Chuck pushed eggs around his plate with a fork, his appetite gone, his thoughts on the Territory Team video. As a loner with no close family connections, his life until two years ago had been free of complication. Ideas of risk vs. reward had played no role in the decisions he made to head into the backcountry.
The arrival of Janelle and the girls in his life had required him to change his thinking. All spring, as he and Janelle had hiked with Carmelita and Rosie to build their stamina in preparation for their Thorofare visit, he’d privately battled concerns about taking his new family to a place thick with grizzlies even as he’d openly shared his excitement for the upcoming trip.
“With the crowd we’ll have at the cabin,” said Lex, “there’s nothing to worry about.”
Chuck exhaled until he sat slumped in his seat. “Right,” he said. “Nothing to worry about at all.”
She actually attacked him?” Janelle asked Chuck.
“They had to pull her off the guy. He’s the lead researcher on the Wolf Initiative’s field team—Toby. Sarah’s the Grizzly Initiative’s backcountry team lead. She looks like she could be the lead singer in a punk rock band, though—mohawk, nose ring, the whole bit. Not exactly what I’d expect of a Yellowstone scientist, but quite a character, that much is obvious.”
“Clarence is interested in her, anyway.”
“That’s Clarence. As for her and Toby, they obviously hate each other. Chairs were flying all over the place, people scrambling for cover.”
“Science nerds—who’d’ve ever thought?”
“Hey. Watch who you’re calling nerds.”
“Not you, my science prince. Never you.” She leaned from the passenger seat of the pickup and kissed him on the cheek. A smile played at the corners of her mouth as she stroked his leg and whispered in his ear, her breath warm on the side of his face, “Nunca, nunca, nunca.”
Chuck grinned as he piloted the crew cab south from Canyon Village, headed for Yellowstone Lake. “That’s better.”
The girls occupied the back of the six-passenger half-ton he’d purchased for family-hauling purposes after his and Janelle’s quick courtship and city hall marriage two years ago. Skinny, reserved Carmelita, ten years old, sat at one end of the rear bench seat, while chunky, brash Rosie, eight, sat at the other end. They stared out their respective side windows at the passing trees, their eyes glassy and half-closed after their morning buffet in the staff cafeteria an hour after Chuck’s breakfast with Lex. The girls wore matching nylon hiking pants and bulky fleece jackets. Janelle sported a stylish, form-fitting fleece pullover and trim khaki slacks made of wind- and water-shedding nylon engineered to look like cotton. Waterproof gear duffles in a rainbow of colors filled the truck’s bed. The day was sweater cool, the morning sun climbing in the pale blue sky.
“We’re finally here,” Janelle said, looking out the window. “I’m so looking forward to this—our big summer adventure.”
Chuck took her hand. No surprise there. Janelle—just shy of thirty, thin as Carmelita, dark haired, heart faced, and olive skinned—had been rebelliously adventurous all her life. The rebellious part explained how she’d wound up a young, unwed mother of two daughters born to a drug dealer, now deceased, in Albuquerque’s rough South Valley neighborhood in spite of a loving upbringing along with Clarence, three years her junior, by their Mexican immigrant parents.
“Your new life as an outdoorswoman,” Chuck said, pushing thoughts of the Territory Team video and Lex’s speculation about the grizzly attack to the back of his mind.
“Reality TV: Alone in the Wilderness,” Janelle intoned.
“Sorry to burst your bubble, but there’ll be a crowd of us out there. We’ll have our own tent platform, a mess tent for meals, the cabin to hang out in if we want. Best of all, we’ll be a week or two ahead of mosquito season.”
“No mosquitoes? You really are a prince.”
“Timing is everything when it comes to Yellowstone. The window of opportunity is so small—six weeks of full-on summer is about it.”
“Even with global warming?”
“Even with. The last of the winter snow will just be finished melting about now.”
“Which means whatever they saw...”
“...should be in plain sight. I can’t wait to see it.”
“It’s really that big a deal?”
“It’s pretty much the only thing the North American archaeological world has talked about all winter. We’ll hike up from camp, see what’s what, take some pictures, plot everything out. Should be the easiest contract I’ve ever worked—no excavation, hardly any cataloguing—especially with Clarence’s help.”
When things had calmed after the melee last night, Lex had introduced Chuck and Clarence to the other science teams. Lex told the scientists how much he’d enjoyed working with Chuck in Arizona, where Chuck’s firm, Bender Archaeological, Inc., had been awarded temporary contracts over a number of years to perform archaeological surveys and digs in advance of new construction projects in Grand Canyon National Park.
After the meeting, Clarence made his way through the chairs to Sarah’s side, his compact pot belly leading the way. He struck up a conversation with her, laughing and resting his fingers on her forearm as they spoke. He flashed Chuck a devilish grin a few minutes later as he escorted Sarah across the room, his hand at the back of her hot pink vest. Sarah aimed a look of her own at Toby, her eyes narrowed. Toby turned away from her in response.
Sarah’s dangling earrings twinkled in the gleam of an overhead light as she left the building with Clarence. Toby turned back after they were gone, his eyes on the door through which Sarah had exited.
Clarence didn’t respond to Chuck’s texts in the morning, nor did he answer Chuck’s knock at his cabin door. When Chuck peered through the front window, he noted the bed inside was crisply made.
With the Grizzly Initiative team scheduled to head across the lake to Turret Cabin two hours ahead of the Archaeological Team, Chuck wasn’t too worried about Clarence’s arriving at Bridge Bay in time for their scheduled mid-afternoon launch. He did wonder, though, how hungover Clarence would be when he showed up at the marina.
“The effects of global warming in the park are showing themselves more?” Janelle asked.
Chuck guided the truck along the winding road with one hand. “It’s the only reason we’re here.”
Janelle clicked the heater fan up a notch. “But it’s so cold, even in June.”
“Not as cold as it used to be. In the last twenty years, Yellowstone’s glaciers have melted away to a few lumps of remnant ice. The park’s alpine regions have lost half their year-round snow coverage, and the speed of the loss is increasing. If present trends continue, year-round snow coverage will be a thing of the past in the park’s high country in another few years.”
“That won’t take much away from its beauty.”
She leaned forward to peer out the windshield. Pines swept past along the side of the road and sunlit meadows showed through breaks in the trees.
“You’re really okay with this, aren’t you?” Chuck asked.
“With what?”
He waved out the window. “All of this. I was raised