Glenda considered it the trip of a lifetime. Stubby thought it might be a good way to try out his new toy. The motor home was the size of a commercial bus, with most of the comforts of his home and far more than the homes of most working men. Glenda didn't understand why they bought the thing in the first place, because they never stayed in it. Stubby always insisted on the best hotels. She figured he'd picked it out just to drive around. He was so ostentatious. The SUV on the caddie behind was another example. She didn't think Stubby even knew how to put it into four-wheel drive.
The trip was pleasant enough, until they got inside the park and started down toward Yellowstone Lake. The view was gorgeous and took Glenda's breath away. Stubby couldn't have cared less. His temper, spurred on by the traffic congestion, rose like an elevator and reached the top floor when they were stopped by a traffic jam along the lakeside. A park ranger stood in the road, directing traffic through the congested area around Mary Bay. Stubby pulled alongside, honked his horn, and barked out the window. “What's the problem?”
“Sorry for the delay, sir,” the ranger said. “We've had a grizzly bear poached along the road. We'll move you through as quickly as possible.”
“Fer cryin' out loud, boy,” Stubby shouted. “If I wanted to sit in a traffic jam I'd 'ave stayed in Dallas!” The ranger stared blankly.
As the traffic began to move, the park official waved Stubby on and then shook his head as the Texan pulled away. On Stubby's side of it, he didn't know the traffic cop, or Glenn, J.D., Franklin, or any of the other park employees working the scene that morning, and couldn't have cared less. He drove off, honking his horn and waving his arms at those still ahead of him.
Stubby's mood hadn't improved any when, two hours later, he sat on a bench along the boardwalk at Old Faithful, waiting for the famous geyser to put on its show. The area had been nearly deserted when they first sat down but as the clock counted down the time until the geyser's next eruption, the benches and the boardwalk filled and overflowed with anxious tourists. Bored with the entire ordeal, Stubby tossed chunks of sweet roll onto the ground at the edge of the boardwalk. Yellow-bellied marmots in mangy coats stood below and snatched each morsel, as if it were manna from Heaven.
“Jason,” Glenda said. “The sign says not to feed the animals.”
“Fer cryin' out loud, woman,” Stubby snapped. “Leave me be. Besides, the stuff they sell here ain't fit fer human consumption. Least ways the gophers oughta benefit.”
Glenda just shook her head.
A murmur started in the crowd as Old Faithful began spitting and sputtering in the first act of its performance. “Look, Jason,” Glenda exclaimed. “It's starting!”
“Yeah,” Stubby said absently. He tossed the last of his roll to a brave marmot that had climbed onto the boards at his feet. There certainly wasn't anything spectacular about water shooting out of some hole in the ground. Even oilfield gushers didn't hold the magic for Stubby that they once did. Except, of course, for all the paper they supplied; forest green paper, lots of it; each decorated with the face of a dead president. On the other hand, the blonde to his left was sure worthy of a second look.
The great geyser's spout grew higher and higher into the sky to the scattered “Ooooohhs” and “Aaaahhs” of the crowd. It reached its pinnacle to their shared applause, the pop of flashbulbs, and whir of their automatic cameras. The blonde on Stubby's left clapped and bounced up and down. Her ample chest responded accordingly and the Texan felt like clapping too. The act ended with Old Faithful taking a bow in the form of a sputter and final belch of steam. Its cloud evaporated. So did the crowd, wandering off to other adventures. Great show, thought Stubby, as the blonde departed. “Can we go now?” he asked Glenda.
It seemed every tourist in Yellowstone decided to leave the Visitor's Center at the same time. Stubby guided his mountainous motor home from the parking lot and into the fray, growing angrier by the moment. Glenda hid her face as the traffic forced Stubby into the wrong lane and he had to make a second circle around the confusing route to find the exit. As he screamed and cussed at the idiots in his parade, Glenda tried to remember why she'd married him in the first place. Finally, taking the exit ramp onto the loop road north, Stubby glanced at his watch and found his smile again. The bars would be open by the time they rolled into West Yellowstone. He eased his grip on the steering wheel. Glenda noticed the change in his demeanor and relaxed too. Maybe the rest of the trip wouldn't be so bad after all.
*
It was the middle of nowhere; south of Yellowstone, southwest of Tie Hack Ranch, on the unpaved, virtually unknown, Grassy Lake Road. The absolute middle of nowhere. But the mean young man in the baseball cap had found it just where the old man said it would be, looking as alone and forgotten as the overgrown road that brought him.
When settlers first emigrated to this portion of the country, what they brought with them had to be carried on their backs, on those of their horses and oxen, or in their meager wagons. Their homes and outbuildings were small and functional. The materials were cut from the raw lumber growing wherever they planted their families to start new lives, without luxuries like power tools. But what they built was meant to last.
The barn on this long-abandoned homestead ranch was no different. The hand-hewn logs from which it had been constructed had been pounded by decades of rain, snow, woodpecker beaks, and the savage Wyoming sun. Taken from this very spot, the logs matched their surroundings as if they had never been felled, and rarely did anyone so much as see it if they didn't already know it was there.
The old man was waiting for him, waiting and watching. He must have been because, as the kid maneuvered the sunbaked pickup along the two-track and up to the barn, the door come unhitched and there he was, gray beard to his chest, green and brown camouflage from neck to ankles, worn jump boots on his feet and a weathered brown Stetson atop his head, pushing from the inside and walking it open. “You finally got here,” the old heathen said, waving him in. The boy pulled the truck into the barn. The old man pulled the door closed. From outside, the place was abandoned and lonely again.
Inside, along the west wall, up on pole brackets, was a rear-entrance camper topper, all ready for when the time was right. Just back the pickup under it, lower the camper on the bed, and go. To the other side, along the east wall was a big ol' unhitched, but ready for hitching, horse trailer complete with license plate that, if he knew the old man at all, was as hot as a Yuma noon but taken so discreetly it wouldn't be reported stolen `til after the October centerfold had unveiled her pumpkins. To the north, the rear of the barn had been fenced off with on-end pallets nailed to posts creating a handy, temporary stable for what looked like five good horses; two for riding and three for packing.
The old man, Gerry Meeks by name, had tied the door closed again and was coming up on the truck. “Took you long enough,” he said. “Expected you two hours ago.”
The boy, Bass Donnelly, jumped from the cab wearing a baby-eating grin. “Well, let me tell you, Gerry,” he called out. “I have had me a morning.”
“Ain't surprised,” the old man said, peering into the bed of the truck, wondering after the supplies, reaching in to paw the bags brung from the village stores. “You usually have you a morning. Question is did you have us a morning? Did you get the grub? The camp supplies?”
“You see 'em, don't you,” the young one hollered, already around the cab and opening the passenger side door like the whole world depended on it. It was easy getting mad at the codger, pushy as he was. “You're already running your dirty hands through 'em.” Then, knowing better than to light a fire he couldn't put out, he backed off some. “I been to the stores.”
Donnelly had only seen Meeks truly lose his temper one time, early on after they'd met. They'd been talking business at Meeks' place when the old man got up to take a leak. Nosing around to kill time, the kid had found an envelope from the Social Security Administration addressed to the codger; addressed, as God was his witness
, to Geronimo Meeks. The kid near laughed his head off and couldn't wait for the old man to come back into the room so's he could, at the first opportunity, call him by that freight train of a legal name. And he did.
In a flash, the old man pulled a knife from his boot and stuck it in the kid's face. “You ever call me that again,” he said in a voice Satan would have envied, “I'll gut you like a fish.”
Bass Donnelly knew, more than likely, that he could take the old boy if need be. But with that glinting blade two inches from his wide and staring eyeball, the risk just didn't seem worth taking. If Geronimo Meeks preferred to be called Gerry, it was no skin off his nose.
“Did you get what we need?” Meeks hollered, drawing the kid back from his memory of that early day. The old man had two sacks out of the truck bed and was carrying them to a rickety table on the south end of the barn, on the camper side. Behind the table was the cold-camp gear; a small tent, bedrolls, and one lantern. The table groaned as he put the bags down. “Did you get what I told ya'?”
“That,” Donnelly said, “and a whole lot more.” He had a cooler chest out of the truck and was hurrying around with it, the ice thunking and rattling inside. He lowered the tailgate, and then moved the chest to rest there. He grinned like the Cheshire cat. “Blink them old eyes of yours; get 'em good and moist.” He nodded at the cooler. “Then you just take a look in there.”
Laughing again, Donnelly sunk his hands in his pockets, hunting for the sugar cubes he'd stored there, and started for the corral at the back of the barn.
Meeks, his curiosity as piqued as it was ever likely to be, ran his hands through his beard, once, twice, three times for good measure, and moved to the back of the truck. He took a breath and opened the cooler. Then he took a deeper breath and unwrapped the blood stained cloth inside. “Well, I will be.” He reached in and lifted out the open package, showing off a bloody but otherwise black-looking, tear drop-shaped hunk of meat. There was no mistaking a cooled bear gall bladder. He didn't know, and wouldn't have cared to know, that it was the gall bladder of Bear #113. When he asked, “Where did you get that?” what he meant was, “Were you seen taking that?”
Inside his own head, at the corral in the back of the barn, Donnelly didn't hear either question. He was feeding sugar to the horses over the rail. One of them missed his turn, whinnied a complaint, and shook itself out.
“Bass, don't get those horses riled. I told you before, we need to keep quiet out here.”
“There's nobody around for miles and miles.”
“You don't know that,” the old boy barked, “and you better always assume the opposite. Especially when we get up in that park.” The kid frowned and dropped down on a bale of hay. Meeks was frowning himself as he slid the gall bladder into a plastic bag. “You didn't answer my question. Where did you take the bear?”
“Sign said Beach Springs. And you don't gotta worry; there wasn't a soul around. Just me and the bear.” He told the story, taking careful aim all over again when he mimed a replay of the money shot. He ended the tale beaming with pride. “That old bear popping up, Gerry, that was a slice of luck, I give you that. But I took him without help and, if you ask me, you ought to be grateful.”
“I am. I ain't sayin' otherwise.” The old poacher lifted the bagged trophy, waving it triumphantly in the air. “You done good. This is worth a pretty penny to the folks we're already dealing with. Yessirree.” He placed the bag back in the chest and set the works with the rest of the gear. No sooner was he done then his smile turned into a sneer. “But don't you get it into your head we'll be doing this again. We ain't hunting bear. And we ain't hunting anything on the side of the gol-darned road.”
The kid ignored him and pulled a bent post card from his pocket. He'd bought it just that morning, right after he'd knocked blue hell out of the rack upon which it had been displayed. He stared at the card, studying the image of a huge white bull elk. His mind was drifting.
“Elk antlers,” Meeks said, still lecturing. “That's what we're here for.”
“I know what we're here for. I scouted the Lewis River on the way down, just like you told me. There's elk there, and plenty of 'em, just waiting to hand us their antlers.”
“There you go,” Meeks said with satisfaction. “Elk; that's the game plan. Get off the game plan once too often, you'll get caught sure as water is wet. I got no plans on gettin' caught.”
The kid stood and hung the post card on a bent nail like he was decorating his living room back home.
“Are you listening to me?”
“Don't worry about it,” Donnelly snapped back. He rubbed a dirty finger across the huge white animal in the picture. “I got nothing on my mind but elk. Nothing at all.”
“Instead of wastin' your money on pretty pictures, you should have bought yourself a decent hat,” Meeks growled. “Nobody gives a hoot about the Cubs out here. You need to get rid of that bright cap and get something that goes with the country and the weather. You stick out like a whore in church.”
*
Stubby Ewing may as well have been made of stone. He drove on, acutely aware of the steaming hot pots and pools in the Upper Geyser Basin, like few could be, but oblivious to their beauty and color. He was unimpressed with the regal elk gathered along the banks of the Little Firehole River near Sapphire Pool, and less than interested in the small but stately herd of bison grazing near Midway Geyser Basin. He had no time for that crap. There was business on his mind and a cold beer waiting somewhere in West Yellowstone with his name on it. Besides, the cable sports channel had coverage of the Cowboys' last game coming up right after lunch.
Glenda, on the other hand, had given herself over to her surroundings. Never in her life had she imagined the beauty and the diversity of life to be found in the wonderland called Yellowstone. She wanted so much to get closer to it all.
They passed a sign reading: Firehole Lake Drive. The name alone struck a chord of mystery and intrigue inside her that would not be denied. “Jason,” she said excitedly. “Firehole Lake! Let's stop and see.”
“Fer cryin' out loud, woman,” Stubby howled.
“Jason, please!”
He shook his head in disgust. “I wouldn't mind so much if you knew what you were looking at. But all you see are pretty holes filled with hot water.”
“Just one more. Then we can go to West Yellowstone. Please. I promise.”
“Oh fer cryin' out loud. One more and that's it. I'm thirsty.” Resigned, but still grumbling, Stubby turned onto Firehole Lake Drive.
Glenda marveled at the beautiful purple stalks of elephant's head blossoms that gave way to sparse pines, their trunks turning white as the minerals in the swampy soil fossilized them even as they lived. The timber grew thicker as they rose slightly above the flat plateau, then thinned again as they dropped down, following the winding arc of the drive. They parked at the edge of the wooden walks encircling the area.
Glenda led the way. Stubby followed as sullen as a six-year-old dragged from the Toy Department by a mother headed for Women's Lingerie. “It's hard to believe,” Glenda exclaimed as she started out onto the boardwalk, “that something can be so pretty and yet smell so awful. It's just like rotten eggs.”
“That,” he whispered to her emphatically, “is the smell of geothermal money.”
“How is it money to you?”
“Lord, she has eyes but cannot see.” Stubby couldn't help himself; he was shaking his head again. “Why do you think I've been buying all that land around this so-called park? Do you have any idea what a few wells sunk into Yellowstone's thermal plumbing will do for the relationship 'tween me and my banker?”
“Jason, you can't drill there. It's against the law, isn't it?”
“You're forgettin' the Golden Rule. He who has the gold… makes the rules.”
Glenda frowned, decided there was nothing to be gained by arguing with her husband, and gazed out over the lake, turning her attention to the wonders around her. Stubby was intent only o
n getting done and getting out. Just ahead, a long haired photographer blocked their way with his tripod set up smack-dab in the middle of the boardwalk. Glenda wished him a good morning as she slipped by. Then Stubby jockeyed around, doing the fellow the unearned favor of not knocking either him or his camera into the lake. Safely on the other side, he tugged up on his belt and barked, “Excuse you.” He finished under his breath with, “Hippie.”
Over his shoulder, Stubby spied the object of the photographer's attention; a sun-bleached bison skull in the shallow waters of Black Warrior Lake. The vapors rising off the heated pool swirled around the skull, causing it to vanish and reappear like a spectre. Stubby paused to ensure his eyes weren't playing tricks on him.
Glenda, in the lead and oblivious to Stubby's new interest, kept walking. When she finally realized he'd fallen behind she turned and spotted him by the young cameraman. Something had their attention. She followed their gaze out into the mists. Glenda's eyes grew wide. She gasped. Then she screamed and threw her hands in front of her face.
The photographer, focused minutely on the skull in a close-up through his lens, jerked his head up to peer over the camera. Then he saw what Glenda saw and shouted, “Oh, my God!” He grabbed his tripod and scrambled back away.
Stubby remained motionless as his bowels gave out.
A huge grizzly bear, as monstrous as anything Stubby had ever imagined, appeared out of the mist above the bison skull and the lake. A fearsome roar escaped its massive, towering head. Piercing steel-gray eyes stared angrily above a gaping maw and a flash of fangs. Then the beast charged; through the heavy, swirling mists, straight at Stubby Ewing with the speed of a bullet and the bulk of a battleship.
Ignorant of the mess in his pants, Stubby turned to run and fell off the narrow boardwalk. The Texan bellowed in pain as his forehead slammed into the ground. He scrambled awkwardly, trying to regain his feet, when his legs broke through the thin gray crust covering the boiling waters beneath.
Apparition Lake Page 4
