Rangers

by Chloe Garner

  She nodded.

  “Yeah, I can see that.”

  He looked back up at the sky.

  “You’re not as crazy as you normally are.”

  She lay back down, shifting after a moment so their shoulders touched again.

  “I’m actually not crazy at all,” she said. “Just kind of fractured.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “Too many voices in my head. Don’t always know which one is mine.”

  “Really?”

  She laughed.

  “Well, not literally, but yeah. You know the good and evil stuff we were talking about the other day?”

  “Yeah.”

  “I actually believe it.”

  “I don’t understand. That good and evil exist?”

  “That life is a test. Not like, angry God staring down, waiting for you to fail, but… every decision is important. Some are less important and some are more important, but there’s a more right and a more wrong and…” She rolled her head away. “I don’t know. I’m tired of it. Part of why I’m running. Too many opinions to consider to try to figure out which path is more right.”

  Sam was looking at the back of her head now, wondering what kind of chaos might go on in that mind.

  “Why not now?” he asked. She laughed.

  “Oh, I’ve got a dozen voices saying I shouldn’t be alone with a boy, I shouldn’t be out here in the middle of nowhere, I shouldn’t be chasing after a ghost - even if that is literal, not figurative - I should be doing more important things. No offense. But… They’re quiet. This is…” she rolled her head back to look up at the sky. “This is the quietest they’ve been in a long time. I’m second-guessing myself less than maybe I ever have.” She looked at him, her face close enough that he could count her eyelashes, see the various cracks in her lips from where she chewed them and they dried out. “You know?”

  He forced himself to look away. If he didn’t, he was going to kiss her, and he had no clue what she would do, even if she would think it was good or bad. Evil? He smiled at the sky. Surely she wouldn’t think a kiss was evil.

  “Yeah. I know.”

  He heard her turn her head.

  “You have voices telling you where else you should be?”

  “Sometimes. Not now.” He laughed. “Not usually, with Jason. He’s…”

  “Self-directed,” he said. Sam laughed.

  “I was going to say stubborn and over-confident, but sure. Self-directed is better.” He looked at her. “You sound like you’ve got some specific idea of what you’re supposed to be doing. We kinda don’t. We do the next job, as it comes up, and when we don’t have a job…” he shrugged, arching his back to stretch out the muscles and, without thinking, putting his hands behind his head. He nearly whacked her in the face. She sat up to let him settle, then lay back down with her head on his arm. He nearly lost his train of thought. “When we don’t have a job, there isn’t anything we’re supposed to be doing. We try to see the people that are important to us.”

  “Arthur and Doris?”

  “Above anyone else,” Sam said. “And their kids. I don’t know if Doris mentioned it, but they’ve got three kids that are like siblings to us. Jason grew up with them. I really didn’t know them until after our parents died, but Arthur and Doris raised us as their own.”

  “Are they Rangers, too?”

  “All three of them.”

  “How often do you get to see them?”

  “Couple times a year, maybe. We try, but… It’s a big country, and the Seekers have started sending some of us into Canada and Mexico.”

  “Do you mostly stay in the US?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Why?”

  He laughed.

  “Legal stuff. Harder for someone to bail us out if we get in trouble out of the country.”

  She nodded.

  “That actually makes a lot of sense.”

  “Did you think we’d do something that didn’t make sense?” He thought through the question only after he said it. He wasn’t sure what he had expected her to say to that.

  “No. There are just… Territory is funny, you know? People stay in certain areas for funny reasons.”

  “True.”

  “I was thinking you’d say that you stayed in the US because that’s just what you did.”

  “Probably what Jason would tell you.”

  She laughed.

  “He doesn’t need as much of a why as you do, does he?”

  “Never has.”

  “Dangerous,” she said. “And powerful.”

  He thought, watching the front edge of a large cloud as it began its path across the sky.

  “Yeah. I think you’re right.”

  “Did you look at the weather… at all?” Samantha asked.

  “I didn’t.”

  She snorted.

  “Yeah, neither did I.”

  “Why?”

  “I think we’re going to get a storm,” she said.

  “How can you tell?”

  “Barometric pressure is dropping.”

  He looked over at the top of her head.

  “And how can you tell that?”

  “I just got a headache.”

  <><><>

  They sat in the tent, cuddled up in blankets, laughing at the lightning and the thunder in the dark. She passed him a bag of candy and he took another handful then handed it back. He pulled out a flashlight and lit his watch.

  “It’s time,” he said. She laughed.

  “Is she really going to appreciate a rose in this weather?” she asked.

  “If it doesn’t work, we start the week over tomorrow,” Sam said. He couldn’t see her face in the dark; he could barely hear her over the wind, but he imagined her smile.

  “That wouldn’t be so bad,” she said. No. It wouldn’t. He swept the flashlight beam over to the cooler, where the roses were sitting in the silly little purple plastic vase, and he pulled one out.

  “I’m headed out,” he said. “Brace yourself.”

  Samantha shrieked laughter.

  “Wait, wait, wait. Let me get all of the blankets and… everything out of the way,” she said, pulling everything fabric away from the mouth of the tent. The fact that the whole thing was only about six feet from corner to corner made the effort futile, and Sam suspected they both knew it, but he stood, stooped almost double, at the tent flap, waiting for her to pile everything against the far wall.

  “Okay. I think… Well, that’s as good as it’s going to get,” she said. “Did you pack an umbrella?”

  He snorted.

  “Hardly.”

  He unzipped the flap, just the straight edge from the bottom to the beginning of the arch, and the wind blew in, rain spitting around the edges of the plastic. Samantha shrieked again, scrambling away.

  “Get out, get out,” she yelled at him, laughing and kicking at him. He crawled on hands and knees through the gap and zipped it back. “You have to know the secret knock when you come back, or I’m not letting you in,” she yelled after him.

  “I’m the one with the flashlight,” he answered, starting around the pond.

  “I’m the one with the food,” she yelled back. He grinned. Already he was drenched, and the storm had brought with it a draught of cold air that made his clothes sticking to his skin shockingly frigid. He pushed his hair out of his eyes, letting the rain plaster it to his head, and walked around the pond. Even knowing where he was going, it was disorienting. The water on his left was choppy and restless; the trees on his right creaked and moaned in the wind, and everywhere he pointed his flashlight, spitting water reflected back a scattered image like broken glass. Lightning struck somewhere nearby, the light and the crushing blast of sound almost simultaneous, and he reflexively knelt.

  He made it to the willow and pulled the rose out of his jacket, laying it on the downwind side of the stone where he had seen the Iara. For a moment, he thought about just throwing it out into the pond and sta
rting the count over tomorrow, but he didn’t actually consider it. It was his job to get Jason back and stop the Iara. It didn’t matter how much he was enjoying the time leading up to that, he wasn’t the sort of person to stall.

  He found a rock and put that over the rose stem to keep it from blowing away immediately, then he started back for the tent, the sharp the wind driving stinging rain into the other side of his face, now. He put his arm up, holding his jacket out to protect his face from the worst of it and, ducking, jogged back toward the tent. He found the zipper with the flashlight, but it didn’t move.

  “Who’s out there?” Samantha called.

  “The one with the light,” he answered.

  “You sound like you’re dripping wet,” she said.

  “What exactly does that sound like?” he asked.

  “Outside,” she answered. He laughed.

  “What do you expect me to do about it?”

  “How do you feel about leaving your clothes out there?” she asked. He paused.

  “Are you serious?”

  “You ever been in a tent this size with a pile of sopping wet clothes?” she asked. “By morning, everything is going to be damp, and anything on the ground is going to be wet.”

  He snorted and looked around. Which was pointless. There was nothing to see in the dark.

  “Well, don’t look,” he called. There was another lightning strike. He pulled his jacket off and found a tree limb to hang it over, then started on his shirt.

  “You still alive out there?” she called.

  “Missed me again,” he said, struggling to pull his shirt over his head. The cloth stuck to him everywhere. He peeled it inside out. His pants were going to be a pain.

  “Better be quick,” she said. “Much safer in here.”

  “Said the one who wouldn’t let me in.”

  He heard her laugh.

  “How long does it take you to strip?” she asked. He gave up and sat down on the ground, ignoring the squish as the moss and soil sponged water out into a pool underneath him, and pulled his shoes off then peeled his socks off and threw them over another tree limb. He worked out of his jeans then went back to the tent, shining the flashlight on it.

  “Don’t look,” he said again.

  “You’re the idiot with the light,” she answered. “I can’t see anything you don’t light up.”

  He flicked his hair out of his face again and, shaking himself, quickly unzipped the tent and dove in. She threw a blanket at him.

  “Invader, invader,” she yelled. “I should warn you that I’m armed.”

  “Oh, I’m properly terrified,” he said, using the blanket as a towel, first on his skin, then his hair, then the floor of the tent. “Where’s my bag?”

  “Behind the cooler,” she said. “Driest spot I could find.”

  He rifled through it, finding a new shirt and pants. He had to admit, he was kind of glad the wet clothes were all still outside.

  “You decent?” she asked.

  “Done,” he said, flipping on the flashlight again.

  “Mission accomplished?” she asked.

  “We’ll find out at the end of the week,” he said. He lay down on his side, tucking his knees most of the way up to his chest in an attempt to fit on his half of the tent. She handed him the bag of candy again. He shifted and bumped his head on the cooler.

  “There is too much stuff in here,” he said. She laughed.

  “Yup. Two-man tent. With all of our food and all of our clothes and… you. You don’t fit normally anywhere, do you?”

  “Jason makes fun of me that I have to special-order my shoes,” Sam said.

  “Do you?”

  “No.”

  “Sure,” she said. He laughed.

  “You regret that we aren’t back at the motel right now?” he asked. “Warm bed, no threat of waking up in an inch of water when the pond floods and the tent leaks?”

  She snorted.

  “No. Not really. You?”

  “No. Not really.”

  “Nice bed that you actually fit in? Really?”

  He laughed.

  “No. I’ll be okay.”

  She sighed.

  “I was kind of imagining falling asleep looking up at the stars tonight,” she said.

  “I expect I don’t get data out here,” he told her, “or else I’d look up the weather for tomorrow.”

  She yawned.

  “Yeah. Maybe tomorrow.”

  <><><>

  Sam woke up the next morning to find himself nose-to-nose with Samantha. She was still asleep. He smothered his first reaction to snap away, taking few breaths to get his heart rate back down, then eased away. The floor of the tent crackled and her eyes flew open. She jerked back, hitting her head on the cooler with a loud thump, and sprang to her feet, crouching in front of him. He got himself out of arm’s length, and they stared at each other.

  “Ouch,” she said, rubbing the back of her head. “Sorry.”

  “You okay?”

  “Fine.”

  He watched as she put the spike of a blade that had materialized from nowhere back away.

  “You operate on a pretty hair trigger there.”

  She was still rubbing her head.

  “I said I’m sorry.”

  The light in the tent was green and it wasn’t so much humid as just damp.

  “You feel like seeing if the rest of the world made it?” he asked.

  “I expect you’d like to stretch,” she said. He shrugged.

  “I’ve lost all feeling in my knees,” he said. She shook her head, pulling her fingers through tangled hair.

  “Yup. The tent definitely needs to breathe. Let’s see how much damage the storm did.”

  The unzipped the tent flap and Sam followed her out.

  “Wow,” he said.

  “I’d say we earned our tent-pitching merit badge,” Samantha said.

  “No, yeah, but… Wow.”

  “Yeah.”

  Debris in the form of bits of dead wood and leaves was strewn across the embankment down to the pond, and down the shore from them, a pine tree had gone down. Sam wondered how he had slept through that. What had first struck him, though, was the mist. A thin, ethereal mist rose off the surface of the pond, hovering in a cloud maybe six or seven feet high and spreading in twisting threads through the surrounding forest. Samantha squatted down next to the water, wrapping her arms around her knees.

  “Go to bed in the shire, wake up in a fairy wood,” she said. He nodded. It was magic. Just raw magic. Jason would have mistrusted it, but it wasn’t even remotely menacing. Sam could clearly see the tree tops above the mist, where the layer of colder and warmer air met. He found a flat stone a few feet away to sit on.

  They sat, quiet, as the sun rose and burnt the mist lower and lower, until the tree shadows no longer blocked the light and the pond and the surrounding grass reclaimed their happy, cozy feel.

  “You want to take a walk?” Samantha asked.

  “Yeah.”

  He stood and went to check on his clothes. One of his socks had gone missing.

  “Sam,” he called. She stood and joined him where he was looking down into his shoes.

  “Waterproof, huh?” she said. He picked one up and poured it out.

  “Pretty good rain we got last night,” he said.

  “You know, I hardly noticed.”

  He laughed. She looked around the woods there next to the tent.

  “We should make sure none of these look like they’ve shifted,” she said. “In case it rains again. Having a tree come down on you in the middle of the night sucks.”

  “You know how to do that?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Huh.”

  “You city boys,” she scolded. “You look for signs of disease, you avoid dead limbs, and after a hard rain, you look for signs the roots of the trees have shifted. I’ll want to look at the one down that way to see what happened.”

  They just looked l
ike trees to Sam. Pretty ones, sure, but… trees.

  “You hungry?” he asked.

  “I’ll take an apple,” she said. He darted into the tent and came out with an apple and a strip of beef jerky.

  “Breakfast of champions,” she commented. He chewed happily.

  Samantha set off through the woods, picking a seemingly arbitrary path through the trees. Sam checked his pocket to make sure he still had his GPS. She finished her apple and threw the core in a long arc through the trees.

  They went through different sections of forest, finding another pair of glorified ponds and a broad valley blooming with wildflowers. She sat down on an outcropping of rocks, glancing over at him. He sat below her, nearly at ground level, stretching his legs out in front of him and leaning back against another gray stone.

  “Does it feel strange to you,” she asked, “being directionless like this?”

  He tipped his head back to look up at her.

  “Maybe. Kinda. I’m used to not working.” He grinned, looking back over the valley. “Jason and I play hard. But I’m used to either working or not working. This is kind of in the middle and, yeah… it is kinda weird.”

  “What would you have done if she hadn’t taken Jason?”

  He shifted lower, finding a curve of the rock that supported his back like it was shaped for it. He closed his eyes and just felt himself breathe for a minute.

  “I guess we would have done exactly the same thing. It would have driven Jason crazy. He’d have been looking for something else to go after at the same time.”

  “Or he’d have gone home with some random girl and let you do it,” Samantha said. Sam laughed.

  “Kinda what he did, isn’t it?”

  “I guess so.”

  He felt his hair shift.

  “I like your hair,” she said. “Do you mind?”

  He shook his head. She pulled her fingers through it, making his scalp tingle. He closed his eyes again, then folded his arms across his chest for lack of a better place to put them.

  “You cut it yourself?” she asked.

  “When it gets stupid long,” he said. She laughed.

  “You ever wear it up?”

  “Used to. Jason called me a girl.”

  “And that convinced you not to?”