Chapter 11

Valerie Boren-Odell, 1990

It is said that all animals have some outstanding weakness. The bear is no exception. He, too, has his weakness. There is no danger to which he will not expose himself when a feast of wild honey may be had.

—Gower Gomer, 1938. Indian-Pioneer Papers Collection.

The Saturday evening business looks brisk at the Sardis Shores Café, even though the place is out of the way for the growing herd of nature enthusiasts checking out the new park. I'd anticipated pulling in to see only a few local cars, maybe a fisherman or two coming off the lake. The evidence of a supper rush causes me to sit indecisively twiddling the car keys, wishing I hadn't let Charlie cajole me into driving over here. I'm not in the mood for noise this evening. Or company. Or human communication.

It's been a long day at the end of a six-day workweek, going on seven. The full moon and a heat wave, coupled with violent thunderstorms, have whipped up a surge of what feels like mass insanity. My quiet new job has seemed more like the summer rush at Yosemite—five cases of heat stroke on hiking trails; a middle-aged equestrian who tried to swim her horse across a rain-swollen water crossing and nearly drowned; a temporarily flooded campground; branches down everywhere; three calls for skunk removals; one rattlesnake relocation far, far away from the campground bathrooms; a massive rockfall event that took out one of the new hiking trails; and a mama bear who's decided the easiest way to make a living for herself and her three cubs is to raid coolers or cars. She slashed her way into a tent and left behind a perfect Z, which has earned her the staff nickname Zorra the Bear…unofficially, of course.

I was the one who jokingly called her Zorra, and the name stuck. Naming a bear you'll probably have to target for relocation is against policy, but the fact that my moniker sticks is a slight sign of approval from my new co-workers. Being insanely overtasked has also made them more willing to hand over jobs like attending to minor medical emergencies, lecturing campers on fire safety, and monitoring naughty bears.

Frank Ferrell has gone on medical leave, which has helped improve my situation, as has the fact that I'm no longer the most recent addition at Horsethief Trail. Edwin Wilson, our newbie as of two days ago, is just a year out of school somewhere in the Northeast and is as green as a spring leaf. He and his young wife have moved far from the family home in New Jersey to begin the arduous quest for a full-time-with-benefits ranger job, which generally involves multiple relocations and working your way up. Edwin's wife is a photographer who has fantasies of plying her trade in the backcountry of the Yellowstone or Rocky Mountain National Park units. She and Edwin remind me of Joel and me, back in the day. Wildly in love. And just wild.

They're living in a tiny single-wide mobile home, just like Joel and I did. Shellie has done her best to make it cozy. She's also lonely, and happy to babysit Charlie anytime. That came in handy when I sensed an unscheduled shift coming on, during which I'd be doing an introductory patrol with Edwin. Today was complicated, and the hours got long. Tomorrow I'm on weekend patrol with Edwin again, hence tonight's conciliatory catfish dinner with Charlie. Now that we're here, I'm so tired I can hardly face exiting the car and going in.

"And Shellie can draw all the Transformers and the Ninja Turtles. And Smokey Bear, too. It's so awesome," Charlie can't stop chattering about the day with Edwin's wife. "She's gonna teach me how."

I feel the vague sting of having missed Saturday morning cartoon time, and then the afterburn of working-mom guilt. "I'm glad it was fun. You can never have too many Smokey Bears, right?"

"Yea-uh!" He stretches the word with enthusiasm.

My head lolls against the seat. "Hey, did I tell you we've got a nuisance bear in the park?" Charlie loves wildlife stories. "She slashed a Z in a tent, so we're unofficially calling her Zorra the Bear. Zorra like Zorro, you know?"

"Or Zorra the Zombie Slayer, like in the movies." He does creepy fingers at me, wherein I give him the stink eye.

"How in the world did you hear that? You're not allowed to watch scary movies. Ever."

"I know," he sighs. "Somebody told me about it at daycare is all."

"Future reference, anything with slayer in it is totally off-limits."

"Ice cream slayer?"

I stand corrected.

"Sock slayer?" He props a foot onto the dash. The hole in his sock heel is so big I can see his grubby ankle above the sneaker.

"You are that. Charlie Joel Odell, Sock Slayer. It has a ring to it."

Laughing, we exit the car while Charlie tries out more slayer options. The game continues, the two of us jostling and teasing until we sink into a booth with a view of the lake. Outside the window, the full moon rises over the trees, swollen and red-orange, vibrant and clear. I breathe in the serenity of stars and silver-tipped water as I pull off the NPS cap I forgot to leave behind when I changed out of my uniform. The cap might smell faintly like skunk, or I might. A few scrutinizing gazes seem to turn in our direction.

"Does she got a radio collar or a tag?" Charlie prods me from my absent-minded reading of the room. I'd been entertaining the thought that Curtis might be here. I'd like to ask if he's heard any updates on Braden Lacey. I've been too busy all week to dig into it much. A stop-by visit to the Parker Construction headquarters—where Braden was reportedly living and working—yielded little new information.

Alton Parker, the owner, seemed oddly unconcerned about the whereabouts of his young employee. Boy's a flighty sort, he said, rocking back in his chair to counterbalance a midsection that tested the fabric of his Parker Construction polo shirt. Likes to go off in the woods sometimes. He'll turn up when he's ready. Kid's nearly eighteen.Not a crime for a man to go missing, is it?

Not if it's by choice,I admitted, but my skepticism must've shown, because Parker assured me that as a close friend of Budgie Blackwell's, he knew Braden very well, and had been finding work for the boy to keep him out of trouble. Parker wasn't concerned about Braden spending time in the woods, and I shouldn't be, either. Budgie wouldn't have a problem with it, though she would have chewed his butt for forgetting to lock the car and take the keys. Last Alton Parker had heard, Budgie was undergoing some specialized medical treatment out of town, but hadn't offered any details. She was very private about it.

I asked if I could take a quick look at where Braden was living, in case he left a note or other information, and Parker shrugged, pointing out the window toward a portable office shed nestled between a defunct bulldozer and a backhoe with a missing tire. Help yourself on your way out, he said, and so I did.

The shed, hot and stale inside with the window air conditioner off, smelled of old grease and a chemical odor I couldn't identify—bug spray or herbicide, maybe? A quick search yielded nothing but a few used food containers, an empty spiral notebook on a crate upturned for a nightstand, three Parker Construction T-shirts thrown over a chair, and one pair of cargo pants folded on the narrow cot-style bed. The only thing specifically connected to Braden was a pay stub from Parker Construction. Forty-four hours labor, $4.50 an hour, so Braden had been working full-time before he decided to check out. Other than that, his life was a mystery.

"Mo-m-m-m," Charlie protests my lag in the conversation, drawing me back. "Does she got a collar?"

"What…collar…who?"

"Zorra the Bear. Does she got a radio collar or a tag or a BIMS report? Because if she was in trouble before, she would, right?" A worried look follows. He knows that a bear who becomes too comfortable around humans only gets a chance or two at relocation and monitoring. Two strikes, maybe three, and you're out.

"Nope. Zorra didn't have a record." She does now. Zorra's first Bear Information Management System report went in this past week, but I don't share that with Charlie.

His lips purse as he exhales a comfort breath. "That's good."

"For sure." Propping an elbow on the tabletop, I rest my chin on my hand and lose myself for a minute in looking at my son. He is so cute, and his tender spirit shines through the silvery green eyes that are a Boren family legacy. Daycare and babysitters or no, he's more open and unstressed now than he has been in a long time. My dad would approve. Here in this place with just the two of us, there's no pressure to stop asking questions. Stop openly wondering about life, and the world, and how everything works. Stop being himself.

The freckles on his nose compress as he squints at me. "Mom?"

"What, buddy?"

"I don't need a haircut yet."

"Huh?"

"A bath, okay. Not a haircut, though."

"W-what?" A laugh puffs out. I have no idea where this is going.

"?'Cause that's how you looked at me, like—" Rising to his knees, he juts his chin in a comical imitation of my scrutiny.

"I'm looking at you because you're cute." I tussle the unruly blond curls.

Ducking away, he grins. "Cute like Zorra the Bear?"

"I don't know if Zorra's cute. I haven't seen her yet. But I don't imagine she's cute if she's slashing a hole in your tent in the middle of the night to grab your groceries."

"Only dummies put their groceries in the tent."

"Hey, that's not a nice word. We don't call people that."

"Except it's true. Tie the food on a tree branch, or keep it locked in a bear can. Put rocks in the tent, and if Zorra the Bear comes"—he acts this part out—"you throw the rocks and say, ‘Get out, bear!'?"

The performance grows loud enough that it draws eyes our way from a large group of what appear to be local folks gathered for Saturday evening victuals. They're making a goodly racket themselves, but judging by the narrow glances, Charlie and I have annoyed them.

I put a finger to my lips, giggling. "Use your inside voice."

Charlie rolls a puzzled look toward the loud table, then asks permission to go to the restroom. "…just me by myself," he finishes. He's at the age where I struggle not to apprehensively hover outside doors, thinking of NPS reports about perverts stalking campground bathrooms. Parks are not exempt from society's problems; in fact, pavement brings those things to the countryside.

"All right. Hurry, though." Fortunately, the facilities here are singles with locking doors.

Off Charlie wanders in his big-guy mode, head bobbing as he checks out the weird assortment of wildlife art and bric-a-brac on the walls.

The waitress shows up, and her smile is familiar. "Hey! I remember you," Joanie from the church playground remarks cheerfully. "Lady Ranger."

"Just ranger. We don't make any gender distinctions. Not if we can help it."

"Awesome. That's boss. For real. Every place oughta be that way." Joanie offers a look of female camaraderie that brings to mind Mr. Wouda's comments about the generations of scandalous women who blazed the trails before us.

"You're right. Every job should be that way. But I guess we change it one place at a time, right?" I hope the day arrives when younglings like Joanie can chart any career path they want without having to fight just to do the work, and men like Frank Ferrell and Chief Ranger Arrington no longer get pats on the back for shoddy work and bad choices. Ferrell closed the file on the bones before he went on leave, and Arrington is so busy dealing with his own problems he was happy to let it go with a wink and a nod. Unless some new piece of information comes in, that's the end of that. The superintendent is probably relieved, as well. I'm angry in ways I am too busy to contemplate.

"Darn straight," Joanie agrees, then we get back to business.

I order the kids' catfish for Charlie and the chicken-fried steak special for myself, compensation for Fritos-and-soda lunches on the run all week.

"You got it!" Joanie twizzles her pen, then points the clicker at me. "Hey, I thought you were coming back to talk to the kids at vacation Bible school. My girls are outdoors kids. They might could be lady rang—I mean rangers in a few years."

I'm taken aback. Joanie can't be more than twenty.

"I'd be happy to talk to your girls sometime, but I was only at the church last week to ask about Braden and the abandoned car."

She nods grimly. "I guess since Budgie Blackwell's down sick, Braden's got one of the cars from the ranch. Budgie's real particular about her things. She'd have a hissy fit at Braden if she heard about the car being left like that."

"Didn't you tell me Budgie Blackwell died and the burial was in Oklahoma City?"

Joanie blanches. "I hear so much stuff around here, I forget who said what." Leaning closer, she adds quietly, "You might could talk to Alton Parker…at the construction company? He's been a friend of the family for a while, I guess."

"I have. Mr. Parker seemed of the opinion that Braden needed a little time to himself and would show back up for work when he was ready."

"Hmmm." Skepticism is written all over that very short response. My tired brain perks up. "Well, I guess Parker oughta know. He or Mrs. Wambles. She tell you anything?" Casting an over-the-shoulder glance toward the table of locals, she shifts her weight foot to foot.

"Like…"

"If she knew where Braden went after he came by her place Wednesday a week ago?"

Braden was at Myrna Wambles's a week ago Wednesday? So, theoretically not long before he left the car in Keyhole Loop lot?Interesting that Myrna didn't mention it. "Did Mrs. Wambles tell you that?"

"No, but Sydney was bragging about it at the church. I think it's real sweet that Braden wants to get a place so he can look after his little sister."

"That's a lot of pressure for a seventeen-year-old." The heartbreaking dichotomy hits me as I watch my son wander aimlessly back from the bathroom with seemingly not a care in the world.

"It's sad." Joanie absently jiggles the collection of pens in her apron pocket. "I think Sydney heard me saying to the church ladies that I wanted to rent out the little camper behind our house. She might've thought her and Braden could move in there. Sydney is always workin' the angles."

"Hey, Mom?" Charlie pipes up as he slides into his seat.

"Just a minute, buddy."

"But, Mom—"

"Charlie, in a minute. Joanie and I were talking." I give him the look.

Unfazed, he turns to our waitress and sticks out his hand for a shake. "Hi. My name is Charlie J. Odell. I'm seven."

Clamping my lips together, I smother a laugh. Where did he come up with that?

"Glad to know you, Charlie J. Odell, seven." Joanie returns the handshake. She tells him that she has a daughter his age, and maybe they can play together sometime.

"I like girls okay," Charlie allows.

"Well, she's pretty much a tomboy. A tomboy and a cowgirl, so she likes to do boy stuff and ride horses."

Charlie pops onto his knees. "I like boy stuff and horses! My mom had a patrol horse in Yosemite once. I only sort of remember 'cause I was little, but there's a picture. His name was Blackie, and—"

"Okay, Charlie, that's probably enough. Joanie has work to do." While there are a plethora of Blackie tales to be told, most of them cast an embarrassing light on me. Blackie was the world's most hapless patrol horse and had a mind of his own.

"Oh-kay." Charlie sinks reluctantly into his seat. "Hey, Mom? What's a pine pig?"

Joanie's eyes go wide. My mouth drops open and my skin boils. Joanie and I stare at each other before I swivel toward Charlie. "Where did you hear that?" Pine pig is the sort of term that gets thrown around by lowlifes you're about to ticket for public intoxication, smoking weed, or poaching in a national park. Pine, as in park ranger. Pig as in police.

Joanie is clearly familiar with the term, which means it's being bandied about town.

"That guy over there told me it." Charlie points across the room at a bearded dude in a ripped-up T-shirt. "He said, ‘Your mama a pine pig, boy.'?"

"He what?" The sow bear in me rears her roaring head. "He said that to you?"

"And then he asked if I was a pine piglet." Sandy-brown brows rise over innocent green eyes.

My teeth grind together. I shift to slide out of the table, but Joanie's in my way. I know I shouldn't get up. Members of the public can dish out all the name calling and bad attitude they want, but we are not supposed to return it. Ever. That kind of blunder can lead to chief rangers and park superintendents having to write simpering apology letters to congressmen whose constituents have bellyached about bad behavior by a federal employee.

"Don't pay them any mind." Joanie keeps up the blockade. "They're just a bunch of idiots. When I was a kid, they hollered about the government damming up Jack Fork Creek to make Sardis Lake, and it'd kill all the fish. Then after there was a lake, they hollered that the government was going to let Tulsa and Oklahoma City suck all the water out of the lake—well, might be right one of these days. They also hollered about the highway getting repaved, I can't remember why, and then about the tolls going up on the Indian Nation Turnpike."

She flicks a narrow look over her shoulder. "They've been hollering about all the new stuff with the park since the very first big public meeting. They said it'd take away the logging work and put all the post companies and pulpwooders in Push and Le Flore counties out of business, and Washington politicians don't know jack, and would stand around hugging trees, and outlaw clear-cutting timberland while the pine beetles ate everything down to the ground and then a fire burnt what was left. They said the government wouldn't let dozers come in to put out the fire, just like what happened in Yellowstone Park, and it'd burn fifty thousand acres or more. I thought Congressman Watkins was going to snatch himself bald before that meeting was over."

I rest my hands on the table, breathe. "We have all the tools for proper land management, and of course we'll clear-cut acreage if the trees are diseased, but if the forest is healthy, we'll insist that the timber companies practice uneven-aged cutting, letting some of the shelterwood stand and…"

"They're never going to listen to you," Joanie warns.

"They need to hear it."

"They're stuck in their ways, especially about new things…or outsiders. Trust me. You'll end up like Congressman Watkins, wanting to pull your own hair out. And that'd be a shame, because you've got real nice hair. It's so thick and a pretty color, like Julia Roberts. I wish I had your hair."

She shrugs toward the rabble-rousers' table. "I don't know who's been stirring up all the talk against the park lately, but that bunch over there is just ignorant and cranky. They'll get used to Horsethief Trail eventually. For now, it's best if I just tell them they shouldn't have said that to your little guy. That it was mean and they need to tone it down."

"We know how to manage a forest," I grind out. After the week I've had, I'm on my last nerve, and now it's smoldering.

She lays a hand on my arm. "Please don't start a wrangle, okay? Pretty please? We can't afford to lose regulars, especially not locals that come year-round. The owners need the money, and I need the tips. How's about I bring y'all a free strawberry shortcake?"

Charlie perks up. "I didn't care if he said it, Mom. I like pigs. Pigs're smart, ex-pecially wild pigs. They live in twenty-three United States now, but they'll get in all fifty pretty soon. Pigs have babies very fast. That's what I told the man."

I want to laugh and cry and hug him all at once. Instead I tell Joanie, "You don't have to bring us a strawberry shortcake. It's not your fault. Thanks for offering, though."

"But it's my favorite," Charlie interjects, which isn't true. Chocolate pie is his favorite.

"You got it, pal." Joanie gives him a high-five and leaves, dining room brawl averted. A few minutes later, I see her talking to the kibitzers' table. I hope it doesn't cost her tips. I should've just told her to let it go.

Turning to the window, I watch the moonlit water resting in a silver-rimmed pitcher of pine and post oak, elm and cypress. The night and the scene are too beautiful to be wasted hating the people across the room. Hate is a thief that will steal everything and return nothing if you let it.

I'm glad when the complaint department clomps off to the parking lot just as Charlie and I are finishing up. Joanie insists on bringing us two strawberry shortcakes to go.

"You need your leftovers boxed, too?" she asks.

"Please." Across the room, a teenage worker drops an empty salad bar container, and the noise sparks a thought. "Hey, I ran across a tribal police officer here the first night Charlie and I came in. Curtis…something."

"Enhoe. Curtis Enhoe."

"Any idea how I can get ahold of him…without bugging him at work, I mean?" Joanie looks a little too curious about the request, so I add, "I thought he might know someone who could take charge of Braden's vehicle, if it comes to that. With the weather this past week, plus the park dedication ceremony and tours for politicians and whatnot, I've only been able to drive by a couple times to monitor the car. I'll leave it in place for now so Braden won't be stranded if he returns, but it can't stay there forever."

"I could try to find you somebody." Joanie offers sympathetically. "But if you want to call Curtis, grab one of the phone number slips off that flyer on the bulletin board. That's his. The blue paper about puppies."

Charlie picks that exact moment to surface from finger-sampling his dessert. His thick brown eyelashes fly upward. "We're getting a puppy?"