Gloria Skurzynski - Mysteries in Our National Parks - Night of the Black Bear - A Mystery in Great Smoky Mountains National Park

A MYSTERY IN GREAT SMOKY MOUNTAINS NATIONAL PARK

To Jacob Matthew Ronald Ledesma,

the newest member of our family.

Text copyright © 2007 Gloria Skurzynski and Alane Ferguson

Cover illustration copyright © 2007 Jeffrey Mangiat

All rights reserved.

Reproduction of the whole or any part of the contents is prohibited without written permission from the National Geographic Society, 1145 17th Street N.W., Washington, D.C. 20036.

For information about bulk purchases, please contact National Geographic Books Special Sales, ngspecsales@ngs.org

Map by Carl Mehler, Director of Maps

Map research and production by Sven M. Dolling

Black bear art by Ruthie Thompson, Thunderhill Graphics

This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to living persons or events other than descriptions of natural phenomena is purely coincidental.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available on request.

ISBN: 978-1-4263-0976-2

Version: 2017-07-07

The authors want to thank Steve Kemp,

the Interpretive Products & Services Director for

Great Smoky Mountains Association;

Kent Cave, the Interpretive Media Branch Chief at

Great Smoky Mountains National Park;

Kim DeLozier, the Supervisory Wildlife Biologist at

Great Smoky Mountains National Park; and

Jan Skurzynski, who wrote the songs

Merle sings in this book.

The man liked to stack bills neatly. Ten-dollar bills on top of tens, their edges in a straight line, with separate stacks for the twenties and the fifties and the hundreds. Tonight there were seven hundred-dollar bills—pretty good earnings, he thought, in spite of the TV report that had scared some of his clients. Scared them, but excited them at the same time—five new clients had made reservations for tomorrow night. His pile of money would grow fatter still.

He’d begun to count the twenties and tens when his phone rang, and he hesitated. To answer, or not to answer? It was after hours, so the business was supposed to be closed for the night, but it could be another client, which meant more crisp bills to add to his pile.

“Yeah,” he spoke briskly into the phone. “Oh, yeah, Mr. Cabelli, I’ve been watching the reports. She wasn’t killed, just sliced and diced a bit. No, she was bloodied up, but that’s all. Don’t worry about our end. All systems are go.”

Through the window he saw a car edge into the parking lot near his office. A white car, with the words PARK RANGER and a green horizontal stripe above the front fender. It eased past the window like a shark gliding through water. Probably meant nothing, but—

“I gotta go, Mr. Cabelli.”

Quietly the man put down the phone and switched off the office lights. Then, with nothing but the soft glow of his watch to guide him, he placed the money in a bulging blue bag and zipped it shut.

Blood or no blood, he had work to do. He slipped out the side door of his office, locked the bag in the trunk of his black Town Car, and drove away into the night.

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

AFTERWORD

ABOUT THE AUTHORS

Jack was stunned to see the blood on the ground. Deep red, it had seeped into the tall grass behind one of the tombstones, arcing like a fan until it sank into a bare patch of earth. A small, trench-like depression showed where the bear had dragged the girl. Jack had heard that a tourist scared away the bear, making it run off into the trees beyond the cemetery. The girl, the bear’s victim, had been lucky to escape alive. Sometimes a black bear will hold on so tight that nothing can make it drop its prey.

It seemed really weird to have a cemetery in a U.S. national park—as far as Jack knew, this was the only one. But long before Great Smoky Mountains National Park came into existence, people had lived here. They farmed and hunted wild turkeys, deer, and black bears. When they died, they were buried right where Jack was standing.

Walking carefully, he tried not to step on any of the blood. Some drops still clung to the leaves of the yellow lady’s slippers that reached up like tiny cupped hands toward the midday sun. He leaned closer, his fingers cautiously touching the tip of a bloody leaf to see if the blood was still wet. It was! Grimacing, he wiped his fingers on his khaki cargo shorts.

From around the side of the white-walled Cades Cove Methodist Church his sister Ashley called out, “Mom says Heather’s going to be OK.”

“Who’s Heather? Is she the girl the bear attacked?”

“Yes, Heather McDonald is her name,” Ashley answered him. “Anyway, she’s going to be all right. Mom talked to the park ranger at the hospital, and he told her Heather will probably be discharged tomorrow.” She squinted up at Jack. “What’s the matter? You look—grossed out or something.”

“Nothing’s the matter. I’m fine,” Jack told her, regretting that he had wiped his fingers on his shorts, which were now stained with a bloody reminder of the bear attack.

“OK, well, Mom said she’ll be just a bit longer, and then we can go.” Ashley zipped up her pink hoodie, shivering a little. Though it was nearly May, the air felt a bit chilly.

Jack glanced across the churchyard toward his mother. Olivia Landon was a wildlife veterinarian, who frequently was called to various national parks as a consultant whenever there were strange, unexplained happenings with the animals. A small woman with curly dark hair—Ashley got her looks from their mother—Olivia was deep in conversation with a uniformed park ranger, Blue Firekiller, a tall, muscular man with black hair and skin the color of pale copper. They were questioning a bald-headed man who had witnessed the attack. As they spoke together, Ranger Firekiller wrote in a small notebook while the man waved his hands and gestured toward the trees.

A little farther away, Jack’s father, Steven Landon, changed the film in his camera, while talking to a tall boy who had the same skin tone and black hair as Ranger Blue Firekiller. “Who’s that kid over there with Dad?” Jack asked Ashley.

With a slight smile, Ashley answered, “That’s Ranger Firekiller’s son. His name is Yonah. He told me he’s a Cherokee, and Firekiller is a real Cherokee name. So is Yonah.”

There was something about Ashley’s smile and the way she said “Yonah” that caught Jack’s attention. “What’s so special about him?” he asked.

“It’s just—you know how I always collect Native American legends at every park we go to. Yonah was telling me all about the bear trouble today, and he said something I can really connect to. He said he understood what the bear was feeling.”

“What the bear was feeling? You mean the bear that attacked the girl right over there? This Yonah sounds kind of weird to me, like he’s been reading or something.”

Defiant, Ashley glared at her brother, redness creeping into her cheeks. Little wisps of hair curled from her dark braids, tiny as threads, and in the light they seemed to spark in aggravation. “Jack, I’m 12 years old—almost!” she hissed. “Do you think Yonah would be telling me fairy tales like I was a little kid? We had a serious conversation. Just because I’m two years younger than you doesn’t mean a 16-year-old guy won’t talk to me about serious things.”