It wasn’t only the rustic structure that she would be living in that was responsible for the fluttering of her heart as she dragged her sleeping bag and her duffel bag up the rough wooden steps and onto the porch. Even more attractive was the idea of being completely surrounded by dense woods, a clear blue sky, and a hundred yards away, Wolf Lake. Civilization was far away.
Here, she was in the middle of the world the way it was meant to be.
Laurel pushed her way through the thick sheets of mosquito netting draped across the door. Once inside, it took her a few seconds to adjust to the dim light. The dark, wooden walls were dotted by small windows. The cabin was basically one good-sized room that had been divided up. In front was a common living space that included a sagging brown-plaid couch, a table and chairs, and a kitchen area with a sink and drain but no running water. Behind were two tiny back bedrooms, one on each side. Glancing up, she saw a loft that could be reached by a ladder. It was lighted by a single large window, its screen thick with rust.
Mariah came in and made a quick survey of her own. “I’m almost afraid to ask,” she said in a strained voice, “but where’s the bathroom?”
“The outhouse is off to the right, about a hundred feet into the woods,” Dr. Wells replied matter-of-factly as he stepped inside. “Okay. Before everybody starts putting their stuff down, I’ll give you your room assignments. Russ and Trip, you take the loft. I’ll take the bedroom off to the left, the smaller of the two. Cassie, Laurel, and Mariah, you three’ll be sharing the other back bedroom. In it are a set of bunk beds and a cot. You can battle out who gets which. But don’t worry; with your sleeping bags spread out on them, you should all be pretty comfortable.”
“Three to a room?” Mariah protested.
“Hey,” said Trip, brightening, “if any of you ladies feels too crowded, you’re welcome to—”
“Spare us,” Laurel broke in. “I’m sure we’ll manage just fine.”
She glanced over at Cassie, wanting to give her an encouraging smile. But the woeful look on her best friend’s face told her it would take a lot more than that to cheer her up.
* * * *
Dr. Wells had been correct in his assessment of how long it would take everyone to unpack. Spreading out her sleeping bag on the top bunk and hanging some of her clothes up on the hooks on the wall took Laurel less than five minutes. Leaving Cassie to wrestle with her sleeping bag on the bottom bunk and Mariah to agonize over how little storage space there was for all the clothes she’d brought, she went into the kitchen area to find something to drink.
Dr. Wells had beat her there. “I’ve mixed up a pitcher of iced tea,” he informed her cheerfully. “We even have ice. That refrigerator might be small, but thanks to the magic of propane it works as well as any other.”
Laurel accepted the cold drink he offered. Perching on the edge of the couch, she was about to ask him about the first steps the team would be taking the following morning when a stranger’s voice called, “Knock, knock!”
Standing in the doorway, holding back the mosquito netting, was a tall, gaunt man with a ragged beard and bright blue eyes. At his side was a small boy, probably no older than eight or nine. Like his father, his dark blond hair looked as if it could use a trim. His blue eyes were also exact copies of the older man’s. One thing that was noticeably different, however, was the scattering of freckles across his nose and cheeks.
“I’m John Torvold, the station manager of the Wolf Lake Preserve. And this is Danny. Is Dr. Wells here?”
“I’m right here, John.” He emerged from the kitchen area, his own glass of iced tea in hand.
“Ethan! Great to see you!” The two men exchanged a hearty handshake.
“Same here.” Dr. Wells tousled Danny’s hair. “Hey, Danny. How’s that insect collection going?”
The little boy looked surprised. “You remembered!”
“Of course I remembered,” said Dr. Wells. “You’ve got one of the most impressive collections I’ve ever seen.”
Danny was beaming. “I’ve got more than a hundred species!” he reported proudly.
The sound of footsteps out on the front porch caused them all to look out. A woman in jeans and a T-shirt was hovering behind them, smiling shyly.
“Come on in, Lucy,” said John. “Dr. Wells is back— and he’s brought a whole new group of students.”
The sound of unrecognizable voices brought the others out of the sleeping areas and into the front room.
“Let me introduce all of you,” Dr. Wells said, suddenly sounding strangely formal. “Lucy and John Tor-void, meet Laurel Adams, Cassie Davis, Trip Raynor, Marian Burke, and Russ Corcoran. John and Lucy take care of things here on the preserve. Their son, Danny, knows more about this place than anybody in the world.”
“I learned a whole bunch of new stuff, too!” the boy asserted, wearing a wide grin.
“There’s somebody else living on the preserve,” said John. “Jim Whitehorse helps me with some of the heavy work around here. He’s kind of a loner, living off in the woods in his own cabin. In fact, you probably won’t be seeing very much of him.”
Danny’s eyes had grown wide. “He’s a big, scary-looking guy. Every time I see him, I run!”
His father chuckled, meanwhile placing a comforting hand on the boy’s shoulder. “There’s no reason to be afraid of Whitehorse,” he insisted. “He’s just the kind of person who likes to keep to himself, that’s all.”
“Anything else we need to know?” asked Dr. Wells.
John and Lucy exchanged nervous glances. Laurel found herself growing uncomfortable.
“There is one thing we’d better warn you about,” John Torvold said slowly.
“You mean the bears, Dad?” said Danny.
Cassie gasped. “Bears!”
“You’re joking, right?” Marian said at the same time.
As for Trip, his face had lit up. “Cool!” he breathed.
“We’ve seen signs of the bears coming closer to the cabins than ever before,” Danny informed them excitedly. “We actually saw paw prints in the dirt.” Proudly he added, “I’m the one who found them.”
Cassie’s blue eyes were wide. “I thought I’d heard they don’t bother humans if the humans don’t bother them.”
“They usually don’t,” said John. “Most of the time, when they pick up the scent of a human—and they have an excellent sense of smell—they take off in the opposite direction. And if you ever come across one while you’re out in the woods, he’ll probably just sniff you and then leave you alone.”
“ ‘Most of the time’? ‘Probably’?” Cassie swallowed hard. “If this is supposed to make me feel better, it’s not working.”
“The truth of the matter,” Lucy Torvold interjected, “is that Cassie’s right to be cautious. See that wall over there?”
The group looked over in the direction she’d indicated. Laurel noticed that the wood along one section did look newer than the rest.
“A few years back, a bear chewed a hole through that wall and came right in. He didn’t even bother with the door.”
“He must have been looking for food,” said Laurel.
“Not necessarily,” said John. “Sure, people tend to say that. But I’ve seen bears come into a cabin even when there was no food.”
“I’m sure this won’t come up,” Russ said evenly, choosing his words carefully, “but what do you recommend we do if a bear ever does come into the cabin?”
“Make as much noise as you can,” said Lucy. “Yell, wave your arms, rattle pots and pans.... Chances are, that’ll scare him off.”
“H-how big do these bears get?” asked Cassie
“The Alaskan brown bear—the grizzly—is the largest meat-eating animal living on land,” Trip volunteered.
“They get to be eight or nine feet long,” Russ added. “And they can weigh more than fifteen hundred pounds.”
“Fifteen
hundred?”
Cassie gulped. “They’re as big as cars!”
“Fortunately, they’re not quite as fast,” said Trip. “Although twenty or twenty-five miles per hour isn’t bad.”
“I don’t want to have any run-ins with bears any more than the rest of you,” said Laurel, “but I certainly wouldn’t mind seeing one.”
“They’re beautiful animals,” Trip agreed.
“Maybe too beautiful for their own good,” John Torvold muttered, more to himself than to the others.
“What do you mean?” asked Mariah.
He paused a moment, as if wondering whether or not to go ahead and say what he was thinking. “We’ve been having problems with poachers. People coming around and killing bears illegally.”
“What for?” Cassie asked.
“Probably for nothing more than the sheer joy of killing,” Mariah replied dryly.
“It’s true that some of them are hunters,” John explained. “Actually, it’s perfectly legal to kill during the season. The Department of Fish and Game sets aside a month in the spring and a month in the fall when bear hides are at their peak. In the summer, the hides aren’t much good. The bears are shedding, so their fur’s not full.
“It’s only during the legal hunting season that hunters can get themselves what we call ‘a good prime bear.’ Fish and Game has no problem with that, as long as the hunter applies for a license first and then abides by all the laws.”
“What are those?” asked Trip.
“First of all, it’s against the law to kill a cub or a sow with cubs. Second, when a hunter does kill a bear, he has to bring in the skull and the hide. The biologists check it out—the size, the condition of the fur, the time of the year it’s been killed. All that’s to help us regulate the season.
“Aside from the time of the year and the kind of bear a hunter’s allowed to kill, we also regulate how it’s done.”
Marian shrugged. “Don’t the hunters just go out and shoot with rifles?”
“Basically. That’s your average hunter, anyway. But some people want to turn what’s meant to be a sport into a business. The main regulation is against using aircraft to get bears. There are professional guides, people who know their way around up here. They’re licensed pilots who own their own supercubs, little PA-18s that can land on mountaintops or clearings. These planes have big wheels—tundra wheels—or else skis for landing on snow in the spring. They take people up into the mountains and drop them off.
“All that’s fine. It’s when they use two planes that they’re breaking the law. The way it works is, they track a bear from the air, looking for prints on the trail or in the snow. Once they locate him, one drives him toward the other plane, where he gets shot. The bottom line is that it’s illegal to ‘chase and herd.’ ‘‘
“Then, of course,” Lucy Torvold interjected, “there are people who kill a bear to get its claws and its gallbladder.”
“That’s ridiculous,” Cassie cried. “Killing a huge animal for two small parts—”
“Sure it’s ridiculous—to you and me.” John frowned. “But some people’d do anything to make a buck. You see, they can sell a bear gallbladder. In certain Asian cultures, it’s believed to be an aphrodisiac—something that makes people feel romantic. As for the claws, they’re sold to people who wear them around their neck or keep them on their desk, just for show.”
Laurel gasped, “Unbelievable!”
“It’s even more unbelievable since a bear gallbladder’s worth less than a hundred dollars. Still, it happens more often than you’d think. And, as I said, lately it’s been happening around Wolf Lake. In the past few weeks, I came across three illegal kills.”
“Are you sure?” asked Laurel.
“Aside from the time of year, you can usually tell when somebody’s killed a bear illegally because he’ll cover up the remains with willow branches and leave it to rot. See, a stripped carcass is white, and it’s easy for a plane to spot. If you’re somebody who wants to keep your little secret safe, you’ve got to hide it.”
“Just as long as all this is going on in the woods— and not around here,” Mariah commented with a shudder. “As far as I’m concerned, the less I see or even hear about bears, the better.”
“I suppose we’re well stocked with pepper spray, just in case,” Russ said matter-of-factly.
“Oh, yes,” said Lucy. “There are a few cans on that shelf. Help yourselves.”
“Pepper spray?” Cassie repeated, puzzled. “What’s that?”
“A spray can filled with hot pepper,” Trip explained, his attitude as casual as Russ’s. “Whenever you go out into the woods, make sure you bring it. If a bear comes close, spray it into his eyes.”
Mariah stared at him, her hands on her hips. “You’re joking, right? I mean, you’re not really advising us to resort to hand-to-hand combat with a monster the size of Godzilla, are you?”
Trip shrugged. “You can always run. Of course, any grizzly worth his salt can outrun you. Not to mention the fact that as soon as he sees you take off, he’ll assume you’re a tasty morsel that’ll make the perfect lunch.”
“Great,” Mariah muttered. She flopped down on the couch, letting out a loud sigh. “Welcome to Alaska.”
***
“What a nightmare!” Cassie sobbed. She threw her gear onto the lumpy bed, then sank onto its edge with her head in her hands. “Oh, Laurel! How am I ever going to get through the next six weeks?”
“It’s not so bad,” Laurel insisted. She sat down next to her, patting her comfortingly on the shoulder.
“Bad!
I don’t know which part is the
worst!
First of all, just look at this place!” Cassie cried. “It looks like ... it looks like something a kid built out of Lincoln Logs!”
Laurel couldn’t help smiling. “It’s a lot more substantial than that. Besides, toys don’t come equipped with propane stoves and hurricane lamps and fully-functioning refrigerators.”
“Did you see what we’re supposed to use for a bathroom?”
“Outhouses don’t exactly have the reputation of being luxurious.”
“But it
smells!
And there are so many mosquitoes I could hardly see.” Cassie shuddered. “I couldn’t even close the door. I tried, but it was dark. There’s no electricity in there!”
“Still, you’ve got to admit it offers a terrific view of the lake,” Laurel joked.
Cassie was anything but amused. “Oh, Laurel, how am I ever going to stand it?” she wailed. “You know as well as I do that coming here wasn’t my idea. I was all set for a relaxing summer, working the cash register in some air-conditioned store, spending every spare moment I could find drawing and painting.” She took a deep breath, hoping her voice would stop wavering. “D-do you think if I told my parents what it’s really like here, they’d let me go home?”