“Like I told you,” he said. “It’s a long shot. Belinda’s mother, Sarah, has a twin sister named Bonnie.”
“And you think she kidnapped, Belinda?” He’s gone off the deep end, I thought.
“I don’t know if she nabbed Belinda or not,” he continued. “Sarah hasn’t heard a word from Bonnie in over two years. Like a lot of twins they were close, then Bonnie drifted away and dropped off the face of the earth. The police didn’t think this was important.”
With good reason, I thought.
“How do you know Bonnie’s even there?” I asked.
“I don’t,” he answered. “But I can’t seem to find her anywhere else, so there’s a good chance she’s at the commune.”
There was also a good chance that she had married and changed her last name, or moved out of the country, or didn’t want to have anymore contact with her twin sister. This was what my dad would call a wild goose chase.
“Why am I here, Theodore?”
“Because we’ve got to cover all the bases.”
Now Theodore was beginning to sound like my dad.
“If you find Belinda,” he continued. “Don’t let on that you know who she is. Just take her photograph, then get out of there as fast as you can and give me a call. I’ll take care of the rest.”
“Right,” I said. But as far as I was concerned the chances of finding Belinda at a religious commune in the Montana wilderness were about a billion to one.
“Taking her photograph is very important. Without it, the police won’t have any grounds for a search warrant. They’ve been trying to get in there for years, but so far they haven’t come up with a reason that would hold up in court.”
“I have a question,” I said.
“Go ahead.”
“Do I get paid ten dollars an hour when I’m sleeping?”
Theodore laughed. “Of course! You’ve been on the clock since you got to the airport. Oh, by the way. Watch out for grizzlies. Someone was mauled in the Park today. I saw it on the news.”
“Great,” I said. “Thanks for sharing that with me. I’ll sleep a lot better now. Good bye, Theodore.”
After I hung up I ordered a hamburger from room service, and turned on the television. “The Maltese Falcon” was on, based on the novel by Dashiell Hammett. Humphrey Bogart plays the tough private investigator, Sam Spade. I wondered how tough Spade would be if he had to face a grizzly.
Mammoth Hot Springs
~
The bus ride from Bozeman to Yellowstone took about two hours. The talk on the bus was all about the tourist who got mauled by the grizzly bear. Apparently he was walking in the woods, listening to a cassette player through earphones when he bumped into a female bear with a couple of cubs.
“That moron did three things wrong,” the bus’s grizzly expert said. “In the first place he was listening to that stupid cassette player. When you’re hiking you’ve got to pay attention to what’s going on around you. Second, instead of rolling up into a ball and staying put when the grizz attacked, he ran. Out runnin’ a grizzly is like trying to outrun a horse.”
I didn’t blame the guy for running. I know I would have a hard time staying put with a seven hundred pound bear dripping saliva all over me.
“And third,” the man continued. “The idiot left the official trail and was wandering around where he shouldn’t be. Grizzlies usually stay clear of trails that are regularly traveled by humans. If you leave them alone they’re harmless.”
The guy in the hospital with two hundred fifty-three stitches probably didn’t see it that way.
I looked at my map and checked the course Theodore had laid out for me. At the seven mile marker I was supposed to leave the official trail. Great! Ten bucks an hour didn’t seem like enough money to be bear bait. But I’d gone this far so I figured I might as well complete the assignment. I only hoped my sister wouldn’t have to tell my parents that I ran myself over with the lawnmower.
By the time we got to Mammoth Hot Springs I was starving. I went into the restaurant and fattened myself up for the grizzlies. Mammoth Hot Springs is a beautiful spot. It used to be a cavalry outpost and many of the original log buildings are still in use. Between the buildings are large expanses of manicured lawn. Wild elk roam all over the place, bugling to each other, eating the grass, and ignoring swarms of tourists with their cameras.
When I finished eating I walked over to the little grocery store next door and bought enough junk food to last me a couple of days. I had no intention of living off the land like Paul Bunyan had taught us.
Outside the store there was a guy selling bear repellent. It came in a spray can and he swore that it worked.
“If you get attacked just spray it in the bear’s face. I guarantee he’ll run away.”
I hoped I never got that close to a bear’s face, but I bought a can anyway. The can came in a small, canvas holder which I attached to one of the straps on my backpack.
So I was set. Food, camp gear, map, compass, and bear repellent. I found the trail head and started on my ten buck an hour hike into the wilderness.
It had been awhile since I’d been hiking with a full pack. The first couple of miles weren’t too bad, but the next few miles were miserable. My pack felt like it weighed a thousand pounds. Other hikers with packs heavier than mine passed me as if I were standing still. In fact, the only things that weren’t passing me were the mosquitoes. They seemed happy to swarm around my head as I slowly trudged up the trail. I finally got tired of swatting them and let them have my face and neck. And they probably would have sucked out my last drop of blood, but another hiker took pity on me and stopped. He sprayed me all over with bug repellent, which kept the mosquitoes away for about thirty seconds. I should have bought a can of bug repellent not bear repellent.
Finally, I reached the seven mile marker. I took my pack off, and collapsed on the ground.
I wasn’t very thrilled about the next part of the assignment. According to Theodore I was supposed to leave the trail here and head east for approximately three miles. He said it would take me out of the park and onto the land owned by the Children of Divine Light.
“All you have to do is wander around until you find their compound,” he had said. “Or until someone finds you.”
“You make it sound like i’ll be in a park in the city,” I’d complained. “Why can’t I just take a cab up there? Or, walk up the road to their compound?”
“Because that’s too easy.”
“That’s my point,” I protested.
Theodore explained that the more effort I went through to get there, the better the chances were that the CODL people would let me stay. It didn’t make any sense to me at the time and it made less sense now.
What about the bears? What if I got lost? It wasn’t like Theodore had actually been up here in a four-wheel-drive wheelchair. How did he know that the Children Of The Divine Light were three miles off the trail? Maybe they were ten miles away or twenty. Maybe their compound was to the north, not to the east. The other problem I had was that it had taken me a lot longer to get up the trail than I thought. It would be dark in a couple hours and I wasn’t looking forward to spending the night with a bunch of cranky bears.
The way I saw it I had two choices. I could head back down the trail to Mammoth Hot Springs and forget the whole thing. But this would mean spending the night in the woods because I wouldn’t make it back before dark. My other choice was to leave the trail and try to find CODL before the sun went down.
Neither choice was very good, but I decided to try to find CODL because it seemed like my only chance for spending the night inside away from the bears.
***
Two hours and several miles later the sun started to set and the CODL commune was nowhere in sight. I didn’t know exactly where I was, and worse yet, no one else knew where I was either. I began to wish that Paul Bunyan was with me. He’d probably enjoy wrestling a bear.
I gathered wood and started a fire, hopi
ng it would keep the bears away and not attract them. Once I had the fire roaring I wrapped myself in my sleeping bag and fell asleep sitting up with the bear repellent clutched tightly in my right hand.
A little while later something woke me up. I opened my eyes and looked at my watch. It was just after midnight. The fire was almost out and beyond it all I could see was darkness. I heard a loud cracking sound to my right. I tried to convince myself that it was just a deer, but somehow I knew it wasn’t. I heard the sound again—this time closer. I put my index finger on the bear repellent nozzle hoping that it was pointed in the right direction. With my luck I’d spray my own face, not the bear’s. Then I heard the voices.
“It was over here I tell you.”
“I don’t think so.”
“Well, I’m going over this way.”
“You think you guys are making enough racket? Pipe down for crying out loud.”
Three flashlight beams crisscrossed along the ground about fifty yards away. Who were they? And why were they out in the middle of the woods at this time of night? Maybe they were hikers who had gotten lost and saw my fire. Whoever they were, they were headed right toward me and I was out in the open with no place to hide.
I thought about how Philip Marlowe would handle this situation. He’d be calm and try to talk his way out of it.
“I’m over here,” I called out. It seemed like the smartest thing I could do at the moment. I didn’t want them to think that I was afraid, or that I had anything to hide.
The three beams bounced around in confusion for a few seconds, then found me. They walked over and shined the flashlights right in my face.
“What are you doing out here, kid?”
“How about getting the flashlights out of my face?” I asked.
“In a minute,” one of them said. “You’re on private property.”
“Since when has Yellowstone National Park been private property?” I asked.
“You’re not in the park anymore.”
I thought about Philip Marlowe again. At this point he’d probably knock the flashlights out of their hands and slap them around a little. But this wasn’t an old movie and I wasn’t Philip Marlowe.
“I’m looking for the Children Of Divine Light,” I said, standing up.
The three men stepped away from me and talked among themselves for a few seconds. I hoped I’d said the right thing. Theodore had mentioned that some of the locals weren’t very happy about CODL and there had been trouble in the past. The men came back.
“Why are you looking for them?” One of them asked.
“I want to join,” I told him.
“You better come with us,” he said.
“Where to?”
“We don’t have all night kid,” he said roughly. “Let’s go!”
I didn’t like the sound of his voice or his answer. I considered spraying them with bear repellent and running, but I didn’t think I could outrun all of them. I turned around and slipped the repellent into the pack’s side pocket where I could get to it quickly if I needed it.
One of the men led the way and the other two followed behind me as we walked to a Jeep Cherokee parked on a dirt road.
“Where are you taking me?” I asked.
Instead of answering, one of the men took my pack and threw it into the back of the Jeep. So much for reaching the bear repellent easily.
“Get in.”
I stood there for a moment. “Not until you tell me we’re going.”
“If you want to join CODL you’ll get in the jeep.”
“So you’re from CODL?”
“Just get in the Jeep!”
Not a very spiritual or enlightened response, I thought and climbed in the back. I guess I was earning my ten bucks an hour now.
The Children Of Divine Light
~
We drove a few miles down the road and came to a gate with a guard posted outside of it. He opened the gate and waved us through. We continued on until we came to a group of small log cabins and stopped.
“Let’s go,” one of the men snapped.
“Where to?” I asked.
Instead of answering he grabbed my arm and jerked me out of the Jeep. “Follow me,” he said and the others laughed.
He dragged me onto the porch of one of the cabins, opened the door, pushed me inside, and slammed the door behind me.
“What about my pack!” I yelled, but no one answered.
The cabin was pitch black and the air was stale as if it had been closed for a long time. I tried to open the door, but it was locked. I felt along the walls for a light switch. No luck, but my hand did find a wood sliver the size of a toothpick. I also found a metal cot with my shin bone. The cot had a thin mattress with a musty smelling sleeping bag on top of it. The only good thing about the situation was that I was safe from grizzlies for the time being.
I sat on the cot trying to get the sliver out of my hand and cursed Theodore for getting me into this mess. He was probably asleep right now. Next door, my sister was partying with her goofy friends. My parents were in San Francisco enjoying their second honeymoon. And I was being held prisoner by a bunch of whackoes.
After I dug most of the sliver out, I lay down on the cot and covered myself with the damp, smelly sleeping bag.
***
Several hours later sunlight began to filter through the chinks in the logs and I was able to make out more of my surroundings. Not that there was much to see—the only thing in the cabin was the cot I was lying on.
A car pulled up outside and I heard the muffled sound of voices and footsteps on the front porch. I sat up just as the cabin door banged open. A man stood in the entrance. He had long, dark, greasy hair, and an ugly red scar that started on his temple and ended somewhere beneath his filthy shirt collar. He had a walkie-talkie clipped to his belt. Charming, I thought.
“Outside,” he growled.
Good morning to you too, I thought and stepped past him onto the porch. Across from the cabin, facing away from me, was a group of about twenty boys sitting cross-legged on the ground. Their heads were shaved and they wore long white robes with black belts tied around their waists. None of them could have been more than five years old, so I knew the black belts had nothing to do with the martial arts. They were being lectured to by a bald man dressed exactly like them except he wore a light blue belt around his robe and he carried a long stick in his hand. I was too far away to hear what he was saying, but he was obviously teaching a class or something. A couple of kids turned their heads when I came out of the cabin. The man slapped the stick on the ground and their heads snapped back to him like he had a wire attached to their noses. This really surprised me. I had three cousins about the same age and I couldn’t have gotten their attention like that with a bucket of their favorite ice cream.
This had to be the CODL commune, but it wasn’t anything like I expected.
“Get in the car,” Scarface snarled.
He didn’t look like the kind of person who liked to debate things, so I got in the car without a word. He slipped behind the steering wheel and stepped on the gas. The car fishtailed, sending up a plume of dust, but not one of the kids turned to look as we drove away. What was the matter with them? And where were the girls? I wasn’t going to find Belinda in a boys’ camp. Theodore and his fantasy case, I thought with disgust.
“Where are we going?” I asked.
“Sister Bonita,” Scarface said without taking his eyes off the road.
“Who?”
Scarface looked at me like I was stupid. And who could blame him? I hadn’t been acting like a genius over the past twenty-four hours. I should have been better prepared, but I didn’t know how I could have anticipated this. Now what was I going to do?
One choice was to tell Sister Bonita that the whole thing was a big mistake. That I didn’t mean to wander onto their property and if she would just give me my things back I’d be on my way. Ten bucks an hour was good money, but it wasn’t enough for being
locked in a stinking cabin and getting a wake up call from a guy who looked like he had spent the night in his own grave.
We passed several more log cabins tucked in among the trees. Outside a few of the cabins were small vegetable gardens, which were being tended by bald people wearing white robes. On the surface it seemed peaceful, but there was something going on here that wasn’t right. Scarface and the three men who picked me up didn’t fit into this tranquil setting.
“There’s been a mistake,” I said.
Scarface glanced at me.
“I thought I was in Yellowstone,” I continued, thinking that I might as well try my story out on him before I tried it on Sister Bonita. “I didn’t know that I was on CODL land. If I can get my stuff back i’ll just hike back to the park.”
“Too late,” Scarface mumbled.
That wasn’t what I wanted to hear. “What do you mean?”
“Sister Bonita,” he answered.
“I don’t really want to take up her time,” I told him. “She’s probably pretty busy and—”
“She wants to talk to you,” he interrupted.
“It really isn’t necessary.”
“We’re here.”
As we came around the corner I saw a guardhouse. Scarface stopped the car and the guard looked through the window at me.
“This is him,” Scarface said.
The guard nodded and came over to my side and opened the door. “Please come with me,” he said.
I didn’t want to go, but he looked a lot more trustworthy then Scarface, so I got out. Scarface didn’t waste any time. He put the car in reverse and headed back down the road.
The guard looked me up and down, then shook his shaved head. I didn’t like the way he was looking at me and wondered if I should have taken my chances in the car with Scarface.
“Follow me,” the guard said.
I followed him inside.
“There’s a shower in there.” He pointed to a door.
“Shower?”
“Yes. Before you meet Sister Bonita, you must be clean. At least on the outside.”
“I was just telling the other guy that there’s been a mistake,” I said. “If you could give me my stuff i’ll just—”