After breakfast, Chuck joined the same group as the previous evening in front of the cabin. Keith reeled in Chance’s leash until his dog stood at his side. Randall turned his back to Kaifong, who tightened the straps securing the drone in its frame. Toby adjusted the shoulder straps of his daypack, the tripod for his spotting scope lashed to its side. Lex tipped his head, shading his face, his straw park-service hat glowing luminously white in the morning sun.
Sarah hurried out of the mess tent to join the others, throwing her pack over her shoulder, a foil-wrapped breakfast burrito in hand. Lex set off, taking the lead, showing no signs of stiffness from the miles he’d logged the day before. He re-traced yesterday’s route north and west away from camp, bypassing the blowdown. Rays of bright morning sun knifed through the trees, illuminating the last of the mist rising from the damp forest floor and banishing all hints of the shadowed disquiet to which Chuck had fallen prey last night.
Lex’s raised hand brought everyone to a halt where the drone had plunged to the ground at the edge of the broad meadow. In the light of day, Chuck saw that the rolling meadow sloped downward to a thick grove of trees lining the edge of the river.
Chance pulled at the retracted leash in Keith’s hand, snuffling at the grass.
“How’s the scent?” Lex asked.
“Still strong,” Keith said. “Lucky for us, it didn’t rain last night.”
“You’re sure the bear and wolf were still together here?”
“One hundred percent.”
“I still can’t believe it.” Lex whistled. “I know of only one other observed instance of grizzlies and wolves hanging around together, and that was between cubs and pups, which at least has some logic to it. That time, a sow with a pair of cubs approached the carcass of an elk killed by a wolf pack. The wolves backed off while the sow fed on the elk. The cubs yipped at the pack’s pups like dogs wanting to play, and the youngsters from the two species got into a free-for-all, nipping at each other’s legs and tumbling all over one another. After a few minutes, the sow woofed and the cubs ran back to her. Just like that—” Lex snapped his fingers “—the play date was over.” He reached down and scratched Chance’s ears. “But that was young ones not knowing any better. Quite a different story yesterday.”
Kaifong spoke up. “Maybe the two of them staying together for so long is human-caused. What strikes me is that it occurred here in the park, where there’s often human interaction with wolves and grizzlies—darting, placing tracking collars, ongoing observation.”
Chuck waited for Lex to agree with Kaifong and mention the theory he’d shared over breakfast: that the changing behavior of other mammals in Yellowstone—including, possibly, Notch—might be the result of the park’s ever increasing number of human visitors. Instead, Lex answered her with a question of his own.
“You think scientific work in the park might somehow be making bedfellows out of Yellowstone’s wolves and bears?”
“I have no idea what might have driven this particular wolf and this particular grizzly to stay together over such a long distance, but I do know the extermination of a single species—the gray wolf—upended the entire park ecosystem.”
“Still, what you’re proposing is quite a stretch.”
“I wouldn’t disagree.”
Lex looked around the group. “Any and all speculation aside, it’s time to find out how much longer our predator buddies stayed together. Keith, will Chance really be able to tell us where they went their separate ways?”
“That’s what he’s trained to do.” Chance panted at Keith’s side. “When they split up, if they split up, he’ll let us know.”
“He’s that good?”
“The Mammalian Neurological Alliance wouldn’t have given me a five-year, half-million-dollar grant if he wasn’t. They see Chance’s tracking ability as a perfect example of what mammals can do for humans if used to their full potential.”
Chuck gawked at Keith and Chance. Half a million bucks? A dog worth that kind of funding never would have missed the trail of the grizzly and wolf if the two predators had backtracked and come up behind him. No way had the noises and gleams been the two predators.
“It’s taken years to get him to this point,” Keith continued, his hand on Chance’s head. “No canine on the planet is better at tracking non-human mammals than this fella right here.”
Keith and Chance set out west, toward the river, on the trail of the wolf and grizzly. Lex and Chuck fell in line behind the others.
“Five hundred thousand dollars for a tracking-dog study,” Lex said. “What are people thinking?”
“Keith must know a lot of people at that neuro alliance,” Chuck responded. “That’s what I’m thinking.”
“Well, I don’t need a half-million-dollar pooch to tell me what we’re about to find. The wolf and griz are going to have split up somewhere just about there.” Lex pointed ahead, where the valley floor broadened as the side ridges fell back two miles upriver from the southeast arm of the lake. “I can find it in my head to believe the wolf and grizzly happened upon one another near camp, and the scent of the piece of meat lured the two of them into the open at the same time. I’m even okay with the idea that a kill by one or the other of them brought them together in the first place.” Lex shook his head. “But if the kill site is somewhere way out here, that’s awfully far from camp for the two of them to have appeared there together. I’m convinced they’ll have gone their separate ways up ahead, where the valley opens up and it makes sense for them to have done so.”
“What if it turns out they stayed together even farther?”
“If that’s what Chance determines, then either the dog doesn’t know what it’s doing…or Kaifong’s idea may have more truth to it than I care to admit.”
“‘Changing behavioral patterns,’ remember?” said Chuck, recalling their cafeteria discussion.
“Yes, I remember,” Lex said flatly. “In fact, that’s just about all I’ve been thinking about.” He strode ahead.
Chance led everyone to the point across the meadow where the two distant, moving forms had been captured by the drone’s camera before the copter’s crash. The dog kept its nose to the ground and entered the grove of trees on the far side of the clearing, veering west, toward the upper Yellowstone.
Rather than stopping upon reaching the river, Chance strode straight into the current. The tracking dog halted only when the water reached his belly, his nose in the air, sniffing.
Keith called Chance back to shore. They walked up and down the riverbank, the dog nosing the ground. After working the bank of the river in both directions, they returned to where the dog first had entered the water. Chance faced the other shore, fifty feet away. Keith turned to the group lined along the bank above him. “They went into the water together, that much I’m sure of.”
“Together?” Lex threw up his hands. “This whole thing is nuts.”
“Chance never hesitated. No telling if they swam all the way across and continued on as a pair, though. Not from this side, anyway.”
Lex studied the opposite shore, then turned to Kaifong and Randall. “Are you two up for another flight?”
“I’m not sure that would be worthwhile,” Kaifong said. “It’s been more than twelve hours at this point.”
“Understood. But what if they’re still together, just across the river?”
Chuck added, “You can fly a quick grid pattern on the far side, the same as you did over the baskets.”
“The odds that we’ll see anything...”
“...are not good,” Chuck finished for Kaifong, nodding. “Try looking at this like an archaeologist. All we do is play long odds. The vast majority of the time, we come up with nothing. Only rarely do we find ancient baskets all lined up and waiting to be studied.”
“Or a piece of bone sticking out of a wall of ice.”
“Or that. In this case, at least, the trail you’re following is just a few hours old rather than hundreds or thousands of years. And if you happen to get some footage of the two of them hanging around together, you’ll be world famous.”
“We’ll all be world famous,” said Sarah.
“But,” Lex noted, “if you wreck your copter again, it’ll be on the far side of the river.”
“No worries with that, dude,” Randall said. “I’ll swim over there to get it if I have to.”
“Brrr.” Kaifong shook herself. “Not me. I know how cold the water is.”
Toby pointed above the tops of the trees across the river. “Actually,” he said, “it looks like something else may already have found what we’re looking for.”
Chuck lifted his gaze, following Toby’s pointed finger. Less than half a mile to the west, a dozen turkey vultures rode the morning thermals, rotating in a tight circle, their broad wings fixed.