by Will Collins
Gail looked away. She concealed the laugh that tried to burst forth. Tom Cooper's activities in the back of a jeep were the talk of the younger rangers. And one could reach R-Four by jeep, if the driver was willing to risk a bashed-in oil pan while climbing a steep, rockfilled grade near the regular trail.
"Take Tex," Gail said. "He needs the exercise."
"Thanks," Tom said. He sauntered off toward the stable.
Two other rangers, giving their Toyota imitation Land Rover a walk-around check, had observed the brief scene.
"Tom's pissed," said one.
"Naw," said the other. "He knows Kelly's got eyes for that chick with all the cameras. Gail's as safe down here as she'd be back in Cleveland."
Dryly, the other ranger said, "And exactly how safe is that?"
The beast did not like this side of the mountain. It was quiet enough, but the scent of the two-legged enemy was everywhere.
The pain in his jaw was unrelenting. It throbbed with every movement, and as he breathed, the cold air seared the exposed nerve ends with an agony that was almost unbearable. It was this more than hunger and thirst that forced him down toward the valley, where the air was warmer and the pain less intense.
Almost as intense was his hunger. The pain from the fractured tooth seemed to affect his sight, and more importantly, his keen sense of smell. Twice now, he had come up on edible game and lost that first, unexpected, move because of his diminished senses. Both animals—one a small deer, the other a scraggly goat—got away with frightened leaps.
Although the beast could run faster than a man, and almost as fast as a horse, he stumbled on the icy slopes, and watched, in pain-shattered anger, as his food-to-be escaped down the mountain.
High country back-pack area R-Four was located just below the timber line, where tail pines and spruces suddenly leaped from the steep incline. No lumberjack's axe had ever touched so much as a twig of these trees, and some of them were older than the nation whose banner flew from the ranger station's flagpole. Pine cones as large as a baby's head scattered over the forest floor, and when the conditions of sun and moisture and soil were right, another tree would germinate and begin to grow.
But in the forest interior there is never much sunlight. At noon, perhaps, a single ray will penetrate the thick trees and touch the dark pine-needle-strewn earth for a few moments, then move on, racing up the sides of the mountain as if trying to paint it all golden before the onset of night.
To some, the interior of the forest is cathedral-like. It is an obvious comparison. The shafts of golden light, beaming down through majestic giants whose growth rings traced time back to the time of Christ.
A skilled woodsman will see one thing as he moves through the forest; an amateur, however well-read in forest lore, will see another. To him will come a sense of apprehension, of disassociation. It is very easy to become foolishly lost in the forest, and when the beginner does so, panic is his neighbor. This feeling of tingly near-fear is one of the attractions that brings so many to the woods today. True danger is never really present, but it might be, and that is its allure.
The woodsman has learned not to laugh at the tenderfoot. Because at least the beginner is trying to learn. Too many today cannot be bothered, too many see the wilderness as a resource to be harvested.
Careful harvesting is not only possible, it is desirable, for the wilderness can go mad in its prolific growth, just as the population explosion has jammed the globe with too many breathing, eating, polluting humans. Thinning out is necessary. But it must be done with care, and with love. Neither commodity is ever present when human greed directs the work.
But this forest was protected. Against everything except its own mavericks.
June Hamilton and Margaret Rogers were almost twins, in birth dates at least. June was born on August 11th, and Margaret on the 12th. Both had attended Penn State, although only June was from Pennsylvania—Lancaster, where the Pennsylvania Dutch still plod along the highways in their horse-drawn black carriages. Margaret was from Elizabethtown, Kentucky, and had gone to Penn on a scholarship.
Both girls had been trapped in a liberal arts program, but in their last year had tried to remedy that disastrous choice by electing a new major, Ecology Management. With the growth of environmental protection, whole new industries had sprung up to provide the air scrubbers for smoke stacks, the filters and processors for waste dispersal, the test equipment to detect violations in air and water pollution. So rapidly did the new industry grow that it, in itself, became guilty of the very violations it had formed to correct.
New ideas were needed. So young people in college moved toward this latest frontier.
It had been Margaret's idea to come out here to the park and camp for a week. She argued, "We're city people. We've been trained to restore the environment back to its natural state. But what, actually, do we know about it? Only what we've read in the Sierra Club books."
They'd spent most of the summer planning the trip and buying the equipment and gear needed.
Now, the vacation—or "field trip," as Margaret preferred to call it, was almost over.
The girls had been exploring one side of the mountain. They had awakened at dawn, as always. It's hard to sleep late in the woods. Too much life begins to move around you.
No photograph or motion picture can ever capture the incredible shocking beauty of mountain peaks, looming over the visitor to the high country.
Their summits, tipped with silver, seem to hang in the sky. It is as if they are falling at you through the crisp clear air.
And the silence is immense. A bird can be heard a mile away. The distant tinkle of water falling down the mountainside is as melodic as the gentle swirl of a Chopin piano sonata.
The girls, who had climbed almost to the nine-thousand-foot level, paused. They watched the clouds painting wispy shadows over the mountains for a while.
June said, then, "Hey, we're not mountain climbers. Besides, this is our last day. We've got to get organized."
"What's to organize?" asked Margaret, tossing her short blonde hair. "We'll just throw everything in the packs and hike on down the mountain."
"With our garbage," June reminded. "Remember? No more burning the tin cans and burying them. Those days are over. That ranger made a big point of our not turning this place into a land fill."
"Relax," said her friend. "I've even been washing out the cans so they won't smell."
Now, near their camp, they moved carefully through the darkly shadowed forest, and felt that sense of cool distance from civilization that always comes when one is surrounded by trees without a single sign of human existence in sight.
They had chosen, as their camp site, one of the few clearings that enjoyed more than an hour of sunlight a day. June had demanded it, once they discovered the clearing. She said, "Do you know how long it would take to dry out a pair of undies under those pines?" and Margaret, sensibly, agreed—although she would have preferred to pitch camp further up the mountain.
Puffing as she climbed a rock fracture, June said, "Hey, Maggie, what do we have to eat?"
"I put the rest of the stew in the Dutch oven," said Margaret. "I left it in the embers."
"Embers?"
"I know you're not supposed to, but we've got rocks all around the fire, and it's right out in the middle of the clearing. What could happen?"
June's hair, longer than Maggie's, and a dark red, caught in the pitch-choked branch of one of the young pines. She yanked it free with a very unlady-like swear-word.
A moment later, they stepped into their clearing, and Maggie let out a little yip of fright.
Tom Cooper, astride Tex, looked down at the girls with a half-smile.
"Is this your camp?" he asked.
"Yes," said June, hesitantly. "You gave us a shock."
"Sorry. Hi there."
June said, "Hi."
Maggie, not as friendly, said, "Thanks for scaring us."
"I said I was sorry. But you
were bad girls. You left a fire smouldering."
"We were cooking," Maggie said defensively.
"No excuse. Not when there's nobody present. Do you know how fast a fire could go through these trees?"
June said, chagrined, "We know. It was stupid."
"I guess you've got a camping permit?"
Still hostile, Maggie said, "Do you want to see it?"
Tom shook his head. "No, I believe you. But do me a favor?"
June said, "What?"
"Watch yourselves up here. Stay out of trouble."
"What kind of trouble?"
He shrugged. "Nothing special. Just don't take unnecessary risks. This high country is treacherous. You could take a fall, sprain an ankle. Anything. And it's easy to get turned around, lose your bearings."
Maggie said, "Believe me, Ranger, we aren't about to get ourselves lost."
"Okay," he said. "When are you coming down?"
June said, "This afternoon. After we eat, and clean up the area."
He nodded. "I'll watch for you."
June offered, "How about hanging around for a few minutes? Maggie makes a great stew."
Not really tempted, Tom shook his head. "Thanks, but no. I've got a heavy dinner date tonight. Just don't forget to check out at the ranger station before you leave the park. We like to know that all of our campers are down safe. And it saves a lot of search parties getting frozen looking for somebody who didn't check out and went back to Iowa while we were trying to rescue them where they weren't."
Coldly, Maggie said, "We aren't children, Ranger."
He looked at her full figure under the bright yellow blouse and grinned.
"No, ma'am," he said. "You sure aren't."
June said, "Don't worry. We'll be down before dark."
"Fine," said Tom. "I'll probably see you then."
He touched the brim of his hat with a finger and rode down the trail.
June watched after him. "Not bad," she said.
Maggie sniffed. "If you like the type."
June smiled. "I like the type."
Hunger had replaced pain as the chief concern of the beast. It had been more than a full day since he had eaten.
In winter, he was able to curl up and subsist off the stored energy of his fat. But when on the move, as he was now, he needed huge quantities of food. Far more than the others of his species, for the beast knew that he was much larger than his cousins on the mountain.
But game was scarce on this side of the divide. He had trouble smelling the spoor, with the pain shooting up through his head from the shattered tooth, and his eyesight was so poor that he was virtually dependent on his nose as his best method of detecting food.
Halfway down the steep slopes, he stopped, lifted his head and sniffed.
Even with the pain, he knew what that scent was.
Fresh blood.
Food.
CHAPTER THREE
The blood spoor was closer. The beast moved through the forest, sniffing at the rotted leaves, until he came to a stream.
He explored it with his nose, hesitated.
Yes. The scent came from upstream.
Slowly, he began to climb the slope along the edge of the stream's rushing water.
"Illegal or not," said June Hamilton, "this is one damned good stew."
"I thank you," said Maggie Rogers. "Too bad your sexy ranger friend didn't stay around to share it."
"Oh, lay off," said June. "I thought he was nice."
"So nice you did everything but zip down your jeans for him."
"No way," said June. "Not this time of month."
"Well, how about that? Saved by nature and the eternal curse."
"There's always next week," said June, fluffing her dark red hair.
Disgusted, Maggie said, "Is that all you think of? Sex?"
"Ho, ho," said June. "Am I really heating this from the blonde who took on three, count 'em, three, members of the football team after the New Year's party?"
Maggie threw the remains of her meal into the fire. "That's a stupid lie. I got a little drunk, and we necked, and that's all there was to it."
"Not according to Matty Poole."
"Matthew Poole is a compulsive liar, and his mind was marinated in the gutter. Listen, let's pack up and get out of here. It'll be dark early."
June finished her stew. "Okay," she said. "And for a would-be house mother, you still make a mighty fine stew."
Maggie laughed. "Many thanks," she said. "Now, let's stop knifing each other like this. We both need all the help we can get."
"Agreed," said June. "I'm sorry, babe."
"Me too," said Maggie. "Hey, I'll get the fire, and you start on the tent."
"In a minute," said June. "I've got to pee first."
Maggie put a growl into her voice. "Every time we have to take the tent down, it seems like you have to go pee."
"Pavlov's reaction," said June. "I'll be right back."
June giggled, and was gone into the deep recesses of the forest.
The beast lifted his nose and sniffed.
The blood spoor was so close now that he could almost feel its source within his claws. He gave a low growl.
Hunger fought with the pain in his jaw. Hunger won. He moved silently through the woods.
Maggie Rogers finished scattering the fire's ashes, and poured the last of the dish water over them. She put the remaining plastic forks into the garbage bag that they'd pack out with them. Plastic, it had turned out, endured forever, longer than metal, and leaving it lying around in the woods was almost as bad as running around starting forest fires.
She glanced at the pup tent, shook her head.
That was June's job, and she intended to leave it for the slim red-head.
She started to cram gear into the green back-pack.
Behind her, she heard a twig snap.
"Okay, June," she said, not looking around. "Get to work. Start on the tent. When I get through with these packs, I'll help you."
There was no answer.
She turned, and saw the beast.
Only a slow motion camera could have recorded what happened in the next few seconds.
First, Maggie screamed.
But the sound had barely emerged from her strained throat when a huge paw, claws extended, whipped toward and through her. Incredulously, Maggie saw her arm sever itself from her body and fly through the air.
Her scream intensified. But it was not a scream of pain. The nerve shock was so intense that it had not yet been converted into pain.
She screamed with horror. She wanted to cry, This can't be happening to me! but instead all that came out of her contorted lips were little bleating sounds that overlapped words with mumbling sounds which, in an-other context, might have sounded like cries of passion.
"No, oh no, no, no, uh, no, no—"
The words had no effect on the beast. The blood spoor had led him to this place, and while he did not smell it on this creature, this living food, a new blood scent now filled his nostrils and he felt the lust of killing on him.
None of us are prepared for the assault that Margaret Rogers went through in those few seconds.
Natural death is kindly; it dulls the senses with toxic venoms that dull the mind and makes death actually welcome, so gentle and soft is its slowly-covering blanket.
But Maggie knew only terror and disbelief. Her blood was pulsing from her torn arm socket in six-foot jets, her organs had gone into final spasm, yet her mind was still alert and able to form sensible words.
"I'm dead!" she screamed. "I'm dead! Leave me alone! Please! Please."
The beast did not understand.
With a single stroke her chest was tipped open to and through the bones. What had been desirable breasts, cradled in lace only moments before now became raw, bleeding meat.
Maggie screamed once more. But now the assault on her body had progressed so far that her brain was blocked off from its life fluids, and with a final wail that only sh
e heard, deep inside her mind, she watched the light of the world flicker out forever and the last word that choked from her bleeding lips was, "Mommy!"
More than a hundred years ago, it had become apparent that unless wilderness areas were protected from the encroachment of man, they would vanish forever. Hunters, lumbermen, settlers and cattlemen were carving marks in the landscape that would never be restored to its original wild state. It took years of bitter dispute, as the interests of exploitation and conservation met in legislative battle. But eventually the Natural Park Service was formed, and the Department of the Interior began to acquire land that would be set aside for the benefit of unborn generations.
Ironically, the very protection the Park Service affords the environment sometimes results in its alteration. Only recently had the Service decided that perhaps it is best to let natural forest fires burn themselves out, even though that may produce a large area of ugly, blackened landscape. But nature intended such blights, and without them, the forest grows rampant, unchecked. Trees are choked by overgrowth, stunted, and the forest becomes an uncontrolled thicket.
Most of our sports have been corrupted into profitable industries, and back-packing is no exception. What was once a sensible way of traveling in the woods has been expanded into a giant catalogue of aluminum pack-frames, flame-orange duffle bags, freeze-dried rations, insulated hiking boots, two-way Citizen's Band radios, and Dacron windbreakers.
Yet the back-packers who hike into the interior of the national and state parks do find a sense of isolation and adventure that is denied to the thousands of other visitors who drive into the camp sites with their recreational vehicles, complete with air conditioning, television and flush toilets. When you're lying on your back in the new grass and glacier-flowers just above the 6,000-foot level, looking down at the fluffy clouds forming in the late morning, it's easy to imagine that you've been thrown back in time, back to an age without interstate highways and jet supersonic airplanes.
Then you look up, and see a National Park Service helicopter, its blades throbbing through the air with that egg-beater sound made so familiar by television coverage of the Vietnam war.
