around Lake McDonald there are numerous estates not currently owned by the park?”

“Yeah, so?”

“Well, these estates, of course, present a problem because owners don’t always play by park rules, right?”

“Look.” I held up my hand. “With all due respect, I’m quite busy at the moment—”

“You must also know,” he said more pointedly, “that it’s in Glacier’s and the tourists’ best interest to have open shoreline unencumbered by any local residences. People come here for the beauty of the unbroken land, not to see cabins on the shoreline.”

“So? Isn’t it simply a willing-seller–willing-buyer policy with Glacier getting first right of refusal?”

“That’s exactly right.” Ford paused on the trail, not far from a barracks-looking structure that I believe was the Lakes District office. “And with Mr. Shelton here, he’s close to becoming a willing seller.”

“How so?”

“Well, Lou’s father, Roger, specified that Lou would live in the cabin upon his passing. He died in 1999, a few years after his wife passed away. But beyond Lou, he didn’t specify if or how the grandchildren would inherit the cabin when Lou’s gone. Roger and Eloise Shelton had some eight grandchildren, all of whom are now over twenty-one and none of them giving a damn about the place the way Lou does. Anyway, I didn’t know it until now, but apparently, Victor was one of the grandchildren.”