Authors: Will Collins
He nodded. "I'll watch for you."
June offered, "How about hanging around for a few minutes? Maggie makes a great stew."
Not really tempted, Tom shook his head. "Thanks, but no. I've got a heavy dinner date tonight. Just don't forget to check out at the ranger station before you leave the park. We like to know that all of our campers are down safe. And it saves a lot of search parties getting frozen looking for somebody who didn't check out and went back to Iowa while we were trying to rescue them where they weren't."
Coldly, Maggie said, "We aren't children, Ranger."
He looked at her full figure under the bright yellow blouse and grinned.
"No, ma'am," he said. "You sure aren't."
June said, "Don't worry. We'll be down before dark."
"Fine," said Tom. "I'll probably see you then."
He touched the brim of his hat with a finger and rode down the trail.
June watched after him. "Not bad," she said.
Maggie sniffed. "If you like the type."
June smiled. "I like the type."
Hunger had replaced pain as the chief concern of the beast. It had been more than a full day since he had eaten.
In winter, he was able to curl up and subsist off the stored energy of his fat. But when on the move, as he was now, he needed huge quantities of food. Far more than the others of his species, for the beast knew that he was much larger than his cousins on the mountain.
But game was scarce on this side of the divide. He had trouble smelling the spoor, with the pain shooting up through his head from the shattered tooth, and his eyesight was so poor that he was virtually dependent on his nose as his best method of detecting food.
Halfway down the steep slopes, he stopped, lifted his head and sniffed.
Even with the pain, he knew what that scent was.
Fresh blood.
Food.
The blood spoor was closer. The beast moved through the forest, sniffing at the rotted leaves, until he came to a stream.
He explored it with his nose, hesitated.
Yes. The scent came from upstream.
Slowly, he began to climb the slope along the edge of the stream's rushing water.
"Illegal or not," said June Hamilton, "this is one damned good stew."
"I thank you," said Maggie Rogers. "Too bad your sexy ranger friend didn't stay around to share it."
"Oh, lay off," said June. "I thought he was nice."
"So nice you did everything but zip down your jeans for him."
"No way," said June. "Not this time of month."
"Well, how about that? Saved by nature and the eternal curse."
"There's always next week," said June, fluffing her dark red hair.
Disgusted, Maggie said, "Is that all you think of? Sex?"
"Ho, ho," said June. "Am I really heating this from the blonde who took on three, count 'em, three, members of the football team after the New Year's party?"
Maggie threw the remains of her meal into the fire. "That's a stupid lie. I got a little drunk, and we necked, and that's all there was to it."
"Not according to Matty Poole."
"Matthew Poole is a compulsive liar, and his mind was marinated in the gutter. Listen, let's pack up and get out of here. It'll be dark early."
June finished her stew. "Okay," she said. "And for a would-be house mother, you still make a mighty fine stew."
Maggie laughed. "Many thanks," she said. "Now, let's stop knifing each other like this. We both need all the help we can get."
"Agreed," said June. "I'm sorry, babe."
"Me too," said Maggie. "Hey, I'll get the fire, and you start on the tent."
"In a minute," said June. "I've got to pee first."
Maggie put a growl into her voice. "Every time we have to take the tent down, it seems like you have to go pee."
"Pavlov's reaction," said June. "I'll be right back."
June giggled, and was gone into the deep recesses of the forest.
The beast lifted his nose and sniffed.
The blood spoor was so close now that he could almost feel its source within his claws. He gave a low growl.
Hunger fought with the pain in his jaw. Hunger won. He moved silently through the woods.
Maggie Rogers finished scattering the fire's ashes, and poured the last of the dish water over them. She put the remaining plastic forks into the garbage bag that they'd pack out with them. Plastic, it had turned out, endured forever, longer than metal, and leaving it lying around in the woods was almost as bad as running around starting forest fires.
She glanced at the pup tent, shook her head.
That was June's job, and she intended to leave it for the slim red-head.
She started to cram gear into the green back-pack.
Behind her, she heard a twig snap.
"Okay, June," she said, not looking around. "Get to work. Start on the tent. When I get through with these packs, I'll help you."
There was no answer.
She turned, and saw the beast.
Only a slow motion camera could have recorded what happened in the next few seconds.
First, Maggie screamed.
But the sound had barely emerged from her strained throat when a huge paw, claws extended, whipped toward and
through
her. Incredulously, Maggie saw her arm sever itself from her body and fly through the air.
Her scream intensified. But it was not a scream of pain. The nerve shock was so intense that it had not yet been converted into pain.
She screamed with horror. She wanted to cry,
This can't be happening to me!
but instead all that came out of her contorted lips were little bleating sounds that overlapped words with mumbling sounds which, in an-other context, might have sounded like cries of passion.
"No, oh no, no, no, uh, no, no—"
The words had no effect on the beast. The blood spoor had led him to this place, and while he did not smell it on this creature, this living food, a new blood scent now filled his nostrils and he felt the lust of killing on him.
None of us are prepared for the assault that Margaret Rogers went through in those few seconds.
Natural death is kindly; it dulls the senses with toxic venoms that dull the mind and makes death actually welcome, so gentle and soft is its slowly-covering blanket.
But Maggie knew only terror and disbelief. Her blood was pulsing from her torn arm socket in six-foot jets, her organs had gone into final spasm, yet her mind was still alert and able to form sensible words.
"I'm dead!" she screamed. "I'm dead! Leave me alone! Please! Please."
The beast did not understand.
With a single stroke her chest was tipped open to and through the bones. What had been desirable breasts, cradled in lace only moments before now became raw, bleeding meat.
Maggie screamed once more. But now the assault on her body had progressed so far that her brain was blocked off from its life fluids, and with a final wail that only she heard, deep inside her mind, she watched the light of the world flicker out forever and the last word that choked from her bleeding lips was, "Mommy!"
More than a hundred years ago, it had become apparent that unless wilderness areas were protected from the encroachment of man, they would vanish forever. Hunters, lumbermen, settlers and cattlemen were carving marks in the landscape that would never be restored to its original wild state. It took years of bitter dispute, as the interests of exploitation and conservation met in legislative battle. But eventually the Natural Park Service was formed, and the Department of the Interior began to acquire land that would be set aside for the benefit of unborn generations.
Ironically, the very protection the Park Service affords the environment sometimes results in its alteration. Only recently had the Service decided that perhaps it is best to let natural forest fires burn themselves out, even though that may produce a large area of ugly, blackened landscape. But nature intended such blights, and without them, the forest grows rampant, unchecked. Trees are choked by overgrowth, stunted, and the forest becomes an uncontrolled thicket.
Most of our sports have been corrupted into profitable industries, and back-packing is no exception. What was once a sensible way of traveling in the woods has been expanded into a giant catalogue of aluminum pack-frames, flame-orange duffle bags, freeze-dried rations, insulated hiking boots, two-way Citizen's Band radios, and Dacron windbreakers.
Yet the back-packers who hike into the interior of the national and state parks do find a sense of isolation and adventure that is denied to the thousands of other visitors who drive into the camp sites with their recreational vehicles, complete with air conditioning, television and flush toilets. When you're lying on your back in the new grass and glacier-flowers just above the 6,000-foot level, looking down at the fluffy clouds forming in the late morning, it's easy to imagine that you've been thrown back in time, back to an age without interstate highways and jet supersonic airplanes.
Then you look up, and see a National Park Service helicopter, its blades throbbing through the air with that egg-beater sound made so familiar by television coverage of the Vietnam war.
Donald Stober, piloting the Hughes 500 helicopter, did not consciously think of the impact the noisy machine was having on the forest below, but he was aware of it. By now the wild animals had become used to the noise, and being animals, they almost never looked up anyway. But the back-packers did, and some of them, angry at being dragged back to civilization by the ugly metal bird, made gestures toward.it that weren't exactly friendly waves.
Don had flown two full tours of chopper service in South Vietnam, most of them on rescue and medical missions. Tall and slender, he looked more like a medical student than an experienced pilot and ranger.
Below the helicopter, the dark green of the forest blurred beneath its whirling blades.
Behind Don, in the passenger seat, two men sat. They were dressed in conservative business suits, totally useless in the wilderness below if the trusted chopper engine should ever shut down.
But it never had. And, Don thought, grinning, it probably never would. Which was too bad, because he would have enjoyed hiking out for several hours, followed by two sweating V.I.P.s wearing grey business suits and expensive alligator loafers.
Well, if he wanted to keep his flying time, this was a necessary payment of dues. Giving visiting firemen the grand tour.
His southern accent, created back in Cedartown, Georgia, was almost gone now; it had been more than six years since he had been home. At thirty-four, he sometimes lapsed into the "good old boy" slang for fun, or for effect with a susceptible visitor from one of the cities that seemed to spew their two-week tourists at the parks with increasing numbers.
Don Stober's voice was slightly bored as he went through his carefully rehearsed spiel, but it was obvious that he really meant what he was saying. He'd merely said it too often.
Pointing at the virgin forest below, he said, "This area is pretty much the same as it was in the days when the Indians roamed around in it. We like to think that's because of the work the National Park System's done."
One of his passengers, the one with the bright pink shirt and the blue bow tie, asked, "They're always trying to allocate more money for you characters. What do you really do to earn it? Stand around and watch the trees grow?"
Don fought down a tinge of anger. He was used to such carping, especially from locally oriented congressmen who begrudged every national dollar spent that did not result in additional industry and employment in their home district.
"We've had a camper explosion in the past few years," Don said calmly. "And that's good, because we want city people, or even rural people from other parts of the country, to see the good side of our forests. But they've got to be controlled."
"You mean exploited, don't you?" asked Pink-Shirt.
His companion made a gesture of displeasure. He was a younger man, his face heavily sunburned. He had obviously been somewhere closer to the equator recently.
"Hold it down, Sam," he said. "No call to take off on this feller. He's only doing his job." He leaned over and peered down into the green ceiling of the forest. "How many folks charge in here every year, anyway?"
"It keeps going up," Don said. "Last season, we hit almost half a million. About the same this year, but because of the warm weather, we're getting a lot of post-season visitors. I'd guess we might see six hundred thousand."
"At a couple of bucks apiece gate fee, and those ripoff prices for food at the lodge, you do pretty good," grumbled Pink-Shirt.
"I'm paid by the Park Service," said Don. "If you want to take a look at my check after they get through with the deductions, you'll understand why there aren't many married rangers."
Pink-Shirt made a Iow chuckling noise. "Why bother?" he said. "When you've got local talent like that little babe I saw this morning."
"Sam," warned his companion.
Don Stober said, keeping his voice under control, "There are quite a few female rangers now. Something to do with equal rights."
"Yeah, man," said Pink-Shirt.
His companion hurried to ask, "Is it getting out of hand? By making the wilderness so available, are we going to end up wiping it out?"
Gratefully, Don answered, "That's what worries us. The parks belong to all the people. But when all the people try to use them—and mostly at the same time, those three months in the summer when the kids are out of school—it just won't work. They have a devastating effect on the habitat. We spend most of our time protecting the water, the fish, the wildlife, against the hundreds of thousands of people who turn up most of them not knowing the first thing about getting along in the woods."
"So set up a quota," said Pink-Shirt. "We're already spending too much money on this nonsense."
"I think nonsense is the wrong word," said the younger man. "I just got back from the Caribbean. There's a blight destroying the palm trees there. The beaches look like the day after the invasion of Iwo Jima. Nothing but bare trunks sticking up into the sky. It could have been avoided. But nobody would spend the first dime."