The winged scavengers, known for their keen eyesight and taste for carrion, circled high in the air, beyond the wall of trees lining the opposite bank.
“They’re definitely over something,” Chuck said.
“The kill,” Lex said, a trill of excitement in his voice. “I couldn’t have imagined it would be this far from camp.”
“And might still be keeping the wolf and grizzly together,” Chuck said.
Kaifong turned to the drone on Randall’s back. “Let’s see what we can find out.”
“No,” Lex said.
She stopped, her hands on the straps.
“Change in plans,” Lex continued. “The vultures have done for us what you and Randall were going to do. They’ve given us an indication of what’s going on over there. If the wolf and bear are still hanging around the carcass together, I don’t want to risk scaring them off with the noise of your drone.” He rubbed his palms together. “We’re close. What we want, what we need, are verified observations without disturbing them. We’ll have to cross the river.” He looked at Chuck. “Remember the rigging you did for us at Navajo?”
Chuck nodded. Three years ago, Lex had asked if he would take a break from one of his Grand Canyon digs to rig a two-pitch rappel off the tip of Navajo Point on the South Rim of the canyon to access a California condor nest believed to contain an ailing chick. Researchers of the endangered species had rappelled to the nest, removed the chick, and nursed it back to health before returning it to the wild.
“This’ll be simple in comparison, don’t you think?” Lex asked.
Chuck studied the smooth river and the sturdy trunks of trees growing close to the shore on either bank. “Tyrolean traverse. Surface-based.”
“Exactly what I was thinking. Can you do it?”
“What equipment did you bring?”
“Two rafts, PFDs, plenty of rope.”
“Is the rope static?”
“The non-stretch kind? Yes.”
“How about webbing?”
“Half-inch and inch. Plenty of both.”
“Carabiners? Pulleys?”
“Check and check.”
“Let’s do it.”
Chuck’s thoughts turned to Janelle, waiting at camp with Carmelita and Rosie. How incredible it would be for her and the girls to see the kill site that had brought the grizzly and wolf together, or—he barely dared think it—the two predators themselves, if they were still hanging out near the site.
He drew Lex aside as the others headed back to camp to collect the necessary equipment for the river crossing. “One condition, though. My crew gets to come along.”
“Clarence? Fine.”
“No. My entire crew.”
“Your family?” Lex gazed toward the soaring vultures, seeming to look beyond them. “I remember so many times with Jess, taking Carson and Lucy to see bugling elk, spawning salmon, migrating sandhill cranes.” He turned to Chuck. “Of course they can come.”
Back at camp, Chuck and Lex moved from storage keg to storage keg, collecting what they needed for the traverse, while the girls and Janelle tagged along.
“We’re going in a boat?” Rosie asked, bouncing from one foot to the other.
“Just across the river,” Chuck said.
“Yippee!” She leapt in the air while Carmelita stood rooted to the ground, her hands in her pockets.
“Doing all right?” Chuck asked her.
She offered a slight up and down movement of her chin and kicked at a tuft of grass.
Janelle put an arm around her. “If you decide you don’t want to do it, you won’t have to.”
Rosie declared, “I’m going in the boat! For sure, for sure, for sure!”
“Only if Chuck says it’s all right,” Janelle told her.
“Just ’cause Carm’s a scaredy cat,” Rosie whined.
“Your sister’s wise beyond her years,” Chuck said. “She knows it’s not always best to just do something no matter what.”
Rosie crossed her arms and huffed. “I always do stuff no matter what.”
“And that,” Janelle said, “is your whole problem.” She sighed. “And mine.”
The group returned to the edge of the river after an early lunch. Clarence carried one of the tightly rolled rafts on his back while Toby hauled the other. Half a dozen PFDs and the gear to rig the crossing were distributed among Janelle and those from the morning search. Even the girls carried a pulley each in their small daypacks.
The turkey vultures continued to wheel in the western sky, dark slivers against the early afternoon clouds. The crew dropped their packs at the river’s edge as a series of sharp yips sounded from beyond the river to the west.
Everyone straightened. Chuck gently squeezed the back of Rosie’s neck, signaling her to remain silent. The only noise was the gurgle of the flowing river and the soft rustle of the treetops swaying in the midday breeze. Then, a single, spine-tingling howl rose from across the river. An instant later, a cacophony of howls joined the first. The chorus floated across the water, climbing to a crescendo before coming to an abrupt halt.
Toby put a hand to his chest in the sudden silence. “Oh...my...God.”
“Wolves,” Sarah said. “Plural.”
“A pack,” Toby confirmed. “But there are no packs anywhere nearby. At least, there weren’t when we came out here.”
“What a beautiful sound,” Sarah murmured. “Every time I hear it, it brings tears to my eyes.”
“We’ll make a wolfie out of you yet,” Toby said.
Chuck braced himself. But Sarah surprised him.
“Maybe one day,” she said, holding Toby’s gaze.
“Riddle me this, then,” he said. “Why would any pack have traveled this far, this fast, from wherever they were two days ago?” He blew a jet of air between his lips. “There’s no precedent for this. None whatsoever.”
“But,” Chuck said, “I thought wolves were known for covering lots of ground.”
“They are,” Toby replied, breaking his gaze with Sarah to look at him. “But packs generally cover set areas in set patterns. They typically make only gradual movements from their defined territories over time. And there were no packs anywhere near here when we crossed the lake.”
“Which one was closest?”
Toby frowned. “Stander Pack, I guess, forty miles west of here, on the other side of Old Faithful along Little Firehole River.”
“Could those wolves have made it here in just a couple of days?”
“Could they have? Sure. Wolves can cover fifty, sixty miles, easy, in a day. But would they have? I don’t see why. Stander is the most public pack in the park, totally comfortable with its environs. Besides, it’s denning season, when wolves stay put with their new pups. Stander Pack has been hanging out near Grand Loop Road and Old Faithful, in full view of tourists, for years. The Stander wolves have all they need there—elk herds, plenty of small game when the elk aren’t around, woodlands to lay low in. They haven’t moved more than ten miles in any direction from their primary denning site since I don’t know when.”
“What other pack might it be, then?”
Toby pressed his thick mustache into place with his thumb and forefinger as he looked across the river. “Blacktail, I guess. They’d be the next closest.”
“From Lamar Valley?”
Toby nodded.
Chuck swallowed. “That’s the pack your Territory Team was going in to check on when they...”
Toby nodded again, his face marble. “Joe and Rebecca.”
“You knew them?”
“They were my friends, both of them. Good people. Great people. I still miss them, every single day.”
Sarah said, “They were my friends, too. Joe made the most incredible spaghetti sauce. He called it gravy, said it was his grandmother’s recipe. And Rebecca, with all her dirty jokes, she just cracked me up.”
“I’m sorry,” Chuck said to both of them. He asked Toby, “Do you have any idea why Blacktail or any other pack would have come this way over the last couple of days?”
Toby looked from Chuck to Lex. “I got nothing.”
Lex crossed his arms over his chest. His voice was calm, assured. “Well, then, that’s what we’re going to find out.”