The Wild Inside by Christine Carbo Page B

even more than the beauty of it all, I felt the pull of the park in the way an extreme athlete feels the rush that comes from heading headfirst into fear, topping the next highest peak, the largest ocean wave, or the triple aerial off the tallest outcropping. Only I didn’t need to go climb the world’s highest peaks. This was a different kind of purpose, something more subtle, yet just as potent. I suppose it was my youth, my aggression, my desire to tackle something and win. Glacier Park had taken my father from me, and it became my private battlefield. If I could nudge just close enough without getting hurt as I did before, I could enter the pastoral, be that woodsman. It would be what my father wanted.
    Taking forestry was also my attempt to nudge up to the half-ass woodsman in myself. I could study the forest in a safe setting, among students and professors. But reality hit when getting a job in the field stared me right in my naïve face. The clenched fist of fear settled in as I discovered that being a loner in the woods was not an option for me. Ultimately, human crime, with all its unpredictability and craziness, was nothing in comparison to the predictable, pitiless austerity and order of nature, its definitive underlying pattern that would fundamentally always mock the human call for world peace.
    I listened to the wind still picking up outside, breathing through the trees like heavy sighs of a death angel. Whether I wanted to believe it or not, this place, with all the horror it held in my heart, was somehow home. Even with its rarity, power, and ominous vibrations making me want to pull the covers up over my head and kick and scream like a child, I felt its arms enfold me in an embrace of history and familiarity. I did not know what I expected from it. Obviously not to see my dad, with his unruly hair and Sonny Bono mustache, striding up like the Ghost of Christmas Past. No, I didn’t know. Not safety. Perhaps familiarity, beauty, rhythm, truth, even danger. And something unidentifiable—something for the dark threads that ran through me to spool onto.

6
    I WOKE READY TO tackle a busy day ahead. When I peeked outside to check the weather, I saw the wind had ceased, the sky had completely clouded over to a milky gray, which hung low and oppressive, dissolving halfway down the lower mountains into the blue-green pines. I hoped it wouldn’t rain because it was best if it stayed dry as long as possible. Even if Crime Scene Services was done, the longer you could hold a scene close to its original state, the better.
    I drank some OJ, took some stray Tylenol I found at the bottom of my toiletry bag for the pounding I felt in my left temple, and called Dr. Wilson in Missoula to see if he was ready to give me a rundown on his results. It was only quarter after seven, but I thought he might be in early. Sean had also called Wilson to back Gene Ford and gotten the case pushed higher on the priority list due to its strange nature and the fact that we had a federal bear situation potentially involving public safety.
    In fact, it had become high enough of a priority that as soon as I hung up from leaving a message for Wilson, Sean called to inform me that he’d requested Nicholas Moran to fly me to Missoula to meet with Wilson, rather than talking to him on the phone as we normally would. It was always best to get the information from the pathologist firsthand, but I wasn’t thrilled about leaving when I had a lot to accomplish. In addition, Gene Ford showed up at the hangar to come along.
    I had spotted him at the hangar with his coffee-colored leather briefcase, his full-on ranger garb, including army-green olive pants andmatching jacket heavily pocketed with shiny badges. I had thought, here we go again. He wore a round-brimmed hat the color of hay, which made his downward angling face look even longer in contrast.
    As a greeting, he simply said, “Too bad we don’t have yesterday’s sunshine for today’s