“Are you certain Charlene was the victim?”
She wiped her nose and sniffled. “As sure as I sit here.”
He moved closer to her. “I’m required, Mrs. Schoonover, to report this incident to the police.”
“I know,” she said, relieved Charlene would finally get some protection. “My husband’s a former judge. You’re just beating us to the punch, Doc.”
Molly stayed by Charlene’s bed, holding her hand and keeping close watch on her pale swollen face covered with bruises and tincture of iodine. As she brushed Charlene’s hair back from the scrapes on her forehead Molly realized that her fondness for animals—from the horses and sheep on their ranch to those barking dachshunds—was nothing more than a substitute love for the child she never had. Her one regret in life was her inability to provide the Judge with a child they both always wanted. She promised herself that she and the Judge would confront the Loudermilk clan after the ordeal was over. He would take care of the legal work to regain Charlene’s children. She’d take care of the rest.
When Charlene awoke, Molly wet her chapped lips with the corner of a washcloth dipped in ice water. Charlene murmured and Molly lowered her head. “I can’t hear you, honey.”
“Don’t tell Joseph Vincent I’m here. Okay?”
Charlene spoke about her adventure as if still struggling to understand it. When the wolf came for her, it scraped at the base of the tree, growling and waiting below on its haunches for her to grow weak and fall.
“In your dreams, pooch!” she kept screaming at it.
She told how the wolf dashed away like a bolt of lightning when a humongous brown bear trudged out of the woods. Might have been a Grizzly; she was too frightened to tell if it had a hump. The bear crunched and chewed on her friend’s body before dragging him away like a sack of feed.
“I was scared that his head was gonna come off on a snag.”
Molly wiped tears from Charlene’s cheeks and stroked her hair, assuring her that she wouldn’t let Joseph Vincent or anyone else take her away.
A young nurse at the door motioned for Molly. She hurried into the hallway and stopped. Staring back at her with a grim look plastered on his face was Deputy Harlan Ward. “I’m sorry, Molly.”
She gave him a warm hug and they walked down the hall to a seating area. Harlan wanted to get involved. After Molly repeated to him everything she’d told the doctor, Harlan promised the Loudermilk family would be investigated straight away. But the first priority was Charlene. “I’m going to try to talk her into staying with the Judge and me for a while, Harlan.”
“You’d better be careful on this one. Could be getting into something too big to deal with.”
“She’s a sweetheart. An absolute darling of a woman. Would you like to meet her?”
They stood and he followed Molly down the hall and into the room. Charlene wasn’t in the bed. Molly tapped on the bathroom door. “Are you okay, dear?”
When she didn’t answer, Molly twisted the knob and cracked open the door. No one was there.
She peeked into the small closet and discovered Charlene’s bag of clothing gone.
“Look over here,” Harlan said, as he moved to the far side of the room. The blinds on a narrow vertical window were pulled up and the window cranked open. The screen was lying on the ground outside.
THIRTY-FIVE
The single-engine Cessna slowly climbed from the Little Bears’ landing strip. The higher it rose the more Dieter was astounded by the vast areas of the forest below that had burned. “I had no idea how destructive the fires were.”
“All that you see is from the big one in ‘88,” Amy said. “A third of the Park’s two million acres burned back then.”
“Unbelievable.”
She piloted out over Yellowstone while Dieter held in his lap the signal detector the Judge had delivered: a TV-type antenna, more than two-feet wide, with a rod attached beneath it for a handle. A thin cable connected the antenna to a hand-held meter in a makeshift aluminum case with headphones attached. He could hold the antenna in one hand and the meter in the other.
“If that contraption picks up a wolf signal, I’ll buy you lunch,” Amy said, hardly moving her lips as she spoke.
“You’re on.”
The Judge had given him a lesson on how to use the device. As Dieter dialed across the range the headphones squealed and a needle jumped about on the face of the meter. They rose and fell in sync with weak signals from distant short wave radio and TV broadcasts.
They flew in wide swaths over the Park for twenty minutes before Amy twisted a knob on her instrument panel and called out. “We’re approaching the Lamar Valley. Are your electronics working?”
He adjusted his headphones. “Just getting a lot of background noise.”
“I’ll take us down and keep near the river.”
Both focused intently on the ground below as they flew. A herd of pronghorn antelope raced across the rolling fields when Dieter suddenly held an index finger to his lips. He fiddled with the dial. “Can you move lower? I’m picking up something.”
“You’re just trying to get a free lunch.” She did a smooth turn and descended, passing close to the tallest evergreens below.
A signal came in over his headphones and a red light on the meter blinked. He shoved open his window and peered below. “Look! Directly under us.”
She eased the aircraft around and banked to the right. He picked up more spikes on the frequency scan. The light blinked faster. “I’m counting eight, maybe nine wolves in single file.”
“That’s gotta be the Rose Creek pack, just like Dad said.”
Spooked by the low-flying aircraft, the wolves loped away into the trees. Dieter laughed and shook the antenna like a trophy. “I told you the Judge knew what he was doing! A genius, that man.”
“Amy stretched her neck to look out her window to the rear. “Oh, no.”
They were words he didn’t like to hear from a pilot.
“We’ve got a plane coming at us,” she said. “Appears to be a Super Cub with colors of the Park Service.” She quickly pulled away and climbed. “We don’t want to look like we’re harassing wildlife. They can get our tail number and investigate us up the wazoo.”
Dieter watched as they gained distance on the advancing plane.
“Let’s head over to the Gardiner Airport for a while,” Amy said. “You settle for a tuna fish sandwich?”
“What will come with it?”
“They make their own special mayo. Don’t push me.”
While they waited on their food in the terminal sandwich shop, Dieter glanced around the room at a smattering of pilots of other light planes parked in the field near the hangar. Some wore cowboy hats and ate in a slap-dash manner, trading jokes.
When the sandwiches were delivered, Amy picked hers up for a quick bite before yanking from her hip pocket a map and spreading it out on the table. “When we take off, I’ll give you on a quick tour of park highlights.” She circled areas of interest with a ballpoint pen. “This is the Black Sands Geyser Basin, a natural plumbing system. It actually connects the earth’s superhot core to the surface. I’m told that ten thousand thermal features spew up all over the Park. Not only more geysers than any place on earth but the most magnificent hot springs found anywhere. They’re boiling throughout the year.”
“Where’s Old Faithful?”
Amy pointed on the map. “Not very likely we’ll see her in action. She only lasts a couple of minutes when she blows.” She moved her pen to the area for their search, indicating creeks and small rivers flowing from the Park down into the area around Colter. As she spoke, Dieter marveled at her enthusiasm. The argument at the lake they’d had earlier seemed distant—they were now working as a team. She was in control at the moment and he was comfortable with that. But there was something he had to get off his chest.