The Hunted

by Gloria Skurzynski

  “I’m not moody—” Jack protested.

  Ashley snorted, “Yeah, right,” at which Jack reminded them that it was Ashley they were talking about, not him, to which Ashley replied that he, Jack, was always bossing her around. At that, Jack blurted out, “That’s because you don’t listen and do what you’re supposed to. You went right on and read Night of the Grizzlies and got all freaky. Now you’re ruining the vacation for the rest of us ’cause you’ve turned into a bear psycho.”

  His mother’s mouth made a small O as she thought a moment, then said, “Night of the Grizzlies—is that what this is about? No wonder you’re so spooked.” Olivia turned around in her seat so that she could look Ashley full in the face. She didn’t appear to be the least bit annoyed that Ashley had read something she wasn’t supposed to. Instead, an expression of concern filled Olivia’s face as she centered her chin over the back of the headrest. “Ashley, listen to me. The grizzlies that attacked those girls were fed by people all the time. That was the problem. They’d totally lost their fear of humans. You’ve got to remember that the tragedy happened a long time ago. Bears are managed very differently now.”

  “How?” his sister asked softly. Her eyes, wide and dark, were fixed on her mother.

  “Well, in just about every way. Trust me. The park would never let that kind of thing happen nowadays—a bear like the ones in that book would be taken out of Glacier so fast it’d make your head spin. Today’s Glacier grizzlies are truly wild, which means they steer clear of humans, just the way nature intended. Like I said, leave them alone, and they’ll leave you alone.”

  Biting the edge of her lip, Ashley said, “OK.”

  “Good. And I hope you’ll also understand that when I tell you not to do something, it’s for a reason. You’ve wasted a lot of energy over this. It could have ruined your stay in this beautiful park.”

  “You’re right,” Ashley agreed, relieved she was being let off the hook. “Thanks, Mom.”

  Olivia sat forward again and buckled her seat belt. They pitched and swayed the next four miles in silence, Ashley ever more queasy, Jack deep into his own thoughts. Suddenly, his father announced, “There’s the sign—Quartz Creek Campground. Hey, kids, try reading that out loud five times really fast.”

  “Quartz Creek Campground,” Ashley began, “Quartz Cweek Cwampgwound, Courts Cweek Cramp—I can’t say it! Jack, you try!”

  Jack’s tongue felt all turned around inside his mouth as he tackled the phrase, but he didn’t mind such silliness. He was glad the storm between him and his sister had blown over, that they were laughing and back to normal, with nothing more to worry about than keeping the mosquitoes away. He was still smiling as he grabbed his soda can from the backseat, where Ashley lingered while Steven and Olivia got out to unlock the chain stretched across the entrance.

  “Hey Ashley, why are you sitting in there? Aren’t you getting out?” Jack asked, gulping down the last of his soda. Warm fizz bubbled against the back of his throat.

  “Sure. Now that you and I have a second alone, I just wanted to say one thing.”

  “What?”

  Ashley leaned over so that her braids skimmed the backseat. Her face was so close to Jack’s that he could feel her breath on his cheek. “I’m going to act just as nice to you as I ever did, but—” She took a breath. “I will never, ever tell you anything again as long as I live.”

  With that, she gave him one last look, got out of the car, and shut the door so softly it hardly made a sound.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  “Each of you kids grab a flashlight. Stand at the edges of the flat area. Hold the flashlights toward me so I can see where to back in.”

  Dusk faded quickly into darkness as Steven pulled forward and backward several times, trying to position the trailer. Finally he got it on a nice, level spot. Then, by flashlight, he disconnected the trailer hitch and drove the Jeep out of the way, parking it next to a tall stand of Douglas fir.

  “Now the hard part,” Steven announced. “Wish we’d gotten here sooner so we’d still have a little daylight. Oh well….”

  Jack and his dad worked as swiftly as they could. After they lowered the bottom section of the camping-trailer door, they released the latches that held the top down for travel.

  Meanwhile, Olivia had crawled inside the Jeep. She pulled boxes from the tailgate and turned to hand them to Ashley, except, where was Ashley?

  “Holy cow! What was that?” Jack exclaimed. Out of the corner of his eye he’d caught sight of a dark shape exploding past him into the trees and had heard the snap of branches as the shadow disappeared into the underbrush.

  A beat too late, Ashley answered from the darkness, “It was nothing.”

  “What do you mean nothing! It looked like a big dog or—”

  “I saw it too,” she said. “I was almost right next to it. It was a…baby deer.”

  “Are you sure?” Jack didn’t know exactly what he’d seen rushing past him, but it hadn’t looked anything like a fawn. And Ashley was acting strange again. “How could a baby deer be right next to us when we’re doing all this work on the trailer?” he asked her.

  “Why don’t you come check it out, and then you can tell Mom and Dad all about it,” Ashley said, with a hard glance in his direction. “I’m telling you what I saw. I was right here.”

  “OK, OK. A baby deer. The weirdest baby deer I’ve ever seen, but whatever you say, Ashley.”

  “Jack, we need to crank up the top now,” Steven called. “Make sure none of the canvas gets caught on the edges at your end.”

  Still muttering to himself, Jack rotated the handle that raised the roof of the camping trailer. Fully opened, it stretched tall and spacious: metal roof, canvas sides, metal base. There were two pull-out queen-size beds, one at either end, plus a smaller bench with a mattress providing comfortable sleeping for all the Landons. Steven joked that compared with real, rough-out camping, staying in their trailer was like renting a suite at a five-star hotel.

  Olivia had already gone inside to set up the sink and stove top. She stacked plates into the cabinets, then unrolled all their sleeping bags onto the beds. Steven and Olivia would share one of the queens, and Jack and Ashley would take turns sleeping on the other queen and the bench.

  “Hello, anybody home?” It was a woman’s voice, but all Jack could see was a flashlight beam dancing against the dirt path. “Thought I’d check in to find out if you need anything.”

  Olivia came to the door holding an oil lantern that gave enough light to reveal their visitor—a park ranger in her twenties, dressed in the Park Service uniform: a Smokey Bear hat, gray shirt with badge and name tag, and dark green pants. Even in that dim light, Jack couldn’t help noticing how pretty the ranger was. Beneath the hat brim, brown hair barely skimmed her shoulders. Her eyes were friendly and her smile bright.

  “You must be Olivia,” she said. “I’m Ali. I’m at the Logging Creek Ranger Station just a few miles south of here. The plan says that I’m supposed to pick you up tomorrow morning to drive you to park headquarters. So….” She looked up at Olivia, who was standing in the doorway of the trailer. “Is there anything I can do right now to help you set up?”

  “Thanks, but I think we’ve got things under control,” Olivia answered and introduced Ali to Steven and Jack. A look of concern passed over her face as she said, “Steven, where’s Ashley?”

  “I don’t know. I thought she was with you, setting up the inside stuff.”

  “And I thought she was helping you and Jack. Ashley!” Olivia cried, then again, louder, “Ashley!”

  “I’m right here, Mom. Don’t worry, I’m coming. I was down there by the creek, looking at the water.” Ashley emerged from behind a stand of pines, acting sheepish that she’d been caught loafing when there was work to be done.

  “Ali, this is my daughter, Ashley, who knows better than to go off alone in the woods. Ashley, meet Ali. I was about to say that we’re going to build a campfire so we can toast a
few marshmallows. Can you stay awhile, Ali?”

  “Sure. I never turn down marshmallows.” Ali joined the Landons as they scouted for firewood by flashlight, moving noisily through the underbrush, snapping branches and twigs beneath their feet, trying not to trip over roots. Jack was surprised that Ashley didn’t stick close to any of them; actually, for a few moments, he didn’t see her at all. Then she turned up and dumped a meager armload of firewood on the ground.

  When they got a small, steady blaze going and Olivia brought out the toasting forks, Ashley speared the soft, white marshmallows, one after the other, onto the prongs of the forks, and handed them around.

  All of them settled on fallen logs close to the campfire, Jack between Ashley and the ranger. “My sister always burns marshmallows,” Jack told Ali.

  “I do not!” Ashley cried.

  “Maybe you just like the outsides all black and crusty,” Jack teased. “Cremated marshmallows, Ashley’s favorite kind. You ought to get some tiny little urns for them so they can rest in peace.”

  “Jack, let up,” Steven warned, shooting him a look. “We have a guest. Ashley, you’re such a great storyteller, why don’t you tell us a campfire story?”

  Ashley’s expression was innocent enough, but Jack could hear the bite in her voice as she answered, “Let’s let Jack do it. My brother, Jack, just loves to tell tales, especially to Mom and Dad.”

  “Really?” Ali asked. “I’d love to hear you tell a story, Jack. It’s a perfect night for it, dark and quiet, with this nice campfire. Before Glacier became a national park, Native Americans probably sat around a campfire just like this one—maybe right on this same spot—telling tales about animals and hunting and brave deeds.”

  OK, Jack thought, Ashley’s trying to make me look bad, but I’ll show her. I’ll fix her good. He leaned forward, trying to think up a story about animals and hunting and brave deeds. He began:

  A long time ago, millions of buffalo lived on the plains, grazing on the sweet grass. Bands of nomads lived on the plains, too, sometimes following the herds of buffalo. They carried their buffalo-hide teepees with them and set up camp wherever they decided to stay for a while.

  Hunters with bows and arrows would kill buffalo whenever they needed to, to provide food for their families. This was easy in the warm days of summer, but when winter was coming on, they needed extra meat to store up for the long, cold days of deep snow.

  One of the hunters had a son and a daughter. “Son,” he said, “this year you will help with the buffalo hunt.”

  The boy was only 12 years old. He knew that his arm was not strong enough to shoot an arrow through a thick buffalo hide. If he failed, he would be humiliated before his father and the others in the tribe. Still, he would never disobey his father—or his mother. If she told him not to do something, he always listened to her. He was a good son.

  “This is what will happen,” the father told him. “Two days from now, when the sun stands straight overhead at noon, you will put on the hide of a buffalo calf. Then you will lead the herd over the edge of that cliff.” The father pointed to a precipice in the distance.

  The boy’s sister grew wide-eyed. She wasn’t nearly as brave as her brother, but she liked to pretend that she was. “What can I do to help?” she asked in a small voice.

  “You can move the rocks,” her father told her.

  The next day, the young girls and boys of the tribe began to pile rocks up high, making long, straight walls. These “drive lines” would lead the buffalo to the edge of the cliff. The sister worked hard, tugging rocks into place, but the brother didn’t have to do this lowly chore because his job would be much more important. To practice for the great buffalo jump, he ran toward the cliff and leaped over, landing on a ledge beneath the edge of the precipice. He practiced again and again while his sister worked hard moving rocks. When all the rocks were stacked, the girl was so tired she went right to sleep inside the teepee.

  The day of the hunt, the people of the tribe stood behind the herd of buffalo and started shouting, moving the big animals through the rock piles, running them toward the cliff. Some of the people wore wolf skins to frighten the buffalo to stampede through the drive lines. When the herd got close enough, the brave boy raced in front of the thundering herd, making noises like a buffalo calf. He knew that hunters would be waiting below the cliff with their bows and arrows ready. He hoped and prayed that none of the hunters would think that the boy was a real buffalo and take aim at him as he leaped over the edge. But whatever happened, he would perform his duty with a strong, pure heart.

  With the herd at his heels, the boy jumped. He flew through the air, landing just where he was supposed to. Above his head, the buffalo plunged over the cliff. But the boy was not afraid.

  More and more buffalo jumped, landing on top of one another on the ground below. Some of them lived to limp away, but most of them died. The ones that lived but were too hurt to run were killed.

  Then, at the bottom of the cliff, the butchering began. The brave boy’s sister had to cut meat from the bone and pull out the intestines, because the people used every part of the buffalo, even the eyes. That was his sister’s main job—to pull out the eyes. But she was always so scared of things that she—

  “Oh, puh-leeze!” Ashley shouted, jumping to her feet. Her eyes blazed, partly from the reflection of the fire, but mostly from sheer anger. “You’re not funny, Jack, and you’re a real jerk! That’s absolutely the worst story I ever heard. It’s not even a story!”

  “Well…I thought it was very original,” Steven said.

  Apologetically, Olivia explained to Ali, “We were at Ulm Pishkun this morning. I think Jack got carried away….”

  Ali laughed and said, “I thought it was a great story. Did you make that up all by yourself, Jack?”

  Flushed with success, Jack answered, “Yeah, but I got a lot of the details from the exhibits at Ulm Pishkun. You know, like about the eyeballs. How about you, Ali? Can you tell us a story? Like, did you ever have a close encounter with a grizzly?”

  “Yes. A very, very, very close encounter.”

  “Cool! Tell us.” In the flickering light from the campfire, Jack was aware of his mother’s frown, which meant that Jack was probably going to get into trouble for asking Ali to tell a story that would spook Ashley even worse. But, hey, she started it!

  “Well,” Ali began, “I was kind of new to this job and this park, and I went out hiking alone. That was my first mistake. It was late in August, up at Logan Pass, east of here.”

  Interrupting, Olivia suggested, “Ashley, why don’t you come over and sit next to me?”

  “I’m OK, Mom,” she answered.

  “So,” Ali continued, “I sat down by a stream right in the middle of perfect grizzly habitat and started writing a letter. Later—I don’t know how long it was—I looked up and there, about five feet away, was a grizzly slowly walking toward me.”

  “Wow!” Jack exclaimed. “What’d you do?”

  “First my heart sank about down to my toes.” Ali chuckled a little, remembering. “Then I said, ‘Hey, bear,’ very quietly. I knew enough not to run or to yell. You never, never, never try to run from a bear. If you do, it’ll chase you, and no human being on Earth can outrun a bear.”

  Now it was Ashley who asked, very softly, “What happened?”

  “I had taken my boots and my backpack off. They were resting next to me, so I just rolled over in the fetal position and kind of waited there, trying to get my heart to be quiet. I didn’t hear anything from the bear, so I thought, OK, maybe he’s gone. Behind me was a little stream, and I heard a splash, so I peeked under my arm. About ten feet back was the bear, with my backpack under his chin. He was lying with his snout in my boot.”

  A bark of nervous laughter escaped from Ashley. “Your boot?”

  “Uh-huh. I was watching him, and he looked over at me and kind of said with his eyes, ‘Don’t look at me,’ so I looked back down. You’re not supposed to make
eye contact with bears. So I was lying there staring at the rock and thinking, well, maybe I can get away. I looked back at the bear again. Now he was chewing on my camera, and with his long claws, he had almost opened the part where you put the film in. Then once again he looked over as if to say ‘Don’t look at me,’ but I kinda watched him, and he put the camera back in my bag, nice and neat, and stood up and started walking toward me until he was right above me.”

  This time Ashley gasped, so engrossed she didn’t even notice when her marshmallow oozed off the fork and plopped into the fire.

  “He had his paw next to me, and I thought, OK, I’ve had a good life. I put my head back down. The grizzly sniffed down my back and then back up my back, and I kind of twitched my shoulder blade a bit, and then I felt a gentle nudge on my shoulder from the bear’s snout. I waited for teeth or claws, but I didn’t feel anything. Then I heard some bushes rustling up ahead of me. I looked up slowly, and saw a little tail on the back end of this big bear. He was walking away from me!”

  Jack let out a breath. “Whew! Lucky you!”

  Olivia said, “That was really unusual behavior. Normally, bears try to avoid people.”

  “So that was it? That’s all that happened?” Ashley asked.

  “Yep. The amazing thing was the bear didn’t eat any of my food, and I had Oreos. He just left all my food untouched, fortunately, because they say, ‘A fed bear is a dead bear.’” Ali paused, glancing down at the fire as she told them, “Once bears get people food, that’s when they really begin to cause trouble. They start breaking into cabins and approaching people and cars. Luckily that bear didn’t eat my food, so nothing was done to him.” She looked up again, glad to let them know that her story had a happy ending.

  “You mean, if he’d eaten your Oreos, something would have been done to him?” Ashley wanted to know.

  “Uh-huh. We’d have targeted him.”