*
To step onto Roaring Mountain was to step back in time to a primordial world. The slope stood nearly barren. Its scorched volcanic surface, sparingly dotted with the dead and twisted remains of a few lodgepole pines, appeared to have suffered a huge conflagration. Natural steam vents, open pits to Hell, hissed a somber melody to underscore the bleakness.
Billy parked in the small turnout across the road from Roaring Mountain. The beer having taken its toll, he crossed to the base of the charcoal slope to drain his bladder in the fancy outhouse there. The park had found it necessary to spend his tax dollars because you couldn't have sissy tourists dropping their drawers behind just any old tree. Free of the beer, Billy stepped back outside and stopped dead in his tracks. He caught his breath so as not to make a sound and sidled up against the building. He stared and was just able to make out a dark figure in the fog before him. Then it was gone and all the remained was the mist.
Condensed moisture on the nearby tree limbs fell in heavy drops and thudded on the beds of scattered pine needles below; percussion to the harmonic releases of steam from the mountain vents. Billy tried to block out the sounds, listening instead for movement. He took a few steps; a few more. Steam rose from the bed of blackened earth and mingled with the low hanging clouds. He strained his bloodshot eyes. There, in the deep shroud, above and to his left, Billy again saw the eerie form. It towered over the rancher, black and awful, its arms outstretched.
Then the mists parted and the creature revealed itself to be a stunted lodgepole pine. The skeletal tree, bare of all but a couple of contorted limbs, stood forlornly in the boiling witch's cauldron that had killed it. Billy cussed, closed his eyes, and took a badly needed breath. Shaken, he returned to his truck. He removed the rifle from its hiding place beneath the hay and placed it in the cab beside him. Then he reached into the tattered bag under the seat, intent on steadying his nerves with his seventh beer of the day.
*
Norris Geyser Basin was closed. Following the recovery of Bart Houser's body, the rangers felt it only prudent to keep the public out of the area. There was still a bear on the loose and they didn't need any more incidents. Billy was glad to see it. Empty of tourists, he would attract no attention at all wandering the basin with a rifle slung over his shoulder.
The rancher slid his truck into a spot next to the little museum building across the main road from the basin area. He didn't want anyone snooping around his pickup any more than he wanted a confrontation out on the boardwalks. He grabbed his rifle and locked the truck. Confident he was alone; Billy darted across the road and into the lodgepole pines on the opposite side. He moved to the edge of the pines overlooking the basin below. The heavy fog, combined with the steam rising from the geysers, vents and fumaroles, gave him the sensation of standing at the edge of the world. Only the tips of scattered pines showing through the white blanket gave any indication there was a bottom to the pit. A fleeting thought of turning back passed through Billy's mind but his arrogance would have none of it. It was him or the bear. One of them, he knew, would not see the sun set.
Billy worked around the edge of the basin's upper rim to a wide meadow of knee-high grass, a remnant of the summer's healthy growth already turning brown. Crossing it, he would be in full view from the road, but it couldn't be helped. It was the only way to the boardwalk. He dropped the rifle along his side, to hide it from view, and strolled toward the lodgepole on the opposite side.
He was near half-way there when someone shouted, “What are you doing out there?”
Startled, Billy turned to see a park ranger beside his patrol vehicle on the shoulder of the road. No, no, no, the rancher's mind was screaming; where did he come from? Billy eased the rifle down his leg to the ground. He smiled, waved, and headed in the ranger's direction.
As he neared the officer, Billy studied the man's face. His expression spoke of curiosity, even annoyance, but neither fear nor anger. He gave no indication he'd seen the weapon. The ranger was twenty-five, at most, blonde and muscled; a poster child for the National Park Service. Just a kid, the rancher thought. No sweat.
“What are you doing out there?” the ranger asked again as Billy closed the gap between them.
“Stopped over by the museum to stretch my legs and my dog run off. I was just looking for him.”
“Well, you're going to have to move along,” the ranger said. “The basin is closed. We had a bear mauling here and it isn't safe to be wandering around, especially in this weather.”
“A bear mauling,” Billy said in mock surprise. “Sorry, officer, I didn't know. Look, I'll just walk back up and get my truck. But if you don't mind, I want to stop down here just one more minute and see if that dog will come to call. Then I'll be on my way. Heck, that old mutt was never worth all the trouble anyway.”
The ranger looked Billy over trying to decide if he was crazy or just stupid. “Yeah, okay,” he said, opting for stupid. “But don't be long.”
“Thanks, officer. I really appreciate your concern.”
The ranger's vehicle headed down the road. Billy followed it with his eyes and, as it disappeared, with his benediction. “Ya' jack booted thug!”
In the short walk to the truck, Billy gave the situation some thought. He'd have to be more careful. If he got himself arrested, old Silas would never let him forget it. He retrieved his rifle from the meadow and decided to move to different hunting grounds for the time being. Billy poured the fuel to the carburetor, trying to remember where the other idiots had been killed. He grabbed his eighth beer of the day mulling the question over. Firehole Lake wasn't too far south. There'd been a killing there.
The rancher blew through the stop sign at Norris Junction and raced down the open roadway. He wasn't paying attention. He was too busy wishing that punk kiddy cop had given him a harder time. He laughed at the mental image, fuzzy as it was, turned up the radio, and finished his beer.
*
When Yellowstone blew up in smoke and flames in 1988, Gibbon Falls was right in the path. Below the falls, and above the banks of the Gibbon River, the trees still showed the scars of the massive wildfire. Bare and blackened pine boles, reminders of the merciless cycle of life, stood watch over the newly rejuvenated ground cover of thick vegetation. Amid the abundant growth stood three large bull elk, grazing on the nutritious salad at their feet. Large, dark-colored crowns adorned their heads, massive antlers to be used in the mating rituals and battles for dominance just starting.
Billy pulled his truck to the side of the road to admire the monarchs of the forest. He wasn't, by any stretch of the imagination, a naturalist. In fact, he pictured himself putting a bullet or two in the big hunk of venison in the middle. That elk would look good staring over his pool table in his basement, when he got a pool table in the basement. Forget it, he thought. That wall was reserved for a murdering bear. Maybe he'd have the missus fry him up some steaks while he drove around Gardiner showing off that dead bear all stretched out in his truck bed. Billy laughed and pulled back onto the road.
He made it as far as the Madison River Bridge, south of Madison Junction, when his bladder began screaming again. What was that joke? You don't really buy beer, you just rent it. That last one had put him over the edge again. And he'd had enough now. He'd save the rest of his stash for the celebration trip home. Having to stop was wasting valuable hunting light.
He drove the winding road up the opposite slope and, near the top, made a turn onto Firehole Canyon Drive. There had to be a spot up there he could pull off and relieve himself. He wound his way down to the banks of the river where the road mirrored its course through the slot canyon. As the road dipped at its lowest point, then began to climb up through the walls of rock, Billy marveled at the amount of water rushing through. He'd never seen the Firehole River so high. A few more days of rain and the road would be under water.
The Firehole River was a force to be reckoned with. Through the centuries it had carved its way down through the canyon
eliminating everything in its path. The multicolored rock walls, left behind as borders, towered over sixty feet above the sluice through which the river passed. Even with his senses dulled by alcohol Billy was captivated by the raw strength of nature's forces.
He drove on, maneuvering up the steep roadway until it leveled on the upper rim of the east canyon wall above Firehole Falls. He squinted through the windshield, admiring the crashing water as it followed a horseshoe course; westerly, then back to the north, and finally east through a narrow gap in the rock walls. There, it shot over the lip of the shelf and tumbled thirty feet below to smash its way into a churning pool.
Even with the truck closed up, the tumultuous thunder of millions of gallons of unbridled water filled his ears. Steering left, into the turnout for sightseers, Billy parked to shield himself from passing cars and stepped out. He stood inside the open door, looking out into the sea of fog and lodgepole pines, and peed on the parking lot pavement. The sound of the falls was ear splitting. Billy couldn't hear himself breathe. And he didn't hear the eruption from the trees in front of him.
The grizzly appeared suddenly, as if out of thin air, charging on all fours through the pines and straight at the rancher. Billy saw it and, slowly, his mind registering what it was. He saw the smaller trees and brush breaking in its path, but it seemed unreal as he heard only the sound of Firehole Falls smashing into the massive pool below.
Finally, he realized what was happening. But with his instincts dulled, by the time Billy grabbed the rifle from the truck cab and turned back, the bear had closed within yards. He dropped the gun to his hip. The barrel disappear into the chest of the biggest, meanest grizzly he had ever seen. He jerked the trigger and felt the rifle kick but, so deeply was the weapon buried in the monster's fur, he saw no muzzle flash. The report of exploding powder sounded like the pop of a single kernel of corn.
Billy's feet left the ground and, an instant later, an intense pain shot through his body as he bounced off the side of the truck bed. He crashed to the ground, feeling nothing at all. Billy lay supine on the pavement, his back broken and, even in his beer drenched haze, knew he was about to die. Only sissies cried and only babies soiled their pants. Billy wanted to go out like a man. The great bear's face appeared above his, staring down with steel-gray eyes. In them, he saw an intelligence and, beyond that, an intense hatred unlike any he'd ever experienced.
Paralyzed, he could do nothing. The giant bear lowered its face to within inches. It opened its jaws and released a low, demonic growl. Billy closed his eyes, overpowered by the heat and stench of the bear's breath. The grizzly clenched its powerful jaws around his neck. Billy Walton, of the Bar 7 Ranch, hoped without much hope that his granddaddy would be proud. Then the lights went out.
Chapter 15
Glenn had worked difficult cases before. Some had been perplexing, others nearly impossible, but this ordeal was something else. Even outlaws and murderers had rules, habits, and patterns. Suddenly the black and white process of investigation didn't seem to apply. Answers couldn't be found for the simplest questions. Glenn could not fathom the confusion created by the few facts he had. He could stand anything but confusion. He needed to talk the troubles, the gray areas, out. But he couldn't talk to anyone. Any one, that was, but Johnny Two Ravens.
By the time Glenn arrived in Crowheart, Two Ravens had already started on their usual bottle. He'd been guiding greenhorns into the mountains since he was old enough to drive. He knew his job and had never had so much as a severe client injury, let alone a fatality. When, this time, they met before the outfitter's lit fireplace, drinks in hand, both were deeply troubled men.
“Two visitors, a ranger, now a rancher,” Glenn said, rehashing the killings; just part of the strange occurrences in the park. “It just doesn't make any sense. Nothing makes any sense.” He gulped his drink. “And it isn't bad enough Houser is dead. Now I've got to ruin his reputation as well. Another of my rangers, Pete Lincoln, couldn't handle the guilty knowledge and spilled it. Houser couldn't make ends meet so he started shaking down visitors. He was even poaching small game. Like I don't have enough trouble with professional poachers. And the bear deaths. And what you went through. The whole world is standing on its head.”
“Have you thought any more about the connection J.D. mentioned?” Two Ravens asked.
“What? That our bear is killing environmental rapists?”
“Has it occurred to you we could be dealing with something outside the norm?”
“Of course it's outside the norm,” Glenn said. “Bear attacks just don't happen with this frequency or ferocity.”
“I don't mean that. I'm not talking about statistical normality.”
The chief eyed his friend watching the firelight flicker in his dark eyes and off of his stern features. “What are you talking about, Johnny?”
“Has it occurred to you we could be dealing with the supernatural?”
Glenn grunted a laugh. “You're drunk.”
“I'm not remotely drunk,” Two Ravens said. “And I'm not kidding either.” Now they were both staring, wrestling with their eyes. “Think for a minute. People numbering in the millions pour into churches every week, sometimes twice a week, and spend every second of the rest of their waking lives ignoring, and even denying, the fact that there is a spiritual world.”
“Come on, Johnny.”
“Come on, what? As a species we are meant to be in touch with every facet of this world.”
“You know I don't subscribe to organized religion,” Glenn said. “The hypocrites outnumber the supplicants four to one.”
“I'm not talking about organized religion. I'm talking about the spirit of the world; Mother Earth.”
“Johnny, I love you like a brother. In fact I love you more than my brother, he's an idiot,” Glenn said with a smile. “But as far as I'm concerned Indian mysticism is just another religion. It's all guilt with music. Yours just happens to have drums.”
“How could you have spent seven years in these mountains without discovering they have a life of their own?”
“Of course there's life here…”
“No. I mean the mountains are alive,” Two Ravens said. “The trees are alive. The rocks, the plants; they are all beings with life energy. They all have spirits.”
“Okay.” Glenn raised his hands in surrender. “They all have spirits. What does that have to do with what's happening in the park?”
“Maybe the bear cannot be found because it does not always exist.”
Glenn lifted the bottle of amber liquid. “I'm not drunk enough for this,” he said, pouring.
“I know how strange this must sound to you.”
“No,” the ranger said. He took a drink, felt the burn of the alcohol in his chest, and exhaled. “No, I really don't think you understand how truly, unmistakably, irretrievably strange it sounds.”
“I'm just asking you to accept the possibility…”
“What possibility? You're telling me we're looking for Casper the unfriendly bear.”
“Don't be so quick to judge,” Two Ravens said. He poured himself another drink and settled back. “There is a legend among my people. It says that over one hundred years ago the white man was stealing into the Stinking Country…”
“The stinking country?”
“Yellowstone; the Stinking Country.”
“Oh, yeah,” Glenn said. “The sulfur from the geothermal areas. Got it, sorry. Go on.”
Two Ravens nodded. “The white man was trespassing on Indian land and poaching the animals. The legend speaks of a great and powerful medicine man who led the ceremonial Bear Dance then, empowered by the Great Spirit, Duma Appah, left the reservation and headed out to face the white man; the taker. The holy man's name was Silverbear.”
*
By the third day of his vision quest, Silverbear had seen many things and been told much by the Great Spirit. The magic of the bear fetish had proven itself. His return to the tribe would be a happy one for al
l things were working out in the Earth's time, as they had been told. The day before he had sat by the falling water in the Stinking Country, what the yellowlegs called Undine Falls. With the feathered pipe he had smoked the rich tobacco. Then he'd been visited by a golden eagle.
It had appeared from nowhere, sent by the Great Spirit, and had circled above him in wide and beautiful arcs that shrank with each pass. It lit on a rock in front of Silverbear, folded its tremendous wings of brown and gold next to its body and greeted the Shoshone holy man.
Silverbear and the eagle shared the majestic silence of the Stinking Country. Then the eagle spoke to him. “You are free,” the eagle said in Silverbear's own language. “The white man who steals the lives of the animals will be stopped; his actions avenged. The yellowlegs with their false law and heavy weapons of shining metal cannot help you. They are prisoners. The Shoshone people are free.”
Silverbear heard the words but said nothing. This was the final answer to their Bear Dance and the culmination of his quest. Now was the listening time.
“Your freedom is guaranteed by your respect for the land,” the golden eagle said, staring at him from his stately position upon the rock. “All things work out as the Earth would have them, for the Great Spirit has created a balance in all things. The wrongs of those that have injured you will be righted in their time. Tell this to the Shoshone people.”
The eagle spread its wings. It leapt from the rock, dipped slightly in its flight then, stroking the air mightily, soared high. Brown and gold, it gleamed in the sunlight of Silverbear's second day.
It was a happy message to take back to his tribe. Now he knew that Norkuk had been right. The white men had told the Shoshone, “Stay on this land we give you and we will provide for you.” Norkuk had known, however, that the land had not been theirs to give and their poor excuse for food was not needed or wanted. His were a proud people, a self-sufficient people. The white man was a lesser creature hardly deserving of the name `man.'
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