Mysteries in Our National Parks: Night of the Black Bear: A Mystery in Great Smoky Mountains National Park

ABOUT THE AUTHORS

CHAPTER ONE

Jack was stunned to see the blood on the ground. Deep red, it had seeped into the tall grass behind one of the tombstones, arcing like a fan until it sank into a bare patch of earth. A small, trench-like depression showed where the bear had dragged the girl. Jack had heard that a tourist scared away the bear, making it run off into the trees beyond the cemetery. The girl, the bear’s victim, had been lucky to escape alive. Sometimes a black bear will hold on so tight that nothing can make it drop its prey.

It seemed really weird to have a cemetery in a U.S. national park—as far as Jack knew, this was the only one. But long before Great Smoky Mountains National Park came into existence, people had lived here. They farmed and hunted wild turkeys, deer, and black bears. When they died, they were buried right where Jack was standing.

Walking carefully, he tried not to step on any of the blood. Some drops still clung to the leaves of the yellow lady’s slippers that reached up like tiny cupped hands toward the midday sun. He leaned closer, his fingers cautiously touching the tip of a bloody leaf to see if the blood was still wet. It was! Grimacing, he wiped his fingers on his khaki cargo shorts.

From around the side of the white-walled Cades Cove Methodist Church his sister Ashley called out, “Mom says Heather’s going to be OK.”

“Who’s Heather? Is she the girl the bear attacked?”

“Yes, Heather McDonald is her name,” Ashley answered him. “Anyway, she’s going to be all right. Mom talked to the park ranger at the hospital, and he told her Heather will probably be discharged tomorrow.” She squinted up at Jack. “What’s the matter? You look—grossed out or something.”

“Nothing’s the matter. I’m fine,” Jack told her, regretting that he had wiped his fingers on his shorts, which were now stained with a bloody reminder of the bear attack.

“OK, well, Mom said she’ll be just a bit longer, and then we can go.” Ashley zipped up her pink hoodie, shivering a little. Though it was nearly May, the air felt a bit chilly.

Jack glanced across the churchyard toward his mother. Olivia Landon was a wildlife veterinarian, who frequently was called to various national parks as a consultant whenever there were strange, unexplained happenings with the animals. A small woman with curly dark hair—Ashley got her looks from their mother—Olivia was deep in conversation with a uniformed park ranger, Blue Firekiller, a tall, muscular man with black hair and skin the color of pale copper. They were questioning a bald-headed man who had witnessed the attack. As they spoke together, Ranger Firekiller wrote in a small notebook while the man waved his hands and gestured toward the trees.

A little farther away, Jack’s father, Steven Landon, changed the film in his camera, while talking to a tall boy who had the same skin tone and black hair as Ranger Blue Firekiller. “Who’s that kid over there with Dad?” Jack asked Ashley.

With a slight smile, Ashley answered, “That’s Ranger Firekiller’s son. His name is Yonah. He told me he’s a Cherokee, and Firekiller is a real Cherokee name. So is Yonah.”

There was something about Ashley’s smile and the way she said “Yonah” that caught Jack’s attention. “What’s so special about him?” he asked.

“It’s just—you know how I always collect Native American legends at every park we go to. Yonah was telling me all about the bear trouble today, and he said something I can really connect to. He said he understood what the bear was feeling.”

“What the bear was feeling? You mean the bear that attacked the girl right over there? This Yonah sounds kind of weird to me, like he’s been reading or something.”

Defiant, Ashley glared at her brother, redness creeping into her cheeks. Little wisps of hair curled from her dark braids, tiny as threads, and in the light they seemed to spark in aggravation. “Jack, I’m 12 years old—almost!” she hissed. “Do you think Yonah would be telling me fairy tales like I was a little kid? We had a serious conversation. Just because I’m two years younger than you doesn’t mean a 16-year-old guy won’t talk to me about serious things.”

“I know what the bear was feeling, too,” Jack told her. “He was feeling hungry.”

“Shut up!” Ashley punched him in the arm.

Jack narrowed his eyes to study Yonah, who was tall and wiry, with biceps that bulged as he stood with his arms across his chest. Yonah seemed to be listening intently to the talk between the three adults while at the same time paying attention to what Steven was doing with his camera.

“Anyway, I’ll introduce you to him,” Ashley told Jack, making it sound like a big favor. “Hey, Yonah!” she called, waving her arm to catch his attention. “Can you come here a minute? My brother wants to meet you.”

“Not,” Jack muttered.

Yonah glanced from his dad to Olivia to Steven, shrugged, then sauntered to where Jack and Ashley were standing. Through holes in his blue jeans, his knees looked like flickering eyes as he walked, and his thick bangs hung to his eyebrows in a line so straight it might have been drawn with a ruler. “Yeah?” he asked.

“This is Jack,” Ashley said. “Jack, this is Yonah. I was telling Jack what you said about the bear, Yonah, but I thought you could say it better.”

“How do you spell Yonah?” Jack asked.

Yonah paused after each letter, as though Jack might not be swift enough to catch it. “‘Yonah’ means ‘bear.’”

“So that’s how you know what bears are thinking—you are one!” Jack started to laugh at his own little joke, but no one else was laughing. Yonah’s face stayed expressionless. His dark eyes skimmed over Jack’s blond hair, blue eyes, and pale skin with a look that told Jack he could never qualify as a Cherokee.

For some reason that silent stare flustered Jack. He found himself doing the thing he chided his sister for—he began to talk too fast. “My mom – she’s Olivia Landon, the wildlife veterinarian. She’s over there with your dad. She came here to confer about the elk, and then this bear thing happened, so now she’s helping them figure out the science of why the bears have gone haywire.” Jack rushed on, “We were driving from the airport this morning when we got the phone call about this attack, so we came straight over here. My mom nearly freaked out when she heard there’d been a total of three bear incidents in the past four weeks. This is a really serious situation. She said—”

“Two,” Yonah interrupted.

The tone stopped Jack cold. “Excuse me?”

“One of the attacks was in Gatlinburg, which is outside the park. Heather McDonald is only the second victim in Great Smoky Mountains National Park. It’s important to keep the facts straight, especially if the media show up.”

Feeling quashed, Jack stood silent, unsure what Yonah meant. Overhead, a magpie cawed, and beyond that he could hear a car rumble past on Cades Cove Loop Road, a good distance beyond the thick stands of trees that ringed the wide green meadow around the Methodist church. He felt stupid standing there without answering, but he didn’t know what to say.

“Do you really think the news people will show up, Yonah?” Ashley asked.

“You can pretty much count on it. They like to ask questions that make things sound worse than they are.” Although Ashley had questioned him, Yonah directed his answer at Jack. “My dad—he’s the ranger that got called in to investigate the attacks—he told me if we’re not careful, the media people might try to shut down Great Smoky Mountains National Park. So watch what you say. And how you say it. Don’t go blabbing stupid stuff.”

Jack found his voice and said, “Yeah, well, my mom’s more worried about somebody getting killed. She thinks that’s the bigger problem.”

“Black bears don’t kill,” Yonah replied. “Not unless they are provoked.”

“You mean like Heather provoked that bear by standing here in the cemetery?” Jack shot back. If he hadn’t been sure before, he was sure of it now—he didn’t much like this guy. Ashley stood to one side, glancing from one to the other of them anxiously as she rocked from foot to foot, her dark eyes wide.

“These attacks are very unusual,” Yonah continued. “It’s just a string of bad luck.”

“Yeah, you’re right. Especially for the people who get chunks of their thighs ripped open. That’s really bad luck.”

“Jack!”

“What?” Jack cried, whirling on his sister.

“Look! Over there.”

For an instant he thought she was telling him to cool it with Yonah, but instead, Ashley pointed to the road, where two vans, one with something like a radar scope on the roof, were turning onto the blacktop lane that led to the church. Within minutes the vans arrived and parked, then their doors flew open.

Three people got out and rushed toward the spot where Olivia, Steven, and Blue Firekiller stood talking to a bald-headed man. A young blonde-haired woman in a red blazer, short skirt, and knee-high boots led the group. A man beside her balanced a television camera on his shoulder. Another man behind them carried a long pole with a microphone dangling from it.

“I’m Greta Gerard from Channel 12 News,” the woman announced, as the man with the pole thrust the microphone a half dozen inches from Blue’s face. “We understand there’s been another bear attack in the park, this one almost fatal. Can you give us some details?”

Yonah had begun to hurry back toward his father, and Jack and Ashley followed in time to hear Greta Gerard ask, “What is the park’s position on these attacks, Mr….?” Then, peering at Blue’s nametag, “I mean Ranger…uh…Firekiller? Is that right? Firekiller?”

Suddenly, Yonah spoke up, saying, “Yes, the name is Firekiller. It’s Cherokee.”

“Firekiller, OK, got it,” Greta murmured, barely glancing at Yonah. “So, Ranger Firekiller, what does the park have to say about these attacks? Will you be forced to close the park to the public?”

Hesitating, Blue Firekiller answered, “A black bear did approach a girl visiting here in Cades Cove, but we’re happy to report that she’s doing fine.”

“‘Approach?’ That’s an interesting choice of words,” Greta answered. “I heard it was an attack. Some of the tourists I have talked to have asked if the bears in this park might have rabies. Do you think that’s possible?