Night of the Black Bear (3 page)

Olivia wasn't about to calm down. It wasn't often that she lost her temper, but when she did, color rose to her cheeks and her five-foot-four height seemed to suddenly stretch by inches.

“I got called to this park to confer with Kip about elk rehabilitation,” she stormed. “We didn't know there was going to be a bear attack….” Pointing to Greta on the TV, Olivia vowed, “You just wait! I'll solve this mystery so fast and so completely that Channel 12 will have to apologize—on the air!”

Jack couldn't help grinning. “Way to go, Mom,” he told her.

“I'm starting right now!” Olivia resolved. “Steven, bring plenty of film tomorrow. Be sure to pack your digital camera, too. We're going to scour each of the attack locations, and you can photograph them inch by inch. I'll call Kip and Blue. Kids, why don't you get ready for bed now. We'll need to get an early start.”

“Are you going to bed, too?” Ashley asked.

“No. I'll be reading every line of every report about black bears in Great Smoky Mountains National Park.”

S
aturday, early, the four Landons headed out in their car. Olivia didn't look as if she'd been up late reading reports. She looked full of energy and ready to take charge.

“The plan is to begin with the elk,” she announced, “since, as Greta so pointedly mentioned, that's my area of expertise.”

“I don't want to sound like I'm on Greta's team, Mom,” Jack told her, “but what exactly are you looking for with the elk?”

“The possibility that some of the elk might have been infected with the brucellosis bacteria—we know that disease causes problems with elk and cattle in Wyoming. And if a bear were to eat a sick elk calf, could the elk's disease organisms cause a strange reaction in the bear? There are so many unknowns! Your dad will photograph the whole area for bear tracks and scat or any other evidence.”

Jack wished he could go along and take pictures with his own digital camera, but other plans had been made for the two Landon kids.

“It's real nice of Blue's wife to let you stay at their house this morning,” Steven commented.

Ashley nodded as though she totally agreed, but Jack wasn't too sure. “Will Merle be there?” he asked.

“I imagine so.” Steven was following the signs to Buckhorn Road, where the Firekillers lived at the top of a hill on the edge of Gatlinburg. He added, “Blue said Merle's staying with them at least until his mother gets out of the hospital. Maybe longer, if Arlene isn't strong enough to take care of herself.”

“Poor Merle. Living in the same house with Yonah,” Jack muttered.

“Poor Yonah!” Ashley exclaimed. “Living in the same house with Merle.”

“What do
you
know! You've never even met Merle.”

Their mother turned to tell them, “You kids be polite to Mrs. Firekiller, and friendly to both Merle and Yonah. And quit arguing!”

Neither Jack nor Ashley answered, but when their mother turned around, they made faces at each other.

“Looks like it's going to be a good day to take pictures,” Steven was saying. “Just a little bit of mist, but that will burn off in an hour or so. Do you have your camera, Jack?”

“Uh-huh.” He patted the pocket of his zip-up fleece vest. That was the best thing about a small digital camera—it was easy to carry. His father didn't like digital as much. Steven claimed that real film still turned out the best, clearest, most detailed pictures. But Jack loved his palm-size digital camera because he could upload his shots onto a computer, and then create funny pictures like Cash on Cash. Or grotesque ones like Ashley with a long nose and fangs dripping blood.

The Firekiller house turned out to be small, but it had a wide fenced-in backyard inhabited by a wildly enthusiastic golden retriever that nearly knocked Jack over when she jumped up to greet him.

“Down, Lola. Down!” Yonah commanded.

Jack and Ashley had already said their hellos to Mrs. Firekiller and were outside looking for Merle—that is, Jack looked for Merle. Yonah was showing Ashley four Cherokee masks he'd carved. A wolf, a bird, a deer, and one face mask painted all blue.

“For the Blue Clan,” Yonah explained, “where my dad gets his name.”

“You made all those yourself, Yonah? They're beautiful,” gushed Ashley.

“This other one is gonna be my favorite when I finish it.” Yonah lifted a half-carved gourd, saying, “I still have to glue on some buffalo hair, plus rawhide and a wild turkey feather. It's a booger mask.”

“Booger? Did you say booger?” Ashley giggled and wrinkled her nose.

“Yeah. Cherokee men do the booger dance to make fun of their enemies.” Yonah held the unfinished gourd close to his face with one hand, slapped his chest with the other and yelled,
“Woo hoo!
I'll grind you to dust, Paleface.”

Just then Merle came out of a shed at the back of the yard, pushing a red bicycle that rattled a bit as it rolled across the grass.

“I think I got it fixed,” he said. “The chain was loose. Hi, Jack. Is Yonah showing you his boogers? Check his nose—he's got a lot of boogers.”

“He's showing us his fantastic artwork,” Ashley answered, without smiling. “You must be Merle.”

“Hey, wait here, I want you to see what else I made,” Yonah told them. With Lola tearing around in circles and nearly tripping him, Yonah ran across the yard to the shed Merle had just left. In half a minute he came out carrying four poles that looked like lacrosse sticks, but they were shorter, the heads were narrower, and they were strung with sinews instead of mesh. Tossing a ball into the air and catching it, he asked, “You guys want to play? I can take on both Jack and Merle.”

“You have four sticks there,” Ashley told him. “Let me play, too.”

“Hey, I don't think…,” Merle began.

Yonah broke in with, “She can if she wants. Cherokee girls have their own stickball teams, and they're good at the game. I bet Ashley will play great.”

So this was stickball, not lacrosse. Yonah's backyard was plenty big enough for any kind of sport, but first Jack needed to find out the rules of the game.

“You know lacrosse?” Merle asked him. “Stickball's just another name for lacrosse.”

“No way!” Yonah scoffed. “Us Redmen played stickball centuries before you rednecks had lacrosse.” The ball he held was not made of rubber, but covered with deerskin. “In a real game, we're supposed to take off our shirts—” Yonah began.

“You definitely do not mean me,” Ashley announced.

Laughing, Yonah answered, “Definitely not you, Ashley. I meant the guys. Indian stickball is played by guys with bare chests and bare feet. But we'll keep our shirts on because it's chilly this morning, and we'll keep our shoes on because Lola uses this yard for her bathroom, and…uh…you get the picture.”

Jack pulled off his fleece vest, anyway—he felt warm enough in his long-sleeve polo shirt. Merle had on a faded T-shirt with a Detroit Tigers logo. Jack figured he and Merle were supposed to team up against Yonah and Ashley. The blonds against the dark-hairs.

After Yonah tied Lola to a porch post, he slapped his chest and yelled,
“WOOOO HOOOOO.
Let's play!” Scooping up the ball, he flung it against a tree at the end of the yard before Jack even knew that was the goal. Jack found out fast that in this game there was no net, and if the ball hit certain tree branches, that was a score. No out-of-bounds, no offsides, no boundary lines of any kind, no time-outs, no halftime, no fouls, no free throws. And, “No tackling!” Merle yelled. “There's a girl playing!”

And did she ever play! Ashley's long, dark hair swirled around her shoulders as she picked up the deerskin ball with her webbed stick and ran toward the goal, dodging both Merle and Jack. “How many goals do we need to win?” she shouted to Yonah.

“Eight!”

They'd better get serious then, Jack thought. “Hey! I saw her carrying that ball in her hand,” he yelled.

“That's allowed,” Yonah shot back. “In Cherokee stickball, after you pick up the ball with your stick, you can grab it in your hand and run.”

“I know the rules,” Merle muttered, “and I'm not gonna get beaten by a girl. Even if she is cute.”

Jack turned to stare at Merle. He didn't see the ball coming until it hit him in the knee.

“War wound, Paleface!” Yonah yelled.

“I'm OK!” Jack yelled back, and to Merle, “You're right. We gotta win this.”

The game grew intense. Yonah's sweaty hair kept falling in his eyes, making Jack glad his own hair was cut short. Ashley's shirt got damp under the arms, and the guys' faces shone with sweat, especially Merle's. Since Merle was stockier, he had more weight to move around, and that made him sweat more, Jack guessed. It was a simple game with hardly any rules—back and forth in the yard, picking up the deerskin ball with the sticks, flinging it or running with it. The score stayed pretty even: four goals for Jack, three for Merle, three for Ashley, four for Yonah.

And then Yonah scored the eighth goal. “We won!” he hollered, throwing his stick into the air and smacking hands with Ashley, who flung back her hair and did a little victory dance.

After Yonah untied Lola, Ashley laughed and started her dance again, this time with the exuberant dog. The three of them jumped around in a circle, with Ashley and Yonah patting their mouths and shouting
“woo woo woo woo”
in a war chant, while Lola barked.

Mrs. Firekiller came out onto the back porch then, carrying a tray. A pretty woman with skin paler than Blue's or Yonah's, she had the same thick black hair.

“I watched you through the window. Great game!” she told them. “You're probably thirsty and hungry after all that exercise.” She set the tray on the edge of the back steps and said, “Here's bottled water, lemonade, and some towels to wipe off your sweat. Plus my special fry bread; you can put peanut butter and jelly on it if you want to.” As the kids gathered around Mrs. Firekiller—she told them to call her Lily—she sat on the steps and poured lemonade for them.

Jack had tasted fry bread many times before—after all, Wyoming was Indian country—but Mrs. Firekiller's was especially good.

“Let's go for a bike ride,” Merle urged, before Jack had a chance to finish eating. “Is it OK if Ashley uses your bike, Lily? And Jack can take Blue's?”

“Sure, that's fine,” she agreed. “Take these water bottles with you, and I'll get you some trail mix. But watch out for bears.” She hesitated. “You know, it seems strange to have to warn you about bears. Each year millions of people come to this park hoping to see black bears, and most of them are disappointed because the bears stay hidden. And now, suddenly, people are getting attacked. I wish we knew what's going on.”

Merle didn't wait for Lily to finish talking. He started wheeling the bikes out of the shed, one at a time.

Thanking Lily for everything, Jack and Ashley followed Merle and Yonah onto the street, heading north. Within a mile they'd crossed the boundary into Great Smoky Mountains National Park. Jack got the feeling that this bike ride was just one more competition between Merle and Yonah, with Merle trying to make up for the stickball defeat. The bikes were new, sleek, fast, and probably expensive, all except Merle's. His bike still rattled. Jack and Ashley had to pump hard to keep up with the other two. First, Merle was in the lead, then Yonah. Once Merle came close to clipping Yonah's front wheel when he cut in front of him.

“Slow
down
,” Ashley yelled. “I want to enjoy the scenery. Look at all these butterflies—I've never seen so many butterflies in one place in my life!”

The butterflies really were amazing, sailing and swooping high and then low enough to almost brush the kids' shoulders as they biked. Pale gray ones with spotted wings; beautiful black ones with white dots that looked like eyes edging the wings; others of pale yellow rimmed with black, blue, and orange; or pure yellow, or bright orange, and even plain light brown ones that flitted around their spectacular cousins as though they weren't ashamed to look ordinary.

“I feel like I'm in a fantasy world,” Ashley sang out.

Merle glanced back at Jack and grinned. Since Merle didn't have any sisters, he wasn't used to girly outbursts, Jack guessed. Suddenly, Merle cut crosswise in front of Yonah, coming to a stop with a skid and making Yonah and everyone else nearly run into him.

“What the—what are you doing?” Yonah yelled.

“I want you to pull your bikes through this opening into the trees,” Merle told everyone. We're gonna leave them over there so I can show you guys something.”

“Are you sure it's all right to park the bikes here?” Jack asked, as they followed Merle through foliage that had just begun to leaf out in earnest. “I mean, this bike belongs to Yonah's father. It'd be real bad if someone stole it.”

“No one'll steal it,” Merle promised.

“Like you know that,” Yonah argued.

“Nobody's out here but us and the bears.”

“That's a stupid thing to say,” Yonah told Merle. “You'll scare Ashley.”

Maybe Ashley was getting used to the bickering, because she ignored it, reaching out to the butterflies.

A dark blue one landed on her outstretched fingers, raising and lowering its wings and waving its antennae.

“If you guys want to go see whatever this
thing
is that Merle's so hot to show you, I'll wait here,” Yonah growled.

“Oh, come with us,” Ashley told him, and took his hand. Surprisingly, Yonah followed her. Wow! Jack thought, how'd she make that happen?

They were on a barely visible trail, winding through newly leafed trees that stood so tall and so close together they made Jack feel dwarfed. The trees grew thicker, and the leaves rustled—from wind? Or was there some critter back there in the woods? Maybe Merle hadn't been joking. Maybe there
were
bears around here. Close by!

Jack saw Ashley's eyes widen, and he knew she was thinking the same thing. That happened often, that they shared thoughts without speaking them. He remembered last night's evening news, showing the bloody wounds of the bear victims on TV. And he remembered the blood on the ground in the cemetery. But he didn't want to say anything, because he didn't want Merle and Yonah to think he was a wimp. Yonah, especially. Those two guys were forging ahead through the trees as if they were someplace safe, not inside the boundaries of Great Smoky Mountains National Park, where bears had been eating people lately.

After about a tenth of a mile, they came to a small clearing. Merle stopped, held out an arm, and said, “This is what I wanted you to see. Look over there.”

At first Jack thought it was just a pile of rocks Merle pointed to, then he realized it was stones mortared together. “That's what's left of the chimney,” Merle said. “This used to be the Chapman family farm. My great-granddaddy built a house here, cleared the land, and raised kids and cows and corn.”