She spoke only in vague generalities about Jack Corey. His sudden and unexplained transformation shocked everybody, she said, adding nothing about a renegade wolf. Dieter made a quick decision not to bring up either topic.
Two days later, Dieter drove Amy, Michael, and Megan the twenty-four mile trip to Livingston and the veterinary hospital. Rusty was ready to be checked out. When they first spotted their precious pet in his cage, he wagged his tail and whimpered. He wasn’t able to bark. The throat wound was going to need a couple of more weeks to heal, but a complete recovery was expected.
That evening they drove back through the center of the Park toward Colter. Rusty was well drugged, lying on a blanket in the backseat, his head on Michael’s lap and his tail in Megan’s. Because the pair claimed starvation, Dieter stopped at the Yellowstone Lake Lodge for a buffet dinner.
After the kids had stuffed themselves, they wanted to explore the gift shop. Amy watched as they pranced away, then turned to Dieter. “I thought you might want to know that I’ve changed my mind.”
“About?”
“Moving.”
“You’re staying in Colter?”
“Nope, I’m headed upstate to Browning.”
“But what about the beaches of the West Coast? Wine and sunsets?”
“That can wait. My people need me more than California can use me. I finally got the call. I’m starting my teaching career on the Reservation.”
Dieter smiled to himself as he pictured the lively discussions that must have played out with her dad. He would long remember the Little Bear family.
“I’ll miss the kids,” she said. “I feel like they’re mine, too.” She folded her arms on the table, leaned forward and lightly gripped his forearm. “I suppose, if you really want to know, I just might miss you as well.”
They held their stare for a brief moment and he recalled the sinking of his stomach when he saw the pine tree flying at them from her plane and, afterwards, the fleeting moment his cheek brushed hers.
When he started to speak, she interrupted. “Things are changing around Colter, Dieter.”
“Aren’t they everywhere?”
“When I stopped by Molly and the Judge’s place this morning, she told me the latest. She didn’t want us to be alarmed by learning it from TV. There’s been a murder. An honest-to-God murder this time.”
He lowered his voice. “What are you talking about?”
“I’m talking about Joseph Vincent Loudermilk.”
“Joseph Loudermilk? What happened?”
“Stabbed to death. Undetermined number of times. He was found on his farm inside a cave, of all places. The details sound pretty gruesome.”
“How . . . gruesome?”
“His eyeballs were carved out and stuffed into his mouth.”
Dieter tossed back his head and looked away for a moment as he tried to grapple with the news. “Do they know who did it?”
“All I can tell you is that Molly hesitated for a long time when I asked. Then she said they didn’t have a clue.”
He fidgeted in his chair while she played with her spoon.
When Michael and Megan returned to the table, Dieter thought it a good time for a walk. They strolled down the path from the lodge as a full moon climbed above the silhouette of the Absaroka Mountains surrounding Yellowstone Lake. His mind drifted as they stared out over the wilderness and the vast body of water at the heart of Yellowstone. Amy was right. Although he’d barely settled in Colter, many changes had already taken place. He’d made many friends for life. His thoughts turned to the one image that flashed through his mind often since his ordeal on the Gallatin—Michael with his arms tightly hugging his waist, his head on Dieter’s belly as he lay in the mud.
He suddenly stopped and cupped his hand to his ear, motioning for the others to listen. Above the clamor of waves slapping the rocks along the shore came the howls of a wolf pack echoing across the lake.
It was like a song, Dieter thought. The song of wolves, thriving once again where their ancestors had roamed free a century before.
He held his stare out over the water.
AFTERWORD
The tragedy recorded here was not the first of its kind. Abbé Pierre Pourcher, from the French village of Saint-Martin de Boubaux, compiled historical accounts of the Beast of Gévaudan, a creature responsible for killing at least sixty-four people in the Cevennes Mountains of southern France between 1764 and 1767. After hunting parties failed to find and destroy the animal, an elderly villager by the name of Antoine de Bauterne finally succeeded in tracking down and shooting it. The animal was quickly identified by its unique color and size: a hybrid wolf.
Yellowstone Park’s superintendent resigned three days after that Labor Day in 1997. The following week, Acting Director Greta McFarland appointed Bantz Montgomery as the new chief park ranger. He remained in that position for five years before taking an early retirement and moving to a cabin on Huckleberry Gulch north of the Park. Greta McFarland lives in the suburbs of Washington, DC. She retired as a staffer for the National Park Service in the office of the Secretary of the Interior.
Charlene Loudermilk was never seen again. The remaining Loudermilk clan departed Colter a month after her disappearance; their whereabouts are currently unknown. The Schoonovers—Molly and the Judge—still get together with Josh Pendleton on his ranch near Colter. On occasional summer evenings, they share the sunset and a shot of single malt Scotch. Amy Little Bear resides on the Blackfeet Reservation in Browning, Montana, where she teaches Native American History at the Alternative High School.
Dieter Harmon’s son Michael is on the veterinary science faculty at Montana State University in Bozeman. Dieter’s daughter, Megan, owns and operates an art studio in West Yellowstone. Among her favorite pastimes is backpacking at every opportunity on Yellowstone trails with her dad. Occasionally, they are accompanied by Amy Little Bear. There aren’t as many opportunities as Dieter would like because of his thriving reputation as a veterinarian throughout the Madison and Gallatin River regions. Rusty led a healthy, active life until his death at the ripe old age of fourteen.
The restoration of the North American gray wolf to Yellowstone National Park is complete. The latest survey revealed over one hundred wolves in eleven packs and with nine breeding pairs.
The Park contains over 900 miles of hiking trails, hosting thousands of backpackers each summer. In response to recent inquiries the U.S. Department of the Interior stated, “There is no credible evidence that hybrid wolves exist within the Greater Yellowstone Basin.”
Anonymous sources confirm that surveillance continues.
THE END
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
James Marshall Smith is an award-winning author and scientist with a research career that has spanned multiple disciplines from biophysics to terrorism response. His work has taken him around the globe, providing source material for intriguing characters and alluring insight to his fiction. His first novel, Silent Source, was described by the San Francisco Book Review as a “stunning debut.” The Manhattan Book Review praised him as the “master of suspense” and compared his fiction to the writing of James Patterson.
Hybrid was a short-list finalist for the Faulkner-Wisdom Award and a finalist for the Colorado Gold Novel Contest.
James lives in Georgia with his wife June and their bossy Maltese, Georgie. You can find him online at www.JamesMarshallSmith.com.
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