Smoky Mountain Mystery 01 - Out on a Limb Page 5

  Chapter 11

  It was turning out to be a pretty day by the time Phoebe and Henry made it back to the parking lot. They stood next to Phoebe’s car chatting until Henry sensed she was stalling.

  “I’ve gotta go over to Cataloochee to check on a bear trap,” he said, “and I need to change out the batteries on an elk’s collar if I can find him. You’re welcome to ride along.”

  “I wouldn’t wanna to be in the way,” Phoebe said.

  “You won’t. I could use an extra pair of hands. But it’s a long drive across the mountain and we won’t get back here til late.”

  Phoebe looked at her feet. She had the rest of the day off. She thought about going home and sitting alone with her cat, and trying not to cry over Sean. “That’d be great.”

  Henry was driving his work vehicle, a white Ford Explorer he’d parked military style, facing out. The doors bore the dark green seal of the Department of the Interior. Phoebe wondered why it was called that. Shouldn’t it be the Department of the Exterior?

  The truck was outfitted with a radio like the ones the police used. Henry kept it tuned to a channel that was like a party line where they could listen in on the chitchat of rangers from all over the park with a central dispatcher. Phoebe had trouble following what they were talking about, though, because they used code.

  When a disembodied male voice reported a 507 and asked for instructions, Phoebe asked, “What’s a 507?”

  “A bear jam,” Henry said.

  The phrase meant nothing to her. She pondered the unfamiliar term. Was it a music festival in the park, or were bears actually playing instruments like the birds at Parrot Jungle? Maybe it was when a bunch of bears tried to cram into a small space. Somewhere she’d heard that a gang of bears was called a sloth or a sleuth, but she wondered who in their right minds would ever talk like that.

  Her post-funeral train of thought seemed destined to continue on an idiotic downward spiral, so she asked, “What’s a bear jam?”

  “Oh, it’s a traffic jam caused by tourists who’re lookin at a bear. People get excited when they see one so they’ll stop to take a look. Lots of times they don’t even pull over. They just put the car in park and leave it sittin in the middle of the road while they walk around to get a better view or take pictures. If one car stops on a one-lane road, everybody behind it has to stop too. The traffic gets backed up for miles.

  “And of course some people aren’t satisfied with lookin from a distance. They try to get up close or bait the bear with food, or, if they’re drunk, they might try to chase one.”

  “People chase bears?” Phoebe was incredulous.

  “If they’re drunk enough.”

  The national park had only a few interior roads so it was common to have to take a long convoluted route to get somewhere that wasn’t very far away as the crow flies. To get to the Cataloochee Valley, which was across the mountains in North Carolina, Henry explained that they had to take secondary roads to I-40, go to North Carolina, then turn back toward Tennessee and drive along a notoriously curvy one-lane gravel road.

  They’d driven for about fifteen minutes when the radio sputtered a message for Henry. “Dispatch to Matthews, what’s your 20?”

  “Matthews to Dispatch, I’m traveling east on Little River Road.”

  “Dispatch to Matthews, divert to Cades Cove and rendezvous with Sanders at the Cantilever Barn."

  “Matthews to Dispatch, roger that.”

  Henry stopped, executed a perfect three-point turn, and headed back the way they’d come.

  “Sanders is a seasonal ranger,” Henry explained.

  “What’s goin on?”

  “I don’t know, but when they don’t give any details, its bad news. Something they don’t wanna say over the airwaves. People monitor our radios with scanners. So if there’s somethin dispatch doesn’t want tourists or the press to hear, they don’t say it. Looks like Cataloochee will have to wait for now.”

  Chapter 12

  The backpack had been dropped off where it was certain to be found and the crossbow and other gear had been stashed in the opposite sort of place. Now he needed to move Ivy’s car. In order to do that he had to walk down Greenbrier Road, find her car, and get in it. There was no way to do this without getting out in the open for anyone and everyone to see.

  He was tired and his legs were killing him from the miles of steep hiking he’d done that day. And he was sore from his wounds. But he was cleaned up now so you’d hardly notice the cuts. As cars drove by, he gave them a friendly smile and nod. Most of the traffic was from hikers leaving either Porters Creek Trail or Ramsey Cascades. A few people had used the pull-offs so they could stroll along the Middle Prong of Little Pigeon River.

  He had Ivy’s keys so all he had to do was walk a few hundred yards, then move the car to a nearby campground parking lot. Left overnight at a trailhead it wouldn’t take long for it to stand out. But in a campground parking lot it would take days before it was noticed.

  He spotted the Toyota Land Cruiser easily. With its roof-mounted luggage rack, it was easily the tallest vehicle in the lot.

  He looked up and squinted at the cloudless blue sky. It was turning out to be a beautiful day.

  ***

  It was early afternoon when Henry and Phoebe reached Cades Cove. The cove was a beloved and heavily-touristed area where the lifestyle of the people who’d been ejected to build the park was preserved as an outdoor museum. There was a picturesque hodgepodge of historic log cabins, barns, and prim white churches. It was a rustic, Disney-esque Appalachia with no electricity or cell phone service.

  The cove was the most popular area of the most popular national park in the country. Two million people a year drove the one-lane, one-way, 11-mile loop road. It was an idyllic-looking place that covered 6,800 acres. Nearly a third of it was priceless flat, cleared land surrounded and protected by a ring of misty blue mountain ridges.

  “There’s about 1,500 bears in the park,” Henry said, “but they’re not spread out evenly. Unfortunately they’re drawn to the areas where people are because they smell food.”

  Phoebe nodded, she knew tourists feeding bears was a huge problem.

  “Bears only have a few months a year to gain all the weight they’re gonna need to stay alive during the winter and early spring. We’re far enough south that they don’t go into full hibernation here, but they do have a semi-hibernation from about November to March or April. The males go in last and come out first. The females stay in longer cause they’re givin birth and nursin cubs in the dens.

  “When the bears first wake up and come out of their dens in the early spring, there’s not much to eat. They have to find a way to survive somehow for a few months until the berries get ripe. Then a few months later, if it’s been a good year for acorns, that’s when they have plenty to eat and can get nice and fat.”

  “Is that what they’re doin now?” Phoebe asked.

  “Yeah. In the fall, just before they go into their dens, they get desperate. They eat all day long every day, tryin to store up as much fat as they can. In a year where the acorn crop fails, it’s terrible for the bears. That’s the sort of thing that makes em overcome their natural fear of humans and come into the populated areas to try to find food.

  “If that happens, we have problems. The bears in this park aren’t real mean, but people are unpredictable when they see one, so it’s a lot safer for the bears if we can keep them away from the populated areas.”

  They topped a rise as they entered the cove and the splendid panorama made famous by millions of postcards, refrigerator magnets, and tourist photos was spread out before them.

  “Holy moly, look at that traffic,” said Phoebe.

  “Yep,” said Henry, “that’s a bear jam.”

  Vehicles of all sorts were bumper-to-bumper as far as the eye could see. Traffic was at a complete standstill. People had their car doors thrown open and children were running to and fro.

  Henry pointed to a r
usty gate set in the edge of the woods next to the road, handed Phoebe a small key, and asked her to open it for him. “And lock it back after I go through.”

  She did as he asked, then got back in the truck, and tried to give him back the key. “Keep it,” he said, “you’ll need it again in a few minutes.”

  They drove along a dirt track through the woods, then came out into the bright, sunny open fields. Phoebe could see a barn in the distance and also a log cabin nearby with a huge crowd. “That’s the Carter-Shields cabin,” said Henry. “That’s prob’ly where the problem is, but we’ll start out at a less crowded spot.”

  They came to another gate, which Phoebe opened and closed. Now they were back to the paved loop road, which was hopelessly blocked by dozens of cars whose drivers and passengers had abandoned them. Henry crept down the narrow shoulder of the road and parked the SUV.

  The crowd was in distinct clusters. The largest group was milling around the cabin and the surrounding lawn. Some of them were watching volunteers demonstrating old-time crafts like a mule-drawn sorghum molasses press and broom-making.

  Another cluster of tourists, these with cameras, were congregating near a mother and two cubs. The experienced photographers stood well back from the animals at a safe distance with long-lensed cameras mounted on tripods.

  There were dozens of people doing an extremely poor job of trying to sneak up on the wild animals while wearing gaudy colored clothing and stage-whispering to each other. They were standing in a slight crouch an inch or two less than their normal height. It was a ludicrous sight.

  The family of bears was browsing for food. Phoebe was no expert, but some of the tourists seemed to be getting way too close to the bears. Several of them had small children with them. What were they thinking? Didn’t they understand the concept of a wild animal? A big wild animal with huge teeth and claws, and the capacity to kill them if it felt threatened? Obviously not.

  One of the professional photographers was waving at Henry and Henry headed toward him. Phoebe trailed along behind. When Henry got close, the man stepped back and indicated that he should take a look through the camera and its telescopic lens. Henry stooped and peered through the viewfinder. “A backpack?” Henry asked, surprised.

  “Yeah,” said the photographer.

  Henry turned around and said, “Bill, this is my friend Phoebe. Phoebe this is Bill Lawson. He’s a famous bear photographer.”

  Bill and Phoebe shook hands.

  “Did you see how she got it?” he asked.

  “She just happened on it a couple of minutes ago. It was lying out there in the field. I don’t know how it got there, but, Henry, there’s a brown stain on it that looks like it might be dried blood.”

  Henry stooped and took another long look at the mother bear mauling the bright purple fabric.

  “Thanks, Bill. I appreciate your help,” Henry said. “Phoebe, I need you to stay here. I gotta do some work.

  “I’m gonna have to get the momma to send her cubs up a tree and then dart her so I can get that pack,” Henry said. “I’ll have to take all three of em back to the wildlife building til we figure out what’s happened. I’m real sorry, Phoebe. I’ll be tied up for the rest of the day. But I’ll find somebody to take you back to your car.”

  “Don’t worry, Henry,” Bill said. “I’ll be happy to take her wherever she needs to go.”

  “Thanks,” Henry said. “And Phoebe, I apologize.”

  “It’s no problem,” Phoebe said.

  Henry turned and walked quickly toward his truck.

  “You don’t mind if we stay awhile longer, do you?” asked Bill. “I hate to leave Henry alone with em,” he said, pointing at the throng of tourists. “This is gonna get ugly.”

  Chapter 13

  Henry walked toward the bears and the cluster of tourists who were surrounding them. “Back away from the bears, please,” he said in a calm authoritative voice.

  There was some grumbling, but when they got a look at Henry’s uniform and flat-brimmed Stetson hat, they put a lid on it. Phoebe suspected the minute he looked away they’d go right back.

  “Do any of you know whose backpack that is that the bear is foolin with?” Henry said in a voice loud enough to be heard by everyone.

  There were some head shakes, but nobody spoke up.

  “Did anybody see who dropped it or gave it to the bear?”

  Again, more head shaking and some murmurs, but nobody answered.

  “Is anybody hurt or missin that you know of?”

  At that, the buzz in the crowd got louder, but nobody offered any answers.

  “You’re breakin the law by intentionally approaching the bears,” Henry said. “Back up right now, all the way to the road, or I’ll see that every one of you gets a ticket.

  “It’s illegal in this park to intentionally approach a bear or any wild animal within fifty yards or any distance that disturbs the animal. I don’t want to see any of you ever get this close to a bear again.”

  The group backed up until it merged with a growing crowd of spectators emerging from their cars, trying to see what was going on. There were at least 200 people watching when Henry went to his SUV and opened the back. Fortunately, he had his animal immobilization kit and gun, because he’d planned to use it for darting the elk to change its collar. Out of the view of the crowd, he loaded up two tranquilizer darts, took the special rifle out of it case, and loaded it.

  He keyed his walkie-talkie, told dispatch as much as he cared to say over an open line, and asked for backup ASAP. Things were going to get dicey and he knew the focus was going to be on him, but there was nothing he could do about it. He couldn’t wait for reinforcements, either. He had to get the backpack before it was damaged any further and he had to capture the bear family before they left the area. Once they disappeared into the woods, he might never be able to find them again.

  The mother bear and cubs would have to be detained until Henry knew if they’d been involved in hurting or killing someone. If they had, he’d have to euthanize the whole family. Bears were smart. They learned from each other, even if they saw a behavior just one time, they’d remember it. He couldn’t leave a bear loose in the park that was unafraid to make physical contact with a person, particularly aggressive or deadly physical contact.

  He came out from behind the truck with the rifle and a collective gasp went up from the crowd. At first people moved back even farther, but he knew that wouldn’t last long. He walked quickly toward the mother bear making loud huffing noises and shooing gestures. The big black bear saw that Henry was serious and grunted, signaling her cubs to climb up a nearby tree and stay there til she called them to come back down. The cubs obeyed her instantly and scampered up the side of the large tree so quickly the crowd oh’d and ah’d.

  Henry quickly took aim and fired at the mother bear. The crack of the dart gun, like that of a .22 caliber rifle, cut through the cove. The bear looked surprised and then reared up on her hind legs and growled, brandishing her formidable claws and snapping her jaws. She remained like that for a few moments, then wobbled, and fell forward into a heap.

  The tourists were horrified. As far as they knew, Henry had just killed Yogi in front of two little Boo Boos as their own kids looked on. They were not happy campers.

  Henry headed back toward his vehicle with the intention of bringing it close to the mother bear. But he was intercepted by the crowd.

  “You didn’t have to kill her,” a woman shouted. “She wasn’t hurting anything!” Little children were wailing as their parents dragged them back toward their cars.

  “I didn’t kill the bear,” Henry said, “I just immobilized her so I could recover the backpack she was chewin on.”

  “What about those two precious little babies you just orphaned!” a woman called. “You gonna leave them to starve now?”

  The heckling and catcalls quickly turned to mild jostling as Henry tried to make his way through the crowd.

  Many of the spectat
ors were using cell phones or iPads to take photos and video. Others were attempting to text, tweet, or phone their friends.

  It took only a couple of minutes for the mob to realize they weren’t able to get a cell phone connection. Some of the people, furious at being thwarted by the lack of cell phone service, started pushing and shoving.

  “Hey, one more push out of anyone and your vacation is going to end up in an arrest!” Henry barked, shielding the remaining dart with his body. The medicine in the dart would sedate a bear, but it would kill a human.

  Although there was no cell phone service, the rangers’ radios worked inside the cove, unless the repeater happened to be down for maintenance. Lucky for Henry, the radio tower was working fine today.

  He made a beeline for his SUV and with his threat of arrest still hanging in the air the crowds grudgingly parted before him. Bill and Phoebe met him in front of the truck.

  “I’ve gotta call a wildlife tech and law enforcement rangers over here,” Henry said to both of them as he grabbed for the radio in the truck.

  “You’re bleeding!” Phoebe said incredulously.

  “That happens sometimes,” Henry said

  “You get attacked by tourists?”

  “Ill-behaved tourists are the alpha predators in this park. They’re way more aggressive than any of the animals. Animals will generally leave you alone.”

  “Have you got a first aid kit?” Phoebe asked.

  Henry nodded and pointed as he made contact on the radio and requested help.

  “Sit down for a moment please,” Phoebe said, gently guiding him to sit on the edge of the cargo area. It was the second time today she’d made the same gesture. First Leon and now Henry. It was bizarre; she was spending the day burying one friend and triaging two others.

  “I need to go get that bear quick, before she wakes up,” protested Henry.