2005: Sherwood Beast meets the Mesa Falls spirit and the ghost of Ann Garner Sherwood

Chapter Six in the Sherwood Beast Tales

_{By ELIZABETH LADEN}

A high pitched howl pierced Last Chance’s late night calm, followed by spine tingling screeches and horrible metallic clangs and clatters.
  
It was late October, 2005, and Sherwood Beast, nicknamed S. B., was expressing ecstasy for the succulent elk meat he had just consumed, and cleaning his claws on his favorite scratching station, the giant metal rainbow trout in front of Last Chance Lodge. Although he had discovered the roadkilled elk a mile north, it has been worth the trot in and out of the dark shadows along Hwy 20 just to give the fake fish a few more scratches.
  
Like most beasts that roam our world, October 31 marks the first day of a New Year, and in the waning days of this Beast Year, S. B. reflected on his long and dark life as he crossed the road and sat on the Trouthunter’s soft lawn. It has been a wonderful year almost right from the start, when, taking Eagle’s advice, he left Island Park immediately after last year’s Haunts of Harriman celebration at the old Railroad Ranch. It had been a cold, dreary party and S. B. was out of sorts because all his teeth were rotten.
  
As soon as the last kid left the Haunts, Eagle guided S.B. to the Natural History Museum at Pocatello. S. B.’s dead, stuffed twin was stored there after being removed from the Sherwood Museum at Henry’s Lake when new owners purchased the building to remodel into a bed and breakfast. S.B. stole the beautiful hand-painted, enameled wooden teeth Ann Sherwood has installed in his twin way back in 1930-something when she added the beast to her taxidermy exhibit.
  
With new choppers, S.B. could once again enjoy all the meat he could kill or find dead along the roads. S.B. sat on his hind legs, patted his full belly, and let out a boisterous belch that woke some of the lodge’s guests, by the number of lights that went on suddenly. Hearing doors open onto the lodge’s deck, S.B. scurried toward the river and hid in the bank’s shadows, creeping downstream slowly.
  
The moon, a bright sliver in the western sky, was slipping toward the horizon. By his calculations, Halloween night, or New Year’s Day in beastdom, would be without a moon. Oh well, although a night of moon howling always made a feast more lively, there was something to be said for deep, deep, darkness, especially in Island Park. Here, the stars and planets sparkle in the pure night sky like diamonds, rubies, and emeralds, if you are lucky enough to have beast eyes, which see colors where humans cannot.
  
S.B. could get around much better in the darkness, which suited him fine because with his restored health, he was able to roam Island Park to his heart’s content. He rarely slept, he was having so much fun. He had met many new creatures of the night this past year, and caused all kinds of problems for Island Park folks from Last Chance to the Bighorn Hills Estates and all around Henry’s Lake and Island Park Reservoir. He had raided so many bird feeders and garbage pails, and licked countless BBQ grills until they gleamed, that the Idaho Department of Fish and Game had started a “bear awareness” campaign in the community, thinking the place was crawling with marauding grizzly bears. Sure, S.B. had run into a bear or two, but they were mostly eating natural foods and leaving him the treats. It was not safe for bears to hang around cabins and campgrounds, where Fish and Game was always laying traps for them, so they could move them to the backcountry.
  
S.B. would never be tempted, like bears so often are, to sneak into a trap for a morsel of the rotten food Fish and Game uses for bait. And despite all the evidence he left — scratchings on the metal trout, clumps of his coarse, stinky hair, and tracks that look like no other tracks, no one believed he existed, and so they attributed his signs to bears and wolverines and mountain lions, and, in the case of the trout, to a bad paint job.
  
People still believe that there was only one S.B., an animal they call a “Guyastickutes,” and that it is stored in the Pocatello museum. No one knew that that long-dead beast was S.B.’s twin, and probably they would never know. Island Park had changed so much over the years. A lot of the new folks could barely tell the difference between a whitetail and a mule deer, or an elk and a moose, let alone be curious enough about the signs he left to imagine that he still roamed the forests and riverbeds.
  
Now S.B. was trotting down the Mesa Falls Scenic Byway at breakneck speed, trying to reach Lower Mesa Falls before dawn. He had a date with Rose White Bear, or, to be exact, Rose White Bear’s ghost. Since 1930-something, around the time S.B.’s twin had been slaughtered, Rose’s spirit has lived in the swirling mists at the base of the falls. Rose’s daughter had slipped on rocks at the brink of the falls when they were gathering berries the fall the little girl had turned five. Rose and her husband found their daughter’s body in a log jam near the bottom of the falls, and their hearts were broken. She was their only child. Rose grieved for her daughter until her own spirit left her body many years later, and instead of “crossing the creek” and staying there, Rose spent a lot of time at the falls. Sometimes her daughter came, too, but she preferred to be on the Other Side, playing with the many Indian children who were there, especially the ones who had been killed in massacres. Never having known the hatred of men, Rose’s daughter was able to comfort these young people without that comfort being tinged by lingering resentment. Rose returned to the falls time after time — not because she was bitter about her daughter — because it was as beautiful there as any place she had visited on the Other Side.
  
Since Rose was a friendly spirit, few people knew she was there. Most humans, nervous and anxious as they so often are, can tune into bad spirits haunting places just for kicks. Only kind people have the vision to know that good spirits are available to guide them. Rose had saved many anglers by gently brushing against their legs under water when they were about to step into dangerous currents. 
  
S.B. had always been able to see both good and bad human spirits, and he discovered Rose one day last May, directing several anglers to safe places in the water and even to one pool that was full of fish. They became friends quickly once they discovered that Rose had known Ann Garner Sherwood, the woman who had stuffed his twin and put him on display at the museum she had created in part of her home on Henry’s Lake. Rose told S.B. that Ann had scolded the hunter who killed S.B.’s twin, and stuffed him because she thought he was so unique and amazing that other folks should see him. And, S.B. was pleased to hear that Ann always held out hope that other such critters existed and would evade any hunter’s bullets.
  
S.B. was happy that Mrs. Sherwood had honored his twin, but still, he did not trust humans in general. He had seen too many of them hunting for animals whose heads they planned to hang on their walls. He had eaten carcasses and gut piles these hunters, many who had no interest in the meat, had left behind. He knew that some hunters would shoot him first and ask questions later, and think they were special for killing him. He may be ugly, but he was the only one of his kind, and he had peered into enough windows throughout Island Park to know all about eBay. His carcass would sell for thousands on eBay.
  
Now he could hear the falls and even see the gentle light Rose was emitting as she stood near the river waiting for him. Rose was not like many other spirits who could travel just about anywhere they wanted to go on earth. She could only open a small part of the veil that separates earth from the Other Side, and the opening was at the falls. So, S.B. had promised to take her on a year end jaunt, and return her to the falls. They had already practiced traveling together. S.B. would run as fast as he could go, and Rose easily kept up with him, hovering osprey-like over his back as he raced along.
  
The two friends greeted one another warmly just as first light began to brighten the canyon walls. Rose showed S.B. a good napping spot and promised to return at sundown so they could begin their journey.
  
Many hours later, for the days are long this time of year, Rose appeared at S.B.’s resting place and blew hard, waking him up instantly. She gave him plenty of time to wake up, catch a few voles for breakfast, and take a drink from the river before they started out.
  
Rose was astounded by all she saw as they made their way through Island Park. She recognized the mountains, but could not believe her eyes when she saw the radar installation on top of Chief Rains in the Face. She may even have cried but was still trying to absorb the sight of Island Park Reservoir, which had been dammed up in her lifetime but which she had never seen because she and her husband left Island Park after their child passed on. Everything amazed her — all the new buildings and homes, the paved roads, the glowing lights, even in the night, the streams of big trucks on the highway. Nothing could have prepared her for the shock of seeing Henry’s Lake, its shore peppered with homes, and the Sherwood place, now sitting so close to a busy road, its beautiful porch missing. So this was the progress the white man had promised would tame savage America, she thought, truly happy for the first time in her death that no such “progress” existed on the other side of the creek. Sure, it must be nice for the living to have good roads to travel on, warm places to sleep, lights to see by, and running water in their homes. But Rose was glad she had walked the Earth before these modern times had taken such hold.
  
“I know what you are feeling, dear,” said a woman’s voice. S.B. heard it, too, growled softly in its direction, and slipped behind the building.
  
There stood the ghost of Ann Garner Sherwood. She had chosen to appear as she looked shortly after she had married Joseph Sherwood. Her long dark hair was twisted into a knot, and several wisps of it framed her face. Her eyes were deep, dark, and penetrating, and her face showed strength and wisdom.
 
“I watched it all change, too. I remember you and your husband and all the White Bear clan that visited us so often. Do you remember how we watched those first changes — as more and more people stopped here on the way to Yellowstone, and more settled this lake?”
 
 “Yes, I remember seeing it grow here, and hearing about it after we moved to the reservation.”
  
“We missed you,” Ann said.
  
“We missed coming here, but after a while, it was more comfortable to stay with our own people. We were not so welcome here after more people came, and so many drinking whiskey.”
 
 “I remember your relative who lived in a lodge down on Targhee Creek. He is in that famous photograph of the so-called Sheepeaters everyone thought was taken in Yellowstone Park!”
 
 “Yes, White Bear — he only used that name with the whites and I cannot say his Indian name now.”
 
 “Oh, yes, I know your custom of not saying the name of a person who has gone on,” Ann said. “We always enjoyed his visits and it was so tragic that his child drowned in Targhee Creek.”
  
“I thought of him the day my child died. So many of our children have slipped into the waters.”
  
“Just before I passed over, I heard about your spirit visiting the falls,” Ann said.
  
Rose explained why she visits the place her daughter was found.
 
 “I come here often, too,” Ann shared. “I hope to influence the people who are remodeling this place. I try to get them to get the job done and put the museum back in. I hope they do. Island Park needs to remember its past.”  
  
“Oh yes, and the native people know this. We have built museums on many reservations, I hear. One of my relatives told me the museum in Fort Hall has beaded items I made when I was a young girl. Imagine that.”
  
Ann smiled. “I remember how skilled you were in all the crafts.”
  
“And I remember how hard you and your husband worked here, to build the store and the sawmill and the inn for travelers to stay. It was the first sawmill in this area right?”
  
“Yes it was, dear,” grinned Ann.
  
And you managed the Lake, Idaho Post Office in the store. I learned all about mail from you! So amazing!”
  
“Yes. Mail came here from Monida and Ennis and we sent it on to West Yellowstone. And vice versa. By skis and stagecoaches — it’s much faster now.”
  
“How you did all that with — how many children?”
 
 “We had eight,” said Ann.
  
“And a happy bunch they were.”
  
“Yes, and they enjoyed tinkering with their father all day and into the night. He built a tourist boat to cruise the lake and view the floating islands. He made one of the first snowmobiles ever — that was in 1902. He used parts from an old tractor. He even brought the first automobile to this area. It was called the “black car.”
  
“Who can forget the car?” said Rose. “But I mostly remember all the animals he killed for you to stuff, and that reminds me I must introduce you to my friend, S.B.. Come on now, S.B.!”
  
S.B. crept around the building slowly until he stood near both spirits.
  
Ann stared for a few seconds. “Why, you are not a spirit. You are quite alive, aren’t you?”
  
S.B. growled and bared his teeth. Ann looked closely.
  
“Those teeth! I would recognize them anywhere. I made them.”
  
“Yes you made them for my twin, and I stole them.” S.B. said defiantly.
  
“Well, how wonderful they are being used. My children always teased me for making such perfect teeth for a stuffed animal — and I am truly sorry about your twin — but I thought he deserved them. That hunter should never have shot him.”
  
And so the two spirits and the ancient beast of long ago Island Park spent the night reminiscing about the good old days and at dawn, they all went to rest in the barn uphill from the old museum.
  
As soon as the sun went down behind the Centennials, Ann and Rose followed S.B. as he galloped past the lake, down Hwy 20, and to the Railroad Ranch, where they met many spirits, both native and white, whose remains had been scattered in the Henry’s Fork, where they had caught many big fish and touched nature’s beauty year after year. We cannot tell you all their names. It would not be proper to write them down, although you would recognize those who fashioned some of the world’s most successful dry flies and beautiful fy rods, or who caught strings of huge trout in the lakes that can no longer be fished. Other spirits came to remember many lovely days as guests of the ranch’s early owners, or of summers hunting elk and bear in the meadows that are now part of Harriman State Park.
  
The spirits enjoyed their impromptu reunion, and the more lively it became, the more they attracted other spirits. By night’s end, happy spirits who had walked on the ranch for centuries were roaming everywhere, unbeknownst to the park staff, who were busy putting finishing touches on the decorations for the park’s 5th annual “Haunts of Harriman” Halloween celebration for the area’s young folk.
  
The spirits decided to stick around until Halloween night’s end. Some plan to make side trips to see Big Springs, Mesa Falls, and other areas of Island Park they once enjoyed, but they will all meet at the ranch’s old buildings as soon as the sun sets Saturday night.
  
That’s  6:30 and 9:30 p. m. Saturday, October 29. The creepiest ever Haunts of Harriman awaits you. Dress in your best costume and be prepared for some spooky fun. Tell your parents to park in the Ranchview lot and ride to the festivities on the hay wagon. Bring a flashlight, and dress warmly under that costume.
  
Happy Halloween from all the friendly Island Park spirits and their great friend, Sherwood Beast!