The Wild Inside

by Christine Carbo

  The gas fire hummed in the background, and she carefully began to open the first article on the top of the pile. She smoothed it out before us with her palm, and I could see it held its sharp creases from years of being folded. I had to hold back from grabbing the ones underneath and spreading them all out as well. It was more my style—to see it all at once—to take it in and see how it all fit together in my mind. Ma was different, more meticulous from years of grinding, cutting, and counting pills. She pushed it toward me—an article from a local Billings paper. The ink on the headlines looked as if it had darkened over the years, while the background had turned a brownish-yellow sepia tone, the color of unbleached grain. The ink on the front-page pictures had faded, and the headline stood at the top: “Fatal Grizzly Attack in Glacier Park.” There were no pictures accompanying it.

  The date was September 24, 1987, so it was one of the first reports. I scanned the article, and neither of us spoke. It mentioned that a man had been taken in the night and dragged some one hundred and fifty feet from his tent and fatally mauled by a grizzly bear. It said that the man was with his fourteen-year-old son, who was in critical condition in the Kalispell hospital recovering from sustained injuries while trying to get back to the Two Medicine campground. It mentioned the emergency helicopter that retrieved him and flew him to the hospital as well as the couple that found him in the a.m. on their way to hike Dawson Pass.

  Mom pulled out several more, still slowly, one at a time: the local papers in Kalispell, Missoula, Great Falls, and Bozeman. All of them were from the same date with similar accounts. Then she pulled out one from Missoula, dated September 25, the day after the others. This one’s headline made my pulse speed up. Ma shifted in her seat. The headline read: “Possible Careless Camping Habits Leads to Glacier Park Grizzly Attack.”

  I fidgeted in my seat and ran a hand through my hair. I couldn’t wait any longer for her to pull them out one at a time. “If you don’t mind?” I grabbed the thin pile left underneath and began unfolding them, spreading them out before us.

  Ma said nothing.

  I had them laid out: the age-stained, putrid-looking thin sheets of newspapers. I could smell a dry, musty scent from them. I took in the headlines: “Careless Camping May Have Caused Glacier Bear Attack.” “Mauled Father’s Careless Camping Habits Lead to Tragedy.” “Fatal Mauling Brought on by Careless Camping Habits.” All were from local Montana cities, though two were from Sheridan, Wyoming, and Denver, Colorado. “Where did you get all of these?”

  “You know, the old news shop.” She pointed to the northwest wall of the house to its direction. “It’s still there, you know?”

  I grunted some response. The last one I opened was the New York Times, with a similar headline: “Possible Careless Camping Brings Grizzly Fatality in Montana.”

  “Go ahead.” She waved her hand in the air. “Read them.” She stood and grabbed our cups. “More tea?”

  “Sure,” I said, without glancing up. I chose the Kalispell one first: “Fatal Mauling Brought on by Careless Camping Habits.” I ran my hand over it, my palm moist against the aged surface, now grainy and fuzzy from the slow disintegration of the fibers. Briefly, it ran through my mind that the paper would be completely decomposed someday, but that it would still exist long after the Systead family was gone.

  Saturday’s fatal mauling of a camper by a grizzly bear in Glacier National Park, the first killing since 1976, has raised concerns of many camping enthusiasts due to the suspicion of park officials that the victim may have been less than careful in keeping a clean campsite.

  The victim, whom park officials have identified as Dr. Jonathan Systead, a pathologist who worked for Kalispell Regional Medical Center, and his fourteen-year-old son, Theodore Systead, from Kalispell, Mt., had hiked about six miles in from the Two Medicine area to fish and camp at the Oldman Lake backcountry campsite.

  Judging by the ripped state of the tent, in the night the grizzly dragged Jonathan Systead one hundred fifty feet from the tent, where there was sign of a struggle.

  According to Glacier Park superintendent Eugene Ford, park officials have reason to believe that techniques for avoiding encounters were not closely followed. He refused to give further details in an effort to respect the victim and the victim’s family members.

  Theodore Systead is in critical condition in Kalispell Regional Hospital for a serious head injury sustained while staggering out of the woods alone in the early hours of Sept. 23. Glacier Park officials emphasize that bear attacks remain extremely rare and that no visitors have been injured by bears in the park in the last decade and that Sunday’s killing was the first bear-caused human fatality in Glacier since 1976.

  Rangers are in the process of trying to capture the grizzly responsible for the fatality to take appropriate measures against it.

  I read the others, all with similar accounts. Ma brought me the tea and sat down again, this time in the rocking chair. “So, you see?” she said and began rocking, the wood chafing against the oak floor. “He painted it like it was your father’s fault.”

  “I know. We’ve known that for years.” I rubbed my forehead. “What I’m wondering is why you’re so sure that he’s not correct?”

  “Of course he’s not correct. You told us that you were careful. You told us that, and you had no reason to lie.”

  “Maybe I was wrong. Maybe I just wanted to believe it was clean. Maybe we did something stupid, like going to sleep with the clothes we cooked in.”

  “No.” She shook her head stubbornly. “No. I remember. You told us that you didn’t. You told us the site was clean.”

  “But memory is tricky. I know that now. I see it all the time in my line of work. Witnesses make stuff up constantly—their brains bend and fill in the details, and they truly believe them. Like, for years I believed I searched for him, but now I’m not so sure I ever did. How could I have? It was dark and I had to make a fire.” I looked into her eyes. They were moist; the brown had lightened as she’d gotten older. They looked more tea-colored than coffee-colored in the fire light. They were intense, not brimming with pity, but concentrated and crowded with something, perhaps love, perhaps horror. She was imagining it all over again—her boy in the night making a fire, sitting in his own urine, praying his father would walk back out of the trees. “Maybe they did find evidence that we were sloppy?”

  “No, it wasn’t like that. You told us in the hospital what happened. You were right out of a coma; you had no time to make stuff up. You had no time for memory to play tricks on you. And it’s not like I hadn’t camped with your father countless times. I know how careful he was, and I know that he’d be even more cautious in the fall in Glacier. Plus why doesn’t one single article mention what was found to indicate that there was any carelessness?”

  I didn’t answer.

  “Not one of those gives any details and that’s a bunch of bologna about wanting to respect the family members. When have you ever seen that in all the prior and subsequent grizzly attacks written over the years?”

  “I haven’t,” I admitted. I sat back in the couch, laid my head back, and sighed. “You really think he made it up? It sounds so crazy.”

  “I think he made it up to ease people’s minds about the park. To make them think that bears only go wild if there’s a good reason, and if there’s no reason, you’re safe. And for the most part, people are, but not that time. For whatever reason, not that time.”

  “But does it really matter that he lied? Why do you care so much? Why haven’t you let it go? Why haven’t you thrown these away?” After my rage with Ford, I felt sheepish for asking, but had to anyway. I sat up, rested my elbows on my knees, and gestured to the table.

  Ma sat and stared at the fire, her jaw set. She didn’t shrug; she didn’t move. “I’m not sure why,” she finally spoke so quietly that I barely heard.

  “Then maybe you should,” I said soft
ly.

  “I called the man, you know, and confronted him. I wanted to know what they’d found to suggest that your father had been careless.”

  “And?”

  “And nothing. He blew me off; said he didn’t have permission from the DOI to discuss detailed findings with me.”

  I looked at the table. The dark headlines blurred and smeared together. My eyes hurt. I began to pick up the clippings, fold them neatly back up, and place them in the folder.

  Ma leaned forward to help me, and I could hear her breathing. It was more labored now, and her face was very serious. I wanted to ask her if she was feeling all right, but suddenly I felt too exhausted to say anything more.

  She stood and tucked the folder back under her arm. “You’re sleeping here tonight. There’s a spare toothbrush in the bathroom. I’ll make sure there are fresh sheets on the bed in the upstairs’ room.”

  • • •

  I woke to the creaking of the walls as the wind continued to gust, but could see a pale-blue sky through the small side window of the upstairs bedroom. Ma had given me some pills, some Sonata or something, before I went to bed. I told her I didn’t need them, that I was exhausted, but she said it would keep me from waking in an hour or two and that I needed that. And other than a groggy head, I’m guessing she was correct—I did need it. I felt human for the first time in days. But judging by the angle of the sun through the window, I figured I’d slept much later than I’d wanted to. I sat up, rubbed my face, my chin prickly with stubble.

  I found my phone in my pants pocket and saw that I’d missed several calls from Sean and one from Monty. I took a big breath and blew it out loudly. Here we go, I thought. Sean was either returning my call about the bear or he was going to ream me out because Ford had called him. I put the phone away. I’d call him on the way back to the park.

  After I showered and shaved, my hand only slightly shaky, I went downstairs and had a cup of coffee with Ma. I told her I was late and needed to get going and would have to skip breakfast, but she refused to let me leave without two scrambled eggs in my belly, telling me that I looked even thinner than when she saw me at Nat’s. I scarfed those down and thanked her, but before I left I asked if she still had some of the things I used to keep in my bedroom in my top drawer of my dresser.

  “Of course I do,” she said. “Everything’s boxed up in the basement.”

  “Do you remember the knife Dad gave me? The one with the pearl handle?”

  A half smile came to her lips. “That’s not in storage. It’s in with the articles I showed you. You want me to get it?”

  “Yes, please,” I said. “I do.”

  I waited for her to return with it, and after she placed it in my hand, I stood quietly for a moment, feeling its weight through the smooth pearl and observing the rust on the edges. I didn’t open it in front of her, just kissed her good-bye. “I’ll visit again before I leave,” I said at the door.

  “I’ll expect it.” She was dressed in a pair of burgundy cords and a striped sweater. Her hair was neat and her cheeks slightly rosy. I thought she looked good for her age, even pretty. Suddenly, a pity washed over me that she’d never remarried or found another partner.

  “What?” she said curiously when she saw me pausing.

  “Oh, nothing.” I turned and got in the car and started it while she stayed at the door. The blue sky had already turned a bruised gray in the short time it took for my breakfast and flurries of frigid wind tossed the dead leaves in the front yard. I started to back out, then stopped and rolled the window down. “Thanks again, Ma,” I said.

  “Why are you thanking me for nothing?” she called through the gusts. “I’m just doing what any mom would do.”

  “It wasn’t nothing,” I said. “I needed that.” I waved again and backed onto the avenue and headed north.

  • • •

  I called Monty first on my way to Glacier. “What’s up?” I asked him.

  “Walsh’s boys finally searched the South Fork and guess what?”

  “They found it?”

  “Yup.”

  “You’re kidding?”

  “Nope. I’m not. A Ruger Blackhawk.”

  “But it’s Sunday. How come I didn’t know they agreed to search?”

  “Guess he had some guys willing to work an extra shift this weekend, and he knew you’d been wanting it done. Guess he rethought it. Deep down, Walsh is a softy.”

  “Good to know.” I chuckled in spite of my irritation at Monty.

  “He left a message here at headquarters last night.”

  I was relieved by this surprise, but I still was feeling uneasy about telling Monty about my father. It had occurred to me that he had to be the one who filled Ford in. The timing seemed a little too coincidental, and I was kicking myself for confiding in a guy who I knew all along was Ford’s right-hand man. Even Monty had enough sense to not go on about whatever it was in his family that made him not want to bring children into the world. The thought of exposing the events of 1987 to anyone else ever again made a ball of acid expand in my stomach, so when I called Sean after telling Monty how to handle the evidence until I arrived, I was doubly relieved when Sean didn’t chew me out.

  He said he was returning my call to talk about the bear. I let out a pent-up breath and felt my pulse slow back down. He said that after some consideration and a few chats with other officials in the department, he had decided that it was, indeed, important to get the slug regardless of what had come out in the paper and regardless of what the park’s bear committee had decided.

  “Well, that’s good to hear because the county guys have found a gun in one of the rivers outside of the park.”

  “You’re kidding?”

  “Nope. Just got the call right now.”

  Sean was pleased, and since his mood was calm, I knew that I should tell him about Ford and my history in Glacier because it was inevitable Ford would. Sean had said that he’d call him to make sure he didn’t release the bear, and I pretty much knew that when that happened, it would irritate Ford enough that he’d spill the beans. But I stubbornly, and perhaps foolishly, held back. I was clinging to the idea that my past was nobody’s business but mine. Other than lose my cool a time or two, I had done nothing wrong or unprofessional. The worst I’d done was making a fool of myself by the bear’s cage in front of Joe Smith.

  So when I entered the office and saw Monty, I had already conjured in my head full conversations between Ford and him about my past. I pictured Monty, his eyes full of pity for the poor fourteen-year-old boy, but with the same upward curled lip as Stimpy, slightly smiling as he enjoyed furtively dishing out the juicy details to Ford like a good little minion.

  “Hey,” Monty said when I entered.

  “Let’s see it.” I held out my hand, and Monty handed me the gun wrapped in thick plastic. I inspected it through the wrapping. Its barrel was narrow and about six inches long, the handle a rich brown. The serial number and other markings lay etched on the barrel and the frame under the cylinder. “Have you checked to see if it’s in the ATF database?”

  “Not yet,” Monty said.

  “We need to do that first.” I rotated it and checked out the barrel. “Fingerprints are probably unlikely after being in the water this long. Looks like it’s stainless, though, and not blued, and with the cold water, the barrel shouldn’t have rusted.”

  “How quickly can that happen?” Monty asked.

  I shrugged. “The inside of the barrel isn’t usually treated, so it can rust pretty quickly in warm water but less with stainless. After we check for registration, we need to get this to Missoula quickly and see what they come up with.” I sighed. “Obviously now, more than ever, we need the slug.” I set the gun on the table and eyed Monty suspiciously. “It’s Sunday,” I mumbled. “Why are you in here?”

  “Don’t have anything better t
o do. Tried to get Lara to spend some time with me, but she’s not interested.” He gave a small shrug. “Besides, I wanted to organize some of my notes.” He tilted his head toward my diagram. “I see you’ve been working on your own.”

  I grunted.

  “I was going over all interviews with the Shelton grandchildren when the call came in from Walsh.”

  I swallowed my irritation at the fact that Walsh didn’t call my cell phone to let me know firsthand, and I wondered why Monty always seemed to be in the right place at the right time. I dialed Walsh and asked him how quickly Gretchen’s officer would transfer the gun to the ballistics lab in Missoula.

  “How quickly?” Monty asked after I hung up.

  “By early evening. Gretchen’s guy should be here any minute.”

  “You need for me to record the info on the gun?”

  “No, I got it.” I took out my notepad and wrote down the serial number and the other etchings.

  “Figure anything out?” Monty asked, pointing to my diagram.

  “No,” I said. “Been busy dealing with a few other issues.”

  “Such as?”

  “Such as making sure we get the slug from our bear before your boss lets him go.”

  Monty leaned back in his chair and placed his hands behind his head. “I heard he wants to do that, like today.”

  “Yeah, well, obviously now that we have the gun, he can’t. We need the slug.”

  “But it’s over a week already.” Monty furrowed his brow. “What if he’d already threw it up or crapped it out in the woods before we got him?”

  “The bear’s not crapped anything in over a week. That’s why I doubt he did it before we picked him up.”

  “So you really believe it’s still in his digestive tract?”

  “I do. It could very well stay in there all winter, but I’m hoping the heat lights will work.”