On Jace’s first day off from work, Danielle woke him as she crawled over him to get out of bed. He dozed again but awoke when he heard her busy in the kitchen. In a little while he could smell bacon frying. She was making breakfast. Perhaps the worst was over. She was settling in at last, giving Alaska a second chance. He lay in bed with his morning chubby and dared to feel optimistic about the remainder of her visit.
A moment later she shrieked and screamed, and Jace was on his feet and in the kitchen in an instant. Ashen-faced, she pointed to the window. He approached it carefully and looked out. A tripod made from spruce poles stood right outside. Hanging from the tripod by its hamstrings was a goat that the boys had slaughtered and bled and were presently gutting and skinning. Without its hide, the goat might have been a gutted child hanging upside down.
A WOMAN WHO worked for one of the guiding companies was leaving that morning to pick up supplies in Anchorage, and she agreed to take Danielle to the airport. Jace helped carry Danielle’s things across the footbridge to the van. They embraced and kissed good-bye. He never expected to hear from her again, and he never did.
The following evening, when he returned home from the ranger office, Jace was surprised to discover that the Prophecy camp next door was abandoned. All the tents, tarps, and belongings were gone. The family had left behind only trampled ground, a fire pit, and the cleared brush. Good riddance. He hoped that they too had left the park.
He wasn’t so lucky, as he later learned. Beehymer had returned from wherever he’d gone and agreed to lease them his old mine site out at Stubborn Mountain. Well, at least they were sixteen miles away (26 km); they probably wouldn’t bother Jace again.
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Sidebar: A Herd of Picnic Tables
HP1 1.0
IN ORDER TO meet the Monday flight at the Anchorage airport, Jace had to leave McHardy on Sunday afternoon after work. His pickup was parked on the other side of the footbridge, so the first mile of his three-hundred-mile trip (483 km) was on foot. It was high summer, and tourists owned the ghost town. They strolled its dusty streets or waited at the air-taxi office for a flightseeing tour. They crowded the deck of the saloon drinking microbrews and dining on mooseburgers with cheechako fries. They snapped selfies at the People’s Museum.
When Jace reached the footbridge, a string of tourists was coming over, having just been disgorged from a luxury motorcoach. He welcomed the visitors to the park, though he was off-duty and out of uniform.
The parking lot on the other side of the footbridge was its usual summertime circus of cars, busses, and RVs. Jace made his way to the end where he kept his Toyota. A slip of paper was tucked under the windshield wiper. In a childish scrawl it read, Atension! You are in violation of parking regs! See atendent or risk towing ASAP!!!
Jace puzzled over the message. The parking lot was on private land, and he concluded that the owner must have hired a new lot attendant to collect parking fees. Jace got into his pickup and crossed the rocky terrain to the entrance.
The weathered wedding canopy that served as the attendant’s booth was still there, and it was joined by other slapdash structures — tents, a herd of picnic tables, an old yellow school bus — in what resembled a nomadic encampment. About a million children of all ages dressed in vintage pioneer costumes seemingly cut from the same bolt of blue gingham were running around and playing games. The girls wore bonnets and long dresses and the boys bibbed trousers with suspenders. Only their swooshed athletic shoes broke the spell.
Jace couldn’t figure out who or what these costumed people were. A children’s choir? A traveling Gold Rush act? (Years later, when he thought about this encounter, he realized that Deuteronomy must have been there too with her family, but he had no recollection of seeing her. Maybe she was in the bus behind the curtains.)
Jace approached the booth. The attendant was a paunchy old fellow with long, grey hair and beard. He had a Father Time air about him. That is, he was not only ancient but worn down. Shambling. World weary. His hair and beard were untrimmed and untamed. Moist eyes lurked under bushy eyebrows. He slumped in his lawn chair and watched Jace’s arrival without a shred of interest.
Next to Father Time sat an incredibly tired-looking woman nursing a gingham-clad baby under a shawl. Arrayed on the table before them were Christian-themed tchotchkes for sale: wooden crosses, praying hands, angel dolls, cross pendants. The pieces ranged in quality from crude to master-craftsman and were decorated with spruce cones, moss, birch bark, moose nuggets, and bits of fur.
“Hi,” Jace said, placing the scrap of paper on the table in front of Father Time. “It seems I got this by mistake.”
The old man didn’t even look at the paper. He only needed to glance at Jace’s pickup to say, “Weren’t no mistake. You owe five days at five dollars per. Comes to twenty-five bucks.”
“You don’t understand. I’m a local. Beehymer doesn’t charge us locals.”
“We have the parking franchise now, and things are changed. Everyone pays the day rate. That’ll be $25.00. Cash.”
To park his vehicle at $5.00 per day for the rest of the season would cost Jace $500 for something that had always been free. And it wasn’t even a paved lot but only an expanse of glacial detritus left over from the last Ice Age. While Jace was considering his options, he noticed the new district ranger coming across the footbridge. Ethan Parkhurst Masterson was a Law Enforcement Ranger who had been in the park less than a week and had a reputation, both within the service and on the internet, for being something of a bad apple. Jace was still trying to separate the legend from the man.
Meanwhile, the large tourist motorcoach that had been idling on the road began backing into the lot entrance. McHardy Road itself was only one lane wide, too narrow to turn around in, and had no shoulders or cul-de-sac. So this was the only way for the driver to turn his ungainly bus around. But a man appeared out of nowhere and dragged a wooden barrier across the entrance, blocking the motorcoach. The man was about Jace’s age, and judging from his suspenders and full brown beard, he belonged to the same pioneer troupe as Father Time and the children.
The motorcoach driver locked his brakes and leaned out his window. “Hey, move that outta the way.”
But pioneer man crossed his arms and stood his ground. So the driver, a balding, pear-shaped man, emerged from the motorcoach to confront him.
“What’s your problem, Jack? I’m trying to turn around here.”
Pioneer man, at six foot three (2 m), towered over the driver and said, “You wanta use our lot, you gotta pay the parking fee.”
“I’m not parking,” the driver shot back. “All I want to do is turn my rig around.”
“Turn around in Chitina.”
“Bullshit. They always let me turn around here.”
“That was then. This is now.”
The two men went back and forth for a little while before the exasperated driver lost his cool and tried to move the barrier away. Immediately, two more bearded pioneers joined the first to surround the driver. One was tall and fat, and the other handsome and slim. All three pioneers appeared to be in their twenties. They shouldered the driver away from the barrier and backed him against his motorcoach. By now, tourists were turning their phones from the glaciers and mountains to the more tweet-worthy shouting match.
Jace debated with himself whether or not to intervene. The road was under State of Alaska jurisdiction, not park service, and the parking lot was private property. Before he could make up his mind, his fellow ranger strode into the scene. Attired in his NPS uniform — heavy-soled boots; armored vest; a Batman belt studded with handcuffs, radio, pepper spray, telescoping baton; and .44 Magnum snubnosed leg cannon — Law Enforcement Ranger Masterson looked more suited for urban warfare than nature walks. “Break it up. Break it up,” he bellowed.
The pioneer brothers stepped away from the driver, who was dripping with sweat and gasping for breath. Masterson placed a hand on his shoulder and said, “Why don’t you g
o sit down, sir, until you recover.” But the man shook his head emphatically and hunched forward with his hands on his knees.
The eldest of the brothers, the one who had started the confrontation, said, “This is a state highway, Ranger Danger. You don’t have no authority here.”
Jace was astonished. Based on what he’d heard about Masterson, it was probably not a good idea to challenge his authority. Now Jace was tempted to take out his own phone and start recording.
LE Ranger Masterson had the distinction of racking up the highest number of public complaints against an individual ranger in NPS history. Yet his career had started on a high note. In 1999, the son of a U.S. senator crashed a private airplane during a snowstorm in the Klamath Mountains in Northern California. It was Masterson, new on the job, who led the rescue mission that found the plane and successfully evacuated its passengers. The incident made national news, and for a while Masterson was the park service’s golden boy. But his behavior soon changed, and he began to fixate on minor park regulations, such as the noise curfew and leash laws. He patrolled parking lots at park concessions and wrote traffic citations for cracked windshields or burned-out tail lights. He seemed to want to instill fear in every park visitor he encountered, even children. To ask him where the porta-johns were located was to risk a public haranguing.
As complaints about Masterson mounted, his NPS superiors transferred him from park to park like a pederast priest. Then came the notorious “Kitten Incident,” after which only the influence of the senator whose aviator son Masterson had rescued could save his career. Or so went the rumor.
This is a state highway, Ranger Danger. You don’t have no authority here.
Despite his reputation for abuse, Masterson replied in a respectful manner. “Ordinarily you’d be correct, sir,” he said, “but the law gives me authority to intervene when I see a felony assault in progress.”
“Felony assault?” the pioneer said with a laugh. “Don’t worry; I won’t press charges.”
At that the driver straightened up and cursed out loud. He jabbed a finger at the pioneer and said, “Assault and robbery! Assault and robbery! Arrest this man.”
“He tried to rob you?” Masterson said.
“Yes! He wants fifty dollars just to turn my rig around.”
“Is that true?” Masterson asked the pioneer.
“That’s our hourly rate for a bus to use our lot.” The young man pointed to a sign on a post next to the attendant’s booth. A zero had been added to the old bus rate of $5/hr.
“I don’t want to park in your lot!” the driver screamed. “I just want to turn the fuck around!”
“Then turn around somewheres else. Here you pay a fee. Keep swearing and the fee will double.”
“If that’s not robbery,” the driver complained to Masterson, “what is it?”
“The cost of doing business,” said the pioneer.
Masterson looked at the driver, the pioneers, and then, turning halfway around, at Jace. To the driver he said, “This man appears to be in the right. The owner of this property has a concession permit to run a parking lot. If this man is his agent, he can set any price he sees fit. If you don’t like it, make some other arrangements for your bus.”
“I want to press charges for assault.”
“That’s your right, but you’ll need to press them with the Alaska State Troopers, not with me.” He turned to pioneer man and said, “I suggest you modify your business plan.”
“Or what?”
“Or I’ll make it my mission in life to put your business in the ground.”
HP2 1.0
THAT WAS IT. No riot. No flying fists or abuse of police power. The tourists put away their phones. This video would not show up on YouTube tonight. Even Jace felt a little let down. Masterson left the motorcoach and joined him at the booth. He scowled at the pioneer encampment — the yellow school bus, tents, and tarps — that was set up just a few yards outside his jurisdiction. He picked up several of the handicrafts the family offered for sale and examined them with a critical eye. He held an angel figurine in front of Father Time and pointed at its wings, which were glued together from real bird feathers, and said, “It’s against federal regulations to harvest natural products on park lands without a permit.”
Father Time replied, “It’s a good law. Otherwise, man might take it upon himself to make use of Father God’s bounty without permission from the government.”
Masterson let the remark pass without comment.
“Until you obtain a permit, don’t let me catch you or your daycare center here out harvesting. I won’t hesitate to fine you.”
The old man yawned, exposing yellow stumps of teeth. “Go with Satan, my son,” he said cordially, “for you suckle at his putrid teat.”
Masterson shook his head in wonder and simply walked away, gesturing for Jace to follow. They strolled side by side in silence down the gravel road. Jace sneaked a few glances at his new park service colleague. The man was still a cypher.
They walked a quarter mile without speaking. Dozens of homemade signs lined both sides of the road, nailed to trees and stakes, all located on private land:
TIRE REPAIR
ICE
GLACIER VIEW B&B
BASE CAMP HQ
CUSTOM KNIVES
COPPER NUGGETS
FLIGHT-SEEING
Beehymer wasn’t the only land-owning entrepreneur operating within the park at the end of McHardy Road. Masterson halted suddenly and said, “Hear that?”
Jace listened. He didn’t hear anything except the sound of a small gasoline engine off in the distance somewhere running a generator or compressor or something. Which was probably Masterson’s point — noise pollution.
“Our institution’s mission is a contradiction in terms,” Masterson said. “It’s downright schizoid. You can’t both preserve a wilderness in perpetuity while at the same time making it easy for every half-crippled, obese, smog-sucking touron to see it from a bus window. It’s one or the other; you can’t have it both ways. You have to decide which one is important and let the other one go.” He locked eyes with Jace as he said this. “As a ranger for the National Park Service, you shouldn’t make the situation worse than how you found it.”
He was probably referring to Jace’s private residence in McHardy.
“Do you know why I came up to Alaska in the first place, Kuliak?” Masterson went on.
Jace shook his head no. Because it was the last place they could reassign you?
“Because someone told me that Alaska is a state that bans highway billboards and signs. Doesn’t matter if they’re on private land; they’re against the law, even in towns. Nature trumps Commerce. Imagine that, a state with balls enough to ban private signs. And yet . . .” He spread his arms to take in the haphazard signs littering both sides of the road. “Here we have a state road with signs sprouting up like dandelions. Why do you suppose that is?”
Jace paused to see if this was a rhetorical question. Apparently not. So he said, “Signs are sprouting up like dandelions because the nearest state trooper post is 130 miles (209 km) away by road in Glennallen, where they are perennially understaffed and have more important things to do with limited resources than chase down signage scofflaws at the end of McHardy Road.”
“Bingo,” Masterson said. “Allowing a state road to penetrate so deep into a protected federal reserve is insane. McHardy and its road is an abomination. Which brings me to you.”
“What about me?”
“I don’t mind the college-boy attitude. I don’t mind the ponytail. Hell, I don’t even mind the drugs. Live and let live is what I say. But sooner or later you’re going to have to decide which side you’re on.”
Drugs? That was probably a lucky guess; Jace kept his tooting to himself. “Which side of what?” he said.
“Whether you value wilderness or you value access. You gotta choose one or the other. There’s no such thing as an inholder in a wilderness. It’s a cont
radiction in terms.”
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Sidebar: Tour of the Mine
TM1 1.0
AN OUT-OF-CONTROL Oxicontin habit, a costly medical procedure beyond the scope of Medicare, breaking his great grandnephew out of prison, a gambling debt to the mob, a new condo in Orlando, a young girlfriend with expensive tastes, blackmail payments, or all of the above: these were the most popular explanations floating around McHardy in the summer of 2010 when Orion Beehymer announced he was finally selling off Stubborn Mountain Mine. The sale would include: three hundred forty federally patented acres (138 ha), including subsurface mineral rights; the hard rock mine itself with over five miles of shafts and tunnels, mining machinery, and chattels; an operational Caterpillar D6 bulldozer; and a main house and six outbuildings.
The Stubborn Mountain Copper Company dated to 1909 when it was established by a group of East-Coast investors who were not aligned to the Guggenheim syndicate. The Stubborn ore deposit wasn’t as extensive or rich as the Caldecott, and its owners struggled for eight years before declaring bankruptcy. A Boston bank held the property on its books for forty-five years and sold it at a loss to Beehymer in 1962.
For the next twenty summers (except during the Pipeline years) Beehymer and Salame, his common-law wife, worked the mine and its extensive tailings for gold. The mine provided them a decent living and, during its heyday, employed about a dozen seasonal workers. After Salame died of breast cancer in 1982, Orion lost heart and shut down operations permanently.
The gate to the mine remained padlocked until July, 2010, when Beehymer gave Poppy Prophecy a guided tour. Beehymer had recently rented him the property, and he was showing him around.
“Watch your step, pastor,” Beehymer said, dusting off an old, tin miner’s helmet for his guest. “The floor is uneven.”
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