Night of the Black Bear (6 page)

Too many questions! No real answers.

Later, they all gathered together around the Firekillers' dinner table, squeezed almost knee to knee because there were three Firekillers, four Landons, and Merle. Steven commented, “You're awfully quiet, Jack. What's up?”

Everyone turned to look at Jack, so he had to scramble for an answer. “Turkeys,” he blurted. “I was thinking about the wild turkeys we've seen all over the park. Is this one of them?” He pointed to the platter on the table that held a beautifully browned turkey, now sliced into separate pieces. “I mean,
was
this one of them?”

“Oh, no,” Blue answered quickly, holding the carving knife in his hand. “Hunting is not allowed in Great Smoky Mountains National Park. In fact, there are very few national parks where it is allowed. You can't hunt or trap wildlife at all. Not even those animals that are not native to the park, like the wild hogs that keep wandering inside our boundaries. Those hogs are dirty and hairy. They're about the same overall body size as you, Jack, and they cause a lot of damage to the park's fragile ecosystem. Sometimes we try to trap the hogs and move them onto Forest Service land, where hunting
is
allowed.”

Yonah broke in, “But you kill a lot of them.”

Blue nodded. “True. You gotta realize, if we find one way out in the back country, it's too hard to trap it and haul it all the way out, so we euthanize it.”

“That's a polite way of saying you shoot it,” Yonah commented pointedly.

“Euthanize it,” Blue repeated. “Rangers go out at night in the high elevations of the park with night-vision goggles and silencer rifles. They'll stalk a wild hog that's been seen along the trail.”

“And shoot it,” Yonah said again.

“Recycle it back into the park,” Blue said. “Because other animals eat the hog carcass—bears, coyotes, vultures, crows…. When a hungry bear comes out of its den in the spring and finds a nice big wild hog carcass, the bear figures it's a gift from heaven.”

Ashley interrupted, “You said a wild hog is about the same body size as Jack. Well, Jack is 120 pounds. So a bear who ate Jack all the way down to his toes—
ha ha!
—would look pretty big for this time of year, right? Like the bear in Heather's photos.”

“Thanks a lot,” Jack said, “for turning me into bear scat,” and everyone laughed. Everyone except Merle. “But what I think my sister is trying to say,” Jack continued, “is that maybe Heather's attack bear ate a hog and got fat.”

“I don't think that's likely. But here's another thought,” Steven offered. “What if the hog died from disease and a bear ate it? Could that affect the bear?

“Mmmm
….” Blue seemed to be considering that. “Well, wild hogs do get diseases like pseudo-rabies and swine brucellosis, but we've never been aware of those or other hog diseases inside this park. Maybe a lot farther south, but not here. Anyway, I'll check with headquarters to find out whether any wild hogs have been put down recently.”

The dinner-time chatter turned to other things, with everyone talking until Lily announced, “Time for dessert. Even though it's not Christmas, I baked us a Cherokee Christmas cake. My mother used to make these with hazelnuts, dates, and goat's milk, but I've modernized the recipe a bit since I can't find any goat's milk at the supermarket.”

“I like it better the way you make it,” Blue told her, starting to slice the cake Lily had set in front of him.

Pushing back his chair, Jack said, “Uh, could you excuse me for a minute? I need to….” He pointed in the direction of the bathroom.

“Better hurry,” Merle told him, “or I might eat your piece of cake.”

“Better not!” Jack wanted to get out of there while Merle was still at the table. All through dinner he'd been planning it, arguing with himself over whether he should do such a deceitful thing. Yet this was one chance to either find out the truth, or even better, to put his suspicions to rest.

Earlier, he'd seen Merle's guitar case in the hall, lying on the floor near the bathroom door. Moving quietly now, Jack picked up the guitar case and carried it into the bathroom, setting it on the sink counter. He left the door open just a little way so he could hear if anyone came.

It was an old case, the leather cracked on the outside and the red felt lining peeling away from the inside. Cautiously, he lifted the guitar out of the case, his left hand beneath the neck and his right hand supporting the bottom. Glancing up, he saw himself in the bathroom mirror, and he hated his own image. Jack the mole. Jack the sneak. Why was he doing this? If Merle was in trouble, there was nothing Jack could do to help him. Or was there?

Holding the guitar with both hands, he jiggled it a little but heard nothing. Then, after shaking it harder and still hearing nothing, he turned the guitar upside down.

“What are you doing?”

Jack jumped so hard he nearly dropped the guitar. He didn't need to turn around, because he could see in the mirror in front of him that Merle stood right outside the partly open door. Jack hadn't heard him approach.

“I know what you're doing,” Merle said, his voice as cold as his steel-gray eyes. “I saw the same movie. You think I might be carrying drugs in my guitar, don't you? You think I might be dealing.”

“N-not drugs,” Jack stammered. “Mushrooms.”

“Oh for cr—!” Merle shook his head and rolled his eyes to the ceiling. “'Shrooms. Like I'd be dealing magic mushrooms in Gatlinburg. Gatlinburg is not New York City, Jack. It's not even Nashville.” Then, “Hand over that guitar. It's the only thing I have left from my father, and I don't like spies touching it.”

“I'm not—” Jack began, but Merle was already putting the guitar back into the case.

Merle snapped the case shut, picked it up, and as he turned to go, he said, “I thought maybe we were gonna be friends, Jack. I was wrong.”

He was halfway through the door when Jack cried, “Where do you work, Merle? Tell me where you work as a busboy.”

The door slammed shut. Merle was gone.

“Y
our mother has already left,” Steven said from where he stood between the two beds. Grabbing Jack's big toe, he shook it hard to wake him.

“What?” Jack asked groggily. “What time is it?”

“It's seven-thirty, lazy boy. Time to rise and shine. You, too, Ashley.”

Blinking, Ashley rolled over on one elbow. “What'd you say about Mom?”

“I said she's gone. She and Kip are on their way to the lab in Knoxville. Jack, you can use my shower. Ashley, this bathroom's all yours. Move it, kids. After you're ready, we'll have breakfast here at the hotel, and then we're going for a ride.”

“With Yonah, too?” Ashley asked sleepily, and then, “Oh, I forgot. It's Monday, so he's in school.”

“No, not Yonah. You're going with me and your brother, if I can drag him out of bed. Come on, guys, hustle, hustle. I'll tell you about everything over breakfast.”

“Everything” turned out to be that Olivia and Kip were taking half a dozen different mushroom samples to the Knoxville lab, more than an hour away, to check them for hallucinogens. Steven, Jack, and Ashley would drive through the park, gathering information and images connected to the bear attacks.

“Like detectives,” Ashley said.

“Like biologists or animal behaviorists,” Steven corrected her. “Detectives study crime scenes. No crimes have been committed here, unless you consider the bears criminals.”

Ashley glanced toward Jack. Again they knew what each was thinking. Yonah had hinted that Merle might be committing a crime. What kind of crime? It couldn't have anything to do with the bears—how could you commit a crime about bears? Jack gave a little nod toward Ashley, and she got the message:
Just don't mention it to Dad.

“You be the navigator,” Steven told Jack after they'd driven through the park entrance. So, while his father and sister waited in the car, Jack ran into the Sugarlands Visitor Center to pick up a park map.

“We're heading south,” he told them when he got back in the car. “On Newfound Gap Road.”

As the car wound back and forth around the curves of the road that climbed in altitude, they passed a sign that said “Bear Habitat. Do Not Leave Food Unattended. Regulations Enforced.” And right ahead of that was a second sign with the word “Chimneys.”

“Hey, slow down, Dad.” Straining to get a better look, Jack saw three symbols beneath the word “Chimneys”: The one on the right showed a tent with a red line through it, meaning no overnight camping. The one in the center indicated that a trail started from somewhere nearby. And the one on the left showed a picnic table. Chimneys picnic area! The place the tourist said he'd seen Merle. “Can we stop here?” Jack asked.

“Yes, I was planning to stop,” Steven told them. “There's a trail here we need to take. It leads to the site of that earlier bear encounter.”

“You mean the attack on the man we saw on TV? The man that had bear-claw marks all down the front of him?” Ashley asked.

“Yes, his name's Peterson. I have to photograph the site of the attack. I shot the other ones yesterday but didn't make it to the Peterson site. There might not be much evidence left by now, but it's still worth documenting. You never know when you'll spot something useful.”

Chimneys picnic area had several paved lanes where cars and even buses could park. The trees were so thick and close together that Steven warned the kids not to go so far that he couldn't see them, or at least hear them. They scrambled down the banks of a fast-flowing creek, then up a hillside, looking for the trail. Since the place was called Chimneys, Jack wondered if they might come across a broken-down chimney like the one at Merle's great-granddaddy's place. Instead, they found fresh green trees and moss-covered rocks and spring flowers in new bloom, but no chimney ruins. And after half an hour's search, no trailhead, either.

“Keep looking,” Steven told them. “It's got to be here somewhere. I don't know why we can't see any signs.”

“What's that over there?” Ashley asked, pointing. “Oh, gosh! There are chicken bones lying under that bush. What's the matter with people? There are plenty of garbage cans in the parking lot. What kind of person would leave food scraps on the ground to mess up this beautiful park?”

“Thoughtless, careless kinds of persons,” Steven answered. “You've heard it, I know, the motto that's in every national park: ‘Take away nothing but pictures; leave behind nothing but footprints.'”

“I'll put the bones in a garbage can,” Jack said. As he picked them up, he saw that the leg and thigh bones were still connected, though there wasn't any meat on them. “Whoever ate here must have been really hungry. One end of this is all chewed off.”

Jack managed to find a garbage can just as Steven called to him, “After you dump those bones, let me take a look at your map. I'm starting to wonder if we're in the wrong place.” Wiping his hands on his jeans, Jack took the map out of his jacket and handed it to his father.

“Aha! No wonder we couldn't find it,” Steven exclaimed. “This is the Chimneys picnic area. Chimney Tops Trail starts about a mile up the road.”

They got back in the car. After going a very short distance, they saw the marker for Chimney Tops trailhead. If they'd driven a little farther in the first place, they'd have found it earlier. The trail began just beyond a low rock wall bordering the parking lot, an easy, level introduction to a climb that was going to get a lot steeper. A few hundred yards past the beginning they saw another sign announcing, “Chimney Tops Trail, The View Is Worth the Climb.”

“Are we going to the top?” Ashley asked.

“Not today, although it would be great if we could. Check the sign—it says the hike to the top and back takes two and a half hours. Maybe we can come again before we go home to Wyoming. But this morning, we have to examine the place where the Peterson attack happened.”

The hike started off pleasantly enough, with birds chirping overhead and the butterflies Ashley loved so much fluttering nearby. They crossed a little wooden bridge, and then another one over a winding, bubbling creek.

“The attack happened farther up the trail,” Steven told them. “Kip made me a sketch so I could find the place.” A little later he said, “This is it.”

The evidence of a scuffle was still visible. “Peterson must have fought really hard,” Steven said. “According to the report, he hit the bear with rocks and a tree branch and everything he could pick up, which is what you're supposed to do. That's probably why he didn't get hurt worse than he did.”

“Why'd the bear go after him?” Ashley asked.

“Food again. Mr. Peterson had a big lunch in his backpack, and the bear was trying to get it. Peterson lives in Pennsylvania, so Kip is e-mailing him Heather's pictures to ask him if the bear that attacked him was as large as Heather's bear.”

“Hah! Heather's bear!” Jack exclaimed. “I bet there's no way she wants to call it Heather's bear, like she owns it.”

As Steven took more pictures, Jack walked carefully around the area, studying the ground. Once again he found drops of blood, which discolored the leaves of vines that had been trampled underfoot. This time the blood was dry to his touch, but he knew it was real blood, maybe even bear blood if the guy had hit the bear hard enough. He licked his finger and touched a little of the blood on one of the leaves, capturing a red smear—a souvenir that would stay on his fingertips until he washed his hands again.

“You're weird,” his sister told him. “Really weird, Jack.”

“No, I'm not. Like Dad said, I'm a biologist, or maybe an animal behaviorist.”

“I think I have enough pictures of this place. Let's go to the next stop,” Steven said, repacking his cameras.

“Which is?” Jack asked.

“The Oconaluftee Mountain Farm Museum, pretty far south of here, but still in the park. They grind corn at an old mill near there, and Kip asked me to find out what happens to their corn after it's ground. Whether there's any connection with the mash you kids found at the still on Merle's great-granddaddy's farm.”

“Former farm,” Jack corrected him. “It belongs to the park now.”

After they drove off again, the road continued to climb as they passed more pulloffs. Trees had been fully green at the lower elevations, yet the higher they drove, the fewer leaves they saw on branches.

Jack, read from the back of the map, “‘Spring takes a long time to reach the top of the mountains. Some species of birds stay in the park year-round. In autumn, they fly from the mountain elevations into the valleys, as though they were migrating from north to south for the winter. This difference in altitude creates a difference in climate.' Hey, that's cool, Dad. The birds don't have to pack up and leave.”

“Yeah, way cool. Especially when they're still here in winter and get snowed on.”

“Let me see the map,” Ashley told Jack. And then, “Dad, I know we're supposed to be investigating things, but we're not getting to enjoy the sights. You said we couldn't climb up to Chimney Tops, but there's another place here where the view is supposed to be fabulous. It's called Clingmans Dome. It's the highest point in the park. Can we stop there?
Please?
Can we just be tourists for a little while?”

“Well,…OK,” Steven agreed reluctantly. In another ten minutes, when they came to the markers for Clingmans Dome, Steven pulled into the parking lot. “As long as we're doing this, I might as well take pictures,” he said, hoisting his camera bag over his shoulder before he locked the car. “But we need to make it fast.”

“You want fast? We'll race you to the top,” Ashley challenged him.

“Not fair! I'm carrying these heavy cameras.”

“Your legs are longer, Dad. That evens things out,” Jack told him.

Ashley and Jack took off at a run, skittering past tourists on the half-mile trail, both older tourists and young families with little kids. Since long legs were the contributing factor, Jack outran his sister, who came up panting three whole minutes behind him. After resting a very short time at the top of the path, they climbed a concrete lookout tower that was bigger than the one at the Space Needle. A sign told them they'd reached the highest point in the Smokies.

“We're in the sky!” Ashley exclaimed, raising her arms. “Where's Dad? He needs to take pictures.”

“I'll take pictures,” Jack told her.

“Dad's are better.”

“Thanks a lot! If I had real expensive cameras like his, mine would be better, too.”

By then Steven had arrived, and the three of them walked around the complete circle at the top of the tower, enjoying the view. In every direction, waves of mountain peaks rose one after the other, far into the distance.

“You can see a hundred miles from here,” a stranger standing nearby said. “Or, at least you can on a clear day. When it isn't cloudy, you can see five states, but today it isn't clear enough for that.”

“I don't care if I can only see three or four,” Ashley whispered to Jack. “It's like an angel could fly down out of the mist onto one of those trees. This is heaven.”

A marker explained that the park had been named for the mist or blue haze that surrounds the mountains, and that the Cherokee name for the area,
Sha-co-na-ge,
means “place of blue, like smoke.”

Steven murmured, “This scenery is so different from the Grand Tetons out West. It's just as beautiful, but in a whole different way—trees and mist instead of snow-capped peaks. When we get back to Wyoming, I'll turn these photos into 16-by-24-inch prints. You can each have one in your room.”

Reluctantly, they left the tower, with Steven following the kids on the downhill path to the car. They hadn't driven a tenth of a mile farther when Jack called out, “Hey! We're in North Carolina. We have now crossed the state line from Tennessee, but we're still in Great Smoky Mountains National Park. Dad, I found this Oconaluftee place on the map.”

“OK, keep checking the mile markers along the road, so you can tell me when we're getting close to the exit.”

It was good to get out of the car again, once they reached Oconaluftee. While Steven went into the visitor center to talk to a ranger, Jack and Ashley toured farm buildings that had been moved there from other places in the Great Smoky Mountains. “This must be what Merle's granddaddy's place looked like a long time ago,” Ashley said. “Or his great-granddaddy's.”

“Can't see any moonshine stills around here, though,” Jack joked.

A ranger showed them a short cut toward another old building called the Mingus Mill. Just as they reached the mill, a park aide started talking to a group of tourists.

“This mill operates on water power. That wooden platform—it's called a flume—carries water from the creek. The water rotates a turbine that's attached to two huge handmade blocks of granite that grind the corn. Come on inside, and you can see how it works.”

As they followed the aide through the door, Jack told Ashley, “Maybe we'll find the answer ourselves to what Dad's trying to learn right now about the mash.”

Inside, the walls of the old mill looked just as rough and unfinished as the outside walls. A counter stood in the middle of the floor, with plastic bags sitting at each end.

“Hey, Ashley, the labels on these bags say ‘wheat flour,' and those on the bags at the other end say ‘cornmeal.' And look at the stuff coming out of that grinder thing over there. It's real smooth—smooth like flour, not grainy like mash.”

The aide overheard him and said, “We don't make mash, just cornmeal and flour. How'd you hear about mash?”

“Oh, a guy mentioned it.” No point talking about the spilled mash or the still they'd discovered. “Come on, Ashley,” he said, grabbing her hand. “We need to tell Dad about this.”