Yellowstone Standoff Read online

  Toby pointed above the tops of the trees across the river. “Actually,” he said, “it looks like something else may already have found what we’re looking for.”

  Chuck lifted his gaze, following Toby’s pointed finger. Less than half a mile to the west, a dozen turkey vultures rode the morning thermals, rotating in a tight circle, their broad wings fixed.

  25

  The winged scavengers, known for their keen eyesight and taste for carrion, circled high in the air, beyond the wall of trees lining the opposite bank.

  “They’re definitely over something,” Chuck said.

  “The kill,” Lex said, a trill of excitement in his voice. “I couldn’t have imagined it would be this far from camp.”

  “And might still be keeping the wolf and grizzly together,” Chuck said.

  Kaifong turned to the drone on Randall’s back. “Let’s see what we can find out.”

  “No,” Lex said.

  She stopped, her hands on the straps.

  “Change in plans,” Lex continued. “The vultures have done for us what you and Randall were going to do. They’ve given us an indication of what’s going on over there. If the wolf and bear are still hanging around the carcass together, I don’t want to risk scaring them off with the noise of your drone.” He rubbed his palms together. “We’re close. What we want, what we need, are verified observations without disturbing them. We’ll have to cross the river.” He looked at Chuck. “Remember the rigging you did for us at Navajo?”

  Chuck nodded. Three years ago, Lex had asked if he would take a break from one of his Grand Canyon digs to rig a two-pitch rappel off the tip of Navajo Point on the South Rim of the canyon to access a California condor nest believed to contain an ailing chick. Researchers of the endangered species had rappelled to the nest, removed the chick, and nursed it back to health before returning it to the wild.

  “This’ll be simple in comparison, don’t you think?” Lex asked.

  Chuck studied the smooth river and the sturdy trunks of trees growing close to the shore on either bank. “Tyrolean traverse. Surface-based.”

  “Exactly what I was thinking. Can you do it?”

  “What equipment did you bring?”

  “Two rafts, PFDs, plenty of rope.”

  “Is the rope static?”

  “The non-stretch kind? Yes.”

  “How about webbing?”

  “Half-inch and inch. Plenty of both.”

  “Carabiners? Pulleys?”

  “Check and check.”

  “Let’s do it.”

  Chuck’s thoughts turned to Janelle, waiting at camp with Carmelita and Rosie. How incredible it would be for her and the girls to see the kill site that had brought the grizzly and wolf together, or—he barely dared think it—the two predators themselves, if they were still hanging out near the site.

  He drew Lex aside as the others headed back to camp to collect the necessary equipment for the river crossing. “One condition, though. My crew gets to come along.”

  “Clarence? Fine.”

  “No. My entire crew.”

  “Your family?” Lex gazed toward the soaring vultures, seeming to look beyond them. “I remember so many times with Jess, taking Carson and Lucy to see bugling elk, spawning salmon, migrating sandhill cranes.” He turned to Chuck. “Of course they can come.”

  Back at camp, Chuck and Lex moved from storage keg to storage keg, collecting what they needed for the traverse, while the girls and Janelle tagged along.

  “We’re going in a boat?” Rosie asked, bouncing from one foot to the other.

  “Just across the river,” Chuck said.

  “Yippee!” She leapt in the air while Carmelita stood rooted to the ground, her hands in her pockets.

  “Doing all right?” Chuck asked her.

  She offered a slight up and down movement of her chin and kicked at a tuft of grass.

  Janelle put an arm around her. “If you decide you don’t want to do it, you won’t have to.”

  Rosie declared, “I’m going in the boat! For sure, for sure, for sure!”

  “Only if Chuck says it’s all right,” Janelle told her.

  “Just ’cause Carm’s a scaredy cat,” Rosie whined.

  “Your sister’s wise beyond her years,” Chuck said. “She knows it’s not always best to just do something no matter what.”

  Rosie crossed her arms and huffed. “I always do stuff no matter what.”

  “And that,” Janelle said, “is your whole problem.” She sighed. “And mine.”

  The group returned to the edge of the river after an early lunch. Clarence carried one of the tightly rolled rafts on his back while Toby hauled the other. Half a dozen PFDs and the gear to rig the crossing were distributed among Janelle and those from the morning search. Even the girls carried a pulley each in their small daypacks.

  The turkey vultures continued to wheel in the western sky, dark slivers against the early afternoon clouds. The crew dropped their packs at the river’s edge as a series of sharp yips sounded from beyond the river to the west.

  Everyone straightened. Chuck gently squeezed the back of Rosie’s neck, signaling her to remain silent. The only noise was the gurgle of the flowing river and the soft rustle of the treetops swaying in the midday breeze. Then, a single, spine-tingling howl rose from across the river. An instant later, a cacophony of howls joined the first. The chorus floated across the water, climbing to a crescendo before coming to an abrupt halt.

  Toby put a hand to his chest in the sudden silence. “Oh...my...God.”

  “Wolves,” Sarah said. “Plural.”

  “A pack,” Toby confirmed. “But there are no packs anywhere nearby. At least, there weren’t when we came out here.”

  “What a beautiful sound,” Sarah murmured. “Every time I hear it, it brings tears to my eyes.”

  “We’ll make a wolfie out of you yet,” Toby said.

  Chuck braced himself. But Sarah surprised him.

  “Maybe one day,” she said, holding Toby’s gaze.

  “Riddle me this, then,” he said. “Why would any pack have traveled this far, this fast, from wherever they were two days ago?” He blew a jet of air between his lips. “There’s no precedent for this. None whatsoever.”

  “But,” Chuck said, “I thought wolves were known for covering lots of ground.”

  “They are,” Toby replied, breaking his gaze with Sarah to look at him. “But packs generally cover set areas in set patterns. They typically make only gradual movements from their defined territories over time. And there were no packs anywhere near here when we crossed the lake.”

  “Which one was closest?”

  Toby frowned. “Stander Pack, I guess, forty miles west of here, on the other side of Old Faithful along Little Firehole River.”

  “Could those wolves have made it here in just a couple of days?”

  “Could they have? Sure. Wolves can cover fifty, sixty miles, easy, in a day. But would they have? I don’t see why. Stander is the most public pack in the park, totally comfortable with its environs. Besides, it’s denning season, when wolves stay put with their new pups. Stander Pack has been hanging out near Grand Loop Road and Old Faithful, in full view of tourists, for years. The Stander wolves have all they need there—elk herds, plenty of small game when the elk aren’t around, woodlands to lay low in. They haven’t moved more than ten miles in any direction from their primary denning site since I don’t know when.”

  “What other pack might it be, then?”

  Toby pressed his thick mustache into place with his thumb and forefinger as he looked across the river. “Blacktail, I guess. They’d be the next closest.”

  “From Lamar Valley?”

  Toby nodded.

  Chuck swallowed. “That’s the pack your Territory Team was going in to check on when they...”

  Toby nodded again, his face marble. “Joe and Rebecca.”

  “You knew them?”

  “They were my friends, both
of them. Good people. Great people. I still miss them, every single day.”

  Sarah said, “They were my friends, too. Joe made the most incredible spaghetti sauce. He called it gravy, said it was his grandmother’s recipe. And Rebecca, with all her dirty jokes, she just cracked me up.”

  “I’m sorry,” Chuck said to both of them. He asked Toby, “Do you have any idea why Blacktail or any other pack would have come this way over the last couple of days?”

  Toby looked from Chuck to Lex. “I got nothing.”

  Lex crossed his arms over his chest. His voice was calm, assured. “Well, then, that’s what we’re going to find out.”

  26

  Chuck waved for the others to join him at a place on the riverbank with everything necessary for the crossing—a pair of stout conifers opposite one another on each shore; banks devoid of brush; and smooth water between, free of protruding rocks.

  Clarence gathered from everyone the gear necessary to rig the traverse—coiled ropes, loops of one-inch nylon webbing, oversized locking carabiners, aluminum pulleys, and a metal ratchet with a long-travel handle. Lex rolled out the pair of ten-foot rubber rafts and assigned Keith, Kaifong, Randall, and Sarah to inflate them with a pair of foot pumps.

  While the researchers manned the pumps and Lex screwed together a pair of collapsible paddles, Toby sat nearby, tapping at a tablet computer he’d pulled from his pack.

  “Anything?” Lex asked him.

  “Not yet. I’m going through every article I’ve ever stored on this thing, searching under ‘sudden pack movement,’ ‘pack travel distances,’ any word combo I can think of.” He smacked his forehead with the butt of his hand. “I can’t believe I left our radio receivers in camp. The wolf that showed up at the cabin wasn’t collared, so I figured we wouldn’t need them out here.”

  “I should’ve brought the satellite phone from camp, too,” Lex said. “I’ll use it to check in with Martha as soon as we get back. It’s for emergencies only, but I’d say this qualifies. She’ll be able to tell us which pack has come our way.”

  Toby looked across the river. “If they show themselves, we’ll know sooner than that. Between fur colors and collars, I’ll be able to make a positive ID, no radio receivers required.”

  Chuck slid one of the inflated rafts into the river. He put on a PFD and turned to Carmelita and Rosie. “Don’t get anywhere near the water without one of these strapped on tight. The water’s cold and fast.”

  Janelle rested her hands on the girls’ shoulders. “Got it.”

  “Got it!” Rosie repeated, her voice raised, prompting a “shush” from her mother.

  Chuck ferried the raft across the river, paddling with J-strokes to keep the small, rubber craft aimed into the current while Clarence paid out a lightweight line attached to the stern. The ferry was easy to manage solo, but would have been dangerous with a passenger load—hence the need to set the traverse. The river carried him a hundred feet downstream during the crossing. He hopped ashore and dragged the raft upstream to the tall tree.

  He used the lightweight line to draw a sheathed length of nine-millimeter rope across the river, then a stout length of static, eleven-millimeter line. He and Clarence affixed the thicker line across the river between the two trees. Clarence attached the ratchet to the rope and tightened the device, stretching the thick line until it extended across the water as taut as a bowstring, three feet above the river’s surface.

  Chuck looped the nine-millimeter rope through the ring on the bow of the raft and affixed the raft to the ferry line with a pair of pulleys. He tossed his PFD and paddle into the raft, and helped Clarence run it back across the river using the looped nine-mil line and pulleys.

  Clarence slid the second raft into the water and secured it behind the first. Lex, Sarah, Toby, Kaifong, Randall, and Keith donned the PFDs. Randall balanced the drone, in its pack frame, on the floor of the downstream raft. Chance crouched between Keith’s knees. Lex and Sarah took places at the head of the upstream raft, and Chuck and Clarence hauled the doubled rafts away from shore. The loaded boats rode low in the water, the current breaking around their bows. Upon reaching the far bank, the scientists dropped their life jackets in the boats, shouldered their packs, and clambered ashore. Chuck and Clarence ran the PFD-laden rafts back across the river, where Clarence tossed life jackets up the bank to Janelle and the girls. They put on the PFDs, Janelle double checking Carmelita’s and Rosie’s straps, and boarded the rafts. Clarence knelt at the head of the upstream raft, and Chuck pulled the rafts back through the current.

  With everyone gathered on the shore, Lex put a finger to his lips and gestured for Keith to set out with Chance. Keith released the leash reel and Chance surged forward, nose to the ground, scurrying upstream along the riverbank, then down. The dog stopped, tail in the air, several yards downstream from the traverse line. Keith motioned the others to him.

  “They were still together when they came out of the water here,” Keith reported, his voice low.

  “Unbelievable,” Lex murmured.

  Chance headed up the bank into the forest, pulling hard at the extended leash.

  Janelle grabbed Chuck’s arm. “Remind me again this is safe.”

  “I wouldn’t be comfortable having you here if it wasn’t.”

  “But those howls.” She shuddered.

  “Wolves have gotten a bad rap for centuries. The big bad wolf in the Three Little Pigs, the wolf that ate Grandma in Little Red Riding Hood—fear of wolves is a big part of why they were wiped out across the West a hundred years ago, and why it took so long to bring them back to Yellowstone. But wolves don’t attack humans.” Chuck laid a hand on her arm. “This is what we came for.”

  Rosie tugged the hem of her mother’s jacket. “They’re leaving us behind.” She pointed at the departing scientists. “We’ll be all alone.”

  Janelle looked at the waiting rafts, snugged against the shore, then up the riverbank into the forest. “Okay,” she said. “Vamanos.”

  She propelled the girls ahead of her.

  Chuck’s pulse quickened at the thought of his family getting to see a pack of wolves here, deep in the Yellowstone backcountry.

  Then, his thoughts hit a speed bump.

  The pack’s arrival here in the upper Yellowstone River valley was sudden, inexplicable. If Toby had no idea why the wolves had come, Chuck certainly didn’t.

  Concern fluttered through him. He reached back to feel the .357, solid and heavy at the bottom of his pack.

  They came to a broad meadow west of the river. Everyone spread out beneath the sheltering branches of the trees at the meadow’s edge. The meadow stretched half a mile to the foot of the steep, forested ridge that rose high above the valley.

  Keith retracted the leash, drawing Chance to his side. Lex, Randall, and Kaifong lifted binoculars to their eyes. Toby unstrapped the tripod from the side panel of his pack, extended its telescoping legs, and attached a large, black spotting scope to its top. Next to him, Sarah pulled a tripod and scope from her pack, too. They peered through the high-powered monoscopes, studying the open field.

  Chuck raised his binoculars to his eyes. He waited for his contacts to settle over his pupils, then spun the focus knob. Hummocks of bunch grass came into sharp focus a hundred yards ahead. Fresh, green shoots sprouted through the previous year’s matted, brown stalks. He scanned the meadow in bite-sized pieces, working his way across the clearing.

  To his left, Sarah let out a startled gasp.

  27

  Chuck lowered his binoculars long enough to note that Sarah, Toby, and Lex were focused on a spot two-thirds of the way across the clearing. He aimed his binoculars but saw only the new grass blanketing the meadow. Panning the binoculars, he spotted two stripes of black sticking up from the grass in the distance.

  He stilled his breathing and tweaked the focus knob, zeroing in on a pair of turkey vultures perched close to one another on a gray hump several hundred yards away. His fingertips pressed hard at
the green, plastic housing of the binoculars. The vultures’ heads were tiny, red specks, while the gray hump on which the birds stood was furry—a wolf, lying on its side, dead.

  A vulture plucked at the carcass, coming up with a clump of meat clutched in its beak.

  “Uncollared,” Toby said, his eye to his mono-scope, his voice shaking. “The only thing that possibly could have killed it…”

  “Not a grizzly,” Sarah said. “Couldn’t be. They’ve never been known to kill wolves.”

  Toby took his eye from his scope. “Wolves and grizzlies never have been known to hang out together, either.” He gripped the legs of his tripod with both hands, his knuckles white. “What else could it have been?”

  She took a deep breath. “I don’t know.”

  “I hope I’m wrong.” He looked her in the eye. “I liked the idea of the two of them as friends.”

  “I did, too,” Sarah said.

  “There’s an entire pack here,” Lex said. “Could it have been wolf vs. wolf?”

  “Wolves don’t kill each other very often,” Toby said. “Only in the case of territory disputes, which wouldn’t be happening here, far from any dens. Juveniles fight to the death sometimes, but that’s when they’re on their own, testing themselves. Inside the pack, wolves are family.”

  Lex gestured across the meadow at the dead wolf and perched vultures. The rest of the winged scavengers still circled above, silhouetted against the clouds building over the ridge to the west. “We’ll go in quick,” he said. “I want to get back to camp and the sat phone.” His eyes rested on Janelle and the girls. “We can’t all go, but I want to determine cause of death before we pull back.”

  Toby nodded. “That’s critical.”

  “We’ll take a four-person team,” Lex said. “Big enough to be safe but small enough to move fast. Toby and Sarah, you’ll come with me.” His eyes flitted from Kaifong to Randall, then to Keith and Chance. “No need for a drone, and no dog.”

  He turned to Chuck, who glanced at Janelle and the girls and shook his head. “Sorry. I’m staying here.”