Blood lure

Nevada Barr

Blood lure

The ninth book in the A

Acknowledgments

I needed a great deal of help with this book, help that was generously given by the staff at Waterton-Glacier National Peace Park. Special thanks must go to Dave Mihalic, my guide and inspiration, Butch Farabee, my landlord and friend, and Kate Kendall, who answered countless questions. Jack Potter, Steve Frye, Gary Moses and Larry Fredrick, I am grateful for your time, wit and expertise. Fred Van Horn, I thank for information; Barry Wollenzien and Ron Goldhirsch for showing me the park routines. Thanks also to Joan and Geoffrey for the loan of their auras, and Bob because he is Bob. Here at home I thank Dave Wetzel of the Jackson Zoo for telling me about the care and feeding of grizzly bears.

FOR BOBBI, a gracious and faithful friend

Chapter 1

With the exception of a nine-week-old Australian shepherd puppy, sniffing and whining as if he'd discovered a treasure chest and sought a way inside, everyone was politely pretending A

Under the tutelage of Joan Rand, the biologist overseeing Glacier's groundbreaking bear DNA project, A

Near Glacier National Park's sewage processing plant, behind an eight-foot chain-link fence sporting two electrified wires, and further protected in an aluminum shed the size of an old two-holer outhouse wrapped in six more strands of electrical fencing, lay the delights the excited black and white pup whiffed: two fifty-gallon drums filled with equal parts cows' blood and fish flotsam, heated and left to steep for two and a half months in what was referred to as the "brew shed."

Joan, apparently born without a gag reflex, had cheerfully taught A

"Fingers work best," Rand had said. "Pure research; the glamour never stops." With that, she had flashed A

Standing now in the offices of the science lab, the puppy begi

"It wears off." A kindly woman with shoulder-length brown hair looked up from a computer console as if A

"That's for dessert," A

"That's the lure of choice. Joan says they roll and play in it like overgrown dogs. That lure is so stinky you've got to pack it in glass jars. Goes right through plastic."

A

The puppy woofed and put portentously large paws on her shins, his black-fringed tail describing short, fat arcs. "You want to roll in me, don't you?" A

A

Stepping closer, she studied the pictures of massive heads, long jaws, paws that could topple a strong man, claws that could disembowel with case, and she felt no fear.

Members of the bear team, who monitored bear activities in the park and settled bear/visitor disputes, and the Glacier rangers routinely lamented the fact that the American people were such idiots they thought of these wildest of animals as big cuddly pets. One man had been stopped in the act of smearing ice cream on his five-year-old son's cheek in hopes of photographing a bear licking it off.

A

She laughed aloud at herself. Fortunately she wasn't fool enough to put interspecies camaraderie to the test and never would she admit any of this to anyone. Least of all Joan Rand, her keeper, trainer and companion for the nineteen days that she was cross-training on the Greater Glacier Bear DNA Project, gleaning knowledge that could be put to use to better manage wildlife in her home park, the Natchez Trace Parkway in Mississippi.

"Ah, my stinky little friend, your vacation package is ready," Joan said as she emerged from an i

A

A

The bear researcher dropped the skunk accent, adjusted her oversized glasses and said, "Take a seat. This is Rory Van Slyke. He's our Earthwatch sherpa, general dogsbody and has promised, should a bear attack, to offer up his firm young flesh so that you and I might live to continue our important work."

Rory, the individual to whom Joan referred, smiled shyly. In her years with the National Park Service A