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

“Ashley—”

“I’m old enough. And I’m glad I did, ’cause even though Mom knows a lot, she doesn’t know everything. You should put on bear bells because a grizzly can charge out of the woods and kill you fast as lightning. Those bears’ll eat you!”

Jack crossed his arms as he studied his sister. He remembered the argument. Ashley had brought the book home from the library, and Olivia had immediately told her not to read it, explaining that she didn’t want it to spook Ashley right before their trip. It was rare for their mother to say no to any book. This one was banned, Olivia said, only until they got back home to Jackson Hole. “Here, Ashley, try reading this instead,” she’d suggested. “It’s a book of Native American legends from around the Glacier area. This won’t give you nightmares.”

Reluctantly, Ashley had taken the folklore book and scanned the first page. She didn’t answer when their mother asked, “Isn’t that better than reading about those gruesome bear attacks?”

“So you’re all freaked, just like Mom said you would be, right?” Jack asked Ashley now.

She nodded miserably. “I can’t stop thinking about it. There’s a few of them in the mountains around Jackson Hole, where we live, but there’s lots more of them up here. Hundreds of grizzlies.” Her eyes squinted as she looked into the distance. “They could be right in those trees, watching us this very minute.”

Jack snorted. “Look, McDonald Inn is right next to us, and behind that is a bunch of cabins, and up the road are two stores and a restaurant plus the visitor center. Quit worrying. There are way too many people around here for a bear to show up.”

“You don’t know anything about it,” Ashley snapped back.

“Well, I know that the attacks in that book happened a long time ago, before we were even born. There’s nothing to worry about. Forget it.”

His sister’s eyes flashed. “Just ’cause I’m younger than you doesn’t mean I don’t know what I’m talking about.” Ashley’s lips tightened. Her chin rested on her bent knees, while her toes extended beyond her sandals and curled over the edge of the tree stump she was sitting on. Dark hair skimmed forward to almost hide her face, but even so, Jack could see how pale she looked.

He dropped the fistful of damp skipping stones he’d been holding; they clicked against other rocks on the ground like rain on a tin roof. Walking to where she sat, he said, “What’s going on, Ashley?”

“Nobody ever listens to what I think. It’s like I’m too little, or what I say’s not important. Did you know a girl was in her sleeping bag close to Lake McDonald, and this grizzly went right into her camp and dragged her off and ate her? She was only 18 years old. And on the exact same night, a different girl got chewed up in her sleeping bag, except that was up in a place called Granite Park Chalet only ten miles away. She died, too.”

“That’s sad, but so?”

“So maybe we should buy bear bells. Maybe Mom should stay out of the woods where the grizzlies are. Dad, too. Maybe it’s too dangerous.”

“Mom knows what she’s doing,” Jack countered. “She’s a wildlife veterinarian.”

“People all taste the same to a grizzly.”

Jack wanted to laugh at that, but he pushed down his smile. “Look, this is the first trip we’ve had in a long time without some foster kid tagging along, and I want it to be good. We’re going to camp and fish and hang out with the animals. Can you drop the bear stuff?”

“It’s not just the bears,” Ashley told him, standing up. “It’s that nobody listens to me.”

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.