2 THE RANCH

We only had room for one extra person in our car, so we took Morton to the hospital in West Yellowstone while his family waited for a tow truck. Morton continued to rage the whole way, mostly about how he was going to sue the park service for allowing an elk to maul him. He didn’t even thank us for getting him to a doctor.

Afterward, the drive to the ranch where we were staying seemed blessedly quiet. West Yellowstone was a small town that mostly catered to tourists, with plenty of souvenir shops, motels, and family-owned restaurants. The ranch was located a few miles south of it, situated along a narrow dirt road.

I had never seen any place like it. For the first ten years of my life, I had lived in a tent camp in the Congo while Mom researched gorillas. Now my family lived in the Texas Hill Country, at the FunJungle employee housing complex. (It was called Lakeside Estates, but it was really only a trailer park.) Since moving to Texas, I had spent plenty of time on ranches; several of my friends from school lived on them, including Summer—although raising cattle was only a hobby for the McCrackens, rather than their main source of income. However, the landscape of the West Yellowstone ranch was vastly different from Texas, with great, wide fields of grass, forests of evergreens and aspens, and snowcapped mountains looming in the distance.

Plus, instead of cattle, this ranch raised bison.

American bison—or buffalo, as most people call them—are the largest land animals in North America. Some big males can weigh well over a ton. In part, this is due to their enormous humps. Many mammals, like camels, have humps that are composed of fat, but bison’s humps are solid muscle, situated directly over their shoulders. The muscle is necessary to support the bison’s giant heads, giving the animals the bulked-up appearance of people who have spent way too much time at the gym. This effect is enhanced by the bison’s shaggy brown coats, which are so thick that, during the winters, snow can accumulate on bison’s backs without melting.

Since my family and I had arrived at the ranch at dusk the night before and left early in the morning to visit Yellowstone, we didn’t really get a good look at the herd until we returned. The ranch’s owners, Sidney and Heidi Krautheimer, were happy to take us out to see the bison, along with J.J. and Summer. We didn’t have to go very far; a few hundred of their bison were grazing in a wide meadow right by their ranch house. They were visible from the house itself, but the Krautheimers took us out on foot to get a closer look.

Even though it was close to dinnertime, the sun was a long way from setting. Yellowstone is located quite far north in the United States, and it was only two weeks past the summer solstice, the longest day of the year. It was hot out in the fields. The buffalo were shedding their thick winter coats, which were sloughing off them in sheets.

“Originally, my family raised cattle out here,” Sidney explained. “We started the shift to bison around twenty years ago. Now we don’t have any cattle at all. But we have nearly eight hundred bison, of which about a fifth were born last spring.”

There were plenty of young calves about. They didn’t have their humps yet and their coats were reddish-orange, so they looked like an entirely different species from the adults. Due to their coloring, the Krautheimers called them “red dogs.” They were energetic and rambunctious, frolicking in the fields, while the adults were far more serene; most of them were calmly grazing, although we spotted a few rolling around in the dirt. It was amusing to see such a big animal waggling its legs in the air.

“That’s called wallowing,” Heidi said. “They’re scratching themselves. Plus, a nice layer of dirt helps repel insects.”

Sidney waved a hand toward the entire herd. “Not that long ago, a sight like this would have been incredibly common. In the late 1800s, there were sixty to eighty million bison in North America, ranging from Alaska all the way to Pennsylvania. The herds were so big they could take days to pass. And then, in the space of only a few decades, European settlers nearly wiped them out. Tourists shot at them from passing trains, like they were targets at a shooting gallery. Hunters amassed piles of their skulls that were several stories high.”

“Why would they do that?” Summer asked, looking horrified.

“Some of the hunting was for sport,” Heidi answered. “And some was done to clear land for ranching. But most of the slaughter was due to the government’s campaign against the Native Americans. For the Shoshone, the Crow, the Blackfoot, and many other Plains tribes, bison were the main source of food, and their hides were used for clothing and shelter. Those tribes’ ways of life couldn’t exist without the bison, so the thinking went that if the bison were gone—then the tribes would be too.”

“That’s awful,” Summer said, and I echoed her in agreement. The idea that one group of humans had been willing to drive an entire species of animal to extinction in order to harm another group of humans was disturbing on multiple levels.

Sidney said, “Thankfully, attitudes have changed where our culture and the environment are concerned. In fact, bison were really the beginning of the wildlife conservation movement in America. Until the early 1900s, no one had ever considered trying to bring an animal back from the brink of extinction. But lots of people were horrified by the thought that such an amazing animal could be gone forever due to shortsighted human behavior. Teddy, I understand you’re named for one of those men.”

“I am,” I agreed. My full name is Theodore Roosevelt Fitzroy. My parents had always admired Teddy Roosevelt’s commitment to nature and the environment (although some of his other ideas, while common to his time, would be frowned on today).

“Yellowstone might not even exist if it wasn’t for Roosevelt,” Heidi added. “He started the park service. He also sent federal troops out to protect the remaining bison while a few were rounded up and brought east to be bred in captivity—at the Bronx Zoo, of all places.”

“In New York?” I asked, surprised.

“That’s right,” Sidney agreed. “A good portion of my herd—and most of the bison in this entire country—are descended from those New Yorkers.”

We came to a small rise from which we had a great view of the herd, spread out across the grassland below us. There were so many brown, shaggy animals clustered together that it looked sort of like the land had been covered with shag carpeting.

We had walked only a few hundred yards from the ranch house, which was a sprawling two-story building made of local timber and surrounded by wraparound porches. The bunkhouse, where the ranch hands stayed, was just ahead of us. The ranch had been in the Krautheimer family for over a hundred years, although both buildings had been remodeled and modernized recently.

Upon immigrating to the United States from Germany, the Krautheimer family had somehow made their way to West Yellowstone and staked a claim to a great swath of land. The family was Jewish, although they had worked hard to assimilate when they arrived. However, in recent years, Sidney had been far more open about his religion. He wore a yarmulke instead of a cowboy hat, dropped the occasional Yiddish word into his speech, and had even changed the name of his ranch. It had originally been called the Bar Lazy Seven; now it was the Oy Vey Corral.

“I used to be a New Yorker myself,” Heidi told us. “Park Slope in Brooklyn. Sidney and I met on a teen tour in Israel. When he told me he’d grown up on a ranch in Montana, I thought he was joking. So he challenged me to come see it for myself. The moment I got here, I decided I didn’t want to go home. It was the most beautiful place I’d ever seen.”

The Krautheimers were dressed in standard ranching gear: blue jeans, denim shirts, and cowboy boots. They were the same age as my parents, and they had two children. Their sixteen-year-old daughter, Melissa, was practicing her horseback riding, as it was rodeo season; we could see her astride her horse, Sassafras, in the distance, galloping around the fields. The Krautheimers’ son, Evan, who was thirteen like me, had passed on our tour in favor of playing video games. “I’ve seen this ranch plenty,” he’d explained.

J.J. McCracken and the Krautheimers were old friends; they had met through ranching circles twenty years earlier. J.J. had brought his family to visit many times over the years—although they hadn’t been since FunJungle had opened, as running the park had eaten up much of J.J.’s time.

Beyond the fields and the bison herd, a small tributary of the Madison River snaked across the ranch. Trees grew thick upon the banks, and the forest continued on the far side, stretching toward the western boundary of Yellowstone, which was also the boundary of the ranch. A few pronghorn antelope, the fastest land animals in North America, were grazing along with the herd, looking delicate and spindly compared to the bulky, muscular bison.

It was a spectacular view, although I couldn’t help but feel a little bit sad. In a sense, the scene I was observing was somewhat fake. This wasn’t a natural, free-range herd of bison; those didn’t really exist in America anymore. Instead, this was a captive herd, ranched for their meat and their hides. It was like I was in a zoo where the animals would eventually be eaten.

I asked, “Is it any harder to raise bison than cattle?”

“Not really,” Sidney replied. “In some ways, it’s much easier. After all, bison evolved here. Cattle didn’t. So they’re built for this landscape.”

“More or less,” Heidi put in. “Oddly, a lot of people think of bison as being from mountainous areas, because they’re used to seeing them in places like Yellowstone, but in truth, they’re much more suited to the Great Plains. It’s just that the ones on the plains were all wiped out, and the only bison left were the ones living in the parks.”

“That’s true,” Sidney agreed. “But still, the bison are really at home here. They eat what grows naturally in this area, and they’re built to survive the long winters. They thrive here.”

“Then why would anyone have cattle here at all?” Summer asked.

“A lot of it’s tradition.” Heidi plucked a wildflower and tucked it into her hair. “And lifestyle. People have been raising cattle here for generations, not bison.”

“Plus, it’s not so simple to switch from one to the other,” Sidney said. “Any time you make a big shift like that, it costs money. And ranching operates on a thin margin.” He turned to J.J. “Which is why you’re all here right now.”

My parents, Summer, and I looked to Sidney, wondering what he was talking about.

Sidney noticed our reactions and then grew slightly embarrassed. “You didn’t tell them?” he asked J.J.

“I thought I’d keep it a surprise,” J.J. said. “Though now’s as good a time as any to spill the beans. I’m thinking about buying the Oy Vey Corral.”

Summer immediately grew worried. “Why? Do you want to move here?”

“No, no,” J.J. said quickly. “I have no intentions of leaving Texas, especially while you’re in school there. I’m thinking of this place as more of a new tourism concept.”

Now my mother looked concerned. “You’re not thinking of building another FunJungle here, are you? Because a tourist attraction like that so close to Yellowstone would be a disaster.…”

“Whoa.” J.J. held his hands out, palms up, signaling Mom to calm down. “I’m no fool, Charlene. What I’m thinking of is something much more appropriate to this area. I want to build a small safari lodge, just like the sort they have in Africa… but in a place where folks can experience the best of American wildlife.” He waved a hand toward the herd of bison.

“It does feel kind of like the Serengeti,” I observed.

Since I had grown up in Africa, one of the things that had always surprised me about America was how little wildlife there was. If you went on a hike, even in a national park, you’d be lucky to see so much as a white-tailed deer, whereas the parks in Africa were rife with animals. In the Serengeti, at the right time of the year, you could see thousands of zebras, wildebeests, and antelopes at once. And there were plenty of other places on the continent where great herds could be observed. That wasn’t to say that Africa didn’t have problems with poaching and animal management, but overall, the wildlife was in better shape there than in America.

Dad asked J.J., “So that’s why you invited us up here? To get our approval for this idea?”

“I’m not looking for your approval,” J.J. said. “I’m looking for your input. If I do this, I want to do it right.”

“Oh,” Summer said. “That’s why Pete’s here.”

Pete Thwacker, the head of FunJungle’s public relations department, had also come to the Oy Vey Corral with us, along with his husband, Ray. Pete was very good at his job—although, ironically, for someone who worked at the world’s most famous zoo, he didn’t care much for animals. Or nature in general. Since arriving at the ranch, he had barely stepped foot outside; instead, he had spent most of the day reading. Pete didn’t really even seem to know how to dress for the outdoors; he had mostly brought custom-made suits to wear. (At FunJungle, he was the only person who dressed like this—besides the lawyers; even J.J. was partial to jeans and denim shirts.) Meanwhile, Ray was much more of an outdoorsman; he was having a great time and had spent the entire day fly-fishing in the ranch’s river.

“Exactly,” J.J. said. “Pete knows the marketing angles. While the Fitzroys know all about the environment and such. And I know a good investment when I see—”

“Sasquatch!” Heidi exclaimed, so suddenly it made everyone jump. She pointed toward the trees down by the riverbank. “He’s here!”

For a moment, I thought she was playing a trick on us, claiming that there was a bigfoot on the property, but then I saw what she was talking about.

There was a grizzly bear down by the trees. And he was enormous.

This, I figured, was Sasquatch.

We were quite far away, but I could tell that he was much larger than the grizzlies on display at FunJungle. With his thick, shaggy brown coat, he looked to be almost the size of a bison. He was shambling along the edge of the forest at a leisurely pace, pausing every few feet to uproot something and consume it.

I knew that I didn’t really have anything to worry about. Grizzlies rarely attack humans unless they’re provoked. In fact, they don’t even hunt other mammals that often. As omnivores, they are far more likely to eat plants or insects. In fact, in some places, grizzlies survive almost exclusively on insect larvae, which have a much higher fat content than most other animals.

The reason grizzlies aren’t particularly aggressive is that they have to conserve as much energy as they can. Their year is essentially split into two parts: hibernation—and preparing for hibernation. During the active months, they consume as much food as possible, while trying to expend a minimum amount of energy. Chasing down prey often isn’t worth the work; attacking a human makes even less sense. Statistically, the bison were a far bigger threat to us than the grizzly. (And technically, the animal that had been by far the most dangerous to humans in Yellowstone was the horse.) It almost seemed as though the bison were aware of this; they didn’t appear concerned by Sasquatch’s presence at all and continued grazing calmly.

And yet, I was still unnerved by the sight of the grizzly. It was much bigger than a lion or a tiger and several times the size of a black bear or a wolf. Its presence triggered something primal within me.

Summer must have been feeling the same way, because she asked, “Should we get inside?”

“No,” Sidney said reassuringly. “Sasquatch is nothing to worry about. He comes around most nights and we’ve never had an issue with him.”

“We have to be much more worried about our garbage,” Heidi said. “If we don’t lock it up tight, Sasquatch will devour it.”

“Plus, we’ll lure every other bear for a hundred miles,” Sidney added. “Folks around here take a lot of precautions to make sure the local bears don’t get used to handouts. We want to keep them like that.” He pointed to Sasquatch again, just as the bear lumbered into the shade of the trees and disappeared from sight.

“Wow,” J.J. said. “That was incredible. I don’t remember seeing any bears like that here before.”

“We’ve been having more grizzly sightings in recent years,” Sidney reported. “Seems the population is rebounding. In fact, we’re seeing more of all the local wildlife. But Sasquatch is special. I get farklempt whenever I see him.”

“Farklempt?” Summer repeated.

“It’s Yiddish,” Heidi explained. “It means ‘choked up.’ You see an animal like Sasquatch, and you have an emotional response.”

“You sure do.” J.J. had a dreamy look on his face. I had spent enough time with him to recognize it. He was imagining a successful business, probably envisioning excited safari guests oohing and aahing over a Sasquatch sighting.

“Why would you ever want to sell this place?” Summer asked the Krautheimers.

“If it were up to me, we wouldn’t,” Sidney replied. “But we can’t maintain it forever—and our kids have made it very clear that they don’t want to be ranchers.”

“We’re working out a deal,” J.J. said. “I wouldn’t really be buying the ranch so much as becoming a partner in it. The Krautheimers will stay to manage certain parts of the operation, and they can phase out whenever they want.”

The Krautheimers nodded in agreement, although both of them looked a little sad about it.

Summer said, “Well, Dad, if you want my opinion, I think this would be a fantastic location for a safari lodge! How about you, Teddy?”

“I think it’s a great idea,” I agreed. “This is a really amazing place.”

“I’m glad you think so,” Sidney said. “Obviously, we feel that way too. Although, to be honest, Teddy, there’s another reason we invited you here besides the lodge.”

“Oh?” I asked.

I noticed both my parents tense slightly, as though they suspected what was coming next.

“J.J. told us you’re quite the amateur detective,” Heidi said to me. “You’ve solved quite a few cases down at FunJungle.…”

“And you have one?” I guessed.

“Sadly, yes,” Heidi said. “Our bison have been disappearing. We were hoping you could figure out what’s going on.”