Mysteries in Our National Parks: The Hunted: A Mystery in Glacier National Park. Gloria Skurzynski

clear? It’s as if you were looking through glass.”

      “Can we swim in it?” Jack asked. After the long drive from Ulm Pishkun, his skin itched with perspiration, and his feet felt hot in their shoes. Ashley, he knew, was just as warm. The Jeep’s air conditioner barely pushed out enough stale air to keep his parents cool in the front seat.

      As they’d made their long descent through the mountains into Glacier National Park, Ashley’s nose had pressed flat against the window to search the tightly knit pines for any signs of bears. Out loud she’d wondered how bears could stand the heat with such thick coats of fur, when she could hardly take it in a pair of shorts and a T-shirt.

      Looking around now, Jack saw that although people clustered along the edge of Lake McDonald, not one of them was actually in the water. Fishermen cast off from land or farther out from canoes, their fishing lines catching the sun like long strands of spider web.

      “I don’t think you’d like to dive in there,” Steven told Jack, shaking his head. “This is glacial water. You’d have about three minutes before you turned as blue as the lake. Go ahead, put your hand in and check it out.”

      Crouching low, Jack thrust his arm deep into water that felt as frigid as an ice chest. He pulled it out again quickly, shaking pearls of moisture off as he grinned and said, “So this is where frozen fish come from.”

      “Very funny,” Steven chuckled. “Just make sure your sister doesn’t fall in before we get back. We won’t be long.”

      “Daddy, I won’t fall in the lake. I’m not some little kid. Besides, where are you going?” Ashley asked. “If it’s to the gift shop, then I want to come, too. I want to get some bear bells.”

      Olivia answered, “Honey, you don’t need any bear bells.”

      “But—”

      “We’re just going to the visitor center, right over there.” Olivia jerked her thumb at a low-slung log building a few hundred yards behind them. “I’m too grubby to go into park headquarters right now. I’ll be fresher in the morning.” Their mother was dressed in denim shorts and a shirt that had wilted during the long drive. Strands of curly, dark hair escaped from her ponytail, which she shoved under her baseball cap while she spoke. Olivia was so small and trim, Jack thought she could pass for a college student. His father, all bones and angles, towered over Olivia. Steven’s blond hair and blue eyes made a striking contrast to Olivia’s darker coloring. The two of them were so different and yet, Jack realized, the same somehow. Ever since he could remember, it seemed as though his parents worked in tandem. They were a comfortable couple.

      “But Mom, listen to me.” Ashley’s voice was rising now. “If we’re going to camp way out in the woods, then we should wear bear bells.”

      “Don’t worry about the bells, Ashley. They’re not loud enough for the bears to hear.”

      “What are bear bells?” Jack broke in.

      “Jingle bells that you strap onto your wrists or ankles,” his mother answered. “They’re supposed to warn a bear that you’re coming through, but it’s better to use your own voice and just call out every once in a while. Remember what I told you, bears won’t bother us if we don’t bother them.”

      Olivia arched her back, stretching after the long hours of driving. “Anyway, we’ve got to grab a map before the center closes so we can nail down exactly where Quartz Creek is. Your father wants to photograph the unspoiled beauty of Glacier, which means,” she said, throwing a glance at Steven, “we have a long, bumpy ride ahead of us, through backwoods country.”

      “Hey, at least I’m willing to ask for directions.” Steven grinned at her, then added, “How many guys do that?”

      “Hardly any, which means you’re this close”—she squeezed her thumb and pointer finger together—“to being perfect.”

      “Wow, look at that—I almost made it,” Steven laughed. “OK, kids, we’ll meet you back here at a quarter to. Don’t wander off. We’re going to have to really push to set up camp before dark, and I don’t want to have to go looking for either one of you.”

      “Gotcha, Dad.”

      After they left, Ashley muttered to herself, “The book says bear bells work.” While she perched on a tree stump close to shore, looking gloomy, Jack chose a smooth, plum-colored stone and skimmed it against the lake’s surface. The rock skipped five times, not bad for a first try.

      A flatter, topaz-yellow stone grazed the lake, and he let out a holler. “Hey, Ashley, did you see that? Nine skips—that’s a record for me. Come on and try. I’m telling you, the rocks here are perfect.”

      “No thanks,” Ashley answered. With her hand shading her eyes, she peered intently at the west side of the lake. Jack stopped skimming stones long enough to ask, “What are you looking at?”

      “Nothing.”

      The way she said it, Jack could tell it was not nothing. She was chewing on something in her mind. During the last hour of their drive to Glacier, every mile they’d traveled seemed to subdue her more, as if the mountains themselves were pressing down on her. That was unlike Ashley, who usually jabbered away like a magpie.

      “If it’s nothing, then why don’t you come skip a couple of rocks?” he asked her.

      “Because I’m thinking.”

      “Thinking about what?”

      Hesitating, she said, “If I tell you, do you promise not to say anything to Mom?” She looked at him, half scared, half defiant. When Jack nodded, she said, “I’m…I’m watching out for grizzly bears. You know how Mom wouldn’t let me read that book Night of the Grizzlies because she said it was too intense? Well, I read it anyway.”

      “Ashley—”

      “I’m old enough. And I’m glad I did, ’cause even though Mom knows a lot, she doesn’t know everything. You should put on bear bells because a grizzly can charge out of the woods and kill you fast as lightning. Those bears’ll eat you!”

      Jack crossed his arms as he studied his sister. He remembered the argument. Ashley had brought the book home from the library, and Olivia had immediately told her not to read it, explaining that she didn’t want it to spook Ashley right before their trip. It was rare for their mother to say no to any book. This one was banned, Olivia said, only until they got back home to Jackson Hole. “Here, Ashley, try reading this instead,” she’d suggested. “It’s a book of Native American legends from around the Glacier area. This won’t give you nightmares.”

      Reluctantly, Ashley had taken the folklore book and scanned the first page. She didn’t answer when their mother asked, “Isn’t that better than reading about those gruesome bear attacks?”

      “So you’re all freaked, just like Mom said you would be, right?” Jack asked Ashley now.

      She nodded miserably. “I can’t stop thinking about it. There’s a few of them in the mountains around Jackson Hole, where we live, but there’s lots more of them up here. Hundreds of grizzlies.” Her eyes squinted as she looked into the distance. “They could be right in those trees, watching us this very minute.”

      Jack snorted. “Look, McDonald Inn is right next to us, and behind that is a bunch of cabins, and up the road are two stores and a restaurant plus the visitor center. Quit worrying. There are way too many people around here for a bear to show up.”

      “You don’t know anything about it,” Ashley snapped back.

      “Well, I know that the attacks in that book happened a long time ago, before we were even born. There’s nothing to worry about. Forget it.”

      His sister’s eyes flashed. “Just ’cause I’m younger than you doesn’t mean I don’t know what I’m talking about.” Ashley’s lips tightened. Her chin rested on her bent knees, while her toes extended beyond her sandals