HYBRID: A Thriller

by James Marshall Smith

  Dr. Wallace focused on those around the table, one by one, as he spoke. “We compared the stride measurements of this animal—we’re confident now it’s a wolf—with others in the data base. The wolf has to be at least six feet nine inches long, not counting the tail.” He stopped, allowing the weight of his words to sink in.

  Professor Hornsby wrinkled his brow. “I suppose if you have a wolf tipping the scales at two hundred pounds, approaching seven feet from head to flank makes sense. But the question I would ask is, how on God’s green earth could a wolf get that big?”

  “I believe the greater question,” McFarland said, “is why would a lone wolf attack and kill a human. Everything I’ve learned tells me they don’t do that. I can understand the livestock deaths, but even then, don’t those attacks come from a pack?”

  “Livestock kills usually take place in packs,” Hornsby replied. “But not always. A stray sometimes leaves the pack on its own. Because the loner can’t get meat from pack hunts, he has to provide for himself.”

  He bathed in the rapt attention. “To your second point, wolf attacks on people are rare, but they do happen. About a half a dozen have been confirmed in North America this century.” He placed his eyeglasses and then his elbows on the table. “But most troublesome are the unofficial reports from India. In some of the rural areas, wolves have devoured children. They’re three- to six-year-olds for the most part. Last year, reports listed over fifty kids attacked and killed in the Uttar-Pradesh region alone.”

  It was Wallace’s turn to look skeptical. “We’ve seen no reports on that.”

  “The stories are anecdotal of course,” Hornsby said. “But from what I can gather, the victims are considered feeble, either physically or mentally. Rejects by their parents, you might call them. The poor kids are taken out to the edge of the woods and abandoned. By the time wolves find them, identifiable body parts or clothing are all that remain.”

  McFarland shook her head. “Hard to believe a parent anywhere in the world would resort to that.”

  “There’s another important point,” Hornsby said. “The state soon provided subsidies to families with proof a wolf killed their child. They are handsome payments, eight hundred rupee per child. As you might imagine, the money has made the situation worse.”

  Silence.

  “I wonder if we may return to my presentation?” Dr. Wallace asked.

  “I have to admit,” Hornsby said, “the evidence here does suggest a wolf attack. But it’s too bad that no traces of tissue or body fluids were recovered from the attacking animal.

  “As a matter of fact,” Dr. Wallace replied, “We swabbed the skin around the photographer’s throat wound for DNA analysis. We also had swabs available from six of the livestock kills. What we’ve learned so far has taken us by complete surprise. Shocking, really.” He reached into his briefcase and pulled out a notebook and more photos.

  TWENTY-FOUR

  “You mean the wind can blow those big trees down?” Charlene Loudermilk said, teasing her new companion.

  “Well, that’s what it says in this guidebook. You can read about it right here.” When the driver reached behind his seat to the floor, he steered off the shoulder of the road.

  “I believe you!” Charlene cried out. She grabbed hold of the door handle and the Volkswagen jumped back onto the highway. She’d met him earlier at the Colter Bar and Grille while he sat alone at the table next to hers, eating breakfast and reading a paperback. Every now and then he stopped his chewing when he came to something interesting, it seemed. A passing comment led to chitchat—the weather, the town, the food. He was the bookish type with little round glasses and long straw-colored hair that stayed planted behind his ears except when he laughed. Then the bushy strands would shake loose and he’d rake them back again.

  After he joined her at her table, she found out he was a student from Boston and on his first trip to the West. He said he always wanted to explore the Great American West. That’s the words he used, like he was on a romantic journey in some faraway country. She reminded him it was only Montana.

  He planned to take a trail that wasn’t too tough of a hike according to the guidebook. He said it gave a warning about hiking, the dangers of the scorched trees from the fires of 1988. “Snags” the book called them. They could fall at any time, especially on windy days.

  Like today.

  She loved all that book-learning stuff. All her education came from home- schooling in Idaho, until she got pregnant the first time. She didn’t learn much from her mother except how to wash, iron and read. She loved reading and used to slip into the Westminster College library in Rigby where she’d grab books and magazines off the shelves and sit and read like she belonged there. She’d watch for hours the rich kids study and talk and flirt like they didn’t have a care in the world. No doubt they didn’t.

  Overnight hike in the Park? She’d love to. He was cute and smelled nice, not like regular men. She acted natural, didn’t have to put on airs. She just let him talk about himself. Men liked doing that. They drove along Highway 191 looking for a trailhead at the western border of Yellowstone. She pointed ahead. “Can we stop right up there for a minute?”

  The words didn’t sound right. She wondered what he thought she wanted to do. He pulled into a small graveled parking area and she led the way to a ramshackle log fence surrounded by heavy thicket.

  A sign on a post read: FIR RIDGE CEMETERY

  They stood under an ancient pine that was wider at the trunk than she was tall. Weather-beaten headstones reared up from among the weeds. In one corner, cut and trimmed, were two graves. Instead of tombstones, perfectly placed rocks and baskets of wildflowers lined the plots.

  He slipped an arm around her waist. She stiffened and stared straight ahead.

  “Someone here you knew?” he asked.

  “Just someone I never got a chance to.” She brushed the hair from her face. “Let’s go for a hike, slugger.”

  ***

  When the pair arrived at the Fawn Pass trailhead, he loaded the camping gear onto a metal frame to carry on his back. The freeze-dried meals and fruit were sealed tight in plastic bags, which he stuffed into his backpack. While he worked, he chatted on about bears and their keen sense of smell.

  “Yeah, I know,” she said. After thinking about it for a moment, she decided it best to leave it at that. Wouldn’t be lady-like to make him think she knew more than he did about wild animals. Men don’t like that.

  He shifted the camping gear higher on his back and they set out toward the trail. She wore jeans and sneakers, a long-sleeved plaid shirt buttoned at the wrists and a gray cotton jersey tied at her waist. She could walk five miles without a hitch and told him she did so many times with her sisters. Her small backpack was stocked with snack food, a can of Mountain Dew, and some girl stuff purchased when they stopped at the Colter General Store. Out of the corner of his eye, he’d examined what she bought. Kind of sneaky of him.

  They paused at the trailhead to read a yellow warning sign nailed to a post:

  ATTENTION

  Horn Hunters and Hikers

  Grizzly Bears Are Active In This Area

  MONTANA FISH, WILDLIFE AND PARKS

  “You want to go on?” he asked.

  “Sure. You’re not ‘fraid of Grizzlies, are you?”

  “I wish I’d bought that pepper spray now.”

  “Oh, I don’t think you need that. The last thing you’d wanna do is make a Grizzly mad at you.” She winked. He didn’t particularly get it, at least he didn’t smile.

  She wasn’t good at reading minds, except of course for Joseph Vincent’s wicked mind, but her new friend seemed to have something on his mind as they chatted. It was kind of weird, really, but kind of cute at the same time. Whenever he had a point to make, he’d furrow his brow and fix his glasses back on the bridge of his nose with his index finger, then clear his throat. It was some sort of automatic ritual, like stroking your chin while you think.

&nbs
p; “Now I hope you don’t mind, Charlene, but I need to ask you a personal question.”

  What was that supposed to mean?

  “Are you having your period?”

  She glared back at him, ready to snap off his head. Asking a lady a thing like that.

  “I don’t mean to be—”

  “I know what you mean, mister.”

  “Bears have this real sharp sense . . .”

  She turned and scurried away. All men were alike. She knew men. She knew men better than men knew men. He caught up with her eventually along the trail, but by then her anger had dwindled. Really wasn’t anger, more like a little outburst to keep him on his toes. She let him get ahead of her, even though he was slow. A pup tent and sleeping bag were rolled up on top of his backpack. The sleeping bag made her a piddling nervous, but the thrill of it all was enough to keep her wet.

  She finally passed him on the path as she strolled with a sense of freedom—the wilderness air, the summer colors. She pointed out the different flowers as they shuffled through the meadows, the yellow golden eye, monkey flower, violet aster, patches of the pink fireweed. Occasionally she turned around to see if he was still with her. He didn’t have the energy that he’d claimed. Not surprising, of course.

  When they stopped to rest in a field he admitted he never hiked much. But he thought there’d be no better way to learn than in Yellowstone. All this outdoors was “beyond my imagination,” he said. An only child, he was raised by two college professors, which probably explained his sorry imagination. He learned to play the violin at age eight. As a boy he spent all his free time in the City Library. His used-to-be girlfriend told him wild stories about the West often when they laid together after making love. That’s the way he put it—after “making love.” He was hinting, of course, dropping that little line out there like she was a catfish going after a dough ball.

  She squirmed and looked away when he asked about her own life. She had to remember to keep quiet about the kids. “My family lives just south of Colter, only a few miles from here. Can’t say how big our ranch is, but we sure have some beautiful horses. Cattle, too. Must be, I don’t know, maybe five hundred head. But the ranch hands take care of ‘em. You know, you gotta have ranch hands.”

  He nodded as he listened, staring off into the distance. She pulled up blades of grass, tossed them into the air, and watched them flutter back down. She didn’t let him see her smiling. The lower the sun dropped on the horizon, the more exciting it was all becoming.

  TWENTY-FIVE

  Montgomery studied Corey’s face as his boss rested his hands on the table and tapped the tips of his thumbs together. One eye twitched as he waited for Dr. Matthew Wallace to continue.

  “When the coroner examined the photographer’s clothing,” Dr. Wallace said, “he found animal hairs. We searched for foreign hair and saliva around the open wounds of the photographer and slaughtered animals. All the samples were analyzed for DNA in our lab. It was those results that nailed it.”

  When Wallace said nailed it, Corey flinched.

  “Hair shafts and saliva hold plenty of DNA that make up the genes,” Dr. Wallace said. “Combinations of genes determine coat color, body size, leg length, skull shape, even tail characteristics. Whether the tail should curl, hang down, or stick up. From the genetic patterns we could verify the specific animal. Unquestionably, the attacker for each victim was a North American gray wolf, at least in part. But what surprised us, all the DNA samples matched. The killer was the same wolf in every case.”

  Corey quickly sat up and spoke. “I’m afraid I’m not following you here. You said a wolf in part?”

  “The wolf we’re talking about is clearly a mix with something else. It has to be an offspring of a wolf with another member of the dog family. A breed that’s been tough to pin down. Unfortunately, our database for all the variety of dog breeds is limited, but we picked up telltale DNA sequences. They suggested bulldog terrier and bull mastiff. Even Great Dane. Not surprised at that, given the apparent size of this hybrid animal. I asked myself what kind of dog breed would show such a mix. I kept searching our archives and running iterative software designed for those kinds of matches.”

  He stopped to make sure everyone was paying close attention. “We now have an ID with better than eighty percent chance we’re correct. In this business, that’s as good as it gets.”

  Everyone around the table was glued to Wallace’s face. “Tosa Inu,” he said. “This . . . creature is best described as half wolf and half Tosa Inu.”

  “Tosa Inu?” Professor Hornsby asked, that now permanently puzzled look still contorting his face.

  “It’s a rare Japanese breed,” Wallace replied. “From what I’ve learned, it was bred solely for organized fighting in nineteenth century Japan. Once this strain was perfected, it made all other fighting dogs obsolete.”

  “So, there’s a hybrid wolf roaming around, killing?” Professor Hornsby asked.

  Wallace leaned back. “This hybrid is no doubt responsible for every attack we’ve investigated.”

  McFarland sat spellbound, as if not knowing what to ask next.

  “There’s even more supporting evidence,” Wallace said. “I called one of the country’s top breeders of wolf-dog hybrids, a gentleman from Fort Worth. We all know that a wolf has an innate fear of man and tries to avoid any human contact. But as the breeder explained, a hybrid wolf doesn’t fear people, no matter what breed of dog is in the mix.”

  “It’s more hostile?” McFarland asked.

  “It’s far more aggressive than any wolf in the wild. Will attack anything that moves. Think about that. Imagine the offspring of a wolf that’s mated with the most vicious fighting dog in existence.”

  Professor Hornsby couldn’t hold back. “With that conclusion, Dr. Wallace, I can only think of one question. How could a wolf in the Canadian Rockies have any chance in hell to mate with a prized Japanese fighting dog?”

  “I did plenty of head scratching over that one, too,” Wallace replied. “Then I called a colleague from the Wildlife Service in Ottawa. He told me that dog fighting for sport happens all over rural Canada. No different from small town America, from coast to coast. I bet England even has its share of dog fights in the Cumbria region.”

  “But you said,” McFarland responded, “that you’re continuing to analyze DNA samples from the victims. Why?”

  “I believe we can determine exactly which Yellowstone wolf we’re talking about.”

  “How is that possible?”

  “I met with the wildlife biologists who were part of the team that captured the wolves in Alberta at the start of Operation Wolfstock. Before the animals were transported to Yellowstone, they were given complete physicals. Blood was drawn and samples frozen and stored. So, if any disease outbreaks occurred, they could test the stored blood to help track down the problem.”

  “Luckily,” Wallace continued, “I’ve had access to five cc of blood from every wolf brought in from Canada. My lab techs back in Oregon are analyzing DNA from each blood sample to look for a match. If we get one, we’ll know the hybrid wolf is among the Yellowstone wolves.”

  McFarland looked over at Corey. “What’s your take on all this, Jack?”

  Taken by surprise, Corey sat up and cleared his throat. “It all sounds interesting. I’m just not sure that—”

  “I’m asking what if Dr. Wallace’s lab can pin down a specific wolf among those in the Park?”

  “As you know, every wolf we’ve brought in was fitted with a radio-collar.”

  “So, once a wolf is identified, what can you do?” she asked, clearly perturbed that she was having to drag information out of him like she was drawing blood.

  Corey scratched his neck and took a deep breath. “Well, then we can go to the charts and check its exact transmission frequency. Then we can locate it with our electronics in a flyover.”

  “Whichever way it goes,” McFarland said, “the superintendent wants this taken care of . . .
now.”

  “When do you plan to post warnings to the public?” Professor Hornsby asked.

  McFarland squirmed in her chair. It was her turn to get uncomfortable. “Our policy, Professor, was carefully developed with the Department of the Interior in Washington. We have to eliminate the danger before making announcements to the press.”

  “But you could give out an alert to visitors at the gates,” Hornsby replied.

  “If we released anything right now,” McFarland said, “we’d alarm the throng of visitors coming in over the weekend. We wouldn’t be in a position to provide any guidance or reassurance to anybody.”

  What she meant, Montgomery thought, was that closing Yellowstone on a Labor Day weekend would lead to a public relations disaster. Forest fires, they could fight. Earthquakes, they could deal with. But no disaster was like a PR disaster.

  “Fortunately,” Corey said, “with the last long weekend of the summer starting this week, we’re almost out of the woods. After the weekend, the number of visitors will fall off dramatically.” He faintly smiled.

  McFarland buried her head in her hands.

  Wallace scooted back his chair and straightened up. “My techs are working twelve-hour shifts to finish the job. We should have results on the exact identity of this hybrid by next week.”

  McFarland kept her elbows on the table supporting her head as she looked up. “That’s not soon enough, Dr. Wallace.”

  “I beg your pardon?” he asked.

  “The superintendent needs to take action quickly,” she responded calmly. “Not only do we expect at least ten thousand visitors spread over the Park, but we have a regional Boy Scout event all weekend at Indian Creek campground. We need to know what’s going on with this so-called hybrid by Thursday.”

  “But it’s Monday already, Miss McFarland. Getting the data you need in only three days will require working around the clock.”

  “Yes, I know.”

  ***

  After the meeting broke up, Montgomery followed Corey into his office. Corey threw himself down into his chair and sat with his feet on the windowsill, staring outside and ignoring him. Montgomery wanted only to walk away at that point. He knew what was coming; had seen it too damn many times before, although lately it was getting worse. Nowadays you could never be sure what topic to stay away from. He especially saw the erosion of Corey’s nerves day-by-day after his separation from his wife of twenty-two years. He tried to talk with Corey about it, but he would always change the subject and focus on the crisis of the day. It was as if he felt that ramming his head into the sands of a job would somehow make his other problems run away and hide.