Night of the Black Bear (4 page)

“It's mostly trees now,” Jack observed.

“Yeah, but not back then. My granddaddy grew up here. When he was a kid, he'd hoe corn for 12 hours a day and get paid just 25 cents, he told me. And when he got bigger he carried hundred-pound sacks of sugar, one on each shoulder, for the moonshiners.”

Ashley looked puzzled. “What are ‘moonshiners?'”

It was Yonah who answered, “They're the lawbreakers who made their own whiskey in illegal stills, until they were arrested by federal agents.”

“Nah, they hardly ever got arrested,” Merle said. “And they weren't criminals. Even during Prohibition, every family in these mountains grew corn and made moonshine from it, either to drink or to sell. City folks were always willin' and waitin' to buy 'shine.”

Merle seemed to be admitting that his kinfolk were lawbreakers. “If they had farms here,” Jack asked, “why did they leave?”

Yonah was the one who answered. “Look around you. You're now standing in Great Smoky Mountains National Park. How do you think it got here?”

Merle nodded. “The landowners got kicked out so the U.S. government could turn all this scenery into a national park. It was back in the Depression, and my family had to sell the land dirt cheap. Great-granddaddy put the money into a bank, and then the bank went bust. So there he was—no money, nine kids, and no job 'cause all the other people were looking for jobs, too.”

Yonah's face screwed up as he mocked, “Oh,
boo hoo hoo!
So your kinfolk got kicked off the land. Hey, Jack, want to know how Merle's kinfolk got the land in the first place? They stole it from the Cherokee Nation! The Cherokees happened to be here first, and they got run right off this land, with guns pointed at their backs!”

Now it was Yonah who threw out his arms. “About a thousand years ago the Cherokee people settled all the land from the Ohio River to South Carolina. They were doing just great…'til the Europeans came.”

The way he said “Europeans” made Jack uncomfortable. After all, his own ancestors came from Europe.

“This was our sacred ancestral home,” Yonah went on. “And listen to this, Ashley—the Cherokee men treated their women as equals. Yeah! And that was long before white men did that.”

“So what happened?” Ashley asked softly. “What happened to all of them?”

“The U.S. President Andrew Jackson sent American soldiers to force 14,000 Cherokee from the land around here. And those tribes didn't get paid in dollars—they got paid
nothing
. The soldiers marched them all the way to Oklahoma. In winter!” Yonah was growing agitated. “Thousands of Cherokee people died along the way, mostly women and kids.”

Even Merle was silent now, staring at the ground. Jack wondered which of the two guys had won the argument. Not a good kind of argument—a “my folks were treated worse then yours” contest. No real winners.

“Hey, check over there,” Ashley said, walking a little way ahead. “It's like there's an old pot or something behind those trees. Maybe it got left behind when everyone had to move away.”

That Ashley—she had sharp eyes! Jack wouldn't have noticed the slight gleam of copper barely visible through the brush; in fact, it looked as though brush had been deliberately piled on top of it.

“Uh-oh,” Merle muttered.

“I know what it is,” Yonah yelled. “It's a still. Where Merle's great-grandfather made his moonshine.” He rushed forward and began to pull away the brush, revealing a large round copper pot sealed with a lid. A stovepipe rose out of the lid, then narrowed and curved downward to connect to a smaller copper tub.

Merle looked slightly embarrassed, but he smiled. “Yup, that's what it is. A still. Good ol' great-granddaddy.”

Close to the still were two wooden barrels, one standing, one lying on its side. As Jack circled around to get a better view, he asked, “What's this stuff that spilled out of the barrel onto the ground?”

“That's mash,” Yonah answered. “Corn mash. Moonshiners grind up the corn, mix it with yeast and other stuff, then let it ferment and turn into moonshine. But, oh man, this spilled mash here isn't anything Merle's great-granddaddy left behind. It looks pretty fresh.”

“No it doesn't,” Merle said. “It's not all that fresh because some of the corn kernels are sprouting, see that? This spilled mash has been here a while. Well, OK, maybe not that long, but maybe a couple of weeks.”

“So who's up here making moonshine? Some of your redneck cousins, Merle?” Yonah taunted him.

Merle shrugged. “They've been known to do that.”

“You know what I think?” Ashley suddenly cried out. “I bet some bears came, knocked over this barrel, and ate some of the mash. It made them drunk, and they got mean. That's why the bear attacked Heather. He was drunk!”

“No way,” Merle said. “That's not the reason.”

“What do you know about it?” Yonah demanded. “I think it's a pretty good theory, Ashley. It really could explain why two bear attacks happened in the park in the past ten days. You don't know anything about bears, Merle, so shut up.”

Merle not only shut up, he clamped his lips tight, lowered his eyes, and sauntered away. That was unusual. It was the first time he'd let Yonah slam him without pushing back.

Pulling his camera from his vest pocket, Jack said, “I'll take pictures of this and show them to my mom and Kip and Blue. If they think maybe bears did get into the mash, they can come out here to investigate. Then they can check for bear hair and claw marks and stuff.” He looked up and called, “Hey, where are you going, Merle?”

“To make sure the bikes are OK,” Merle answered. “I'll meet you back there.”

“Oh, OK. Later.” Jack began to take pictures. Just as his dad had taught him, he shot from every angle, circling the copper kettles and the spilled mash. The light was good, he avoided shadows, and after a dozen shots he could tell he'd taken some good ones.

When he finished, he, Yonah, and Ashley went back to get the bikes. Merle was gone.

“W
here'd he go?” Jack asked Yonah, bewildered.

“Don't worry—Merle knows his way around.”

Their bikes were still leaning up against the trees, undisturbed. Jack was tempted to say, See, Yonah, no one stole them, just like Merle said, but he thought he'd better not.

After the three of them biked back to the Firekillers', Jack found Merle in the shed.

Bent over his red bike, he greeted Jack with, “Can't get this chain to stop rattling. I'm tryin' to tighten it.”

“Can I help?” Jack volunteered, but Merle just shook his head.

It was an old bike, from the looks of it. By contrast, the bike Jack had ridden into the park, the one that belonged to Blue Firekiller, was a sleek new mountain bike.

“Why'd you leave us back there?” Jack asked him.

“I just get tired of Yonah comin' down on me all the time. Yeah, I know he's smart—he takes college-level calculus and advanced history of western civilization and he's only a junior. But he acts like me and my family are a bunch of dumb rednecks.” Merle gave a yank to a wrench handle, tightening a bolt.

Before Jack could answer, Merle went on, “I come from hard-workin' people. My daddy died in a logging accident when I was four, and my mom tries real hard to keep her and me goin'. Yonah's mom and dad both have jobs, so they can pay for a nice house like this, and they can buy fancy bikes and—” He bounced his own bike on the floor of the shed, shaking his head when the chain still rattled.

Turning to stare straight into Jack's eyes, Merle said, “For now, I'll take any job I can get. But someday I'm gonna be a famous singer and buy my mom a bigger house than this one, even, and a car. We don't have a car now that it got wrecked….” He stopped then, looking a bit embarrassed. “Hey, why am I whinin' to you like this, Jack? Blah, blah, blah. Just tell me to shut up.”

“No, it's OK. Where do you work, Merle?”

Merle seemed to hesitate before he answered, “The Sunset Grill in Gatlinburg. I'm a busboy. I better get my stuff together now so I won't be late. Don't wanna lose this job. I just got it a week ago.”

Not long afterward, while Jack was watching Ashley and Yonah play Sudoku on a computer, he glanced through a window and noticed Merle riding away on his bike. His guitar case was strapped to his back. That's odd, Jack thought—why would he take his guitar to a busboy job? He didn't bother to ask Yonah, because Yonah would just answer with some negative jab at Merle. And he didn't ask Lily Firekiller, who came into the room a few minutes later.

“Kids, your parents just called. They want you to meet them in Gatlinburg. You, too, Yonah, because your dad's there. I'll drop off the three of you, and then I'll go on to the hospital to see if Arlene needs anything.”

In the car, Ashley sat in the backseat with Yonah. They continued their Sudoku games, but this time in a magazine. The distance from the Firekillers' house to Gatlinburg was a little more than six miles. Six miles in a car was nothing, but it would be a pretty long bike ride for Merle.

Lily dropped them off at a building with an overhanging sign small enough that they might have missed it—The Digital Oasis. Inside, Steven was eager to point out some of the equipment to Jack.

“Five workstations, all dual-platform. They're total power-houses! High-end software, top of the line graphics-intensive,” Steven marveled.

“I thought you didn't like digital photos, Dad,” Jack reminded him.

“Normally not. But today I used a digital camera when I photographed the elk herd. Digital is faster, and we're in a big hurry,” Steven explained, “so Blue told us about this lab.”

Glancing at the wall clock, Olivia said, “It's almost six. We've already downloaded a lot of our pictures, so why don't we take a break and go to dinner, guys?”

“Yeah. We could go to that Sunset Grill where Merle works,” Jack suggested.

“Let's just order pizza, and we'll eat it here,” Steven answered. “I don't want to lose any time with these elk photos. This graphics-intensive software lets me examine each image almost pixel by pixel. We haven't found any evidence yet, but there's still a good chance we'll notice clues we missed out in the field.”

Turning to Blue, Olivia asked, “OK with you if we get pizza delivered for us? The kids can eat out—there's nothing for them to do here, and they'll just get bored.” Handing two twenties to Jack, she told him, “This should be more than enough for the place you mentioned. Yonah will know where it is.”

“Uh-huh,” Yonah nodded, with a twist of the lips Jack couldn't interpret.

They walked along the sidewalks of the busy town of Gatlinburg, where side-by-side tourist attractions grabbed attention even more than in Pigeon Forge. Ahead, in the distance, Jack saw the tree-covered elevations that Tennesseans called mountains. Folks around here ought to see what real mountains look like, he thought. From his bedroom window in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, Jack could look out at snow-covered peaks that reached nearly 14,000 feet, more than twice as high as the Smokies. Still, it was nice to see all those trees. Wyoming mountains were bare at the topmost peaks.

“There it is,” Ashley announced. “The Sunset Grill.”

It was an ordinary looking restaurant, Jack thought, and not too full of customers. As they entered, a hostess came up to them and asked, “Would you rather have a table or a booth?”

“Booth,” Yonah replied. He'd hardly spoken at all during the walk to the restaurant, maybe because Ashley had kept up her nonstop chatter.

“Follow me,” the hostess told them. She wore her hair in a long, blonde ponytail that swung from side to side as she walked ahead. After they were seated next to a window, Jack noticed that the top of her frilly apron was covered with pins and badges. One said “Elvis is Alive in Gatlinburg,” another one said “I Got High in the Space Needle,” another showed a fancy car with the words “Hollywood Star Cars Museum.” There were lots more badges, and above them was her nametag—Caitlyn.

“What are you, a walking advertisement for Gatlinburg tourists?” Yonah asked Caitlyn.

“Why not?” she answered, smiling brightly at Yonah. She kept her eyes on Yonah as she handed out the menus and told him, “Andrew will be your server tonight, but if you need anything at all, just ask me! Remember, I'm Caitlyn.”

She started to walk away when Jack stopped her with, “There's a guy named Merle Chapman who works here. He's a busboy. Will you please tell him we're here so we can say hi?”

Caitlyn stopped. Turning around, she answered, “There's no Merle here.”

“Merle Chapman,” Jack repeated. “Kind of husky, reddish blond hair. Maybe you haven't met him yet because he's new at this job.”

“I know everyone who works here,” Caitlyn said definitely. “No one's named Merle.” As she left them then, after one more smile at Yonah, Jack wondered if he'd gotten the restaurant's name wrong. Ashley raised her eyebrows questioningly. Yonah looked totally
not
surprised.

“I'm almost positive Merle said Sunset Grill,” Jack said, a bit puzzled.

“Yeah. That's what Merle told me when he took off for this supposed-to-be job a few nights ago,” Yonah nodded.

“Supposed to be? What does that mean?” Jack asked.

“It means Merle's a big fat liar. He doesn't work here. I never believed he did. Let's see, I think I'll have a double burger with fries. And a shake. What are you guys going to order?”

Ashley and Jack glanced uncertainly at each other, then looked down at their menus. Yonah seemed to be telling them, no more questions, not now.

When their meals arrived—Ashley got a plate of popcorn shrimp and Jack had a double burger like Yonah's—their talk sounded almost normal. Almost, but not quite. Puzzlement over Merle's lie, if it really was a lie, seemed to hang like a mist above the table, the way clouds of mist hang over the peaks of the Great Smoky Mountains.

Ashley, who never hesitated to speak what was on her mind, slowly stirred her lemonade with a straw as though this time, perhaps, it would be wise to be more careful with her words. But after a few moments she frowned, tossed her head, and came right out with it. “Why do you hate Merle?” she asked Yonah.

It seemed to catch him by surprise. He hesitated before he answered, “‘Hate' is a strong word. I don't really hate him. I just don't want to be connected to him. Since we were little, he's been like a fly buzzing around me—always there, always a nuisance.”

“Because your mothers are friends?” Ashley asked.

“Right. They're almost like sisters, especially after Merle's dad died. My mom kept helping out because things were so hard for Arlene Chapman.” Yonah took a long drink of his milk shake, rubbed his forehead, and said,
“Whoo!
Brain freeze. I hate those. Do you ever get brain freeze?” After a pause he added, “Now Merle—he doesn't freeze my brain, he frosts my shorts. Ha!”

“Yeah, funny.” Ashley laughed a little, halfheartedly. “But why, Yonah? You still didn't say why.”

Looking through the window at the Gatlinburg street traffic, Yonah said, “Oh—I guess it goes a long way back. OK! Here's an example.” He drummed his fingers on the table and began, “I'm a year and a half older than Merle, so my mom was always giving him my outgrown clothes and stuff. No problem there. But she'd let him have my toys, too. Sometimes I wasn't through with them. She'd say, ‘You have lots to play with, Yonah, and Merle's mother can't afford to buy him things. You need to share.'”

“That sounds…nice of her,” Jack murmured.

“Yeah? Well, I didn't care about balls and books and stuff, but one time, something happened that….” Yonah drew circles on damp sides of his glass as he continued, “There was this one thing I really loved. A Chief Cherokee action figure. It belonged to my dad when he was little, and it was still in the box, with a ton of accessories—bows and arrows, a quiver, a buffalo-horn headpiece, a war bonnet, lots of other stuff. I was real careful with it. Each time I took the Chief and the other things out of the box to play with, I put them back exactly where they belonged.”

“So what happened?” Ashley asked.

“Merle wanted it. My Chief Cherokee.” Yonah set the glass on the table, hard. “He grabbed the box from my hands, and he tore it. So, I punched him, and his lip bled and he howled and my mom came running. She yelled at me and gave Merle my Chief Cherokee. To keep!”

Jack could see how that would make a little kid mad. “How old were you?”

“I was seven. Merle was almost six.”

“Really.” Ashley curled her fingers over the edge of the table as she leaned forward. “And you're still mad at him over
that?
After all these years? He was only a little kid!”

“No, that's not the
only
thing.” Yonah glared at his hamburger, then picked it up and said, “Forget what I told you. Let's eat and get out of here.”

Jack knew his sister was turning all this over and over in her mind, carefully examining Yonah's words as she searched for the heart of his conflict with Merle. Finally, when she pushed away her empty plate, she said to Yonah, “There's more, isn't there? I guess that Chief Cherokee thing was what started you being mad at Merle, but no one stays mad for nine years about something like that. That's not the real story. There's something a lot bigger. Right?”

They were interrupted by the hostess, Caitlyn, who approached carrying the check on a little tray. Standing close to Yonah, she handed it to him.

“I'll take that,” Jack told her as he reached for it. “Am I supposed to give the money to you?”

“No. Pay up front,” she answered.

Yonah had begun to get up to follow Caitlyn, but Jack stopped him with, “Wait! I'd like you to answer Ashley's question—that maybe there's something much bigger. Is there?”

Yonah settled back into the booth, peeling a couple of dollar bills out of his wallet to leave as a tip—Jack had forgotten he was supposed to tip the server. “Why? Why should I answer Ashley's question? What's it to you guys?”

“Because,” Ashley began slowly, “if I believed you hate Merle because he took a favorite toy from you when you were little—or even worse, if I believed that you hate him because he's a white guy and you blame him because his ancestors took Cherokee lands long ago—then I'd think that was way harsh. That
you
were harsh. And I don't think you are.” Smoothing the dollar bills on the table top, Yonah murmured, “Thanks. For not thinking I'm harsh.” He looked up, his dark eyes troubled, and said, “Things are really bad for Arlene right now. The insurance won't pay for all her hospital bills, her car was totaled, and she might not be able to work for a while.” He licked his lip with the tip of his tongue, looked sideways, and then began again. “I think Merle's in trouble. He's doing something that's wrong, and I think I know what it is, and it makes me crazy angry. But I'm not sure about it. If I tell anyone what I suspect, Merle could get slammed. That would hurt Arlene, and I don't want that to happen.”

“It's about him not being a busboy, right?” Jack asked. “I was trying to figure out why he'd lie about that, and this is what I think. He brings his guitar, so he's probably out on the streets somewhere singing for quarters, and he's ashamed for people to know that.”

“Huh?” Yonah muttered. “If that was true, I'd have heard about it. My friends would see him, and they'd tell me.
Merle
would tell me. That's not illegal.”

Jack asked, “You think he's doing something
illegal?
Like what?”

Yonah didn't answer that directly. He just said, “You heard Merle today—about the moonshine? He doesn't worry about what's legal and what's not.”