Chapter 2
The next morning Ann received an early wake-up call from Zeke at the newspaper, something about the final computer layout of that week’s edition being wrong, and she had to get into the office right away. She had to help Zeke fix it or the newspaper wouldn’t get to the printers on time.
Reluctantly, Ann postponed her trek with Henry to take pictures of the bones. People who work at small town newspapers wear many hats. Ann wasn’t only a reporter; she helped sell the advertising, design the ads, help put the paper together every week and send it off to the printers. It was always a delicate balancing act, especially since the Klamath Falls Journal was, as with many small newspapers these days, in financial trouble. Ann did everything she could to help keep it off its death bed. After all, it was her job on the line.
“I’ll get that layout fixed and to the printer’s quick as a bunny,” Ann quipped, crawling out of their warm bed and into her robe, “and return as fast as I can. If you check here later this afternoon, I should be back. Then you can show me that fossil bed, all right?”
“Sure, honey, I’ll swing by after lunch, and take you up there,” Henry murmured, sticking his head under the covers, wanting nothing more than to recapture sleep. The alarm clock hadn’t even gone off yet. It was barely dawn. Zeke and that crazy newspaper. Didn’t the old guy ever go home anymore?
Then the image of those monstrous white bones up on the rim came back to haunt him. He jumped out of bed and fought his wife for the bathroom. In the end, they shared it, and were both dressed and on the move within the hour, going separate ways after a hug and a kiss. No time for breakfast, just a quick cup of coffee.
Henry drove alone to ranger headquarters in a dawn’s light which reflected off the frost that covered everything. There were dirty mounds of left-over snow in patches that wouldn’t be completely gone until midsummer. It’d taken Henry a long time to get used to the unbelievably long winters in Oregon. Now he didn’t mind them.
He figured he’d get another cup of coffee or two while he was checking on his men and his messages. He played with the thought of going up to the lodge later for a real breakfast, but ended up stopping at a place inside the park and bought a large box of donuts for everyone. He did that once and a while as a treat. As he did, his men loved pastries; even though they were bad for the waistlines.
Munching on a glazed donut, he pulled into park headquarters. He strode through the door, opened his office and hung up his coat. Before he could grab a cup of coffee and his third donut, one of his rangers strolled in and took him by the arm.
“Boss, I need to talk to you,” his friend, George Redcrow said, shutting the door.
“Well, good morning to you, too, George,” Henry announced. His eyes wistfully glanced through the glass window towards the perking coffee pot. “You could have at least let me get my coffee. I was this close.” He waved two fingers an inch apart in the air between them.
George grunted, “Time for coffee after I tell you what I’ve got to tell you.”
Redcrow was half Indian, on his father’s side, and he looked it. He possessed sharp features in a hawkish face, soul-reading unnerving dark eyes and an earthy wit to match. Nearly as tall as Henry, he was heavier set, his gray-streaked hair longer, wilder, like his eyes and his nature. An excellent park ranger, he had an uncanny wisdom about the land Henry could only attribute to the fact he’d spent most of his life in the woods.
But he was the most superstitious human being Henry had ever known. George actually believed in ghosts, monsters, and U.F.O.s. In every other way, though, he was level-headed, intelligent and intuitive. He was a good man to have on your side or at your back in a tough spot. Henry had seen him take down a rampaging drunk with one swift move; had seen him diffuse tense or dangerous situations many a time with a calming word or two. Henry respected the man.
“Okay, spill your guts, ranger. But make it quick. I’ve got something very important to attend to and I haven’t had enough coffee yet. I’m about to go into serious caffeine withdrawal.”
George lowered his voice, “Thought you’d like to know I’ve been finding a lot of dead animals lately on Wizard Island.”
Henry shrugged. “What’s so unusual about that, other than the fact the animals swam all the way out to the island and ended up dying there?” Death was a part of nature. Animals grew old and died, or attacked each other and died. Weakened animals froze in the bitter winters and were uncovered, rotting, after the snows melted. Dead. That was nature.
Henry started inching closer to the coffee pot like a man dying of thirst might move towards water. George stuck to him. “The way they died.”
“I have to have a cup of coffee, George,” Henry said, opening the door. It was early enough, right before the morning shift, that the room was pretty nearly empty anyway. He couldn’t understand why George had wanted privacy if he was only talking about dead animals. Henry had assumed it was a personal matter. “What do you mean? How did they die?” He located his cup and reached out for the coffee pot.
“The carcasses, or what was left of them, were mauled and eaten by something that must have the biggest teeth we’ll ever see.”
“A bear?”
“No, the attacker was much larger than a bear. In fact, one of the carcasses was a bear.”
“Oh.” Henry’s eyebrows lifted and he let his lips smile gently. “Interesting. I guess now you’re gonna try to convince me it was one of your aliens…or some monster that’s taken up residence in the lake?” George’s words had reminded Henry of what the red-headed woman had said the day before.
“Monster in the lake? What are you talking about?”
“Ah, up on the rim yesterday, before the earthquake, some crazy woman told me a friend of hers saw something in the lake last summer. A big water creature of some sort. Have you heard any weird stories like that from any of the other rangers or visitors? Has anyone reported any strange animal sightings in or around the lake?”
“No,” George frowned, “but that might explain the tracks.”
“What tracks?” Henry raised his cup of coffee to his lips with a contented sigh. The first few cups every morning were sheer ambrosia.
“The tracks around the carcasses, the ones leading back into the water. They were enormous.” George looked at him, apprehension in his gaze.
Henry laughed. “Come on, George, lighten up. It was probably some overgrown cougar or an exceptionally big-footed bear that dragged its kills out to the island for feeding privacy. Bears around here do get quite large. You should know that. You’ve been here pretty much forever.”
George’s eyes, flint hard, glittered. “Then I should recognize bear or cougar tracks when I see them. And I’m telling you, they weren’t either. They weren’t like anything I’ve ever seen. Ever. Not to mention–why would any predator drag its kill all the way out to that forsaken island to eat it? Swim all that way? Why? Animals don’t care where they feed. Maybe we should start looking for something larger something…different. Could be there is something in the lake.”
Oh, great, Henry mused, eating another glazed donut and watching his friend, George has finally gone ’round the bend. Must be all that solitude.
George lived alone deep in the park in a cabin that was practically inaccessible. He liked it that way. He’d never been married, though he’d had a long string of lady friends. He’d worked odd jobs in the park since he’d been sixteen and had become a park ranger at twenty-one. He knew the park well and was familiar with every animal that crawled or scurried in its woods or swam in its lakes.
“George, you know, you need to get out more. Find a new woman. Not mooch so many suppers at my house,” Henry stated flatly.
“Boss, I’m not fooling around.”
Wiping sticky crumbs from his fingers on a napkin, Henry gave in. “Show the tracks to me.”
“I wish I could, Henry, but the most recent carcass and tracks I found, late yesterday, were in snow and mud, and it r
ained hard last night. I looked, but the tracks are gone now.”
“Well, describe them a little more to me anyway.”
“They were gigantic and they were deep, the toes spread wide apart. Looked as if the feet could have been webbed or even clawed.”
Henry actually chuckled, but George was serious, so he stopped.
“The animals’ remains were left partially in the water and were gnawed over later by some other animals, coyotes or fish or something. So the other larger teeth marks were hard to make out, unless you knew what you were looking for.”
“That’s a shame,” Henry said. “I would have liked to get a look at them and the tracks.” He gave his friend a long, hard look. “Listen, George, tell you what, next time you find those teeth marks on a dead animal or see those tracks, come and get me. No matter what time it is, okay? I’ll come. I want to see these monster footprints of yours.”
George cracked a smile. “Deal.” He stood up straighter, tucking in his shirt, anxious to look as neat and professional in his uniform as possible. “I guess I’d better start my rounds. I’ve been here three cups of coffee longer than you. You’ll fire me if I don’t get out there and make the park safe for the visitors.”
“Heaven forbid we should endanger the visitors,” Henry tossed back. It was a private joke between the two of them. George still thought of Henry as one of those visitors.
“See ya later, then. I have a tour group waiting for me,” George finished, slapping him on the back, and strolling out the door into the chilly morning.