The Wild Inside

by Christine Carbo

  “She’s talking to ’em,” Jack whispered. “Directing them higher up the ridge.”

  I was still holding my spray up, my hand shaking uncontrollably.

  “You can drop that now.” Jack pushed my arm down with two fingers and stared at me for a moment.

  “That was so scary,” Kendra said, then giggled and brought her hand to her mouth as if she could catch her nervous chuckles in her palm. “But cool. Haven’t seen one that close up ever.”

  Her voice was too high and loud. I stared at her for a moment, deluges of blood surging in the sides of my neck and between my ears, still semitrapped in a dark shaft, but I could make out some light and that light took on the fuzzy form of her round, flushed face and buttery-blond hair.

  I could hear Jack announcing that we’d wait ten minutes to give her and her cubs time to clear the ridge and then continue our hike. I tried to say something, attempted to form the beginning of my sentence starting with I, but couldn’t form the word, my throat swollen with nausea and acrid fear. Somewhere in the back of my head I could hear the sound of crunching bone.

  I quit trying to speak. Instead, I turned and began walking down the trail toward the car with Kendra yelling in a squeaky voice, “Where are you going? Wait. Jesus, Ted, what are you doing?”

  I kept walking until her voice became a distant vagueness. I made it around the bend before I threw up what was left of my breakfast beside the overgrown trail.

  A hint of nausea accompanied that image in my mind for a beat before it kindly vanished when I returned to headquarters. Ford and Monty were discussing something in the office. When I walked in, they both abruptly quit talking, and I couldn’t tell if I was imagining it or not, but Monty’s face seemed to flush and his eyes shifted toward the floor as if I’d caught him tattle-telling on me for god-knows-what.

  “Hello, Systead.” Ford stood. “Good to see you again.”

  Something bitter formed in the back of my throat, and I glanced at Monty, who was sorting through some papers.

  “What can we help you with?” I purposely used the plural pronoun, although I can’t exactly explain why, other than to somehow claim Monty on my imaginary side.

  “Not a thing. Monty here’s already been more than helpful.” Ford smiled at him, and again, Monty looked shy, as if he’d somehow betrayed me.

  “That right?”

  “Yep, I’m all up-to-date. So about this bear.” Ford blew out a loud breath of air. “We’ve decided that even if he doesn’t produce this bullet you’re searching for, that we will eventually be putting him back into the wilderness. He needs to begin heading for the high country.”

  “And this was your decision?” I asked.

  “The committee’s and mine. And don’t worry, I’ve run it past Sean Dewey.”

  I didn’t want to speak because I knew anger was boiling inside of me at the mere mention of Ford going above me to my boss and the idea that I might be without crucial evidence because of a decision prompted by Ford. Dewey knew that getting a slug was of utmost importance. I was certainly aware of the need to get this bruin back to his fall schedule, but there seemed to be something directed at me from Ford that smacked of a blatant disregard for what I was trying to accomplish. I was having a hard time not taking it personally. Ultimately, I knew final bear decisions rested with the super, but I was prepared to fight him because at this point I needed that slug even if I had to put someone behind that bear’s ass with a plastic cup for the next week. “You mean the bear review group?”

  “Yeah, Bowman, Smith, and that cadre.”

  Uh huh, I thought, who the hell uses the word cadre? Suddenly, I wanted him to leave. “All right then.” I picked up a random file off the long table; I had no intention of having that bear let loose without getting my hands on the slug used to kill Victor Lance. “I’ll talk to Bowman and Dewey.”

  “There’s no need. We’ve already discussed it. We’ll make sure he’s got a GPS collar on him,” Ford said.

  “Good.” I humored him and opened the file, still not taking in a single word from it. “Back to work then,” I said.

  “Actually, if you don’t mind. How ’bout taking a little walk with me.”

  I raised my brow. “Sir, with all due respect, I’m a little too busy at the moment for a walk.”

  “Just a small one.”

  I glanced at Monty, who was still looking down at the papers before him. I tossed the file back on the desk and followed Ford out, thoroughly irritated that this guy had some in with Sean. I had to play nice with him because Sean wanted me to and because I couldn’t afford to irritate any higher-ups in my department by upsetting park superintendents. We went out the back doors of the headquarters, across the parking lot to a path that led through a group of thin birches. Pale yellow leaves scattered the ground over a blanket of fallen tamarack needles. The crisp air hit my cheeks and a wet, earthy smell filled my nose.

  “So,” Ford began, “Monty’s told me that Lou Shelton is Victor’s uncle.”

  “That’s right.”

  “And that when you questioned him, you got him a little riled up?”

  “I’d say he got himself riled up.”

  “Well, Ted. Mind if I call you Ted?”

  I shook my head. But I did mind.

  “Here’s the thing, Ted. You know that around Lake McDonald there are numerous estates not currently owned by the park?”

  “Yeah, so?”

  “Well, these estates, of course, present a problem because owners don’t always play by park rules, right?”

  “Look.” I held up my hand. “With all due respect, I’m quite busy at the moment—”

  “You must also know,” he said more pointedly, “that it’s in Glacier’s and the tourists’ best interest to have open shoreline unencumbered by any local residences. People come here for the beauty of the unbroken land, not to see cabins on the shoreline.”

  “So? Isn’t it simply a willing-seller–willing-buyer policy with Glacier getting first right of refusal?”

  “That’s exactly right.” Ford paused on the trail, not far from a barracks-looking structure that I believe was the Lakes District office. “And with Mr. Shelton here, he’s close to becoming a willing seller.”

  “How so?”

  “Well, Lou’s father, Roger, specified that Lou would live in the cabin upon his passing. He died in 1999, a few years after his wife passed away. But beyond Lou, he didn’t specify if or how the grandchildren would inherit the cabin when Lou’s gone. Roger and Eloise Shelton had some eight grandchildren, all of whom are now over twenty-one and none of them giving a damn about the place the way Lou does. Anyway, I didn’t know it until now, but apparently, Victor was one of the grandchildren.”

  I nodded.

  “So.” Ford’s eyes narrowed under the shadow of his hat. “Let’s just say it’s in the park’s best interest to keep Lou Shelton on our good side because he’s this close”—he held up his fingers like he was about to pinch some salt—“to making a deal with the park.”

  “You mean a willing sale?”

  “Precisely. With a life-estate agreement. So, of course, I’d never interfere with your work, but if you can try to not upset him in the meantime, that would be in all of our best interests.”

  “I’ll try not to anger him, but when it comes to finding out who did this, a life-estate agreement’s not going to keep me from doing what I need to do.”

  “Of course,” Ford said. “But remember, the department isn’t going to be too happy with you if you prevent them from getting their hands on shoreline property.”

  “I appreciate your concern,” I said with mild sarcasm, fighting the urge to tell him to get the hell out of my business.

  “You’re welcome. And now, just as you said”—he smiled—“back to work then.”

  • • •

&n
bsp; He left me standing there. I stood on the path, not moving because I was gathering my wits before heading back in, but then I heard it. It wasn’t a very loud sound, but deep, and gruff. I knew instantly what it was. I turned and saw the twenty-by-twenty cage. He rocked from side to side and was looking in my direction. His silver-tipped hair thick and full—a heavy coat of armor against the oncoming winter. He grunted again, and the sharp taste of fear stabbed the back of my throat. I fought a childish urge to run.

  Just like at a zoo, I told myself. Not the wild. In a heavy-duty cage sturdy enough to hold a grizzly in the headquarters district of West Glacier so he can crap a piece of evidence out. That’s all. My breathing quickened in spite of myself. Not the wild, I repeated. The image of Oldman Lake with its stunted and wind-deformed high-line trees surrounding its deep-green water flashed in my mind. “Not the wild,” I whispered it out loud.

  But still, it was Glacier, and all the things that made her Glacier: white jagged peaks draped with golden morning fog; aspen trees with bone-white bark; crystal-clear frigid streams moving silently over large pastel-colored rocks; foamy, roaring waterfalls; red-rocked gorges with intricate curved patterns; cold, cold air—somehow crisper and more raw and desolate; and exquisite beauty surrounded me and seemed to mock me, whisper to me that I was somehow inadequate, incapable of solving a case while in her embrace.

  I shook off the feeling and walked closer to the cage. I could feel my pulse in my ears. The bear stood on his hind legs and lifted his nose to the air. The sharp stench of wild animal seemed to cover me and nausea began to build in my gut. I stopped. A silky black raven flew by and cawed. I felt dizzy, like things weren’t real and I was in a movie montage. I reached for a quarter in my pocket but realized I hadn’t grabbed my coat. My hands shook.

  Really—the bear was beautiful, with its full silvery coat, thick oval-shaped ears, and long, concave jawline. Suddenly, there were too many layers: Ford’s presence fueling my anger, Glacier’s breeze hitting my face, the case presenting many avenues, Monty and Smith feeling like unexpected friends, the ephemeral nature of the light, and under it all, a primitiveness locked deep inside of me scratching to break free . . . And here before me, less than thirty yards away, a magnificent, deadly grizzly bear grunting, sniffing my human odor, trying to make sense of me, trying to make sense of its cage. Its relentless presence filled the air.

  It occurred to me—broke through the fog in my head—that I could simply walk away, not just from the cage, but from the case entirely, and go back to Denver. Tell Sean to send someone else to solve a case about an animal-torturing meth head. And although I’m certain I didn’t define this with clarity at the time, something inside of me screamed that if I did, I would never be able to work another case in my life. And if that happened, I would be as caged as that bear by my own fear. In retrospect, I can describe this as if everything fit neatly into a pattern as perfect as the circular swirls of red rock around the Sun Rift Gorge on the east side of Logan Pass. But at the time, it was blurry and just a sharp sensation, like being deprived of air. And when that happens, you fight for it.

  I wish I could say that the moment was a pivotal turning point for me. That I strode right up to the bear, inspected him calmly as he roared. That I smiled into his long snout and hot breath as if I were John Wayne. But I didn’t. As anticlimactic as it sounds, I wasn’t ready and probably never would be, not without completely faking it. I knew I couldn’t quit the case, but I wasn’t ready to face a grizzly bear that had only days before eaten a human being. I stood and fidgeted, then turned back. And when I did, I saw Ford standing in the parking lot, his hand with his car keys frozen before the lock as he stared at me, squinting as Lou Shelton had, like some quintessentially wise mountain man. When I think about it now, I’m sure his look was one of amusement—his brow furrowed as he watched me flustered on the trail and wondered why I wasn’t going anywhere when I had so much work to do.

  But to me, at the time, all I could see was that he was peering at me as a man who’d conquered great patches of wilderness in his own life, like a man who could see right through me as if I were a fraud, as if bravery was only stitched to the fabric of my DOI cotton-poly-blend shirt . . . and as if I had a neon sign above my head flashing the word coward over and over again.

  12

  I CALLED SEAN, WHO seemed a million miles away in a world so separate from Glacier Park that it suddenly made me think of my apartment in Denver and that I still needed to ring Rexanne, the landlady, to check on my plants sometime near the end of the week. I was lucky that she liked me because she was very helpful for a guy with my travel schedule. She watered my ficus, my jade, my coleus, and my weeping fig anytime I was gone for more than a few days, and sometimes in the dead of winter, she would make sure my heat was up from sixty to sixty-nine if I told her when I was returning. Unfortunately, I felt that some long shadow had marked me the day I set foot on the McGee Meadow path and that I would be in Glacier for longer than half a week.

  “Systead,” Sean said. “It’s about time I heard from you. Guess you haven’t been missin’ those good ol’ heart-to-hearts with Uncle Sean now?”

  I chuckled. “I always miss those.”

  “Well, you’ll be missing them forever if you don’t get your act together.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” My half smile faded.

  “Bad joke. I just mean that part of your job is reporting to me, or did you forget that?”

  “No, I didn’t.” I was loitering around the entrance to headquarters and had to back away from the door when it opened. Karen Fortenson and a male ranger I hadn’t seen before came out the door laughing about something. I tipped my head and Karen held up her hand in a small wave and the other ranger tipped his head in return. “Look, it’s just been busy here. No witness, no weapon, no ballistics, but time-consuming because we’ve got several leads.” I shuffled over to my loaner SUV and leaned my hip against the hood.

  “That so? Well, while you’re in lead creek without a paddle, I’ve got the superintendent breathing down my neck about every move you make.”

  “I’ve gathered. And he called you about letting the grizzly go, which would guarantee a lack of ballistics?”

  “Of course he has. And he’s probably going to call me next to see if you wiped your ass this morning.”

  I laughed. “About the bear?”

  “What about it?”

  “You backed him that it should be let go even though it’s probably carrying the slug?”

  Sean laughed. “I wouldn’t exactly call it backing him. I don’t need to remind you that I back my men as long as they don’t do anything stupid, and you haven’t. Yet.”

  “Thanks for the vote of confidence.”

  “You’re very welcome,” he said facetiously. “Look.” He changed his tone to be more serious: “I told Ford what you already know—that the final call on a federal bear belongs to the super, but that it would be highly unusual for the super to not be helpful in an investigation.”

  I didn’t say anything.

  “I’m no bear expert,” he continued. “But there’s a ton of pressure coming from the park to release it so that it has a healthy hibernation. Plus it’s not like this Victor Lance was a senator or something.”

  “Probably had better ethics than a senator,” I mumbled.

  “I caught that. And you’re probably right,” Sean said. “Look, Ted, I’m no idiot, I know getting that slug can play a crucial role in nailing your perp.”

  “Absolutely,” I stressed. “If I get it, we can define the weapon and we can check the lands and grooves, even if it’s something totally generic like a Smith & Wesson and trust me, in this neck of the woods, everyone and their brother has one and not that many are in the ATF database. So at least if we have a slug we can still get a match if we come across the gun.”

  “And if you were really lucky, the gun
was purchased recently from a firearms dealer, so that its serial number is in the ATF database. You might even find it was purchased by someone who’s in leadville right now.”

  “I thought it was a creek?” I smiled.

  “Creek. Ville . . . who gives a shit?”

  “You’re right. If they purchased from a registered dealer.” Montana has no gun registration laws, but firearms dealers were required to run checks, and that meant the purchased gun’s serial number would go into the ATF database along with the purchaser.

  “Hmmm.” I heard Sean flipping pages and figured he had some type of file before him. I waited for him to continue. “If we put this bear down to search his stomach contents, there’s a chance you won’t find anything, and even if you do find it, it’s unlikely that the firearm hasn’t been disposed of, right?”

  “Can’t say that. You know how many people hang on to their guns—keep ’em in their house even after a murder for Christ’s sake. Although, you’re right about disposing it. It’s fairly common around here for people to toss ’em into the rivers. It’s a quick way to get rid of the evidence, and we’ve got some of the county guys with underwater detectors lined up to search the corridors as soon as they’re done with the job they’re on.” For some reason, my knees felt a little shaky, and I was glad I was leaning against the SUV. I wasn’t just kissing ass. The chances were slim that we’d find the gun in the rivers or some characteristic in the bullet that would magically point me in the right direction. However, it has happened. The third case I solved involved a late-nineteenth-century buffalo rifle that only a select few in the county had registered. Once I identified all the owners, it was easy to see that one of the teenagers on my suspect list had had his grandfather’s model in his possession at the time of the murder. It wasn’t hard to get him to confess. But the bottom line was that no detective worth their salt would let a bear free with a potential slug in its digestive system. “Seems like the park would rather save this bear than find who did this.”