Yellowstone Memories

by Spinola, Jennifer Rogers

  “Gold, you say? You must be kidding.”

  Phyllis nodded and “uh-huh”ed on the phone, turning sideways while she talked and running a hand through her curly hair. “Well, I’ve never heard of any Jeremiah Wilde, or what did you say the lawyer’s name was?—Wyatt Kelly?—to save my life. Sounds like a bunch of hooey to me.” She shrugged. “But anyway, thanks for the message, Stacy. Seems like our researcher hit a home run.”

  Phyllis bobbed eyebrows at Jersey, and she looked away, face flaming.

  “The poachers were after elk,” said Phyllis, hanging up the phone. “And bison. They found two headless elk along the trail, like somebody had just hacked off the heads for trophies. The police are taking them into custody now. But here’s the weirdest thing: They claim they were looking for gold.”

  “Gold? Ridiculous.” Nelson wrinkled up his forehead with a look of derision.

  “Yeah. A mother lode of it from the 1800s. Something about an old message called the Thoen Stone.”

  “Never heard of it.” Nelson crossed his arms, still grumpy. Shooting dagger-eyed glances at Jersey.

  “The Thoen Stone. Stacy says it’s on display in Deadwood, South Dakota. I’d never heard of it either.” Phyllis tipped her head. “Did you know that more drivers hit deer in South Dakota than in any other state?”

  “You’re a fountain of knowledge, Phyllis.” Jersey swiveled around in the computer chair and tapped into the keyboard, scrolling through row after row of Internet sites. It felt sinfully easily, as if something were wrong. The computer had never worked without a healthy dose of help center calls, restarting, wire-untangling, kicking, and foaming at the mouth. “Look here, guys. The Thoen Stone.”

  Phyllis leaned over her shoulder, and Nelson craned his neck to see from where he stood.

  Jersey skimmed the text. “So … two brothers found the message back in 1887, carved into a slab of sandstone. ‘Come to these hills in 1833—seven of us,’ ” Jersey read off the screen. “ ‘All dead but me, Ezra Kind. Got all the gold we could carry. Our ponies all got by the Indians. I have lost my gun and nothing to eat and—Indians hunting me.’ ”

  Nelson marched forward and peered at the computer, not making eye contact with Jersey. “Wait a second. I have heard of this,” he said. “Didn’t they think the Indians took the gold and some settlers got it back a few years later?”

  “The Sioux got it in the end.” Jersey typed rapidly, opening zillions of tabs. “I remember this, too. The gold changed hands a bunch of times, and a guy named Kirby Crowder ended up with it somehow. The Sioux killed him and then reburied the gold, saying it was sacred.”

  “So that’s what those poachers were after?” Phyllis raised an eyebrow. “Black Hills gold?”

  Jersey typed faster, her mind spinning with wild images. She grabbed the mouse and clicked through a row of pages, feeling something shaky ripple in her stomach. “What did you say that other guy’s name was? When you were talking on the phone?”

  “Who, the Wyatt fellow?”

  “No. The other one. Started with a J.”

  “Jeremiah Wilde. I’ve heard his name before. Why?”

  Jersey opened a new page and skimmed the lines of text. “He used to work here as a park ranger in the early 1900s. I’ve seen his name on some of our history stuff. Maybe even a photo.”

  “What do you mean he worked here?” Nelson regarded her coldly.

  “At Yellowstone. I remember his name because the fire back in ‘88 unearthed a bunch of artifacts that had been covered over by soil—lost, thrown away, whatever—and his name was on something.”

  Phyllis suddenly gasped. “The jar.”

  Jersey and Nelson turned.

  “A firefighter in ‘88 found a jar with a note inside. They debated the authenticity of it for years—and I guess it got tabled when nobody could decide. The map didn’t make any sense either, and it didn’t lead to any gold.”

  “Jeremiah Wilde.” Jersey’s eyes glowed. “They put all his stuff in the museum, didn’t they?”

  “Some of his log books and diaries and things. I think I’ve seen them.” Nelson stuck his hands in his pockets. “He left a bunch of numbers in the last few pages that nobody can figure out. Most people think it’s a mathematical game he was playing or some accounting that he didn’t label.”

  Jersey typed some more, and she bent close to see a blurry photo in the museum archives. She clicked and zoomed closer, whispering the strange numbers to herself and shaking her head. “I don’t get it.” She scrolled down the page. “He died in 1903 when Theodore Roosevelt dedicated the park. And … that’s it.”

  She turned back to the page and jotted down some numbers.

  Nelson eyed her. “What, you’re really going to try to figure this out?” He gave a snort of derisive laughter. His pride probably still injured.

  “Maybe.” Jersey shot him a frosty gaze.

  Before Nelson could reply, the fax machine on the nearby counter jerked to life, buzzing and beeping—and then unceremoniously spit a sheet of paper into Phyllis’s lap.

  Phyllis jerked it up and read through the lines, her brow crinkling. “What the flip is this?” Phyllis turned the fax printout over. “I didn’t invite them. Did you, Jersey?”

  “Invite who?” Jersey reached for the paper, eyes still on the Thoen Stone website. “What are you talking about?”

  “Living Hope Church of Pasadena,” Phyllis read, following the line of type with her finger. “Something about a volunteer group. Just about everything else is in Greek or whatever crazy language this is.”

  “What?” Jersey yelped, grabbing the sheet. “Why in the world is this in Japanese?” She flipped the sheet over in disbelief, trying to match the English words and make sense of the fax. “I didn’t contact them!”

  “ ‘We are thankful for your kind invitation and would be happy to serve the National Park Service through volunteer work at Yellowstone Lake’s ranger station, including road paving, fence building, and construction,’ ” Phyllis read aloud. “ ‘We will arrive on July eighth by bus at approximately six p.m.’ ”

  “July eighth? That’s tomorrow!” Jersey hollered.

  “Isn’t that the day the Oregon group was supposed to come?”

  “Yes, but … but I didn’t contact anybody for a replacement!” Jersey’s voice rose to shrill tones as she flipped the fax over again. “There must be some mistake. Who in the world invited somebody from Pasadena?” She shook the paper. “Who are these people?”

  As if in mockery, the fax began to move again. Churning and grinding. Vomiting curled sheets of printed paper.

  Phyllis gingerly reached over and picked up the first sheet.

  “Masao Fujimori, age sixty-five—and a bio,” she read, her eyes as round as prairie dog holes. “Keiko Morisaku, age sixty-one.” She shuffled to the next page. “Hiroshige Nakagawa, age eighty-three.”

  “Eighty-three?” Phyllis and Jersey yelped together.

  “What? You’re making this up.” Nelson, still huffy, crossed behind them in angry strides and snatched the paper out of Phyllis’s hand. “There’s no way a bunch of geriatrics are going to do construction at the lake station. That’s hard work.”

  The fax spit out another sheet, and Jersey grabbed it. “Kenji Sakamoto, age seventy-two.” A photo of a bald man with a stiff smile. “Previous work experience: doctorate in literature, college professor.”

  “There’s got to be some mistake.” Jersey sorted through the stack as the fax machine continued to churn. “There’s no way they’d be able to handle construction.”

  Phyllis thought a moment, leafing through the pages. “Pasadena. Isn’t that where Caltech is?”

  Something cold washed over Jersey like lake water filling up a leaky canoe. “Oh no. Tell me Taka didn’t do this.”

  Christian. Japanese. Pasadena.

  “Oh nooooo,” Jersey groaned, covering her face with the sheaf of papers. “It must be Taka! I told him the Oregon group canceled, and mayb
e he wanted to … I don’t know. Help us or something. But this is terrible!” She tossed the pages on the counter in frustration. “Having eighty-three-year-olds is going to be worse than no volunteers at all, you know that?”

  Gold. Eighty-three-year-olds. Taka. It was too much, like a wild swirl of hailstones.

  “I’m doing guided wilderness backpacking for the next three days.” Nelson’s jaw tightened stubbornly. “And I’m not canceling.”

  “Don’t look at me.” Phyllis shrugged. “My vacation time starts tomorrow. Terrance and I are going to Utah. Stacy’s covering for me—remember?”

  “Utah?” Jersey grabbed her head in both hands. “Come on, Phyllis! You can go to Utah anytime. Please.”

  “No way! Terrance’s niece is getting married. We’ve already bought the tickets.” Phyllis raised her arms helplessly. “Besides, I don’t think this Japanese group is really coming. This was probably just Taka’s brilliant idea to help you out.”

  “And what if they do come? I can’t take them, Phyllis.” Jersey squeezed her eyes closed. “I know it sounds horrible, but I …” She let out a tight breath. “I don’t do Japanese people.”

  Phyllis’s eyes bugged. “Excuse me?”

  “I just don’t. Trust me, okay? I have my reasons.”

  “Jersey.” Phyllis put her hands on her hips and leaned forward, lowering her voice to a whisper. “What about all that race business you told me about yesterday?” She glared. “Were you making that up, too? Just to make me feel better?”

  “Of course I wasn’t making it up! It’s true, and I meant every word. It’s just …” She sighed. “Forget it.”

  “Jersey, you’re the only one who’s free. You were supposed to do the Oregon group anyway.” Nelson ignored their private conversation and pulled on his sunglasses with sullen, jerky movements. “So have at it. Or let Taka do it, since he caused all this ruckus in the first place. But I’m not being responsible for a bunch of eighty-year-olds having heart attacks. Got it?”

  “Hey.” Jersey threw down the papers and marched over to Nelson, anger climbing up her neck. “Is that what this is about? Something you think that’s happening between Taka and me? Well, it’s not. And you didn’t even give me a chance to tell you what I think about … well, you and me.”

  “Don’t bother. I know what you’re going to say anyway.”

  “How can you possibly say that?”

  “Simple, Jersey.” Nelson tipped his sunglasses down and met her gaze with a blazing, wounded look like she’d seen in Shorty’s eyes. “If you’d wanted to say yes, you would have.”

  And Nelson dropped his sunglasses back over his eyes, banging the front door closed behind him.

  Chapter 6

  Jersey saw the line into the ranger’s station door before she even parked the truck: an orderly queue of Asian seniors in fishing caps and sandals, carrying backpacks and bandanna-flagged walking sticks. Bedrolls tucked neatly under their arms. She jumped out of the truck and slammed the door, and instantly thirteen Japanese faces turned to her.

  Jersey panicked, coming to a halt in the gravel. Keys still swinging in her hands.

  She should wave. Say hi. Something.

  Instead, every word fled like a mouse from an owl. She lurched past them into the cool interior of the ranger’s station, cold sweat prickling under her hair and the back of her neck.

  “Jersey! There you are.” Stacy looked up from the guidebook she was stamping for the elderly man at the front of the line. “They’ve been waiting for you. Zack can help you take the boat across the lake, but he can’t stay with them.” She shot up an eyebrow quizzically. “You’re taking the whole group?”

  “Me? Um …” Jersey tried not to watch as the whole line of people turned from her to Stacy and back again. Whispering.

  “Bathroom,” Jersey said apologetically, darting out of the room.

  Bathroom. Right. Jersey strode down the hall in a sort of blind panic, coming to a closed door and rattling the handle.

  “Jersey?” Stacy poked her head around the corner, her chocolate-brown skin shining in the dim overhead light. “That’s the supply closet. Bathroom’s down that way. Remember?”

  “Oh. Right.” Jersey backed up, not quite sure where she was headed. She fumbled her way to the bathroom, knocking over a roll of toilet paper stacked on the back of the toilet. She leaned there against the back of the door, wishing fiercely that she could swap places with Phyllis for the week. She’d shake hands with wedding guests she didn’t know, listen to a lame band cover love songs from Air Supply, and put up with Utah’s cholla cacti and bad drivers if she had to. Anything but this.

  “Jersey?” Stacy rapped hesitantly at the door.

  “I’m coming.” Jersey jumped, grabbing a paper towel and wiping her sweaty forehead. “Sorry.”

  She swung the door open, practically knocking over petite Stacy.

  “You okay?” Stacy looked up worriedly, putting a hand on Jersey’s cheek. “You sick or something? You look terrible.”

  “Sorry,” said Jersey again, leaning back in the bathroom to toss her paper towel in the trash. “I’m fine. It’s just that …” She glanced out at the long line of Japanese volunteers, wondering how to put it all into words. “Did you know Jell-O’s the official snack food of Utah?” she heard herself say instead.

  “Huh?” Stacy’s eyes bugged. “You’re sick—or you’ve been visiting Phyllis’s random trivia sites.”

  “They’ve probably never been to Yellowstone before, have they?” Jersey chewed her nails.

  Stacy shook her head again. “I don’t think so.” She lowered her voice to a whisper. “I don’t think most of them have even been camping.”

  My word. Jersey lowered her forehead into her hand and grimaced. “Fine. I’ll do it. Okay? I’ll take them.” She shook a finger at Stacy. “But you’d better leave a note for Taka and tell him where we are and that he’s in big trouble when I find him.” She pushed her hat brim back and squared her shoulders. “Their English is good though?”

  Stacy tipped her head in sympathy. “Hope you brought a dictionary.”

  “Wait a second. No. Don’t they live here in the US? This should be an English-speaking group, right?”

  Stacy lowered her voice to a whisper. “Not for some of the older generation. I mean, they can communicate basically, but English isn’t their first language. They still carry on most of their lives in Japanese.” She smiled. “Good luck, Jersey.” And she patted Jersey’s arm as she brushed past.

  “Hello,” Jersey said to the group, giving a hesitant half wave, half bow.

  “Jersey Peterson?” asked the man in the fishing hat at the front of the line, holding up a crisply folded sheet of paper.

  “Hai. Yes.” Jersey felt silly throwing out her few Japanese words in a thick American-English accent. All nasal and open vowels. “I’m Jersey, and I’ll be helping you while you’re here at Yellowstone.” She bit her lip and stood on tiptoe to see the end of the line, hoping she wouldn’t offend them with her next question. “How many of you are … well, fluent in English?”

  She needn’t have asked. The man in the front grunted something in Japanese, and five people hesitantly raised their hands. He repeated his sentence through a series of whispers, one person to another, and two of the three lowered their hand.

  Great. Three people who speak English fluently, maybe, and what am I supposed to do?

  “Hold on a second.” Jersey gave a bright smile and dialed Taka from the office phone, listening to it ring and endlessly ring. Not even voice mail.

  Jersey let out a breath of exasperation and banged down the phone then forced herself to turn and face the group. “Well,” she said, raising her arms helplessly. “Welcome to Yellowstone.”

  The man repeated her comment, and smiles broke down the line of people one by one. And like an oddly polite “wave” at a football game, they all bent in unison. A polite bow, heads tucked. Tipping the tops of their sun visors and baseball c
aps toward her in respect.

  Jersey blinked in astonishment and gave a weak bow in return.

  “Jersey,” said the man at the front of the line again with a grin, gripping her hand between his two strong, sun-spotted ones and giving it a firm, hard shake. “Thank you. I’m Masao Fujimori. We heard you needed help, and so we’re here. As soon as we got the word. Show us what we can do.”

  “You brought tents?” Jersey braced herself for their response. Some volunteer groups had come with nothing more than umbrellas, expecting the Hyatt Regency once they stepped off the bus.

  All down the line a murmur of whispers and nodding. They raised backpacks rattling with tent stakes, and the line parted so Jersey could see a pile of colorful Gore-Tex bundles piled against the far wall. Coleman lanterns and sleeping bags and shiny new camping stoves. Snazzier stuff than most campers brought in, and all lashed together in perfect little geometric stacks.

  Well. Huh. Taka must have sent a detailed list. Jersey shifted her weight to the other foot. “Water and food? Because we don’t really have any way to provide meals.” Another common volunteer mistake.

  Man-in-the-Front gestured toward the window. “It’s all boxed up in the bear-safe locker. Enough for five days. Maybe six.”

  “For everybody?”

  “Hai.” He tipped his head in another bow. “All ready to go. I’m on cook crew for lunch. Wanna join us?”

  Huh. Well. “We’ll see how the day goes.” Jersey ran her hand through her hair, trying to think of any other stupid questions she ought to ask before she hauled them all onto the boat and across Lake Yellowstone.

  “No food in the tents, right? No toothpaste. Not even a bottle of water. We’re going into bear country. Are you ready for that?”

  “Hai.” He drummed his fingers on the desk as if in boredom and checked his watch. “Anything else?”

  Jersey stared at him then straightened her hat and pointed to the door. “Well, come on then,” she said with a burst of boldness. “Let’s go to the lake.”

  Chapter 7