by John Hansen
Greg nodded and laughed at my description of the article, “Sure, this place is paradise, if you come for a few days, but living up here full time takes determination, and grit.”
“It takes commitment,” Dee chimed in as she cut a potato up for Ophelia, who didn’t seem interested in it. “A few months into a hard winter and you think you’re on the moon.”
Greg looked over at Ronnie, “Ronnie, what made your decision to work here?”
“It’s a lot better than Detroit,” Ronnie said, and chugged his 2nd beer straight from the bottle, saying nothing further. He just sat there and slowly guzzled the beer for a few seconds, with us just watching him. When he was done, he breathed out a sigh, and then went back to eating, not saying another word.
It was on the verge of becoming awkward, with all of us just staring at him, when Greg suddenly piped up and began to tell us a joke about the rangers in the park. It was something about rangers that rode horses, and something about horse shit (Ophelia looked up at him when he said that), and when he got to the punch line we all laughed, even Ronnie, and the rest of the dinner conversation picked up after that. It was the first feeling of family I had in a very long time, as I sat at the table and talked to Greg and Dee; although I had just met the rangers I felt at home with them.
My association with the idea of family had always been a muddled one, and it mostly centered on my father, who came to mind whenever I thought of “family,” even as distant and formal as he was. But with this small family in this little ranger house in the middle of the mountains, I felt at ease and happy and like I belonged, in a way I had not felt for a long while. Even Ronnie dropped his silent reserve and was laughing with Greg about life in the store by the end of the dinner.
When the meal was over, Ronnie said he had to get back and after thanking them for dinner he then made a quick exit. I didn’t really want him there anyway so I didn’t object to his sudden departure, and Greg said he’d drive me back. Dee went to give Ophelia a bath, and Greg and I moved out to the back and sat on his back deck on some fold-out chairs. We leaned back against the wall, staring out into the night and casually sipping beers. I saw a glimmer of moonlight reflecting a few yards off between some trees.
Greg noticed me squinting at it and said, “That little river flows from your lake; it goes on for miles until it dumps into another lake – the Lower Two Medicine near Browning. You can take a boat from the store and just float all the way to my back porch. Kayakers float by all the time not even knowing ‘the cops’ are watching through the trees.”
“Cops?” I asked, not understanding his joke.
“Rangers are sometimes called ‘Khaki Cops’ around here,” he said. He took a gulp of beer. “Like mall cops I guess.”
The crickets had started up with a scratchy fast whirring sound. “I actually always wanted to be a cop,” Greg said. “My dad was a cop in Missoula his entire adult life. He made it to chief, but he died from lung cancer. He was one of the last of the great chain smokers – always had a cigarette going, big messy ashtrays everywhere.” Greg took a sip of his beer. “He was a tough old bird though, got a lot done for the Missoula PD.
“After a year of college I went and signed up for the academy; I wanted to join the Missoula police force just like the old man, but I flunked out.”
“What happened, if I may ask?”
He either cleared his throat, or laughed, “Flunked out on the written portion – didn’t answer the questions right, believe it or not.” He tossed his empty bottle into a trash can at the end of the porch. “I’m dyslexic – for the rangers it doesn’t matter though. The Khaki Cops don’t care.”
I glanced over at him. I wondered if he was getting drunk, but he didn’t sound tipsy, just regretful.
“I tried to join the army when I was a senior in high school,” I said to him, “but they wouldn’t take me because my spine was too crooked.”
I didn’t tell him that I’d always been secretly thankful, however, because how I would have fared in the military I couldn’t image – it would have been hell for me, most likely. I had only gone to the recruiter station in an errant impulse – like so many before me probably had, and impulse that I had always been grateful hadn’t panned out.
Greg nodded, “Well I wanted to be a cop to help people, save lives, protect people from being hurt, like my dad did. And being a ranger I can still do that.” He didn’t sound altogether convinced, though, more obstinate that inspired.
I noticed the night was getting darker, and I saw that the stars had come out innumerable and bright in the time we had been on the porch, even with the moon rising above the distant trees. In the Two Med sky I could sometimes see the sweeping band of the Milky Way stretching across the dome of the night sky in a delicate and cloudy streak, if it was dark enough.
Greg walked in the house and got a couple more beers, even though I wasn’t done with mine. He came back and sat back down on the bench. He didn’t seem like he wanted to go back into the house just yet.
“When my dad retired, he gave me his badge and the medals he had won on the force,” Greg said quietly, looking out into the dark woods in front of us. A single light hung over his porch which just illuminated the area of grass in front of us a few yards. Outside that circle it was getting very dark, as if we were the only living souls in the wilderness around, the only light on the porch besides the moon. “He never said anything, but I know he was disappointed with me that I didn’t become a cop. The old bird didn’t come to my swearing-in as a ranger.”
“Fathers become disappointed pretty easily, is my analysis,” I said. “Mine was disappointed in me quite early on; so at least I spared him any big hopes from the get-go.”
Greg laughed quietly and shook his head, “Ophelia can do whatever the hell she likes when she grows up – or nothing at all.”
I told him I agreed with his philosophy and we sipped our beers. An owl hooted from far away, echoing faintly over the hills around the river.
“Alia was beaten up horribly,” Greg said suddenly, in a graver voice. I looked at him and saw that he was looking down at his boots. He said, “She was clothed, you should know, but she was battered and bruised in a way I haven’t seen before. She had her purse, her wallet on her still.”
I again pictured a grisly scene and I imagined the fear she must have felt, and the pain, and another flash of vicious angry rose up in me.
“But who the fuck would just kill her like that?” I asked. “Does anyone have any suspects – any leads?”
Greg shook his head slowly. “The BIA in Browning doesn’t have any leads – I spoke with them today. The rangers certainly don’t have any leads.” Then he looked at me, “Will, I don’t think you did it, of course. But you were known to have been with her on her last night.
He shifted on the bench, “What I’m saying to you is you need to be careful, that’s all.”
I nodded but said nothing – the whole thing just seemed too bizarre to grasp.
After a moment I said, “So she was murdered, but not for rape or robbery.”
Greg just shrugged.
“So what are you going to do about it?” I asked him.
Greg didn’t answer. The helplessness of the situation angered me. “She was a good, honest person…” I said to him, quietly. “Just trying to survive, to get by. Didn’t have any real family here…” I spat on the ground after he said this and gripped his bottle with both hands. “She never had much luck.”
I thought about her last few days on this earth for a moment. “She lived with this drug dealer guy, supposed to be some bad dude – ‘Clayton’ is his name,” I said. “She broke up with him, I heard. So is anyone looking at him?”
“Who told you about Clayton Red Claw?” Greg asked.
“This girl Bridget who’s on staff at the park headquarters; she mentioned something about it. You know the guy?”
Greg nodded, watching me, “Everyone knows Clayton.”
“Well, is
the BIA investigating him?”
“Probably,” Greg said, “but not about this, I think.”
I looked at him questioningly, but he shook his head and said, “I’ve got ideas about him also, Will, as far as Alia’s murder goes, and his brother Jake too – they are never apart. But the BIA keeps their distance from them, for some reason. It’s all that drug business in Browning. People think Clayton and Jake are involved drug dealing all over Northern Montana.
“But,” Greg said, “the BIA doesn’t tell us rangers anything – they don’t share info about any investigation they have going – drugs or murder. We’re the Khaki Cops, remember?”
I shook my head, “So we don’t know if anyone is a suspect, or if anyone gives a shit that she was killed.”
“People give a shit. I give a shit,” Greg said, softly, but then I saw his face became more grim, and he said with a rough voice, “She was killed in my park, but what can I do? She died in my territory, but the rangers are supposed to let the Bureau handle homicide.”
He took a quick sip of his beer, “My father became this big hero cop for a while, after he tracked down two missing girls and freed them from some crazy bastard’s basement they were locked in. He didn’t even call for backup – just him and his partner went in there and ripped their bindings out of the wall and dragged the girls out. Arrested the two guys that lived there too. They had killed women in the past.”
Greg leaned back against the side of the house. “He was asked by some reporter why he went straight into the house without waiting, and you know what he said? He said: ‘Because it’s my job.’ Simple as that.”
Greg picked at the paper label on his beer, then his hand suddenly fell back to his lap and he looked over at me with angry scowl on his face, “I want to indict whoever did this to Alia. Because if someone can do that to her in my park and just get away with it scott free, then it could just happen again, to the next girl – to Ophelia.” He swilled the last of his beer down his throat. “And that would mean this Khaki Cop uniform I wear doesn’t mean shit.”
I sat for a moment, thinking of Alia laying on the ground, alone and abandoned. “The uniforms mean something,” I said.
I suddenly felt very exhausted, and I looked at my watch – it was getting late. Greg caught the signal and took a deep breath, smiling with a sadness in his eyes, as if forcing himself to move on.
“Do you remember my orientation talk?” he asked.
“Of course.”
“That Thoreau quote?”
“I think so.”
“He’s my favorite writer; and I have an even better one for you… personally.”
Greg took a breath, held it, and then recited:
“I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived”
“From Walden,” he said.
“A personal quote?” I asked, “or is that a message for me?”
“We’ll see,” he answered. “We better get you back; Larry will have your hide if you are late again.”
I looked at Greg as he got up slowly from his chair. A complex man, I thought. Was he a frustrated ranger rent-a-cop, whose talents were sadly unutilized, who has to watch police work from a distance? Or was he just another hopeless dreamer who never made good on his dreams because he didn’t try hard enough, or didn’t’ keep trying? Was he a friend to me, or a risk to be avoided? Would he help Alia? Could he help?
I found, as I got up to go, that I had a new view of this puckish little ranger, who seemed one minute to be nothing more than a harmless tour guide, the next to be in an emotional jumble, behind an amiable face. Whatever he was, he clearly was not telling me everything he knew about what was going on with Alia’s death, or everything he knew about me, and that still unsettled me. What he had told me was almost blurted out in a moment of emotion. Even if there was some kind of investigation into Alia’s death, I doubted if Greg was going to have anything further to do with it.
I said my goodbyes to Dee, and gave a little kiss on the cheek to Ophelia in her pajamas when Dee made her walk up to me for a hug; and Greg had me home before midnight.
Nineteen
News of the murder spread quickly. While violent death was not unheard of in Glacier Park and Browning as Greg had said, it was rare when not caused by grizzly bear attack or a fall off some cliff along a hiking trail. I tried to find out about any funeral plans for Alia, and I called the only funeral home in Browning and gave them the info. But the lady on the phone had already heard about the murder, and said they hadn’t been contacted by anyone regarding funeral services. There was no newspaper in Browning, and no coroner’s office, the closest for both was in Kalispell – so I couldn’t get any information from that route. I even called the Blackfoot tribal council, but got nowhere. They wouldn’t talk to me at all about her – a man on the other end with the tribe just stated he couldn’t help.
Larry, Ronnie and the rest heard about the death shortly after my visit with Greg; and the rangers all over the Park were talking about it to the staff members, warning them to be careful just in case there was still some killer out there still lurking in the mountains or stalking around Browning. Ronnie said he was shocked, and said something about how Alia must have been in the wrong place at the wrong time. When Larry heard the gossip, he chalked it up to more “red trouble” in Browning, although she had been killed within the borders of the park between Two Med and Browning’s city limits, so the gossip went. Katie hadn’t met Alia, but was duly concerned, as a girl who often took long hikes by herself would be.
The story of the murder startled the campers who heard of it too, but soon, given the quick turn around on the campsites, and the story quickly was forgotten as new campers and visitors replaced the old.
I was told by Greg a few days after I had visited with him that the BIA’s office had “barely looked into it,” and that the only group that seemed truly concerned with finding anything out was the Blackfoot council, in Browning. He said I probably didn’t need to worry about any questioning now.
This both depressed and angered me; Alia definitely deserved better and someone definitely deserved to pay for what they did to her. Greg called me up later told me that the Blackfoot tribe council had held a meeting and had elected a member to both press the BIA’s office into investigating further to find a suspect, and also for that member to report to the council on any updates in any investigation. But when I heard who they appointed, my hopes immediately fell to the ground.
“Thunderbird?” I said to Greg, in shock. “That weird white guy who hangs out around here? That guys a joke!”
Greg said, “There’s more to him than meets the eye, Will – he’s well known around here. Don’t let his goofy ways fool you. And yes he’s an elder on the Blackfoot council – they don’t let just anyone serve like that, you should know.”
“Really, I’m glad they’ve taken as much interest as they have,” he continued. “Usually, the tribe council doesn’t get involved in criminal matters – they have to let the BIA handle things. The people living there have enough depression and dismay without murders and other crime to think about and get involved in...”
Elder or no, I still couldn’t believe that Thunderbird was the council’s choice to check into Alia’s murder – or that he was even a member of the tribe, much less their man in charge. Did this so-called “council,” whoever they were, really care about Alia’s murder if that’s who they have pressing the BIA? Thunderbird seemed more likely to get arrested himself, based on his crazy behavior, if he started hanging around the Browning office. I gave up on the reservation doing anything about it after that. As I hung up the phone with him, I realized that now, of anyone I knew in Montana, only Greg seemed to have any interest in talking about Alia’s murder and any authority to help discover who had killed her.
I had the next day off, and th
is was now a week since Alia had been killed. I decided to get out deep into the hills, to take the trail let led up to the top of Mount Sinopah, a long and difficult trek that a lot of causal hikers didn’t undertake. I would have some solitude there, at least, to think about things. I wanted to be totally alone, and not have to talk to anyone or think about anything – just sit in the sun and soak up the warmth – become just another feature on the mountain – alone and immovable.
I started around eight a.m., and kept up a brisk pace. I was in a t-shirt and shorts only, and the day was growing hot. The mosquitoes were gone, completely, and were now replaced by the black flies that Alia had promised. They didn’t bite, as she had said, but they did swarm around my face the same way, although they seemed to stay near the water and didn’t go up to high elevation, so I was ok after a few minutes of hiking. I brought a small pack with some random food for lunch I had grabbed from the store and a large bottle of water, as I planned on being out all day.
About two thirds of the way to the top of Mount Sinopah was a tiny mountain lake called “Sky Lake.” It was found past the top of one of the higher ridges near the summit of Sinopah, so you couldn’t see it from the valley floor when the hike starts. I at least wanted to make it that far, because I had heard it was a beautiful spot, hidden from view.
On my way up the trail I crossed through breaks in the green fir and hemlock trees where the woods would clear and the trail meander through wide, grassy fields, dotted with flower patches of vivid shades of dark purple, and bright reds and yellows, heated by the sun into vibrant bursts of color. I had learned some of their names from campers in the park. I saw, amongst the thick, dark-green cow parsnip bushes, with their little umbrellas of white flower clusters hidden on top, and huckleberry plants boasting the sought-after vivid blue berries sagging heavy with juice almost to the ground, there were purple lupine flowers rising up in their vertical clusters, like violet spear heads, and also brilliant three-petal trillium flowers looking like white starfish having crawled up the mountain to lay in the sun.
