"Blood lure" - читать интересную книгу автора (Barr Nevada)

Chapter 2

Because Joan Rand was a small woman with a great brain, their packs weighed closer to forty than fifty pounds, a fact Anna knew she would be increasingly grateful for as the day wore on. The first three miles of the twelve-mile hike were fairly straight and level. The second three ascended twenty-five hundred feet in steep switchbacks. Rory's pack was somewhat heavier as befitted the younger, stronger, taller and, more to the point, junior member of the team. Twenty-five hundred feet was the ascent Anna'd used to climb twice a week from the ranger station in Guadalupe Mountains National Park to the high country. She'd been younger, stronger and taller herself in those days and still it was a bitch of a climb.

A member of the bear team assigned to handle bears that clashed with visitors gave them a lift partway up the famous Going to the Sun Road that cut through some of the most scenic country in the park, a road made in the 1920s and '30s, when labor was cheap and so was wilderness. He dropped them off at Packers Roost, a horse and hiker staging area at the bottom of Flattop Mountain.

Unlike some of the parks Anna'd worked, Glacier was a pristine rather than a rehabilitated wilderness. Most of the land had never been logged, mined or grazed. The trees were old growth, the land scarred only by the natural phenomena of fire, flood and avalanche. An unusual departure from this purity was the old fire road they followed to the beginning of the ascent.

Because it had once been cut clear of trees then left to heal, it had a fairy-tale quality. A wide swath of delicate green moss grew in from the road's edges to a narrow trail kept barren by foot traffic. This living carpet was starred with tiny white star-shaped flowers. Overhead, feathery branches of fir and cedar closed out the sun. A tenuous heady perfume, found only in the mountains of the west, scented the air. With each breath, Anna was transported. As she walked she enjoyed flashbacks to the southern Cascades at Lassen Volcanic and to the tip of the Rocky Mountains in Durango before they let go their alpine greenery and flowed into the red mesas of New Mexico.

Those native to Montana had been complaining of an uncharacteristic heat wave that was pushing temperatures into the eighties, but Anna, having so recently fled a Mississippi August, reveled in the cool and the shade.

Joan went first, followed by Rory. Anna took up the rear. Over the years she'd found by slowing down and dropping back a little, she could slip free of the chatter zone and enjoy the solitude of the hike. And, here, the silence.

Nothing stirred. No birds fussed above or scratched in needles and leaves. Insects didn't buzz. Squirrels and chipmunks didn't clatter through the treetops scolding her for trespassing. She wondered if the western forests had always been so preternaturally quiet, or if her ears had merely become accustomed to the ongoing concert of life that played in the woodlands of the deep South.

Or perhaps there was a great toothy predator that had momentarily struck dumb the lesser beasts of the forest.

Anna waited for a titillating frisson of fear to follow the thought, but it didn't. Fire ants: now they put the fear of God into her. Not grizzlies. Rory, she could tell, was not so sanguine. On the ride up, the bear-team guy had regaled them with the story of an attack he'd worked on two summers before. Three hikers had been mauled in the Middle Fork area-the southern edge of the park.

Joan, kindly disposed to the damaged hikers but clearly protective of the accused bear, had given her take on the events. Once or twice a year a bear mauled a visitor. Usually the person was not killed. Grizzlies, Joan told them, did not customarily attack with the idea of eating one. Grizzlies kept their cubs with them two or even three years. With the exception of humans and the great apes, they were the animals who spent the most time educating their young. They taught them how to survive, where to find springs in dry years, what plants to eat and where they grew. A female grizzly didn't bear offspring until she was six and would only have five to ten cubs in her lifetime. This made her extremely protective of them. When she perceived a threat, whether another bear or a hiker, her goal was not to eat it but to teach it the meaning of fear.

Seldom would she charge a group of four or more people. The threat to her and hers was perceived as too great to overcome and she would run away. That was why the park suggested backpackers never hike alone.

The bear under discussion had been surprised by two hikers, charged them, mauled them-"Couldn't be too bad," Joan said, "they walked out"-then fled up the trail and smack into unfortunate hiker number three.

"Nobody died," Joan pointed out. "If the bear wanted them dead, they'd be dead. If the bear wanted to eat them, they'd be dragged off and eaten, their remains cached in a shallow hole and covered over for later. Ergo,the bear did not want to kill them. Ergo, the bear did not want to eat them."

From the look on Rory's face, all he'd heard was "kill them and eat them." Since they'd been on the trail he'd been peering into the woods like a man being stalked.

If a bear had been watching or following, there was no doubt in Anna's mind that they'd never know it was there. Because Glacier was blessed with a heavy snowpack in winter and afternoon rains throughout the short summer, it lacked the open, cathedral aspect of the woods on the eastern slope of the Sierra or the southern tip of the Cascades. In Glacier, the forest floor was thick with dead and down trees, never burned, never logged, fallen in places as thick as pick-up sticks in the child's game. Fern, huckleberry, bearberry, service berry, the shoulder-high broad-leafed thimbleberry, and a plethora of plants Anna couldn't put a name to, tangled in the cross-hatching of rotting timber.

A bear wanting to hide would do so.

Following her thoughts into the woods, she realized for the first time what an arduous task it was going to be fighting through the underbrush off-trail to service and reset the traps. Selfishly, she was glad they were covering the high country. Some of it would be above tree line. A good chunk was encompassed by the burn left from the 1998 fire. The going was bound to be somewhat easier.

Lost in thought, she rounded a bend in the trail and nearly walked on the heels of Rory Van Slyke. Next to "never hike alone" on the rangers' list of safe behavior in bear country was "stay alert." So far Anna was oh-for-two.

"Here's one," Joan was saying when Anna bumbled into the meeting. "This is one of the hair trees we've marked. This yellow diamond is what you'll be looking for." She pointed to a piece of reflective plastic that had been nailed to the tree about as high as the average person could reach with a hammer.

"We also number them to be sure we know exactly which samples came from which tree. The numbers are behind the trunk at the bottom. We want to notice these trees but we don't want to advertise them to every hiker down the pike."

"What's the barbed wire for?" Rory asked at the same time Anna noticed segments had been stapled to the bark in an uneven, widespread pattern.

"That scratches them a little deeper is all. Pulls out some of the under-fur that's more likely to have a little bit of tissue clinging to it so that we can more easily get a DNA sample."

"Doesn't that make them mad?" Rory's concern at an enraged grizzly in the neighborhood was clear on his face.

"No," Joan reassured him. "They like it. We didn't know if they would or if they would abandon the wired trees. But they seem to actually prefer them. See the tracks?"

Worn into the moss from the paws of many bears following the same path from the rubbing tree to the trail were two prints made larger by repeated use.

"Cool, huh?"

Anna agreed it was cool.

Rory asked, "Does pepper spray really work?"

"It's the same stuff we use in law enforcement," Anna told him. "It's made from the essence of red-hot peppers. I guess it would work on bears. Unless they've developed a taste for Mexican food. Then I think it would only serve to whet their appetites."

Joan shot her a look that was not without humor but made it clear that tormenting Rory was not an acceptable form of entertainment. "We're not going to get ourselves into a situation where we have to find out," Joan said firmly.

"Rory, you're an exception to the rule. Most boys love bears. I actually get fan mail because I am the Bear Lady at Glacier." Joan's voice was pleasant as ever, but it was clear that in harboring fear of bears, Rory had impugned them and the researcher's feelings were hurt. "One boy e-mails me every couple of days. He's drawing a map and has to know where the bears go to eat at any given time."

"I like bears," Rory said defensively.

"You will," Joan promised.

"They would certainly like you," Anna said ominously.

To distract the children from their squabbles, Joan made the mistake of introducing Anna to huckleberries. Arm in arm with thimbleberries and bearberries, they grew wild over much of the park. In late summer and fall, when they were at their peak, they were the favored food of bears, both black and grizzly. They consumed them by the ton as they stored up as much sugar and fat as they could for a long winter spent curled in dens at the higher elevations.

For the next mile or so, Anna played catch-up, foraging for the delicious dark purple berries then trotting to catch up, pack slamming down on hip and knee joints that weren't nearly so forgiving as they once had been.

Joan couldn't resist a few berries herself but took her responsibilities to her job more seriously than those to her immortal berry-loving soul.

The Van Slyke kid had gone about his berrying with zeal till Anna gave into the temptation to muse aloud as to whether bears would find huckleberry breath an irresistible enticement. For that she earned an exasperated look from Joan Rand and Rory's share of the berries.

When they crossed Kipp Creek, glittering over stones of vivid red, green and gold-not the murky, brown, cottonmouth creeks that prevailed in Anna's new home in the south-interest in berries gave way to interest in breathing.

Unbeknownst to him, Rory got some of his own back. He was stronger than he looked. And younger than some of Anna's towels. On the climb, much of it on an exposed southwest-facing mountainside, the sun proved its strength. After a mile Anna was hurting. Sweat poured into her eyes. Lungs pumped and burned. Breath sawed through a mouth dry from hanging open gasping for air like a landed trout.

Periodically Joan called a rest stop in the shade offered by the occasional towering white pine. For this Anna could have kissed her feet had she not known that if she did so, she'd never get up again. During these brief respites, Anna swatted deerflies obsessed with the backs of her thighs and split her concentration between enjoying the view and hiding her physical weakness from her compatriots.

From their ever-higher vantage points they could see seven mountains. Four, along the Continental Divide, formed a wall encircling them from west to east. Mountains, not green but blue, were still streaked with snow at the summits, and long mares' tails of water cascaded over the rocky faces in tumbles and falls tracing through stone and forest for thousands of feet.

The canyon they labored so hard to climb out of was no exception. A ribbon of white water, now falls, now rapids, now fishing holes, appeared and disappeared as the mountain's magic act unfolded.

Between sweating, faking fitness, and mentally promising Amy, her aerobics teacher back home, that she would attend classes religiously if she survived this hike, Anna was dimly aware they pushed through an array of wildflowers that she should be appreciating.

By noon they reached the top. Sheered off by glacial movement, Flattop was a peculiarity among its steep-sided neighbors. To the east, the argillite cliffs of Mount Kipp in the Lewis Range rose over alpine meadows. Six miles north, the planed top of Flattop Mountain dropped away, wrinkling down into the Waterton River Valley and on to Canada.

Once on Flattop they left the comforts of the trail and struck west through the burn, heading toward Trapper Peak. Between Flattop and Trapper's imposing flanks was a deep cut, much like the one they'd followed during their ascent, where Continental Creek carved its way down three thousand feet to McDonald Creek to empty its glacial melt. The first of the hair traps was located in a small avalanche chute above the gorge, a place made as attractive as its grander competition by several springs that ran even in the driest years.

The fire of 1998 had burned slowly and exceedingly fine, consuming everything in its path. Blue-black snags clawed at the sky. Without shade, without greenery or moisture, the sun weighed as heavily on Anna's back as her pack. With every step, cinders crunched under her boots. Black dust boiled up to stick in the sweat and DEET sprayed on her legs. Despite the insecticide, horseflies, deerflies and mosquitoes followed. With only a brief window of opportunity in which to slake their thirst, they were fearless.

Despite the ash and grit, she blessed the fire that had torched ten thousand acres of America's crown jewel, taxed the Glacier superindent's courage, not to mention the Waterton superintendent's faith in the good sense of the

U.S. superintendent as he watched the NPS "let burn" policy crackle toward the Canadian half of Waterton-Glacier International Peace Park. Waterton-Glacier was a unique and highly successful experiment. The only park of its kind, one half was in Canada, the other in the United States, with major environmental decisions and park regulations worked out jointly between the two countries.

The Canadian superintendent was less optimistic than the American superintendent when it came to letting nature burn where she would, but Glacier's superintendent stood firm. The fire had been left to burn itself out and Anna was glad. She was no great devotee of trees; they blocked one's view of the forest. And fire cleaned out the deadwood, exposed the soil to light and air, making possible the riot of life that followed fire's necessary cleansing and renewal.

Against the scorched earth, with the liquid gold of the lowering sun, a carpet of glacier lilies glowed with an electric green so intense she could remember seeing it only in the altered states of consciousness of the late sixties and the paintings of Andy Warhol.

Glacier lilies were fragile yellow blooms, smaller than a half-dollar, that hung pointed and curling petals in graceful skirts around red stamens heavy with pollen. Their leaves grew from the base, sharpened green blades as tall as the blooms. Under this glamorous show, according to Joan, they hid bulbs rich in starch. The bulbs were routinely dug by the grizzlies in late summer and early fall as they followed the huckleberries into the higher elevations. At the height of the season great swatches would be dug up, leaving areas that looked as if they'd been rototilled.

This year, the flowers were spectacular. Glacier had gotten nearly twice its normal snowfall. Snows hadn't melted above six thousand feet until July. Spring, summer and fall were happening simultaneously as plants, so lately released from their winter sleep, rushed through the stages of life to reseed before the first cold nights in September.

"Hey," Joan said, "we've got company."

Anna dragged her eyes up from where they frolicked in fields of green and gold.

On a low ridge to the north, black as everything was black from a fire that had burned hot, fast and to the bone, stood a lone hiker. Behind him was a wall of exposed stone, probably once fawn-colored but now the gray-brown of rotting teeth where the rains had imperfectly washed it free of soot and char.

It wasn't against park rules to hike off trail. Or camp off trail for that matter, though that required a special permit. It was unusual. For a man alone it was also foolish. Bears were the least of the dangers of hiking by oneself in the backcountry. The greatest were carelessness and stupidity. A slip, a fall, a badly sprained ankle or shattered kneecap, and one could die of exposure or thirst before anybody thought to begin a search.

Rory, sensing a social-and so, static-occasion, was quick to drop his pack and dig out his water bottle, a state-of-the-art model with the filter built in. Anna allowed herself a fleeting moment of envy.

"Hello," Joan called cheerily, because she was that kind of person.

A happy "hello" from a small middle-aged lady was scarcely the stuff of nightmares, but even at twenty yards, Anna could swear she saw the hiker flinch, cast a glance over his shoulder as if deciding whether or not to make a run for it. Like a hound that hears the clarion call, fatigue fell away and Anna's mind grew sharp.

"Wonder what in hell he's been up to." She wasn't aware she'd spoken out loud till she noticed Joan and Rory staring at her. "What?" she demanded.

Joan just chuckled. Few people chuckled anymore, that low burbling sound free of cynicism or judgement that ran under the surface of mirth.

Anna's attention went back to the hiker. He was walking toward them. Reluctantly, she thought. This time she kept her suspicious nature under wraps. At first she'd resented the heightened awareness that law enforcement duties forced upon her. But somewhere along the line she'd come to enjoy it, as if looking for trouble was a desirable end in itself.

The interloper was in his teens at a guess, though maybe older. His beard was nonexistent, but an accumulation of grime aged him around the mouth. He'd been in the backcountry awhile. Hazel eyes, startling under beautifully shaped brown brows and shaded by a ball cap with a dolphin embroidered above the brim, moved nervously from place to place, as if he looked beyond their tiny band to see if there were reinforcements hiding, waiting to ambush him. The pack he carried was big, too heavy for day hiking but not packed for overnight. Judging from the way the ripstop nylon bagged inward it contained neither sleeping bag nor tent. He was camped out somewhere. So why carry the frame pack? And why the haunted look?

"You're a ways from anywhere," Joan said and stuck out her hand.

After the briefest pause, he took it. Workman's hands, Anna noted, callused and scarred, the nails broken and rimed with dirt from too long between baths. Odd for a boy so young. His shirt was streaked with soot and he wore a chain wrapped twice around his waist.

"You all just out camping or what?" he asked. The question didn't seem particularly neighborly to Anna but didn't bother Joan in the least. She launched into an explanation of the Greater Glacier Bear DNA research project, the wording geared for the ears of laymen. Anna set her pack down and freed her water from a mesh side pocket. Joan was proselytizing, converting the masses to greater respect of bears. Anna tried to figure out where the boy's accent was from. Henry Higgins aside, few people could place others by their dialect, except within the broadest of areas. Americans made it more difficult by swimming around the melting pot: kindergarten in Milwaukee, third grade in San Diego, high school in Saint Louis. The south was as close as Anna could place him, anywhere from Virginia to Texas.

Out of long habit she committed his physical description to memory. He was a big kid, though not tall, around five-foot-eight, chunky without being fat. The kind of body that's a good deal stronger than one would think. Shoulders sloped away from a round handsome neck. What hair she could see poking from beneath the ball cap was silky brown with a natural wave. One day soon his face would be chiseled into classic good looks. Anna could see it in the aquiline nose and the rounded prominent chin.

She took another drink. Sat on a rock.

The boy never loosed his pack, made none of the comfortable settling-in gestures she and Rory engaged in. When Joan had done with her sales pitch, he asked her where they were going for their traps. Obligingly Joan began showing him on the topo. Anna found herself wishing she wouldn't. His interest was overly specific, having nothing to do with the project and all to do with where the three of them were going to be at any given time.

"I'm Anna Pigeon," she interrupted none too subtly. "This is Joan Rand, Rory Van Slyke." Stepping up to him, she thrust her hand out much as Joan had done. No better way to get the feel of somebody literally as well as figuratively. Despite the afternoon's heat, his palm was clammy. He was scared or had serious problems with circulation. A rank odor came off him. Not just the accumulation of unwashed body odors but something muskier, almost an animal smell. "What's your name?"

Again the flinch. "Geoffrey… uh… Mic-Mickleson."

"Nicholson?" Joan asked helpfully.

"Nicholson."

Now Anna knew he was up to something. "Where are you from, Geoffrey?" Had she been on the Trace, in uniform, she would have had this boy out of his car, his driver's license in her hand quicker than a swallow can change directions in flight.

"Oh. You know. All over. I'd better be going. It's a ways back to camp." He smiled for the first time and Anna resisted the temptation to be charmed. Not only was it pretty-his straight, white teeth probably the cleanest part of him-but sparked with a hint of apology and an innocence that bordered on goodness. The smile was at odds with the rest of the package. Anna chose to ignore it.

"Be seeing you around," she said as he turned and walked back the way he had come. It sounded more like: "We'll be keeping an eye on you." Anna meant it to. Some people bore watching. She was sure this fellow was among them. She was just as sure they wouldn't be seeing him. Not if he saw them first.

Burbling notes drew her back into the present. Joan was smiling, her eyes full of altogether too much fun. "I do declare, in another minute or two you were going to frisk that boy and read him his rights. Frisking I could understand. A smile to make you lie right down and die."

Rory found a lump of charred wood to fix his attention on, evidently uncomfortable with women his mother's age- or older-having impure thoughts.

"He was so fishy I thought he was going to sprout gills and swim away," Anna defended herself.

"Aw, he was just shy."

"He was carrying a half-empty frame pack."

"Maybe he lost his day pack."

"It was too full for a day hike."

"Maybe he's a photographer, carrying cameras, tripods, film."

"Maybe," Anna said, but she didn't think so. "Why the big interest in where we were going, where we were camping?"

"Because he's a niceyoung man and niceyoung men pretend to be interested in what their elders and betters are saying. Isn't that right, Rory?"

"That's true," Rory said with such sincerity Anna wanted to laugh but didn't for fear of alienating him.

"See? Proof," Joan said.

Anna didn't say anything. She was getting entirely too crabby over the whole thing. "Are we almost there?" she asked plaintively.