Wildlife managers were divisive when it came to the reasons behind this increase in predatory incidents. Some believed these behaviors were the result of declining food sources due to global warming. Waller didn’t agree with that. He said, “These animals can adapt. If one food source is removed, they’ll adapt to another in the wild, such as elk calves.”
But Waller also acknowledged that “this isn’t the parks” and said there were an estimated seven hundred to eight hundred grizzlies in Yellowstone alone. The grizzly population in the Selkirk recovery area, a twenty-two-hundred-square-mile ecosystem between British Columbia and parts of the three separate states, was around sixty, with that number equally divided between Canada and the United States. “They have plenty of habitat. Unless we’re talking about a defensive attack, these bears would most likely walk away from something unknown to them.”
“But not always,” Marian said.
“Just as with people, we can’t always predict a bear’s behaviors,” Waller said.
Waller went on to tell Marian that he believed the problem had a lot to do with information not getting out to people, or people not following the recommendations or taking those recommendations seriously. In each of the attacks, people knew they were in bear country. “And in the park fatalities,” he said, “none of those people were carrying bear spray.”
“What about Tate?” Marian asked.
“Only a third of the can had been expelled. Visibility was poor in the area. Either he surprised the bear or the bear surprised him. We believe he was knocked down by blunt force. He may not have even seen it coming. He could have tried to use the spray after the bear was already on him. And, aside from having the dog with him, he was hiking alone. In two of the recent park fatalities, like Tate, both men were hiking by themselves.”
For a moment Marian thought about Jenness hiking and camping alone in Alaska. “The bear is still out there,” Marian said.
“I know.”
“He could be a threat to someone else.”
Waller didn’t say anything.
And then Marian asked, “Were you scared? When you and Blais and Tevis went in there?” Marian understood that a bear’s instinct was to protect its cached kill.
“We brought a couple of game wardens with us. But yes, I was scared,” Waller said. He and the others hadn’t had a lot of time when they’d come upon the kill site—only a couple hours of daylight left that first day, and they were approaching prime feeding time for bears. Whichever bear had killed Tate would be returning to feed on its cached food supply. “We had to get in and out and get the body out of there as quickly as we could.” Waller said they returned to the area over the next couple of days to finish collecting evidence and survey the scene.
Marian asked if there were pictures.
But Waller didn’t think that was a good idea. “The body was at least forty percent consumed by the time we got there. It was an awful scene, Marian. It’s not something you’d want to see.”
“What about the bag?” Marian looked at the large paper bag next to Waller’s chair.
Waller’s eyes remained on Marian. “Tate’s belongings,” he said. “The items we found at the scene.”
“May I see them?”
He reached for the bag that was on the floor beside him.
“I can release the items to you,” he said. “The sister doesn’t want them.”
“You’ve closed the case.”
“We brought the snares in a couple of weeks ago. As long as there are no other encounters, we’ll open the area back up in a few more weeks. But a case like this is never really closed,” he said. “We have the DNA. If there are any other incidents, we’ll see if there’s a match.”
Marian thanked Waller for everything he and the others had done. She appreciated their work. She appreciated them putting their lives on the line. “I know you all are doing a good thing,” she said.
She signed a release form for the items.
“You need to prepare yourself,” he told her. “Make sure you want to do this. Don’t look through the items until you’re ready.”
Marian put the report in her pack. The large paper bag was heavier than she’d realized.
“Do you need some help?”
“No. I got it.” She picked it up and held it against her chest. She thanked Waller for talking with her. She carried the items out to the vehicle that Tate had driven on the day of his attack.
23
PRESENT
August 2017
MARIAN
Cusick, Washington
Marian had arrived at the cabin in Cusick around five, having stopped in the town of Newport to pick up the key from the owner and to purchase dry ice for shipping the samples. Back in June, Marian had borrowed Trainer’s truck and visited Tate at this same cabin before she’d left for Utah. Everything was just as she’d remembered it: the full-size bed in the corner, piled high with army blankets; the checkered sofa with torn cushions; the two-person dinette table next to the window; the wood stove and stack of firewood and five-gallon bucket of kindling; the small kitchenette; Ranger’s crate and container of food in the corner next to the stove, and Marian felt that familiar aching lump in her chest when she saw Ranger’s belongings. Though the miniature refrigerator had been cleaned out, there were still nonperishable food items in the cupboards, including tea and coffee.
Marian’s grief felt smaller here. The cabin was cold, and Marian was alone, and everything seemed surreal, as if none of it—Tate, and Ranger, and her work in Alberta, and a handful of huts in a forest in Montana—had ever happened. Marian started a fire to take the chill out of the air. She made a cup of Earl Grey tea and then removed the report from her backpack and laid the document on the table. The report’s heading read: Fatality of Tate Mathias on July 14 from a bear attack in the Salmo-Priest Wilderness of the Colville National Forest. The document, prepared by both federal and state personnel, provided a summary of the incident, the investigation, and the response. The report also presented photographs and detailed drawings of the area after the body had been removed. Much of the material Marian already knew: the call that Lyle made to the Pend Oreille county sheriff’s office at 0600 hours the morning after Tate had failed to check in; the two game wardens from the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife who responded to the call and began searching the area where Tate had planned to be working the day he’d failed to check in, as provided by Lyle; the discovery of Tate’s remains at 1430 hours, including his belongings and identification; the subsequent investigation by three wildlife personnel who were dropped off by helicopter that same day, just south of the area of the fatality.
The review included a description of the body from the investigators, as well as the findings from the county coroner. Tate’s clothing had been mostly removed; his face had been mauled, as had his right shoulder and left leg. There was some swelling on the back of his head, consistent with that of someone who had fallen backward. An estimated forty percent of his body had been consumed. His remaining flesh showed both puncture wounds and claw marks. There were areas of significant bruising on his right arm and hand and neck, indicative of wounds suffered while he was still alive. The coroner’s conclusion was that Tate had died of severe injuries received during the attack. The additional wounds, including open fractures to his ribs, were made upon the bear’s consumption of the body after Tate had died.
But there was also information in the review that Marian had not been familiar with, including two hikers on the Pacific Northwest Trail, which abutted the area Tate had been working that week, who had seen Tate and a dog at approximately 0800 hours the morning of the attack. And on the following day, when the investigators revisited the scene, additional grizzly tracks were found, as well as scat, suggesting that the bear had returned to the cache site after the body had been removed.
For DNA purposes, bear
hair and saliva were collected from Tate’s body and pieces of his clothing. The DNA from the hair, saliva, and scat was all from the same male grizzly. And though no carrion was found in the area, the scat showed traces of not only human consumption but also that of an elk.
The amount of water and food found in Tate’s daypack led investigators to believe that the attack had occurred sometime that morning. Further, a GPS receiver was also found in the top compartment of the pack. After the receiver’s battery was charged, investigators were able to download the tracklog, which had recorded Tate’s position every thirty seconds from 0630 hours till 1120 hours, at which time the receiver either stopped working or was not able to make a satellite connection due to the backpack being underneath Tate’s body. Ranger’s datatracker was never recovered.
The review went on to discuss the thirty-day trappings that took place following the attack, and the fifteen-day aerial reconnaissance. During the flights, there had been five grizzly bear sightings, and each of those bears was collared and did not have the same DNA as the bear responsible for the attack.
* * *
• • •
Marian had been looking over the report for the past couple of hours. Except for the small wall sconce that pivoted over the table, the light in the cabin had grown dim. She picked up the bag of Tate’s belongings, which she had set in the chair across from her at the table, and carried it with her to the sofa. She turned on a floor lamp and sat on the worn-out cushions. Then she pulled her legs up onto the sofa and began removing the tape from the bag.
She turned the bag on its side and emptied the contents, including Tate’s daypack, onto the floor. The royal blue pack had tears down the fabric and patches of crimson stains. Ranger’s water dish was still attached to the outside by a silver carabiner. Marian unzipped the pack and went through its contents: Tate’s first-aid kit; two water bottles, one still completely full; a plastic bag with energy bars; the plastic container that Marian knew had held Tate’s uneaten lunch; another container of water, half full, which Tate had carried for Ranger; Tate’s GPS receiver; a solar charger. Everything Marian could think of was there, except for his wallet, which the authorities had given to Tammy.
Tate’s hip pack, a khaki color, had also been recovered. The clasp was still attached. The belt had been torn all the way through. The plastic bags and vials and samples Tate had collected that day were all there. The ball was not, and Marian imagined Tate having thrown the ball for Ranger, and Tate standing in the woods and entering data into his phone. The phone had been found on the ground and had no doubt been knocked from Tate’s hands, or else he had dropped it when he’d gone for his bear spray. He was preoccupied, Marian thought. He never saw the bear coming.
The only other items were Tate’s hiking shoes, a pair of wool socks, and Tate’s brown leather belt. Marian set the recyclable items aside—the first-aid kit, water bottles, GPS, and charger. She did not want to hold on to the other items. She understood why Tammy had not wanted them either. She held the daypack upside down and shook it to make sure she had not missed anything. A bell jangled and fell onto the floor. Marian picked up the small bell with the Velcro fastener and set it aside with the other items she would return to Lyle. The handlers usually carried extra bells for the dogs, should a bell come off while a dog was in the field, so she did not think anything of it. Marian put the bloodied items back into the bag, then carried the bag outside to the garbage bin. She gathered the other articles and put them in the front panel of her pack.
The bathroom to the cabin was in a separate building and was equipped with two showers and toilets and sinks and a washer and dryer, for hunters who would pay rent to pitch their tents on the cabin’s property. The freezer where Tate had stored the samples was in a storage closet accessed from the outside of the bathhouse.
Marian grabbed her toiletries from her backpack and a clean set of clothes. She walked the fifty or so feet to the separate building, stripped out of her clothes, and stepped into the shower. There was a bottle of scent eliminator soap and shampoo that hunters used. The bottle had not been there when she’d visited in June, and Marian wondered how many other people had stayed at the cabin since Tate’s attack.
After Marian dried off and dressed, she went to set her towel on the washer. On the shelf above the washer and dryer was a container of scent-free detergent and dryer sheets. She remembered some of the literature Lyle had passed out following Tate’s death. A number of bear behavior biologists believed people should avoid scented detergents, deodorants, soaps, and shampoos, even toothpaste and chewing gum, when heading into bear country. Marian had known to store her toiletries and food in a bear canister or hang those items out of reach of a bear should she be camping in bear habitat. But she had not thought about the effect the scent of her soap or toothpaste would have.
* * *
• • •
Marian turned on the second wall lamp by the kitchen sink and looked through the cabinets for something to eat. She tried not to think of Tate or the pasta they had prepared when she had visited, or the steak he said he’d bought, when she’d called him from the Nokai in Utah. She found a can of vegetable soup. She heated it on one of the two burners and ate it from the pan while standing at the counter. Marian washed the pan and spoon and put them away.
She put another log in the stove and stoked the flame. Then she pulled the file folder that she’d found in Jenness’s hut from her pack. She opened it on the table. She set the photographs aside and picked up what felt like a small ream’s worth of tracklogs. She looked over the data. It was collected four years ago, between August 2 and October 16. Waypoints had been recorded every thirty seconds, which meant Marian was looking at the tracklog of either an orienteer or a handler, as the dogs’ waypoints were recorded every three seconds. The dates matched those for the grizzly and black bear study in the Yellowhead ecosystem of Alberta. Likewise, the waypoints matched those for the Rocky Mountains and foothills in southwestern Alberta. The data entries were becoming a blur. “What am I looking for?” she said.
She made a cup of coffee and then brought a pad of paper and a pen that she’d found in one of the kitchen drawers with her back to the table. She blew on the coffee, sipped it, and stared at the data. She had to make sense of this. Then she wrote down the individual dates for each section of data, and she realized that what she had in front of her was the schedule for one of the dog teams: three days on, one day off; four days on, two days off. The terrain was steep and difficult. The dogs were being given downtime to recuperate.
The silence in the cabin made the room feel enormous, cavernous—just Marian sipping her coffee, staring at data and dates, flipping over pages. And beneath those pages were the articles from the Stillwater murders. There was something important here, and she wasn’t seeing it. Marian leaned back in her chair, the caffeine slowly taking effect. She continued to stare at the dates she’d written down. And then it hit her, a sudden jolt that made her sit up straighter. September 18, the date Lynn-Marie Pontante went missing. Whichever team this data belonged to had not worked on that day. Nor had that team worked the following day.
Marian picked up her phone. She looked up the distance between Banff, in southwestern Alberta, which would have been close to where the teams were staying, and Libby, Montana, and came up with a five-and-a-half-hour drive. Someone could have made the drive to Libby, could have abducted Lynn-Marie. Jenness had worked as Tate’s orienteer on the study. These records had to belong to either Jenness or Tate. But Marian had already ruled Tate out; he could not have committed these crimes, she tried to reassure herself.
Despite the coffee, Marian felt unable to concentrate, as if she could no longer lock onto anything specific and clear. She set the tracklog aside. She laid the articles out in front of her. She picked them up one at a time and read through them. The last article she read was Melissa’s obituary. She was twenty-seven years old. She had gr
own up in Columbia Falls, had spent five summers working on trail crews in Glacier National Park. She volunteered with Dawn of the Wild, a wildlife rehabilitation center for birds, and the Audubon Society out of Kalispell, and was working as a veterinary technician with Timber Line Animal Hospital. She was survived by her parents, a brother, a sister, grandparents, and aunts and uncles and cousins.
Marian picked up the photo of Melissa and Jenness and Tate. She thought back to the day she’d spent with Tate on the mock wolverine study in the Cabinet Mountains, when they’d been walking in the woods and he’d told her about the artist girl, but had said the bird girl would have been more apt. She’d volunteered for the Audubon Society, Tate had said. And the air in Marian’s lungs suddenly felt solid, as if she couldn’t breathe, because she felt certain that Tate had been referring to Melissa. She remembered Emily talking about her sister and how much she had loved birds and what a remarkable artist she was. Tate had said the same thing about the artist girl. And yet Tate hadn’t mentioned that she was one of the Stillwater victims, and Marian wondered why he had withheld that information. Nor had he said anything about knowing Melissa when Marian had called him from Utah and told him about Emily, Melissa’s younger sister, or when Marian had specifically asked Tate if Melissa’s body was the one he had found. Again Marian looked at the photo of Melissa with Jenness and Tate. “What were you hiding from me?” she said.
Marian sifted the envelope out from among the articles and datalog. On the back of the envelope were notes in Jenness’s handwriting. The number 18 had been written down and underlined. Below that was 5/19, the date Melissa had gone missing. A telephone number was also written on the envelope, along with the initials R. S. The notes appeared to Marian as if they’d been jotted down while Jenness had been talking with someone on the phone. Marian ran a reverse telephone number search. The number belonged to a cellular device in Montana. She hesitated for a couple of seconds, then dialed the number. The call went to voice mail: You’ve reached Ryan Schulman, reporter for the Daily Inter Lake News. Leave your name and the nature of your call, and I’ll get back with you. Marian had been holding her breath. Quickly, she ended the call. She set the phone down and picked up the article about the search for Erin Parker with Ryan Schulman’s byline, and another article about Melissa Marsh’s disappearance.
The Last Woman in the Forest Page 23