Dave Freedman - Natural Selection

“It could have been a bear.”

Craig shook his head. “I don’t buy it.”

Darryl shrugged. “Neither do I. That’s why I want to see the tree. To be sure.”

Jason pivoted. “What would a redwood look like after a bear had climbed up it?”

Near a few huge suitcases they’d lugged off the boat, Phil cleared his throat. “Torn to bits. I know so from my fire-ranger days. Redwoods have very tough inner heartwood, but their bark is incredibly delicate. You’d be amazed—you can flake it off with your bare hands.”

Jason stared at the man he no longer trusted. “So you’d know if a bear had climbed up a redwood?”

“In a heartbeat.”

“All right. When do you want do this, Darryl?”

“Now.”

“Now?” Jason looked around. “At night?”

Darryl removed a map from the back of his khaki shorts. “I know exactly how to get there. And for those of you prone to the jitters…” He grabbed a rifle. “Let’s go.”

MONIQUE COULDN’T believe the size of it. The tree was monstrous, even for a redwood. With a cornfield and the moon behind it, she made it out in silhouette. The tree reminded her of a Manhattan skyscraper, forty stories high, as straight as a steel bar and so big around that a car could drive through it. As she craned her neck up, she literally couldn’t see the top of it. “Could a bear actually climb this thing?”

Craig turned on a flashlight. “Let’s see.”

A small golden circle illuminated and shifted to the tree. The bark was thick, fibrous, and filled with crisscrossing four-inch-deep grooves. Craig scanned the redwood from the roots to several feet above his head. “Not a mark on it.” He methodically circled the entire perimeter. Nothing. “This bark hasn’t been touched.”

Darryl gently rubbed it with his fingers. Just as Phil had said, small pieces of bark flaked off right in his hand. “You’d know if a squirrel climbed this thing.” He grabbed Craig’s flashlight and studied the tree himself, carefully circling it. “No bear or mountain lion’s been anywhere near here.” His eyes drifted to the cornstalks… then to the dark looming mountains beyond.

Jason noticed him staring. “What’s on your mind?”

“Wondering where it is. Where it is right now.”

“Maybe back in the ocean.” Monique walked out of the shadows behind them. “Or another part of the forest. Or maybe we’ve got it all wrong, and it’s not here at all.”

Darryl continued to stare at the mountains. “Let’s get our stuff and go to the cabin.”

“KNOCK ON wood, my financial problems are solved, Jason. I came up with a plan to raise additional capital, and the bank just called to OK it. Right before you called actually.”

On his phone in the SUV’s passenger seat, Jason nodded. “Must have been a good omen I got through, then, Harry.” On the first try no less.

Ackerman hoped so. He’d been working on this plan for months, and now it was finally paying off. If it actually did, he’d soon be able to harvest his reputation as a world-class businessman and naturalist. Naturalist. Ackerman just loved the word. While the $2,500-a-head Union Club cancer benefit in New York had already passed, the spring galas for the new cause du jour would soon be sprouting up everywhere, and Ackerman hoped he’d have something substantial to discuss. “What’s the latest with our new species?”

As they pulled into the park’s massive lit-up parking lot, Jason outlined the day’s drama.

When he finished, Ackerman paused. “So let me understand this… you think the species you’ve been trailing might have something to do with this missing jogger?”

Everybody got out of the car. “I know it sounds a little out there, Harry, but we couldn’t explain what happened to him and neither could the rangers.”

“It does sound a little out there, but you’re the guy with your feet on the ground. I’ll support whatever you want to do, Jason. Although… I wouldn’t mind getting some more details on your plans, especially since it’s been so hard to talk because of the poor phone service. Can we meet in person?”

“Sure.” As the others lugged bags out, Jason followed them toward the cabin. “Will you be in the neighborhood?”

“I’ll be in San Francisco soon.”

“That’s not exactly the neighborhood, Harry.”

“Actually, I’ll be testing a yacht I’ve been thinking about buying, and I can take it pretty much anywhere. How about the docks in Eureka? Say four days at… three P.M.?”

Jason paused. Eureka? Making that trip from San Francisco would take time, but if Ackerman wanted to do it, Jason could certainly take the Expedition to meet him. “Sure, Harry, that would be fine.” He followed Craig through a deserted campground to the cabin’s porch. “So I’ll look forward to seeing y—”

The line cut out.

“Harry? Harry?”

The line was dead. Jason redialed but got nothing. Then he noticed Phil, huffing toward him with a zippered suitcase big enough to clothe a family of four for a month. “Man, does Lisa have a lot of clothes.”

Jason chuckled, but Phil was serious. “I really shouldn’t be doing this, you know.”

“Why not?”

“Because I’m busy, for Christ’s sake.”

“Gimme a break.”

“Whatever. Did I hear you’re meeting Ackerman?”

“In four days.”

Phil heaved up the suitcase again. “You gonna type up your notes later?”

“If it’s all right with you.”

“Sure, no problem.” Phil lugged the bag onto the porch. Watching him, Jason decided he had to get his own laptop. He didn’t want to rely on Phil Martino for anything anymore.

Then Craig huffed closer, straining mightily with another enormous bag. “Man, does Lisa have a lot of clothes.” Jason chuckled as Craig put the bag on the porch. Then the two of them returned to the parking lot. Lisa had more clothes. Just before they reached the macadam, however, Craig paused at the storage shed. “I wonder what’s in here….”

As he walked in, Jason noticed Darryl, by himself and looking out at the dark forest. “What’s up, Darryl?”

“Just realizing how much land’s really up here.”

“It’s not going to be easy to find it, is it?”

“I’m not gonna believe what ‘it’ is until I see it with my own eyes.”

“How are we going to do it?”

“With all this land, I honestly don’t know.”

“I know,” a voice said from behind them.

They turned. It was Craig. “I know exactly how we’ll find it.” He pointed to the shed. “The answer’s right in there.”

“ WHAT’S ‘THERMAL imaging equipment,’ Craig?” At the shed, Summers had simply said that the shed held thermal imaging equipment and that they’d use it to find the creature but without explaining what the equipment was or how it worked.

Craig didn’t answer Jason as the two entered the rangers’ cabin. He had something else on his mind. “Look at this place….” To Craig’s surprise, it actually looked very nice, almost like a ski lodge: beamed ceilings, an enormous brick fireplace with a raised hearth for sitting, well-worn brown leather couches with matching easy chair.

Lisa exited a hallway. “Five bedrooms are back there. Also a fully stocked fridge and freezer in the kitchen.”

Craig noticed a firewood supply big enough to survive a winter in Alaska. Then he peered out a window and surveyed outside. Beyond the covered porch was a campground—a dozen wood tables, steel garbage cans, a swing set—beyond that the storage shed, and farther, the massive parking lot, lit up like a baseball stadium at night.

“Craig, what’s thermal imaging equipment?”