Among the throng were most of the business owners from Crowheart. Tommy Two Fists had ventured off of his trout farm to attend. Smohalla, the Nez Perce Indian who ran the Crowheart Bar had a seat in the front row. Mrs. Boinaiv, who inherited the Tomahawk Motel, had ridden down with Joe White. The filling station owner stood glad-handing old friends as if he were running for office.
Of course, Two Ravens was there as well. But this was a different Johnny Two Ravens than anyone had seen before. Normally stoic, strong and wry, this Two Ravens was a shaken man.
He'd found his client, Paul Hastings, only two hundred yards from their fishing camp at Heart Lake and it was the most sickening sight he'd ever seen. There was no question Hastings was dead. His corpse had been mutilated, ripped wide open, with his innards tossed wildly around the heavy green foliage. He'd packed Hastings' companions out at first light, following a sleepless night of venomous comments and accusations. He'd contacted the park authorities from Tie Hack Ranch and immediately returned to the site of the killing with rangers in tow. The investigation interviews that followed left Two Ravens feeling hollow and empty. He'd slept little since.
Holding forth with his inimitable cool was William Shakespeare. A tribal elder, Shakespeare had chaired the Council meetings and represented the Shoshone for the last half decade. A newspaper writer and speaker, Shakespeare could talk with the government's Agency Supervisor like few on the reservation. He had an equally trustworthy relationship with the chiefs of both reservation tribes. Whether Shoshone or Arapaho, Indian problems went to their chiefs, reservation problems went to Shakespeare.
In deference to the old and out of reverence for the ancient, Shakespeare wore a handmade buckskin shirt. He removed his New York Yankee's ball cap, placing it on the floor for the duration of the meeting, then adjusted a pile of yellow legal pads on the table. He said something, barely audible in the din, to Running River, the Arapaho Councilman, then tapped the table with a wooden gavel. The talking throughout the room ebbed to a murmur, then turned quiet.
“If we're ready to start,” Shakespeare said. “I'll ask Running River to read the minutes from our last Council.”
“Forget that bull!” The shout had come from the back and not a soul in the room had a doubt as to who had uttered it. The group turned as one. Fred Black rocked from one foot to another; insufferably pleased with the way he'd drawn their attention.
Fred was not yet twenty-three years old. Still, in that short time, he'd earned the fear and loathing of nearly every resident of the reservation. He stood big as a mountain, with shoulder length, mouse brown hair framing a face that always seemed to be issuing a threat. Tattoos decorated both the meat of his folded arms and his hairless chest; “permanent war paint” he called it.
“We're going to conduct this meeting in an orderly fashion,” Shakespeare said.
“Nobody cares about last month's minutes,” Fred said. “We want to know what's being done about all those killings around Yellowstone.”
Another murmur went up through the crowd. Fred cast his evil smile at William Jones, the young Indian at his side. Jones, like a shadow, was always at Fred's side. He walked where Fred walked, drank what Fred drank, and nodded when Fred spoke.
The rest of their motley crew was in attendance as well. Bull Tarken, wearing the worn yellow and brown jersey from his linebacker days at Wyoming. Ed White, Joe's son, leaned against the back wall with his girlfriend, Angel Adams, leaning back against him. He had one arm around her throat and the hand of the other tucked into a pocket of her jeans. Ed was known as a troublemaker, Angel a tramp; both descriptions were oversimplifications. The Crow brothers, whose parents had messed them up for life by naming one Lawrence and the other Larry, leaned on opposite walls in the corner, both dreadfully bored with the entire affair.
“Well,” Fred demanded. “What's being done about it?”
Shakespeare exhaled forcefully. He'd hoped to hold that discussion off for a while but it wasn't to be. “I can't tell you what's being done,” he said. “The Yellowstone official I spoke with was reluctant to discuss the situation with me. He said it was a matter for the National Park Service; unrelated to the Wind River Reservation.”
“Unrelated?” Two Fists stood as if his chair was on fire. “The people being mauled to death up there are our customers. How is that of no concern to us?”
Shakespeare raised his hands as if fending off blows. “I'm telling you what I was told, Tommy.”
“Ask John Two Ravens if it ain't an Indian problem.”
The outfitter winced visibly. Images of Paul Hastings' torn flesh, as he lay in a pool of his own blood, flooded back to him. He saw again, with even more distinctness, the looks of anguish and anger on the faces of his fishing buddies.
“If I go out of business,” Two Fists said. “That's a concern for me.”
“Of course it is, Tommy,” Shakespeare said. “But Yellowstone said they'll handle it.”
“Yeah,” Fred hollered. “Like they've handled it already. There are three people dead, three in one week, from grizzly attacks. That ain't natural. They say they're going to take care of it, but it ain't natural. Obviously they've done something to create this problem in the first place and they ain't saying what it is.”
A clamor went up throughout the room. Shakespeare hesitated, allowing for steam to be blown off, and then struck his gavel again. “Please, everybody.” The room quieted. “Fred, you have nothing to base that on.”
Sam Coyote, the proprietor of the bowling alley in Fort Washakie, rose to his feet. “I don't know if Fred knows what he's talking about; there's a first time for everything.” Sporadic chuckles were scared off by Fred's glare. “But it seems to me that whatever's happening up in the white man's park is the white man's problem. Let them take care of it.”
There was a spattering of applause.
Two Ravens stood. “Shakespeare, may I speak?”
The chairman smiled, grateful somebody remembered his place, and nodded.
“Sam Coyote is right. It is a white man's problem, but it is also our problem. I lost one of my charges…”
“You should have watched him closer,” Fred said.
Two Ravens stared daggers to the back of the room. When it seemed Fred had no more to add, he continued. “I feel responsible and that makes it my problem. These killings have been happening all over the park, west, south, as near as Heart Lake where the incident with my client took place. It could be one bear but these are great distances apart.”
“Are you saying its more than one bear?” Shakespeare asked.
“I am saying it could be more than one bear. If so, how far will they travel? Do we remain quiet until it becomes more of an Indian problem? Will we bring on trouble with inaction?”
“You're cowards,” Fred hollered, heading for the door. “You're all cowards.”
Like ducklings, the rest of Fred's gang followed after him. Joe White watched his son disappear with the Adams girl on his arm. He hung his head.
“I've never seen such a display,” Running River said, as the room began to quiet again. “Arapaho tradition allows no one to walk out of Council except the medicine man.”
“You know it is no different for us,” Shakespeare said hoping he did not sound as defensive as he felt. “They have no respect for the old ways. No respect for our laws.”
Two Ravens, still standing, placed his hands on Joe White's shoulders. “The young ones are no different than many of us. We are all forgetting the old ways.” The room grew quiet again. “For Mother Earth, there is a balance to all things. All things happen in their time.”
“Including these killings?” someone asked angrily.
The Tribal Council continued, carried by voices that alternated between curious, questioning, and angry. It ended with no consensus being reached. Two Ravens stepped from the Community House into the crisp fall air. The scattered, dim streetlights of Fort Washakie did little to hide the brilliance of the star-filled night sky.
Fred Black was an outlaw, Two Ravens truly believed, but the drunken, hateful young lout had said something that stuck with the outfitter. What was happening in Yellowstone was not natural. Fred's claim that the park authorities had done something to cause the killings was ridiculous. Yet he was right all the same. It wasn't natural.
*
A bright white light pierced the darkness as two human forms made their way into the open meadow on Madison Plateau. A heavy thud and vicious crack broke the silence as Gerry Meeks separated antlers and skull plate from the top of a bull elk's head with a keenly sharpened hand axe. As cleanliness had always been next to godliness, it was no surprise that Meeks was interested in neither. Quick and efficient were his only concerns.
Having taken what he wanted, he handed the massive set of antlers to Bass Donnelly.
“Put those with the others and let's get out of here. We've got a long ride ahead and I want this load out of the park before sun-up.”
Without a word, Donnelly tied the rack onto the back of a pack horse with the rest of their load. It had been a good day, with more than four hundred pounds of prime antler gathered since daylight. That was going to translate to more than seven grand in hard cash. The young poacher was already spending his share in his head and kicking himself that he hadn't gotten into the business long ago.
With the load secure, Meeks extinguished the light. “Let your eyes fix,” he whispered to his partner. “Then mount up. I'll lead. You stay in my hip pocket, ya hear?”
Donnelly replied with a grunt.
“Just give your horse his head. He knows a hell of a lot more about what he's doing up here in the dark than you do. When we get in the timber, cover your face with an arm so you don't lose an eye to some low-hanging limb.”
Yup, Donnelly thought, seven grand. Seven thousand dollars on top of what they'd already collected. That crotchety old buzzard could talk all he wanted, treat him any way he wanted, say anything he pleased as long as, when the time came, he paid him his share.
The clouds had finally cleared and the combination of moonlight and acclimated eyes allowed them to situate their pack horses and get into the saddle. Meeks clicked his tongue and spurred his mount into a walk. The soft creaking of old leather and the nearly imperceptible hoof beats of four horses on damp earth mingled with the whispering wind. Their pack-train, in silhouette, made its way back across the small meadow and into the darkness of heavy timber, then disappeared.
*
As if the forces of nature were aware of their brutal crime and bitterly angered by their violation, thirty-five miles away, an otherworldly fog appeared on the surface of Apparition Lake. Beneath the eerie swirl, the dead waters began to churn.
Chapter 14
A shroud of dark clouds hung in heavy layers in the sky, blanching the color from the landscape; a silent, depressing storm that again covered the valley like a casket pall. Everything in the glen looked wet and gray. Winter always started first in the high country. The rains would come, followed by the first snow settling on the peaks up top. There might still be wildflowers and blue birds on the valley floor, but the cold never truly let go its hold where the air was thin. Snow could fall any time of year. Winter was truly king in the mountains.
Billy Walton heaved the last of the hay bales over the corral fence, finishing his chores for the morning. Though it had been hours since leaving the Sagebrush Saloon, he was still mad at the whole bunch of them. He gathered the bailing twine he'd scattered on the ground while feeding his horses and threw it with the rest of the clutter in the back of his dented pickup, and then leaned against the corral fence to light a smoke.
He could not understand what was wrong with those people. Had they gotten soft over the years? Too much reliance on tourist money, that was their problem. It made perfect sense to him; bear kills cattle, bear kills people, rancher kills bear. It didn't get any simpler than that. Bears were useless critters anyway; nothing but voracious eating machines. It was hard enough to feed your family these days, let alone having to share with a worthless hunk of insatiable grizzly hide. Granddaddy Walton would never have put up with it. Billy wouldn't either. It was settled; the bear had to go.
Billy looked up toward the high country encircling the Bar 7 and smiled. It had been a good year for hay. The thick clouds covered the peaks but, in his mind's eye, he could see them; snow-capped and majestic. They'd already had more moisture than he'd seen in a couple of years and there was plenty to come. He would have to remember to tell his rider to keep the cattle off the river for a couple of weeks. He couldn't afford to have any of the stock drown. Yes, sir, it had been a good year for hay. After I kill that godforsaken bear, Billy thought, it's going to be a good year for beef as well.
Billy dropped his cigarette at his feet and ground it into the dirt with the heel of his mud-caked boot. It was time. He reached into the cab and took his rifle down from the rack in the rear window. He checked to make sure it was loaded, though he already knew, and hid it beneath three broken bales of hay in the truck bed. Rangers or no, he was going hunting. Let them try to stop him.
He climbed into the pickup, started the engine and flipped on the radio. A local country-western station was playing Garth Brooks, Standing Outside the Fire. Billy hummed along with the tune, feeling lonely and not sure why. He reached down to the passenger's side and pulled his third beer of the day from a sack lying on the floorboard. He thought of the rangers. He thought of the folks at the Sagebrush. He thought about his Granddaddy.
“They'll see,” Billy said aloud. “They'll all see.”
*
The rain stopped but the clouds had settled in for the day. On Mount Schurz, the second highest point in Yellowstone, a low grumbling began just below the summit. Hundreds of inches of snow pack from the previous winter had saturated the ground, which never truly settled over the short, cool summer. The torrential rains from the freak storms had only added to the stress.
A section of unstable soils, already clinging precariously beneath the peak's steep north face, sloughed off under its own weight. The slope above, now without a supporting toe, began to slide. The rumble grew thunderous and, without warning, a section of mountain broke free. The loose section of soils and rock, nearly one hundred yards in width, started slowly downhill. As it moved, it gained speed and busted other slabs free. Like falling dominoes, the moving earth overwhelmed the mountainside in its descent.
Propelled by its own weight, pulled by gravity and roaring like a runaway freight train, the slide toppled downward at ever increasing speeds. It uprooted trees without hesitation and pushed boulders the size of small trucks as if they were marbles. In thirteen seconds, the slide denuded the mountainside and came to rest fifteen hundred feet below. A dark cloud of uplifted dirt, mixed with heavy fog, gave the impression there had been an explosion. The rumble ebbed and the cloud slowly settled. The silence that followed, in comparison, was deafening. Far from civilization, no one saw and no one heard nature spreading the weight of the weather's work. All things in the natural world were fighting for balance.
*
Billy pulled in behind a short line of vehicles at the north entrance station to the park. Two cars ahead, in a two-tone brown rental, an Asian child with his head out the rear window was making faces at a black couple in a blue Buick with Mississippi tags right behind. “Must all be lost,” Billy said. He laughed at his own joke, as intolerant of people of other cultures and colors as he was of bears. He belched and dropped an empty beer can, his fourth of the day, behind the seat of the pickup. He slid the sack of full cans under the passenger's seat with his boot. No sense looking for trouble, he thought.
His turn, finally, Billy pulled up to the station shack where he was greeted by a familiar smiling face. Jill was a seasonal employee of the Park Service and had been stationed at that entrance several weeks. “Hello, Mr. Walton. What brings you to the park today?”
“Had it out with the old lady,” Billy said, lying. “J
ust needed to go for a drive. Want to come along?” He grinned, proud of the way he handled his nerves.
She shrugged helplessly. “Wish I could but somebody's got to hold down the fort.”
“I imagine so,” Billy said. “Can't blame a fellow for trying.” He pressed the accelerator, heading through the gate. It was too bad she was a government employee. Otherwise, Billy thought, he might just show that little filly some western hospitality.
Rounding the curve, Billy looked into the rear view mirror to make sure he was out of sight of the entrance station. He reached under the seat and removed his fifth beer of the day. He popped the top, took a swig, and laughed. This was going to be fun, Billy thought.
Ten minutes later, his truck had climbed the nine hundred feet in elevation to the Mammoth Hot Springs complex. He parked in front of the gift shop and headed inside for a snack. Beer always made him hungry. Billy returned with an armload of munchies, tossed them onto the seat, and leaned against the pickup bed to light another cigarette.
A large green bus pulled noisily into the lot and parked at the base of the Main Terrace. Billy stared as the haggard-looking driver emerged from behind the sliding door. He jumped down quick and looked to the rancher, as if he was making an escape rather than just getting off. The reason was soon apparent as a flood of blue Scout uniforms followed. Billy didn't care for tourists but he had to admit this group was a hoot. That poor driver looked like he needed to kill somebody. The swarm of Cub Scouts raced from the Main Terrace, up the winding boardwalk trail, to the Upper Terrace of the Hot Springs. Like ghosts, the boys disappeared into the heavy bank of clouds hanging above the Mammoth complex. First they were there and then they were not. It was the strangest looking thing he'd ever seen. The hair stood up on Billy's arms and a chill worked its way up his spine.
“You silly fool,” he told himself, trying to shake the feeling of unease. Billy flipped the cigarette into a puddle. He started his truck and roared from the parking lot and up the road. The incline took him up, around the Terrace, and into the same cloud. He too vanished like a phantom.
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