The Old Tin Barn

The dilapidated tin barn, half-collapsed and damaged extensively by every element over the course of its long life, blocked out the light from the setting sun as it descended on the Wyoming horizon. No one was around to witness it, the way the orange sunbeams curled around the perforated sheets of metal and rotted wooden beams, the squirrel nests and cobwebs nestled in the rafters. The sun went down quietly, and the only sounds were of the stream bubbling gently along down the hill and a solitary wolf howling mournfully somewhere in the distance. Before long, the sun was gone, and the world was black.

The park ranger scribbled in his notebook as the woman spoke in between sobs, recalling every detail she could about the last known location of her daughter.

She’d been playing near the treeline while steaks were grilled. They lived in Idaho, in a town that had a name no one had ever heard. It was the girl’s first visit to Yellowstone, and she’d coo’d and oo’d and ah’d at every bison, elk, and antelope the family had passed in their station wagon on the way to their campsite. John and Melinda Garfield had honeymooned here, so long ago, and were excited to finally share the magical place with their only begotten daughter. The day had been a perfect one.

After arriving at the pad of gravel the Garfields’ had reserved for the next four nights, little Kenzie had been told to stay close-- there were grizzlies in the woods, her mother warned. She took her souvenir stuffed bison they had purchased for her at the gift shop and went to play. John started cooking while Melinda set up the tent. Nobody saw Kenzie slip into the trees in the hazy twilight mist, into the maw of the great Yellowstone wilderness that had swallowed up so many before her.

The park ranger palmed his notebook shut, and promised the two distraught parents that he would do everything he could. In the meantime, he advised, the best thing they could do was stay at their campsite in case Kenzie came back, and search the woods in the immediate vicinity with flashlights. He emphasized, however, that they should take care to not wind up lost themselves, and definitely carry bear mace. “This area’s crawling with them,” the ranger warned. “We had a nineteen year old girl dragged out of her tent in the middle of the night a couple months back. By the time we got to her, there wasn’t much left to find.” He found himself wishing he’d left that part out as Melinda Garfield started sobbing with renewed conviction.

“We’ve got an eight year old girl lost in the woods near Lamar Valley,” the chief announced to the hastily gathered search-and-rescue team. “Dumbass parents let her wander off while they were cooking dinner. Chances are she’s alive, it’s only been a few hours, but you boys know how quickly that can change out here. Let’s get moving. Reynolds, Johnson, you take the woods near the campsite. See if you can find a trail. You others will be with me, we’ll cut a wider arc around the area from the road just in case she’s wandered farther. Everybody be safe, be smart. Find the little girl. And for Chrissake, watch for grizzlies.”

With that, the huddle broke, and each man moved to carry out his assignment.

Kenzie stumbled through the dark woods, confused and terrified, clutching her stuffed bison, whom she had named Buffy. She didn’t understand why she could no longer see the comforting gleam of the campfire. The last time she’d looked back, it was clearly visible through the trees, emboldening her to push farther into the forest. She wasn’t sure when the echoes of her parents’ laughter had stopped reaching her ears. Ten minutes ago? Thirty?

It was too dark to see now, so she just sat down and cried. At least I have Buffy, she thought. He’ll keep me safe.

After she ran out of tears, she stood up and started walking again, positive that the safety of the clearing was just through the next stand of trees. Unfortunately for little Kenzie, she was headed in exactly the wrong direction.

Half an hour had passed between the little girl’s decision to enter the forest and Melinda’s first rush of panic when she went to collect her for dinner and realized she was no longer sitting by the treeline. How far could an eight year old make it in half an hour? Not far, John thought to himself, as he waved his flashlight around wildly and screamed her name.

Melinda had stayed at the tent, bawling and praying to God that her daughter was alright, while John ventured out into the woods for the third time since nightfall. A couple of rangers had come earlier and spoken with him briefly before entering the forest, but he couldn’t resist heading out alone again in case they missed her.

John cursed himself for not watching his daughter more closely, but tried to stay positive. She had too much of himself in her; adventure was in her nature.

He had spent his twenties roaming South America with a backpack and a gun, seeing the world for himself, looking for some elusive truth he had been unable to find in his nameless little hometown. He’d dealt with murderous cartels and savage headhunters firsthand, but only had to use the gun once, when a jaguar got a little too close to his makeshift shelter on the edge of the Amazon. After a half decade in the shit, he’d finally headed home, though he never did find the truth he was looking for.

He’d given up on ever finding it, but then it found him when Kenzie was born. For the first time, his heart had been full as he looked down at the tiny face of his newborn daughter. He’d once scoffed at family men, thought they’d sacrificed their own freedom and essence for a warm bed and a reliable piece of tail, but he finally started to understand when he met Melinda. His understanding was completed by the birth of his daughter.

Kenzie had always shared that with him, that pull in the heart, that stubborn desire to find out what’s over the next hill. When she was five, she’d wandered out the back door while her parents slept. A neighbor returned her at four in the morning, informing John that she’d been petting a cat in his driveway when he got home from the night shift at the power plant.

And just as Kenzie had been returned to him that night, safe and sound with a little grin on her face, so she must be returned to him now. He doubted there would be a grin on her face this time, however. He was a grown man who’d seen more than his share of the darker side of life on Planet Earth, and even he couldn’t keep the chills from running down his spine whenever a wolf sounded off somewhere far away, or a branch behind him snapped under the foot of some unseen beast.

“Keep looking, boys,” the chief said to Reynolds and Johnson through the walkie-talkie on his shoulder. “She can’t have gone far.”

His crew had also found nothing, but he hadn’t really expected them to. They were farther out than he thought any eight year old could realistically make it in a matter of hours, near the edge of the park where the agricultural lands began. The chief figured Reynolds and Johnson would have found her cowering in a hole by midnight, and he had started to worry a long time ago when they hadn’t. They kept moving, crunching trail mix and fingering their cans of bear mace as they walked through the dark forest. God, the chief thought. I’d kill for a cup of coffee.

John Garfield’s best guess was that he’d walked at least three miles. The sun was on the verge of rising now, and a disorienting curtain of fog hung over Yellowstone National Park and the vast ecosystem surrounding it.

His sense of urgency swelled with each second that passed without any sign of his daughter, and he knew he was going to crumple if he didn’t find out she was alright soon. With the light from the rising sun, he was finally able to kill his flashlight. Shortly after doing so, he stumbled upon a stone with a moderate amount of liquid red blood on it.

He began to sprint in the direction the droplets led.

In a trance, John Garfield approached the barn. The sun rose behind him, casting his long shadow out before him. He walked slowly, feeling the burn of oncoming sobs gather low in his throat. At the door, he stopped, gathering himself before gazing inside.

He saw more blood, and something else: cotton? Stuffing, he noted, soaked in blood. His brain, already in an altered state of consciousness, bathed in chemicals to which it was not accustomed, was struggling to piece the scene together when his eyes landed on the answer: the severed head of Buffy the Bison.

John Garfield let his mouth fall open, and he dropped to his knees. He felt his heart and soul turn black, and he began to gasp, unable to produce anything else.

“Daddy?”

The sound came from above him. A whimper, issued forth from the throat of his daughter as she crouched in the rafters of the old tin barn.

The chief and his crew arrived shortly thereafter. They, too, had found the trail of blood. When they showed up, John was still crying with his daughter, the two locked in the warmest of embraces.

She was injured, but not severely. After the wound on her arm was bandaged, the men gathered around to hear the short version of what had happened to her.

Little Kenzie had wandered a very long way in the dark of the night, turning around several times in her attempts to find the campsite. She’d ended up outside of the park, in an old barn that hadn’t been accessible by road for the better part of a century.

She’d fallen and cut her arm on the stone John found. There was enough blood to leave a trail, but not enough to bleed her out. About the time she laid eyes on the barn, she saw several wolves in the trees on the other side of the clearing, no doubt drawn to the scene by the scent of her blood and sound of her cries.

Kenzie and the beasts both ran for the barn, but Kenzie made it there first-- she’d been fifty yards closer to it, but only just beat the pack inside the door. They’d almost gotten her, but in a last, unthinking effort to save herself, she’d thrown Buffy the Bison at them. Buffy the Bison, who was soaked in Kenzie’s blood after being carried in the crook of her bleeding arm.

“The big one grabbed Buffy and shook him apart,” Kenzie told the group of men. “I was sad that he got torn up, but I knew he would protect me. I love him.”

While the wolves were busy murdering Buffy the Bison in cold blood, little Kenzie scrambled up the splintery ladder and found a spot in the rafters, far out of the beasts’ reach. After a few minutes, they’d lost interest, and moved on to find less clever prey.

The Garfields decided to leave Yellowstone early, their reserved campsite be damned. On the way home, traveling west, John looked in the rear-view at the smiling face of his daughter as she played with her brand new stuffed bison, Buffy Jr.

I’ll never let her out of my sight again, he thought, taking his wife’s hand and smiling to himself as they crossed the Idaho state line.