“Look, Noah,” she said, feeling overwhelmed. “I don’t even really know you. I appreciate you helping me back there, but I firmly believe a person should report a murder.”
“But don’t you see they’ll just get in the way?” he asked exasperatedly.
“Get in the way of whom?”
Noah looked down and remained silent.
“I can’t just ignore what I saw, what I’ve been through. If these rangers can do anything to stop this thing, then I’ve got to tell them.”
Noah put his face in his hand and sighed. He looked weary. “Okay,” he said at last, looking up. “But you’ll be endangering their lives. I’m going to leave you here then. It’s likely they’ll want to ask you a ton of questions, so I’m going to find you somewhere to stay nearby. I’ll be back soon.”
A ton of questions. Madeline hoped none of them recognized her name. She just wanted to report the murder and be done with it. Montana newspapers had carried a few accounts of her psychic endeavors. If they found out she was “gifted,” they might be all over her, asking her to return to the murder scene and see if she could pick up anything-like off the rafters in the outhouse. I can’t go through that. I won’t. I’ll just report the murder, and if they ask me to use my “ability,” I’ll just tell them it doesn’t work that way.
She was a bit taken aback and hurt that after all, Noah was just abandoning her on the doorstep of this ranger’s house. But he had already done so much for her, she was grateful for that. “Thanks,” she said feebly.
“My pleasure,” he answered, but she could hear the tension in his voice. He rang the bell on the cabin and then disappeared into the darkness.
She stood there for a few moments before the door opened.
A kind-looking man in his thirties appeared, holding a fork and napkin, looking at her quizzically. He wore a National Park Service uniform. She felt tiny out there on the porch, Noah now gone, and the dark expanse of the park at her back.
“I-I want to report a murder,” she heard herself say.
The ranger’s mouth opened. “A murder?” he repeated.
“Yes.”
He dropped his fork, and it clattered on the wooden floor. “Oh, my. I’d better call a ranger.”
Madeline furrowed her brow. “Aren’t you a ranger?” She looked at his uniform pointedly. The man was dressed in a khaki pants and khaki shirt, a National Park patch sewn onto his sleeve.
The man looked flustered. “I’m an interpretive ranger. We need a law enforcement ranger.”
“Oh,” she said and squinted as a flash of pain pulsed in her head. “I didn’t know there was a difference.”
“Are you hurt badly?” he asked, gesturing at the bandage.
“I should have someone look at it,” she replied.
He invited her in, and exhausted, she sank onto his couch and rested her hand on the armrest.
Nights spent reading into the wee hours of the morning.
A kiss with a pretty woman with long brown hair.
He went to the phone and dialed a number.
“Suzanne?” she heard him say from the other room. “I’ve got a young woman here who wants to report a murder… Yes, that’s right. Someone’s been killed.”
7
THE naturalist, Steve Pashalt, she had learned while waiting, opened the door to admit a wide-faced woman with long blonde hair in a tight braid. She, too, was dressed in a park service uniform, only she carried a gun in a holster around her waist.
“Madeline, this is Suzanne Harrett.”
Madeline got up and shook the woman’s hand, then regretted it almost immediately as the woman all but crushed her fingers. Kind blue eyes twinkled at Madeline, framed by small wrinkles that told Madeline she’d seen a lot of sun in her forty-odd years.
“Just tell her what you saw.”
Steve himself hadn’t heard the story yet. They’d waited until the law officer arrived. Now she was here, and Madeline found her heart pounding, her hands shaky, and her mouth dry. The request sounded so easy, but to fulfill it, Madeline would have to relive those terrifying moments. She decided to first tell them who had been killed. “It was a backcountry ranger who was murdered,” she told them. Immediately, concern creased their faces. It was one of their own.
“Where?” Suzanne asked.
Steve motioned for them to sit down on the couch. He took the hard metal chair next to it.
“In the backcountry,” Madeline continued, once seated. “At the Glacier Point backcountry station. Mike Z something.”
“Mike Zuwalski,” the two rangers chorused.
“Yes, that’s it.”
The naturalist swallowed. “And you’re sure he’s dead?”
Madeline pictured the man’s body draped over the beam in the vaulted toilet, the blood everywhere, his sightless eyes staring. “Yes.”
“At the station itself?”
She nodded.
“I’m going to radio up there,” the naturalist said, and left the room, the chair’s feet squeaking on the cheap linoleum floor.
For a long tense moment the officer stared at her. “Did you see who killed him?”
She paused, uncomfortable. “Not who… what.”
“An animal attack? You mean like a bear?”
Madeline shook her head. “No. Nothing like that.” Madeline felt herself pulled back to those dreaded hours on the mountain when it had pursued her. “It was almost human. Incredibly smart.” She thought of how it cut her off at the ranger station.
The officer looked at her closely. “Almost human?”
“Yes. But not quite. It had claws, and these enormous eyes…”
Now the officer looked at her, brow creased. “You know,” she said again, “sometimes it’s hard to identify wildlife correctly.”
Madeline sighed. What was this, a practiced ranger speech? But she herself had overheard enough conversations between park visitors to know the officer told the truth. How many times had Madeline heard people call a pronghorn antelope a deer? Or call a hoary marmot a weasel or a groundhog? Sure, you could mix up a black bear with a grizzly bear, or a coyote with a wolf, but this creature had been no wolf or bear.
“Bears can walk upright,” Suzanne continued, “and in intense situations, people might confuse them with-”
The naturalist came back into the room, a huge grin on his face. “Just raised Mike on the radio,” he said, the look of relief evident on his face. “He says everything’s fine up there.”
“What?” Madeline cried. Bewilderment swept over her, and she looked at them in astonishment.
“You’re sure it was the Glacier Point ranger station,” asked the officer, “and not another one?”
“Positive!” Madeline insisted. “I had a map, and-” Madeline stopped short, suddenly realizing what was happening. It wasn’t Mike the naturalist had talked to. Just as she had never talked to Mike. “You were talking to the creature!” she blurted. “It was the creature on the radio!” So it truly wasn’t dead.
“Creature?” Steve looked at Suzanne in confusion. “It can talk?”
She waved a dismissive hand, as if she would tell him later.
“It was him, don’t you see?” Madeline said desperately.
Suzanne patted her on the shoulder. “Now just calm down. We’ll work this out.”
Steve returned to his seat and said softly and reassuringly, “I’ve known Mike Zuwalski for four years, and I know his voice. It was definitely him on the radio.”
“No! Listen!” Madeline pleaded, shrugging off Suzanne’s hand. “The creature, this thing that killed him, it can appear just like him! I thought it was really the ranger, too, but it wasn’t. Don’t you see?”
Suzanne frowned at Madeline, then stuck her chin out in puzzlement. “What exactly did you see?” She pulled out a notebook and readied to jot down notes.
Madeline took a breath. “I went into the ranger’s station. I talked to the ranger there, Mike, or so I thought. He went into a back room to investigate a strange thumping noise. I went to the bathroom, and when I entered, Mike’s body was hanging from a rafter, and this thing was eating him.”