by Josi Russell
He looked into her eyes. For someone who disliked humanity as much as she did, for someone who had such good reasons to, that was a big thing for her to admit.
"Me neither," he murmured.
Involuntarily, they both glanced around. The Rangers stood together against the public. They had to. Disagreeing with the other Rangers would put Walt and Sylvia at odds with the only people they interacted with on a daily basis: at odds with their friends and neighbors and coworkers. Their eyes found each other again, and they felt the safety and kinship that had been drawing them together since the day they'd met.
"Well, we'll just have to keep an eye on him," Walt said. They sat facing each other as they had all these years. The third chair sat empty between them.
"How was your day off?" Sylvia asked.
"Good. I went down and watched the latest batch arrive."
"I wanted to come up and see them disembark, but we didn't finish the new trails in the village until just a little while ago."
Concern crossed Walt's face. "You shouldn't be hauling rocks. Are you sure you don't want me to talk to Karson?"
She shook her head, fear in her eyes. "I don't think he'll be as understanding as you think he will." They both knew that living in Yellowstone was a privilege, earned by the hard work and isolation of being a Ranger, and a chronic, terminal illness, if it meant she couldn’t work, would be grounds for dismissal.
"Of course, he will. You've been working here since he was born. He's not going to kick us out into the world because you're a little sick."
Sylvia put down her fork. "I'm not a little sick, Honey."
Walt reached for the tackle box where they kept Sylvia's medicines and felt his hand tremble, just for a second. He glanced quickly and saw that she had seen it, too. Ashamed, he steeled himself and looked her in the eye. "I know, Syl." He lifted the lid on the box and began to pull out bottles and hypodermics mechanically.
"They're going to find out." He said. "Even if you can, I—I can't hide it much longer."
"Honey. You know what it means when they find out."
Walt saw a chance, a little one. "So what if they do kick us out. Syl, we've had a great life here."
"Walt, don't—" she tried to stop him, but he went on.
"Maybe it's time we left. We could get you closer to treatment," Sylvia interrupted him by standing and walking to the window, agitated. "Sylvia, listen—"
She whirled. "No, Walt, you listen. I will not leave here. I will not go back out there. If it means I die, at least I die here. I don't want to—" Her voice splintered, and he moved to her as quickly as he could get around the table, "I will never go back."
As Walt enfolded her in his arms, he heard, as he had so many times, the echo of the first time she had said those words to him. It was at the very end of the Terrene War when the Consolidated Terrene Leadership had formed and subsequently erased the borders.
During the War, Sylvia had lost everyone—everyone—in her family. She had nearly died trying to protect her younger siblings in an attack and hadn’t been able to save them. Walt had met her when he came home from the war to what had been Kansas. By then, the Opening was a year or two old and Kansas had joined with several other Midwestern states and part of Old Canada to form the region of Harvest.
He’d met her in a café in July, where she was eating chocolate cake. He had stolen a bite, and she had stolen his heart. She’d been covering her war wounds well. He didn’t know all she had been through until weeks after their first meeting.
They were married and took advantage of the open borders to leave the flat fields of Harvest behind, along with her ghosts. They settled in the gorgeous woods of Cascadia, next to a little apple-growing town, and Walt worked to convince her that people were not the monsters she had seen. He told her that here they could be safe.
The first few months were beautiful, as they built a little cabin from the trees on the land. He made money by hunting on his land and selling meat to the locals.
But though the war was officially over, all those years of fighting and so much death in the world had permeated the landscape and the people. The food producing regions bickered among themselves and resisted the controlling hand of the Consolidated Terrene Leadership. The conflicts between Cascadia, Liberty, and Harvest began to encroach on Walt and Sylvia’s little Eden. One day, Sylvia made an offhanded comment in the local store about the price of bread back in Harvest and started a series of attacks meant to drive them from Cascadia.
Walt resisted. He met the Cascadians threat for threat, injustice for injustice. If they refused to sell him apples, he picked them himself and dumped a side of venison on their steps as payment. If they muttered names when he and Sylvia went to town, he matched their epithets with vigor. If they attacked, he retaliated.
He held her now, the shame of it flooding back over him. He had been so foolish. He had failed to see what his private war was doing to Sylvia. Her anxiety and fear of people grew. She stayed home when he went to town. She was home when the Cascadians finally crossed the line and torched the little cabin. He had landed their small spinner amidst the smoke when he returned from another ugly confrontation in town. The picture of it was still clear in his mind: their little house in flames, pieces of the curtains she had sewn turning into ash as they drifted off into the night air. The blaze was bright against the dark sky as it licked at the cedar shingles he had hewn from their own trees. The words: "Get Out Harvesters," had been marked across the front door.
“I will never come back here.” She had said. He remembered promising her that she would never have to.
They had fled society. They had enlisted in the Terrene Park Service the next day and had faced and fought eviction from the park twice since then. Once, when they'd found out Sean was coming and once about a decade ago when Walt had testified against Caldwell for shooting a man in cold blood.
"It's been nearly forty years," Walt said, trying to ease her terror, "maybe things out there have changed." She didn't say anything, so he went on. "Sylvia, when we've gone out to the doctor you've seen it. The towns are full of regular people. Things have calmed down.” He tried to pretend he hadn’t seen the news reports about tension escalating between the regions. “We could try again. And we could get you to a place with a bigger hospital, better treatments maybe."
She mumbled something into his chest, and he felt her strength ebbing as she sagged against him.
"What, Honey?" he asked.
Sylvia raised her head. She looked him in the eye, and he saw her deep weariness. But there was fire in her gaze as she spoke a single word, crisply: "Never."
13
Caldwell pulled into the Ranger housing after dark. The Bradleys' light was on, and it cast a yellow square out onto the parking lot through their window. He couldn't figure out why they didn't have blackout blinds on their windows like everyone else. There was no telling how many nocturnal species were having their rhythms interrupted by that square of light. He made a note to talk to Karson about it.
He tried to focus. He was picking up Allison for a drive, and he tried to push Walt and Sylvia and the Stracahn and this whole mess out of his mind. He had meant to ask Allison out for a long time, and he didn't want the only thing they talked about to be Ranger stuff. There was more to him than that.
As he climbed the stairs, he carried something he had gathered that morning. He had been hiking one of the clearings left by the early Rangers who used bulldozers to create firebreaks. Those bulldozers had scraped away the topsoil, so the firebreaks never healed. They ran like vicious scars across the mountainsides throughout Yellowstone.
This morning, while hiking one of those scars, he had found, in the middle of it, a single lodgepole pine cone. Caldwell wasn’t sure how it got there, but he knew its seeds had little chance of survival if he left it there.
This was a serotinous cone, sealed with a thick sap that served as an armor and an envelope. The seeds inside couldn’t compete with h
uge, already grown trees on a shady forest floor, so the cone remained sealed until a fire swept through the woods. The fire melted the sap, released the seeds, and cleared out the big trees so the new ones could grow. The burning was what cleansed the forest and allowed the new trees to take root and grow. Serotinous cones could remain sealed for half a century if necessary.
Inside his apartment, Caldwell laid the cone on the living room side table beside other treasures which he had gathered from the park. He privately called the little collection his shrine. The broken feather of a bald eagle, a hunk of glassy black stone from Obsidian Cliff, the broken horn of a bison, a stalk of dried fireweed blossoms. These things were his inspiration, the reason he was here, and the reason he did what he did. They were the reason that he would do what he had to do.
He had stared at them too long, though. Allison lived up at Canyon Village. That meant he only had about fifteen minutes before he needed to leave. He went into the bathroom and soaped a cloth, washing the sweat and grime from his face and beard. He pulled a tee shirt from his closet and a pair of thick boots from beside the door.
Just as he was reaching for his keys, a knock came on his door. Caldwell opened it expecting to see Walt or Sylvia. Instead, Damen stood there; his characteristic sneer made Caldwell feel sick.
Damen skipped the greetings. “You didn’t do what I told you to do.”
Caldwell glanced at his black pack next to the door. “It hasn’t come up yet. I’m working on it.”
“Listen, Justin. I have a huge job.” Damen shouldered past him and sat on his couch, feigning exhaustion. “I am in charge of six regions out there. I don’t have the luxury of locking myself away in a Global Park and hiking all day. I am busy. Today I have only five minutes of unscheduled time, and I’m spending them here talking about something I thought we had already discussed. But it’s not done yet. And I cannot do my job if you don’t do yours.”
“You wouldn’t even have that job if I decided to drop a note to the Leadership,” Caldwell made his words cold and sharp. “I think they’d be pretty interested to hear about dad’s line of work.”
Damen struck fast and hard, just as he’d been taught to do, and Caldwell stepped back, dodging the blow.
“Or I could just kill you,” Damen said.
“Go ahead. That’s the one way to ensure that they find out. I’ve got it all drawn out for them. If anything happens to me, your career is over.”
Damen’s face twitched, but he straightened the stretchy material of his comfort suit, regaining his composure quickly. “Well then, I have to bet on the fact that you won’t mention it because you know if you try, I’ll have you kicked out of here. Judging by the way you’ve been acting since I made my first appearance in your precious park, I don’t think you’re quite ready to face society.”
Eviction from the Park was the one thing Caldwell couldn’t bear. He curled his hands into fists and swallowed. “I’ll do it. I just need more time.”
“Well, you don’t have it.” Damen stood and paced around the room. He stopped in front of Caldwell’s little shrine and pushed at the broken horn disgustedly. “Important things are happening, Justin, and I just can’t wait around while you wander through the meadows picking wildflowers.”
Caldwell cringed to see him near those treasures. Damen had no idea of their significance, of the power—beyond him, beyond all of humanity—that those items represented. Yellowstone would obliterate Damen, in spite of all his arrogance, if he were left out in it. Caldwell relished the thought for a moment: his smug little brother facing the ravages of Yellowstone.
Damen snapped his fingers, breaking Caldwell’s daydream. Damen pulled a dark gray cylinder, about as long as the bison’s horn on the table, from his inside pocket. “Anyway, I brought you a present that will make your task easier.” He tossed the cylinder from hand to hand.
“What is it?” Caldwell asked.
“Neat weapon the Leadership dreamed up. It’s called a strobe. Don’t drop it, though, because it activates on contact. It will kill anything in a twenty-foot radius. And it covers its own tracks with a hot little cyanogen fire.”
“If it’s so easy to use, and covers itself so well, why don’t you use it on him?” Caldwell made his voice sound braver than he felt.
“Like I said. I have important things to do. I have to go to Sunset, in Cascadia, and meet with some of the leaders there. And I don’t have the access to Meir that you do. He’s your neighbor, Justin.”
He handed the cylinder to Caldwell. “Get rid of Meir, big brother, and when you do, take out as many of the Avowed as you can. There is only room for one leadership on this planet.”
“And when I do, you’ll get them out of here, right?” Caldwell said, searching Damen’s eyes for any trace of sincerity. As usual, they were glassy and reserved. Caldwell couldn’t tell what lay behind his brother’s gaze.
“That’s the plan.” Damen laid a hand on Caldwell’s shoulder and squeezed, just hard enough for Caldwell to squirm. “Just get it done, okay, Justin?” Damen didn’t say goodbye as he left.
Caldwell rolled the pain out of his shoulder as he stepped across the room to slide the bison horn and the fireweed flowers back into place. He went into his room and laid the cylinder on his nightstand, wondering when he might get close enough to Meir to use it without being seen by any other Rangers. He didn’t mind getting rid of Meir, but he hated not being allowed to do it his way.
It had always been this way, since their mother died, since the horrors of being on the run with their father. They had been pitted against each other all their lives, and they were each skilled at using the things the other loved for leverage. Someday he would be free of Damen, free of all of them. Someday he would find a way to keep them all away. He shook the dark thoughts from his head and rubbed his shoulder before grabbing the keys to his motorcycle.
Allison tossed him a wave as she came out of her apartment. His smile felt tight as she climbed on the bike behind him. She slipped on her safety collar, and they started off.
The road wound around the edge of the lake and the wind made her hair fly around them. The feeling of freedom drove Damen and the Stracahn from Caldwell’s mind. He slowed as he saw some large forms in the road ahead, and put his foot down as they stopped ten feet shy of a dozen bison crossing the road.
Allison squeezed his chest. "Aren't they amazing?"
He nodded. "Can you imagine that they were almost extinct once?"
"Shortsighted management," she said. The comment hung there, begging Caldwell to open up the conversation about what was happening in the park now. About how letting an alien species into the most pristine ecosystem on the planet could wipe out more than a single species. But Caldwell was weary. He didn’t want to fight right now. Instead, he switched the topic.
"Have you ever been to Inspiration Point on a full moon?" he asked.
He felt her shake her head.
"You're in for a treat, then." The last of the bison ambled off the pavement, and Caldwell fired the bike up again, focusing on the road and the night ahead.
14
Sol stretched his aching muscles. He’d been working at the park for over a week now, and every night was the same. He rushed from school to the park and then from the park to the ranch. He packed four hours’ worth of chores in two hours, and he was worn out. He hadn’t even seen his friends outside of school all week.
Now, the sun was sinking behind the mountains to the West, and he grimaced as he thought of the long day behind him. He had helped his mom with the garden, finished another day of school, and driven a third load of beef liver into the park. Liberty had donated cases of the stuff, and it had taken the drivers several days to get it all delivered. The cases were heavy, and Sol’s back was aching from the strain. He'd promised Juice he’d hang out, tonight, too.
He was finished with his chores, but if he didn’t get out of here before Uncle Carl got home from the field or his mom got home from town, he kne
w he’d have some more to do. He thought about jumping straight into the truck, but there was a good chance that he’d see Mezina tonight, so he went in and took the world’s fastest shower.
His hair was still wet when he came out. Sol felt the mountain chill on his neck as he closed the door silently behind him. Silver Lake, the shining body of water that gave the ranch its name, spread in front of him, and he stopped to watch a blue heron dip its bill. It was a calming place. He jumped when he heard his mom’s voice.
“Hey, handsome.”
“Sheesh, Mom.” She was sitting in the rocking chair on the porch. A magnificent quilt was on her lap. Its pieces looked like pinwheels in every shade of purple.
“Sorry I scared you,” she said, though she didn’t sound sorry.
“It’s okay. That thing is awesome.”
She beamed. Though she maintained that she only quilted to keep her suturing skills honed, Sol knew it was more than that. Her quilts were remarkable pieces of art. They lay on every bed in the house, and the linen closets were stuffed with them. She gave them to friends and people who needed them, too, and out of all of them, he couldn’t remember ever seeing two that were the same.
“Going into town?” she asked.
“Yeah. I’m picking Juice up.”
His mom was quiet for a moment, and when he glanced at her, he saw that she was looking at his banner.
“I wish you hadn’t done that—”
“Oh, mom,” he interrupted, “I know. But it’s just a—”
She held up a hand, and he went quiet. “You didn’t let me finish. I wanted to say that I wish you hadn’t done that, but since you did, I like what you chose.”
He looked down.
“Sometimes I feel like those eight years with Tim were all a dream.” She said. “It’s hard to remember why we made the decisions we did, why we tried to stay out in Shoreline and raise you. But they were the right decisions, Sol. I know it’s been hard not having started out here. I know you’re different than your friends.”