by Josi Russell
He debated briefly between the bags of dried morels and the fresh ones, but the trays were overflowing, and he thought the fresh tasted better than the dried, so he cut several bunches and headed back to the apartment, protecting his harvest from the bitter snow outside.
His face felt tight. He’d been out all day shoveling and patching Quickform roofs at the Old Faithful Village, and though it was a sunny day, the wind and blowing snow had been biting.
Sylvia scolded him when he came in. “Walt! Your face!”
He didn’t miss the opportunity to tease her. “You just now noticed? I’ve had it all these years!”
She laughed ruefully but laid a gentle hand on his cheek.
“You’re sunburned.” She said.
“Sunburned?” He glanced in the mirror by the door. “Huh.”
He hadn’t been sunburned in years. But this year he’d been inside more, with Sylvia sick, and then with Zyn’dri. His cheeks and forehead were certainly red.
“Well, at least I’m making some Vitamin D, right?”
The words were barely out of his mouth when he grabbed for Sylvia’s arm. His mind was flying through possibilities, reaching back into the past.
She looked startled. “Walt? What is it?”
“Syl. Remember that Ranger that was here a few years ago? When Caldwell was in his no meat phase? Remember? He tried to convince her to go live wild with him; only she had that deficiency, and she kept getting sick?”
Sylvia was nodding, but her eyes held confusion. “Gilette. I remember. She told me he wanted to go completely back to nature, go live in the backcountry.”
“Wasn’t it Vitamin D that she lacked?”
“I think so.” She ran a hand over his forehead, and Walt realized he must seem fevered. His mind was working so quickly, and he couldn’t quite articulate what he was thinking.
“Honey, do you remember that she got really ill? Really weak? All the Rangers took a shift, and we had to check her Vitamin D blood levels several times a day. Remember?”
“I remember you were squeamish about it. And that you brought her catfish all the time.” Sylvia said. “Where are you going with this?”
“Yes! She loved catfish! And the medical guy said that it probably was because it is one of the best sources of Vitamin D.”
Walt glanced across the room. Zyn’dri was washing the morels, the purple sheen bouncing back to him from her cheeks and her lovely dark hands.
“Laska’s diaries talk about how he had to wear a special sunscreen because the sun that shone on Empyriad was so close and so direct. That’s why the Stracahn have that iridescence.” He gestured toward the little girl. “Look at her skin. We make Vitamin D when our skin is exposed to sunlight. But here, the Stracahn’s iridescence has got to be blocking most all the UVB rays that would get in and—if her body makes that vitamin like ours—stimulate that production. What if she’s not making enough Vitamin D?”
A light crept into Sylvia’s eyes. “The catfish. That’s why she’s feeling so much better?”
Walt walked over to Zyn’dri. He picked up one of the meaty morels and held it up. “And I don’t know, but I’d be willing to bet that these are full of Vitamin D, too.”
Walt got on the radio and tried to hail Karson. Maybe he could get hold of the CDC and have them check for it. But it was almost dinnertime and Tillie, the communications Ranger who ran the main office, couldn’t locate him.
Zyn’dri noticed his agitation. “What is it?” she asked.
“I think that we need to get some special supplements for your people.” He tried to explain, “to help them not feel so sick.”
“Let’s get them!” Zyn’dri headed to the door.
“Hold on,” Walt called.
“We’ve got to go help them.”
“Well, Sweetie, we don’t have the supplements yet,” Sylvia explained.
“What did you give to me?” She asked pointedly. “It worked great.”
“Well,” Walt said, “we think it may have been the morels. And maybe the catfish.”
“Let’s get them catfish!” she said excitedly. Walt wondered if she was hoping for a bit more herself.
He thought about that a moment. Who knew how long the CDC would take to come back with results. What if something as simple as mushrooms would help them? He thought of the shed. It did have a huge crop, but he wondered if it would be enough. There were a lot of Stracahn, and if Zyn’dri was any indication, they could eat a lot of morels.
Walt reached for his radio.
“Tillie, put me through to Sanchez.” He said. He waited.
“This is Sanchez.”
“Hey, it’s Walt.” He took a few minutes to explain his theory to the medical specialist. Sanchez thought it sounded plausible, but he didn’t have many Vitamin D supplements on hand.
“Could we do it with food?” Walt asked. “Zyn’dri responded to catfish and morels.”
“Right.” Sanchez said, “let me check something.” There was a long pause. “What’re the chances of getting more catfish?”
Walt sighed. He’d been mulling that over himself. “Everything’s iced. We could get some. I’ve caught some nice ones in the winter before, but we’re not going to have anywhere near enough.”
Sanchez was quiet again. “How are we on bison meat?”
“We’re good. Still plenty. Why?”
“Well, it’s a pretty good source of Vitamin D. I wish we kept more liver on hand, though. That’s full of it.”
“Wait, what?” Walt was remembering.
“Liver. It’s full of Vitamin D.”
Walt gestured to Sylvia and Zyn’dri to get their coats on. He knew where to find plenty of that.
The air in the dining hut smelled thick and heavy. Walt watched as Zyn’dri looked at a dark slab of meat on her plate. All around her, the Stracahn were consuming this new meat like wolves at a kill. He watched her take a piece of it on her fork and turn it around. It was burgundy-colored and thick. She put the fork in her mouth.
Walt took a bite, too. It had a juicy, savory flavor. Zyn’dri glanced up at him, surprised.
“It’s not as bad as I thought,” she said, and Walt smiled at her.
Zyn’dri took another bite.
Karson approached, wearing a tee-shirt under his coat instead of his button-up uniform shirt.
“I see you changed the menu.” He said to Walt, irritation evident in his voice.
“Sorry. I couldn’t get ahold of you.”
“Because I was off. I’m not on duty every minute, you know.”
“Look,” Walt said, “None of the Rangers wanted to cook this stuff. It’s been frozen in there since the Stracahn came. By using it, we’ve made a little dent in the storage, and maybe it will help them. It’s good for everyone.”
Karson looked at him, long and hard. Walt saw him glance at Zyn’dri, who was shoveling the liver into her mouth now with no sign of aversion.
“Well, I guess we’ll see how they respond,” Karson said finally.
When the CDC reports came back, nearly a month later, the Vitamin D deficiency was apparent. But the Stracahn, by then, had mostly recovered. Their pain and fatigue had eased, and Sanchez had rigged up two sun-huts, one at each village, for them. He had raided the storage and found sunlamps from the old Mammoth greenhouse. Walt remembered bringing them down fifteen years ago, just before the park service determined the road to Mammoth was causing too much erosion, and they took it out.
The sun-huts were bright and cheery, and Walt tried to get Zyn’dri there as often as he could. He didn’t want to risk her getting sick again. She was beginning to mean a lot to him.
***
Spring came to Yellowstone as it always did, with a wash of mud and an explosion of romance. The birds began to pair off with mates, and Walt knew that warmer days were just ahead. One morning he woke to the sound of laughter in the apartment. He was disoriented for a moment before he rolled out and stumbled to the kitchen.
/> Golden light streamed through the window and enveloped them in morning rays. Zyn'dri, just tall enough to work on the kitchen counter, was squeezing blackberries in a manual juicer. She smiled up at Sylvia, and Walt saw her pride in the accomplishment. As soon as she got just enough juice to cover the bottom of the glass below the juicer, Zyn’dri put it quickly to her lips, slurping it noisily and closing her eyes. "Let's do more!" she said, and Sylvia's crystal laugh splashed through the air. Walt felt his heart catch. He hadn't heard that in so long.
He stood there blinking. They didn't see him.
This place had been just the two of them for so long. When they left society to come and live in the park, they had known that it would break all but the closest ties they had. There had been those few bright years when Sean ran and chattered here. But the years since then had been a long stretch of quiet.
And, after the wound of Sean's loss had become a smooth scar, only remembered, they had been happy again. But Walt hadn't realized until this moment that their happiness was an empty shell: beautiful, but not complete.
He hadn’t been able to love the child fully until this. This moment. As the girl concentrated on placing each berry in the juicer, as she squeezed and slurped and delighted in the tiresome task of juicing, he found the wonder he had felt when Sean was born. He felt it fresh and new and complete.
And suddenly, he saw Sean dancing through this same kitchen. He saw him reaching up to the counter. He saw him standing beside Sylvia, looking up. And Sean was smiling.
Sylvia leaned down to take a crock from the lower cupboard and Walt saw again that something else remarkable was happening. It wasn't possible, but it was true. They had seen it over the last few months since Zyn'dri came to live with them: a slowing of the progression of Sylvia's disease. At first, they had counted it as wishful thinking, or the power of newfound purpose. But then the doctors in Sunset had confirmed it. She wasn't healing, but the disease was progressing at a much slower rate.
And now, all Walt wanted was to be with them, to be near them, to absorb some of that light that radiated from them.
39
Sol rolled out of bed and leaped up, pinning himself against the far wall, reeling. His head spun. It took him a moment to focus on the still form of his mom, standing in the doorway.
She was repeating something in a soft voice. "It's all right, Sol." She said, "You're home."
He breathed long and deep, trying to calm himself. He was home. He was safe. The rough walls of the cell were gone. The morning sun filled his bedroom with light. Even so, the nightmares had gotten worse these last two weeks since he’d been home. And even when he was awake he couldn’t stop thinking of the explosion and the cell walls closing in around him.
Six months he had been locked up. And two more he’d been recuperating here at the ranch. He had missed culling the herd and selling the calves. He had missed the Autumn Ball, which he found out Mezina attended with Kade, and he had missed New Years’ and the February Freedom Festival. The Rangers had, for the second time in his life, taken something he couldn’t get back.
And more than that, they had changed him. Finally, last night, Juice had convinced him to go skimming. Sol had thought it would feel like before. Mezina was trying to talk herself into trying it, and she had taken Sol’s hand.
“Come on, Sol.” Mezina’s voice had been alluring. “I want you to be with me for my first time.”
Sol had looked at her. He had looked at the skimmer, sitting solidly on the ground. He had looked at his friends stretched out in the back, gripping the cargo bar and grinning at him as if the last eight months hadn’t changed the whole world.
But they had. What was the thrill in risking a fall when he’d been moments away from a lethal injection? Who needed the buzz of the drop when he had felt the force of eight explosive packs? He felt old and weary.
There was another new feeling in Sol. He recognized it because Uncle Carl had borne it with him for as long as Sol could remember. It was hatred. He wanted to extract those months, and more, his innocence, from the Rangers and the Cascadians and anyone else who had taken them from him. He hadn’t hated the Rangers when he went into the park, but he hated them now.
The anger scared Sol, but it also made him feel less helpless. All that time in prison he had tried to convince people, sought to get them, through begging or shouting or insisting, to believe that he had not done anything wrong. But they had the power to keep him there. They had caged him and degraded him, and there had been nothing he could do to stop them.
He had left the party last night, and now, as he looked at his mom standing anxious and guarded in the morning light, he knew what he wanted to do.
***
Uncle Carl took him directly to the armory, where he was greeted with enthusiasm. In under an hour, Sol was committed to the Liberty Milguard. He was assigned to Tavish’s unit, and the sandy-haired giant handed him a weapon and a duffle with his uniforms and armor in it.
The armor was more comfortable than Sol had imagined. It was lighter and more flexible than even the leather chaps he wore when he was working cows. He looked in the mirror. The ribbed alloy panels made him look bulkier than he was, and they made him feel stronger. He liked how dark they were, how his skin and hair and eyes seemed part of his armor. He liked that no one would see him in the dark. The Cascadians and Rangers would never see him coming.
He pulled the helmet on and fixed the clasp on the side. He felt his breath bouncing back from the faceplate. He heard the sound of it. Looking through the thick faceplate, he felt briefly disoriented. Sol waited until his head and neck had adjusted to the new weight before he left the locker room and made his way to the inspection station Tavish had pointed out.
Tavish, Juice, and Uncle Carl met him there. He glanced at his uncle and suddenly knew what Juice had meant about his father being different when they were out here.
Uncle Carl’s eyes were open wider than usual, and he was smiling. It was as if he was seeing Sol for the first time.
Sol smiled back at him, a new confidence surging in him. Why had he fought so hard against this? It seemed to him, at that moment, an entirely natural direction for his life to take.
“Aright, not bad.” Tavish said, “First of all, keep that barrel pointed to the ground or at an enemy. Nowhere else.”
Sol hadn’t realized he was holding his convulsion gun directly at Juice.
His friend spoke up. “Yeah. You don’t want to shoot somebody with that.”
“It’s bad?” Sol asked.
“The rule is, no shooting anyone on base unless they’re fully armored,” Tavish sidestepped the question. He indicated the dial on the side of the gun. “Guns stay turned down to three for training, but it would still sting pretty bad. Especially if someone wasn’t armored.” He must have detected Sol’s discomfort, because his voice was encouraging when he said, “Don’t worry. If you do get hit, your uniform will absorb the impact and ease the convulsion,” he said.
“Tavish?” Sol started.
Uncle Carl corrected him. “When you’re here, you’ll call him Sergeant.” He said sternly. “We don’t have a lot of rules, but rank is one you need to understand. You’re at rank one, so you’re a soldier or a noob. Rank two are specialists. You’ll refer to them by their specialty, like Arms Specialist Hastings here.” He gestured to Juice. “Rank three is Expert rank. Rank four is Sergeant Rank. Rank five is Commander Rank. You’ll call me Commander as long as we’re at the armory.”
Sol nodded. “Yes, sir.” He tried it out. “Sergeant, what happens if you don’t have a uniform? And the gun is turned up higher?” Sol asked though he thought he knew.
Tavish chuckled, “What if you’re a Cascadian, you mean?” He held a hand up to his head and made a slicing motion. “Kkkkkcct.” He said. “Nearly instant death.” Sol didn’t speak again as the young sergeant continued checking his uniform.
“Your GO ring is under the strap of your holster. Get it out.”
>
Sol blinked. He looked down at his armor. GO ring? He ran his fingers along the shoulder strap and found a circular piece of metal on the left side of his chest. It took him a moment to readjust his gun to hang on his left and free the ring.
“Always check that. It should hang loose and free. You should be able to get to it at any time.”
Sol wanted to ask what it was, but he didn’t want to look stupid.
Juice must have seen the question in his eyes. “We call it the ‘game over’ ring. GO ring.”
Nevermind looking stupid. “What does it do?”
Tavish and Juice exchanged a look. They hesitated, and the ensuing silence made Sol nervous.
Uncle Carl stepped up. “It takes out everyone around it.” He caught Sol’s eye, and there was a serious light in his gaze. “Everyone. Including the wearer. Don’t use it unless you think that your situation is worse than death.”
Suicide ring. Sol thought, and for the first time since the courtroom, he felt the sharp edge of his own mortality. He had an urge to take the suit off immediately.
“Don’t worry,” Tavish said, “It’s not armed during training. That wouldn’t be a good idea.” He and Juice laughed, but the sound was short and tense.
Uncle Carl must have seen that they were uneasy. “Don’t worry about that right now,” he said, glancing up toward the distant hills. “We’ve got to get him on the field. We’ll do some training with the GO ring later. Sergeant Tavish, finish turning him out.”
They went over the rest of his armor, tweaking things here and there, tightening his chinstrap, checking his gun. When they were finished, Tavish nodded. “You’re ready to go.”
Sol had been saving up a question. “I know about the initiative,” he said. “When do we pull that off?”
Uncle Carl looked surprised, but nodded. “I don’t know where you heard about that, but you should know that it isn’t a priority anymore. Since—” he stopped and cleared his throat, “the Rangers sealed the gate, we are less concerned about infiltration from the Leadership and more focused on defending against threats from Cascadia and Harvest. You’ll be training for actual combat, not covert operations.”