As she walked inside, she took careful steps to avoid tripping on any of the discarded clothes and outdoor gear that littered the floor. So much for keeping a clean house. In her bedroom she set her computer on the stack of two milk crates that served as her bedside table and sat down on the bed. Feeling her energy drop precipitously, Noelle lay down and closed her eyes for a moment. She fell asleep almost instantly.
Outside the cabin, the smells from Noelle’s cooking permeated through the cold valley air. They weren’t strong—no human would have noticed—but the foraging animal lifted its heavy head into the breeze and searched for the source of the smell. When it found the scent trail, it followed its nose through the darkness, salivating.
* * *
Noelle was startled from her sleep by heavy breathing. She popped out of bed, sleepy brain confused by the sound, and threw the lights on. At the window was a shape, obscured by the condensation of its own breath. Noelle’s heart was thumping. She squinted to try to make out the animal’s features between hazy breaths, then stepped back, toward the middle of the shaky old cabin.
The beast clobbered the window with a swipe of its paw. The glass creaked but held. Through the paw print in the condensation she could see the face of the bear, its lips curled, inhaling through its nose. Hungry.
The bear growled and swiped again, harder this time. The glass cracked but didn’t shatter. He was just testing it.
Noelle stumbled back again. She found herself at the front door now, wondering whether she should bolt for her vehicle. It was risky. The bear was letting out frustrated groans and mews through curled lips, revealing his two-inch-long canines. He rolled his huge head slowly back and forth.
Stay put until it comes through, and then head for the truck, she thought. It will take him a minute to get back out of the cabin. He’s more interested in the food than me anyway.
Her keys were in hand. The animal swiped again. Noelle opened the front door a crack and looked toward the car. It was pitch-black outside. Uninviting.
What if there’s another bear? Not likely, but Noelle’s rapidly firing synapses weren’t working in the realm of logic. Her fear was overwhelming her, and she knew she had to try to stay calm. The bear grunted and snorted, pushing against the frame of the window. Claws twice as long as its teeth.
Noelle flashed on the outside lights and searched the driveway for movement. Nothing. A clear route to her truck. She took a deep breath and glanced at the rear window one last time.
The condensation was gone. No sign of the bear.
She closed the door and approached the window slowly, listening. It was quiet.
Noelle put her face to the window and peered into the backyard, awash with yellow from the floodlights. The bear was gone.
The lights must have spooked him. Noelle ran out onto the porch, grabbed her rice bowl and beer, and brought them inside. That was stupid. She shut the door behind her and locked it.
Her heart rate returned to normal after a few minutes and she got back in bed, but not before placing a can of bear spray on the milk crates.
Noelle stripped off her clothes and tossed her undergarments under the sleeping bags so they would be warm from her body heat in the morning. She tucked herself into a fetal ball and remained that way until she stopped shivering.
A few minutes later she mustered up the courage to stick her arm out of her cocoon to set tomorrow’s alarm. She set the clock for 6:00 a.m. to give her enough time to jog to the public campsite nearby and take a shower before her 7:00 a.m. patrol began. After that, if she had time she might just return to the scene of the attack at the mouth of Death Canyon to look around. Noelle lay in bed for hours before sleep finally found her.
3
GRAND TETON NATIONAL PARK. THE NEXT MORNING.
Noelle awoke to cold and fog. She was tempted to remain in bed until the bright sun warmed her cabin and the outside air. She felt sure that her superiors at the park would forgive her absence.
But as her senses returned, her curiosity about the prior day’s attack came with them. She also felt a strange guilt as she realized that she was more excited to start her patrol than she had been in quite a while. Like the amateur videographers on the Internet, Noelle was somehow intrigued by death and danger. It wasn’t the first time she noticed this trait in herself.
It was as if the prospect of danger carried alongside it the potential and even necessity for acts of great significance to take place. Noelle secretly coveted the opportunity to become a hero. Or at least to make a difference when the stakes are high. Noelle wished the tragic event had never occurred, but she nevertheless was enthralled with the prospect of being involved in major events.
Dragging herself out of bed, Noelle put on her running shoes and stretched. She stepped out the door and started jogging, taking bouncy steps down the short staircase off the porch. As she ran, she thought about how nice it would be if there were someone waiting at the cabin with a pot of coffee ready when she returned. Someone to romp around with under the sleeping bags. To help turn her cold, taut skin into one big, warm, soft pleasure receptor. Then maybe she wouldn’t have to rely on danger and tragedy to break the monotony of daily life.
Noelle made it to the showers in good time. The facility was empty. Its tile floors cold. Summer can’t come soon enough. She disrobed hastily, positioned her body under the flow of hot water, and stayed there for a long time.
While showering, she thought of the day ahead. She knew a group of Yellowstone bear experts were en route to the ranger station in Moose Junction, where they would be briefed on yesterday’s attack. That was standard protocol after any bear incident. They would then be deployed to capture or kill the culprit.
The most valuable protection from bears in the parks was the bears’ own natural instincts. Most fled when faced with close-range human interaction. There were times, however, when these instincts were overruled by other considerations in the bears’ mind, namely self-defense, starvation, or protection of young.
For the most part, bears feared humans unless they became used to their presence. Unfortunately, the convergence of humans and bears in both Yellowstone National Park and Grand Teton National Park occasionally led to that very phenomenon. That is, bears—usually pursuing an unnatural food source such as a camper’s cooler or garbage—sometimes came to realize that humans posed no real threat to them. These semidomesticated bears were dangerous because they felt comfortable among humans and understood themselves to be the dominant species. If they wanted food from a tent, car, or Dumpster, why not take it?
In the course of a food raid, park visitors became collateral damage. It was the job of the bear team to remove or destroy these problem bears.
After her morning ritual, Noelle headed south on the park road toward the Death Canyon trailhead. On the way her supervisor radioed her and requested that she escort the bear team to the site of the attack, which pleased Noelle’s growing curiosity.
The bumpy road to the summer trailhead was worse than usual at this time of year. The park had decided to open the road early. May had been warm, relatively speaking, and the snow had melted in all but the shadiest areas below 8,500 feet. In most years, the road wouldn’t be open for another three weeks.
Noelle had often wondered about the canyon’s uninviting name. There was quite a bit of folklore explaining it, but never one settled-upon tale. Now the name Death Canyon seemed grimly and permanently justified.
According to one story, livestock men used the canyon to enter and exit Jackson Hole in the 1800s. Because of the length of the passage, the men were required to spend the night near the top of the Teton crest in Death Canyon.
One summer night, a group of men with livestock in tow arrived at the top of the canyon to find that another outfit was already occupying the pasture. There wasn’t room for both. The first party unkindly suggested that the new arrivals head back into Jackson Hole. This didn’t go over well with the latecomers, so instead of leaving in peace,
they slaughtered the competing livestock at the top of the canyon. The water that flows through the canyon ran red, temporarily staining the rocks that formed its streambed. According to some variations of the story, a few of the cowboys themselves were killed in the gunfire. From there, it didn’t take a very creative man to dub the place Death Canyon.
An alternative story was that Death Canyon was given its name merely because the terrain was such that it was hard to travel through and survive.
Again, one could not dispute the logic—the steep canyon was bordered by sheer cliffs on both sides for the majority of its climb up the Tetons. The canyon floor was lined with large boulders that had broken away from the canyon walls or were deposited as the result of glacial movement.
In many spots throughout the Death Canyon hike, which had become popular for ambitious day hikers, it resembled a scrambling climb more than a walk in the woods.
Maybe in a hundred years they’ll be talking about the bear attack when they mention Death Canyon, Noelle mused morbidly.
She arrived at the trailhead, parked, and watched as the bear team assembled their weapons. There were thirteen of them in all. They brought specialized rifles outfitted with laser sights and tranquilizer darts. In case something went wrong, they also carried traditional large-caliber weapons, 7 millimeters with 185-grain ammunition. A large barrel was welded to the flatbed of one of the trucks. On its side were a few stickers that read: “Beware! DANGEROUS ANIMAL!” This meant that the bear’s life might be spared if they found it—a thought that pleased Noelle, despite the gruesome attack and her own nighttime visitor.
At least they haven’t made a final decision on the bear’s fate. It isn’t on death row yet. But, this had been an especially vicious encounter. Lots of people in combination with a dangerous animal would mean a high probability of future attacks, and relocated bears often found their way back to their original home, despite the efforts of the team. If the team thought it could find its way back, they would kill it for sure.
“Hi, Ms. Klimpton?” a graying man asked as she approached the tailgate of a truck where several men were preparing for the trek. “I’m Nat Passa, chief of the bear police.” He smiled. “And this is my sorry excuse for a team.”
“Just Noelle, please.” She greeted the burly looking team one by one but quickly forgot their names, as she assumed they did hers.
“We requested your presence so that you could direct us to the scene of yesterday’s incident.” Nat spoke formally but jovially. Like a captain addressing his lieutenant after hours. Noelle didn’t know whether she should be offended at the man’s lively tone in light of the circumstances, or to enjoy the masculine charm he emanated. She decided on the latter.
Everybody copes with things differently . . .
Noelle led the team up the trail and chatted intermittently with them. Nat reassured her that the bear team’s success rate was not high enough that she should be concerned for the bear just yet. “These guys can’t even shoot a basketball,” he quipped.
The trail steepened and the crew quieted down, breathing hard. Noelle wasn’t put off; she was used to this type of workout. Still curious, she explained the strange nature of the wounds but Nat Passa didn’t seem concerned. “Wild animals are inherently unpredictable,” he said twice during the short conversation. Big, booming football coach voice.
Finally, Gosling Lake came into view. “This is it. Right below where the snow starts, above the overlook.”
A day later, the scene was incredibly peaceful and benign. Nature had already forgotten about the horrific occurrence.
Nat caught his breath and looked toward her. “Noelle, we appreciate your help. We’re gonna spend a few minutes here looking for tracks or any other indication of where the bear might be. Then, unless we have clear tracks to follow, we’ll simply walk the area in a predetermined pattern and hope to intercept the animal.”
“You’re of course welcome to come along. With their firepower”—Nat motioned toward his team, taking a deep breath—“and my experience”—he winked—“capturing this bear shouldn’t be an exceedingly dangerous task.”
“Thanks, but I’d better get back to work.”
“Okay,” Nat said. “Then farewell. Don’t stay in the area. We don’t want to flush an irritated bear out toward you, or tranquilize you accidentally.” Nat smiled at her one last time.
“No problem,” she lied. She did plan to stay in the area.
The team soon headed into the woods. Noelle lingered, walking a zigzag route through the area where the hikers had shown her the victims. She looked closely at the ground, hoping to find fur or some other evidence.
It didn’t take long.
Noelle found something that would answer her doubts about the attack. Glinting in the sun, there was a clean ivory object. She almost yelled out. Almost alerted the bear team as to what she’d found. Instead, she put the inch-long bear tooth in the cargo pocket of her park-issued pants and started back down the trail and away from the scene. After all, there was a killer bear in the area.
4
SNAKE RIVER CANYON. THE SAME MORNING.
Jake awoke, dressed in a high-loft fleece and an old pair of insulated jeans, and then took some water from a nearby creek. He put the water on a small camp stove and boiled it for coffee. His breath formed dense, nearly opaque clouds in the cold morning air.
While he waited for the water, he walked the perimeter of his camp looking for the tracks of the moose that visited him the night before and found them easily. They were six inches long and four inches wide. In the damp sand on the river’s edge, the animal’s tracks were deep and well defined.
Back in camp, Jake spooned four tablespoons of powdered coffee mix into his blue camp mug and, using two thick willow branches to lift the coffeepot from the burner, carefully poured water over the powder. The coffee was too hot to gulp, so Jake sipped what he could tolerate, and it warmed him up. The taste of the coffee reminded him of past camping trips with his father. In all of Jake’s years in the wilderness with his dad, the man had always used the same Maxwell House French Vanilla Café instant coffee. It came in a red-and-white rectangular tin with a plastic top. Jake smiled. Sometimes the simplest things brought comfort.
The water level in the Snake River had dropped considerably overnight. Rocks in the riverbed that were submerged when Jake went to sleep were now dry. Since the flow was controlled by a hydroelectric dam many miles upriver, this wasn’t unusual. Most western rivers were dammed.
Any sudden change in the water level usually put the fish down. Off the bite. Fishing the Snake shortly after a change in water volume rarely proved to be a worthy endeavor, if the angler was of the type that allowed his catch rate to determine his success.
The idea behind water management was to prevent the reservoirs from totally overflowing during spring runoff while stockpiling the maximum amount of water to be used for irrigation and energy later in the summer. Little consideration was given to how these decisions affected trout or trout fishermen.
Jake had planned on fishing for an hour before continuing downriver, but he changed his plans when he saw that the water level had dropped so much. The fishing wouldn’t be any good now.
Instead, he tied on a large rubber-legged nymph that was intended to imitate the large salmonflies that thrived in this section of the river. He fished the first two pools of the small tributary where he had taken the water for his morning coffee. Here, the water volume was unaffected by the dam’s release—this stream ran unimpeded from the mountaintops until it reached the Snake.
He landed one cutthroat in each of the pools. Both fish violently attacked the fly. Jake always loved the eagerness with which trout ate these larger fly patterns. Again, he knew that their ferocity resulted from that cardinal equation of trout fishing—that a trout will expend calories only if the expected return is sensible. In this case, the fish had determined that the caloric value of a meaty stone fly nymph warranted an aggressive e
ffort to ensure that the morsel wasn’t consumed by a competing trout or left to drift downriver, untouched. The fish shot from their resting positions like cannonballs.
Back East, trout fishing was a far more refined affair. The trout there were consistently difficult—they saw many times more imitations in their lives because of the higher ratio of angler per fish. In order to survive, these trout became very adept at distinguishing artificial flies from their natural counterparts.
On top of that, pollution and low water quality meant that eastern insects were less healthy and thus grew on average to a much smaller size. The fish in turn reacted less enthusiastically to their presence and were less healthy themselves.
Another good reason to be in Wyoming.
After he was through fishing, Jake packed up his camp and freed the boat from its moorings. Before he could get into the boat, he pushed it farther into the water. The receding water level had left the skiff partially beached in the sand.
Jake sat down at the rowing station and pulled the oars hard to get to the main channel. The sun was warm on his face. Downstream, the broken water sparkled brightly. Summer was coming. He pushed the boat forward.
In most cases, guides back rowed with the bow facing downstream so they could provide their anglers with the opportunity to cover the water thoroughly. By slowing the boat down with backstrokes, the guide gave the fishermen the most possible time to cast to the places where trout lived.
If the guide didn’t slow the boat, the current would push the boat too quickly and the fishermen wouldn’t cover the water well. Still, most anglers simply picked what they thought would have been a likely spot “back home” and beat that spot to a froth with repeated casts rather than covering the water as the guide suggested. The worst clients never hit any likely spots. They seemed capable of casting toward only two locations: about ten feet out from the bank, where the current was too strong to hold fish, or straight into the bank side bushes. These anglers never placed a fly in that magic two-foot corridor just off the bank that held 90 percent of the river’s feeding fish.
Death Canyon Page 4