Night of the Black Bear Read online

  “Over there,” Jack cried out, pointing to the right. “I don’t see Merle, but there’s his bike. It’s leaning against a wall behind that small bus.” It was the bus he’d noticed two nights earlier when they’d walked back from the Sunset Grill—the one with “Smokies Touring Service” painted on the sides.

  “I’m pulling over.” Yonah drove up an incline and stopped behind a restaurant directly across the street from where the red bike was parked. “Everybody out. We’ll sit on the wall in front of this place. It’s higher than the street, so we’ll get a real good view of whatever’s happening over there.”

  With Yonah issuing orders like a drill sergeant, the three of them positioned themselves on the stone wall. Legs dangling, they focused on the parking lot across the street and on Merle’s bike.

  Nothing happened. Ten minutes passed. Where was Merle? Ten more minutes, then another five minutes.

  “Could we get something to eat? Maybe in this restaurant behind us?” Ashley asked softly.

  Jack was hungry, too. Hours had passed since their lunch in Cherokee. “We could sit at a table next to a window in there,” he suggested. “That way we can keep looking across the street.”

  “This place is too expensive,” Yonah told them, “unless you’ve got about 50 bucks on you…” His words trailed off then because all of them thought about that $50-bill Yonah had carefully returned to Merle’s biology book. “Here’s a better idea. We’ll drive to Charlie’s Chicken Shack and order at the drive-through. It’s just a couple of blocks from here.”

  “Somebody needs to stay here to keep watch,” Jack told him.

  Ashley shifted on the stone wall. “You guys go. I’ll stay and watch.”

  “Maybe…,” Jack hesitated. Was it safe to leave his sister alone in a strange city? What if someone…

  “Jack,” she mocked, reading his expression, “it’s still daylight! There are people all around. No one is going to kidnap me. If anyone tries to touch me, I’ll scream bloody murder. So go! I’m hungry enough to eat any kind of chicken, even fried chicken bladders. Do chickens have bladders?”

  Yonah laughed at that all the way back to the car. He seemed to think Ashley was hilarious. “Get in!” he ordered Jack, starting the car before Jack was all the way through the door. Yonah obviously knew his way around Gatlinburg, taking the back streets and coming out onto the main drag right at the sixth stoplight.

  They had to wait in line at the drive-through window. Jack checked out the menu—chicken bits, spicy chicken wings—but before he had a chance to order, Yonah told the girl at the window, “Three chicken strip wraps, three onion rings, three cherry slushies, and a whole lot of napkins.” Turning to Jack, he asked, “Got ten bucks? That’ll cover yours and Ashley’s.”

  Jack had the urge to argue that if he was going to pay for his own food, he should be allowed to choose it, but the girl had already left the window. Maybe Yonah thought he had authority to take charge because he was a high school junior, and Jack wasn’t quite out of middle school. But older did not necessarily equal smarter, Jack thought resentfully.

  “Drive ahead to the next window,” a voice instructed them through a loud speaker. A minute later a guy wearing a black stud in one ear handed Yonah two paper bags and a cardboard tray with the slushies.

  “Hold these,” Yonah told Jack. “I have to drive.”

  They’d just pulled out of the parking lot when Yonah swerved so suddenly and so fast that Jack got thrown sideways against the door, fighting to keep the slushies from tipping sideways. “What are you doing?” he yelled.

  After pulling into a driveway, Yonah immediately cut the motor. “Shut up!” he whispered. “Look over there, at the back door of the drive-in.”

  And then Jack saw…Merle! So this is where he works, Jack thought. Why should this be such a big secret? Who cares if he works at a drive-in instead of a restaurant? He was about to say that when he noticed Merle loading large tubs of something or other into the trunk of someone’s car, a black Town Car.

  “What’s…?” he began.

  “Weird,” Yonah breathed. “Look inside that guy’s trunk. There’s six of those big tubs. It can’t be trash because there’s a dumpster at the back end of the parking lot. And now Merle’s getting into the car. I’m gonna follow them.”

  After the black Town Car had pulled out into the street, Yonah waited for it to move all the way to the end of the block and turn the corner. Then Yonah started his own car, drove to the end of the block, and followed, staying a couple of cars behind the black one.

  Somehow it was not a great surprise that the black car pulled in next to the Smokies Touring Service bus. After all, that’s where they’d spotted Merle’s bike. Not a surprise, but still a puzzle as the driver got out of the car, went to the tour bus, and opened the luggage bin.

  Yonah parked the car where he had earlier. By the time the boys joined Ashley, Merle had already begun lifting the tubs out of the Town Car’s trunk. He transferred them, one by one, into the luggage bin of the bus. While all this was going on, Yonah kept staring, his black eyebrows lowered, his dark eyes focusing intently on every movement across the street.

  “Can we eat now?” Ashley whispered.

  “Sure, go ahead,” Yonah muttered. “I ordered chicken wraps ’cause they’re easy to hold. You can eat and watch at the same time.”

  What they saw next was one more puzzle piece: Merle wheeled his red bike inside a building and came out carrying his guitar. He climbed the steps into the bus, returning quickly without the guitar.

  Minutes later they’d finished their chicken wraps, wiping their fingers on the napkins before shoving all the greasy papers into one of the bags. “My fingers smell like chicken and onions,” Ashley mentioned. “Is there someplace I can wash my hands?”

  “No! Don’t go anywhere right now,” Yonah ordered, “because if that bus moves, we have to follow it, muy pronto! Just do this.” He rubbed his hands vigorously up and down on the front of his sweatshirt, then held them palm-up to show Ashley that they were clean—sort of.

  Ashley wrinkled her nose. She wasn’t about to wipe smelly onion grease on the outside of her new flannel shirt, even though earlier she’d stowed part of a hamburger in the pocket before finding a place to get rid of it. She dug through the paper bag again, found a fairly clean paper napkin, spit on it to dampen it, then carefully cleaned her fingers with it.

  They didn’t have long to wait before things started happening across the street. In the next quarter hour, people began to arrive, some in cars, a few in taxis. They seemed kind of old, not exactly elderly but maybe in their 50s or 60s. There were a few younger people getting on board, but no kids. And just about every person who boarded the bus was carrying a camera.

  Merle helped some of the older ladies to climb on board, then he just hung around as if to make sure that everyone who was supposed to be on the bus had entered. He was the last to jump up the steps. The door closed behind him.

  “Run to the car!” Yonah barked. “Run!” Jack ran. So did Ashley. Behind them, the bus drove slowly, edging into the street.

  “Where do you think they’re going?” Ashley asked as Yonah started the car.

  Jack thought that was pretty obvious. “The bus says Smokies Touring Service. They’ll be touring the park.”

  “Right, for once,” Yonah remarked.

  On the two-mile drive from Gatlinburg to Sugarlands Visitor Center, Yonah drove cautiously, staying a few cars behind the tour bus. When they reached Newfound Gap Road, the bus was only a tenth of a mile ahead of them.

  Mile markers lined the side of the road. Jack knew that just past mile-marker 4 they’d come to Chimneys picnic area. Sure enough, that’s where the bus slowed. Even though Yonah had stopped farther back along the side of the road, Jack could see Merle jumping out of the bus to unlock a chain stretched across the entrance. Driving through, the bus turned into the parking lot.

  Yonah pulled ahead and kept on driving past the e
ntrance. “Why aren’t we stopping?” Ashley asked him.

  “’Cause they’d see us.” He drove around one more bend in the road before he pulled over to the shoulder.

  After a couple of cars went by, he made a U-turn so he was headed back toward Chimneys picnic area. Two hundred yards before the picnic grounds turnoff, he parked the car as far off the side of the road as he could without running into a tree. “Everybody out,” he said. “Stay in the shadows.”

  “Why are we sneaking?” Ashley asked.

  “If I’m right,” Yonah told her, “it will be obvious pretty soon.”

  They crept forward like an Indian scouting party—very appropriate, Jack thought—with Yonah in the lead, then Ashley, then Jack, through forest that looked dimmer now that the sun was sinking beneath the tops of the trees. They could see that the concrete-paved parking lot was totally empty—no cars and no bus. So where had the bus disappeared to?

  Wordlessly, they followed Yonah, who steered them through the forest to the farthest edge of the parking lot. A pavilion set back among the trees was empty. In fact, the whole place was eerily deserted. They must have made a mistake—there was no tour bus here. Could it have driven out from some other exit and gone somewhere else? But how could they have missed that?

  Yonah swung around in a half circle and gestured for them to follow. Ahead was another gate—two metal pipes welded in a sideways V hung between two posts. The gate was shut, but a short chain dangled from one end, unfastened. Beyond it lay an unpaved road, with just two tire tracks in the dirt.

  “This way, but stay in the trees,” Yonah told them. “The bus has got to be up this road, and that’s illegal because this picnic area is closed to traffic at 6 p.m. Somehow they got a key to unlock the gates.”

  Illegal? So this was the illegal action Merle was involved in that frosted Yonah so much! Just because the picnic area was supposed to be closed after six o’clock—was that such a big deal? A feeling of rebellion bubbled up inside Jack.

  Catching up to Yonah, he started to tell him that he thought this whole thing was incredibly stupid and that they should stop right now, but suddenly, he heard voices. Jack looked straight ahead. There was the tour bus!

  It had parked in front of a small concrete-block building painted brown. The door to the building stood open, and as they watched, Merle came out of it, carrying folding chairs. He set them up on the level ground for the tourists to sit on, then went back to get more chairs.

  It was a secluded spot, overgrown with foliage, bordering the same creek bank Jack and Ashley had slid along earlier in the day. After all the tourists were seated, chattering and rearranging their chairs for better views, Merle went inside the bus and returned with his guitar case. Opening it, he said a few words to the tourists that Jack couldn’t quite hear. Then Merle played his guitar and began to sing.

  Jack could hear him clearly now, his voice rising through branches that waved above them in the slight breeze. The song touched the darkening evening skies as the words wound into Jack’s conscience:

  When troubled times have torn the silence

  And hateful words give way to violence

  Keep still, my heart, fear not their warning

  For always comes the morning.

  When I’ve been scared by hopes that ended

  And been betrayed by those befriended

  I know the road will soon be turning

  For always comes the morning.

  Jack felt a sudden sense of shame. Merle was only a year older than Jack, a kid trying to earn some money to help his injured mother. Not even old enough to drive a car, Merle had to ride a bike to his job with his guitar strapped clumsily to his back. The only bit of luck in his recent life had been finding this job where he could sing his great songs to an audience that appreciated them. Right now the tourists were clapping and whistling and asking for more. If they weren’t supposed to be in this picnic area after six o’clock, was that such a huge crime in a world full of big-time troubles? All this skulking through the trees trying to nail Merle, just because Yonah didn’t like him!

  It was time for Jack to stand up to Yonah. Time to stand up for his own values about what was fair and reasonable and what wasn’t.

  Turning around, not exactly shouting but not whispering, either, he told Yonah, “This is it! No more snarking around as if Merle’s dealing ’shrooms or something! He’s just singing, that’s all! I’m going out there, and I’m gonna let him know we’re here. We can at least give him a ride back home after he’s finished.”

  “Wait!” Yonah’s command was as powerful as his hand that clamped Jack’s arm. “Look over there. Forget Merle—check out what Merle’s boss is doing.”

  Jack’s eyes followed the finger Yonah pointed toward the creek. What he saw were the chicken-filled tubs lined up along the creek bed. They must have been taken out of the bus before Jack, Ashley, and Yonah got there. Even from that distance, Jack could tell that four of the tubs had already been emptied. One was still full, and another swung from the man’s hand as he climbed farther along the bank, slipping a little on the edge. The man stopped then and dumped the contents into the brush that lined the creek.

  “Why’d he bring garbage all the way out here to get rid of it?” Jack asked, as Ashley peered around him so she could get a better look.

  “He’s not dumping garbage,” Yonah answered. “Don’t you see what’s happening here?”

  “Not really. No.”

  “He’s bear baiting. And Merle knows that’s illegal.”

  “He’s what?” Ashley screwed up her face, unsure what those words meant.

  “That guy’s putting out food to attract the bears,” Yonah said.

  “Why is he…?”

  “So the tourists can take pictures when the bears come here to eat.” Yonah jerked his head toward the creek. “Like right now. Take a look!”

  CHAPTER NINE

  Bears. Two of them.

  They didn’t hurry, they ambled as though they knew where they were going and had plenty of time.

  Jack was struck by how much their heads resembled the heads of dogs—the long thin snouts, the same intelligence in the eyes. But when the bears opened their mouths, panting, their teeth looked a lot scarier than dog teeth.

  The tourists went totally wild. They squealed, they pushed forward for position, they cut in front of one another to get a better view through their camera lenses. Merle hurried to help his boss carry the empty tubs away from the creek bed, and then he went back to pick up the picnic chairs knocked over by the tourists in their rush to see the black bears.

  The bears looked big, but it was hard for Jack to tell if the bears were bigger than usual, since he didn’t know how they were supposed to look at this time of year. He stood rooted, half afraid to move, although the bears were still across the creek and not too close. Then one of the bears stood up on its hind legs. As tall as a man, with the forelegs hanging limp like arms and the claws on his front feet curved inward like fingers, the bear leaned against a tree and rubbed his back on the trunk. Like a human! The second bear slipped a little on his way downhill, as awkward as a little kid trying to dance. Ashley caught her breath. She wore the same expression of wonder and fear that Jack was feeling.

  As the first bear reached the base of a tree where some bait had been dumped, he licked the food once with a long pink tongue, then moved it around a bit using his front paw. Apparently satisfied, he snarfed some of the chicken and began to chomp it. Chewing open-mouthed, he stared across the creek—right at them! At Jack, Ashley, and Yonah!

  On the near side of the creek, Merle’s boss spoke softly through a small bullhorn, warning the tourists, “Don’t get too close, folks. Stay up here away from the creek bank. If you slipped and fell into the water, that might scare away the bears. You’re paying good money to see them, so be careful. You can get great pictures from right where you are.”

  Merle held his guitar by the neck with his left hand while he suppo
rted a frail looking woman who clutched his right arm. The woman burst into laughter, along with the other tourists, as the second bear stopped eating for about ten seconds to scratch his ear with his hind paw.

  “Behind you!” Yonah said suddenly.

  It took a minute for Jack to register the scene. Black bears—four of them by Jack’s count—ambled into the clearing with their pigeon-toed walk. They moved slowly, turning a bit from side to side as they sniffed the air, then snuffled the ground, while moving downhill toward the food that had been strewn next to the creek.

  Suddenly, one of these new bears seemed to sense the three humans standing among the trees. He looked straight at Jack and panted a little, his teeth very white against his black face. As the lead bear snapped his jaws, lowered his head, and flattened his ears, the other bears came alert to the nearby presence of humans. They growled and made whooshing sounds to show their irritation, their big heads turning as they stared from Jack to Yonah to Ashley and back again.

  Fear rooted Jack to the spot. His mind flashed with the images of Heather and her wound and the blood that had seeped into the ground, deep red in the grass. There, right ahead of him, he saw those powerful white teeth that could rip through flesh as though it were tissue paper.

  “Don’t move!” Yonah commanded. “Act like you’re not scared, and they’ll leave us alone.”

  A low growl, guttural and deep, came from the largest of the bears. Reflecting the dying sunlight, his eyes glowed like bits of gold. Rearing up on his hind legs, the bear stood upright. Jack gasped at the size of it.

  “Don’t panic,” Yonah ordered, but fear rose from Jack’s stomach, jamming his throat until he could hardly breathe.

  “There’re so many!” Ashley gasped. Just then a fifth bear appeared, smaller than the others but moving more quickly toward them. Her voice shaking, Ashley said, “Yonah, are you sure that’s right? That we should stay here and not move? Shouldn’t we run away?”

  His sister’s voice jolted Jack into action. “He’s wrong. We’ve got to get out of here. Fast!” he commanded. “Away from the stream. Walk—don’t run.”