Have You Seen Me?

A family of bronzed, golden-haired Californians (mother, father, son and daughter) in a white Ford Expedition, a silver-bullet Airstream trailer in tow, rolled to a stop at the contact station in Grand Crater National Park.  The ranger in the wooden booth, a young woman in a forest-green jacket, her auburn hair tucked up under her Smokey-the-Bear hat, took the tourists’ money, handed the mother a map, and explained the rules and regulations governing the park.  The family was looking for the campground, and the ranger pointed back to the entrance, which the visitors had missed, then watched as the father maneuvered the SUV and trailer through a U-turn in the visitor center parking lot and back to the campground road.  The young boy in the back of the Expedition gave the ranger the finger as the vehicle passed her again.

She was waiting for the next carload of animals to drive up when George, her grey-haired co-worker, poked his head into the window with a message.  “The super wants to see you right away, Karen,” he said, his voice soft with concern.  “I’ll hold down the fort.”

As Karen walked to her green Wrangler, parked behind the visitor center, a knot cinched her stomach.  She knew what the super would say.  It had to do with the family she had offended several days ago, a family very much like the one she had just dealt with: a mother, father, and two kids.  The father had promised to contact Karen’s supervisor.  How had they expected her to react to the two unruly hound dogs braying in the back of the Chevy Suburban?

 “Pets are only allowed in the parking lot here at the park,” she had said, “and they must be leashed at all times.”

“Right,” the father said, “but there must be someplace we can let them run loose.”

“There are wild animals that live in this park.  When dogs run free they mark the area, forcing the others out.  We don’t want that to happen here.  If you can’t stand the thought of leashing your dogs, leave them at home next time.”

“I resent being talked to like that,” the father said.  “We know all about environmentalism.  This is a Green family.”

“Apparently not Green enough.”

“Your supervisor will hear about this,” the father had said, turning the vehicle around at the visitor center, and driving out of the park.

Karen’s breathing grew ragged after the confrontation.  A Green family—what a joke.  True environmentalists know all about domestic dogs and wild animals.

 Now, as Karen drove the loop road on the eighteen-mile trip to the superintendent’s office at Tukopi she couldn’t enjoy the early June morning, the temperature a cool fifty degrees, horsetail clouds in a powder blue sky, the shadows of pine trees as straight as ink lines across the volcanic sand.  As she dropped out of the high country toward the orange and red rock of Desierto Pintado she remembered the two previous incidents that had landed her in trouble.  First, there had been that little blonde girl at the campground, the one who had filled a toilet bowl with black cinder stones to see if they would float.  Karen couldn’t believe the little girl’s stupidity.  “Who do you think is going to take all those rocks out of there?” Karen said.  “I ought to make you do it.”

The girl was stunned speechless by the bluntness of Karen’s statement, her mouth quivering until she burst out crying, tears running down her face like raindrops before a storm.  The girl, a startled squirrel, bolted out of the restroom.  A moment later, Karen saw her standing with her parents, pointing back at the “mean” ranger.  The parents made an indignant departure in their grey van, driving to the visitor center to report her behavior to Superintendent Rusk.  That little fiasco resulted in her first reprimand.

Karen could remember the conversation in the super’s office as if it had been recorded.  Rusk said, “Our job is to accommodate people, Karen, not punish them.  You were out of line with that little girl.”

“Is it too much to ask people to act responsibly?”

“She’s a kid.  Kids are irresponsible.”

“I was talking about the parents, Sir.”

“Perhaps you should have approached them, then, see what suggestions they might offer about dealing with the problem.”

“Perhaps so, Sir.”

 After that incident, she had been transferred from campground duty to the pueblo, where she gave evening talks around a campfire in the amphitheater.  That had been her favorite job.  The nights there were magical.  The Milky Way’s river of stars snaking across a charcoal sky.  Coyotes singing in the distance.  The fire making bright-colored masks of people’s faces, their silhouette shadows dancing against the dark walls of the ruins.  It was as if everyone had ridden a time machine into the past, the mystery made more vivid by the words Karen spoke, the names of the ancient ones: Sinagua and Anasazi and Cohonina.

One night two adult men, frat boys at a bonfire, started making cracks about the impoverished lifestyle of the Native Americans, suggesting the people of the pueblo would readily have abandoned their “natural existence” for the comforts of modern civilization.

Karen let several comments slip by before saying, “Native Americans were richer than us in many ways.”

“Name one,” the stockier man said.  The other man barely stifled a laugh.

“Their cultures didn’t tolerate jerks like you,” Karen said.

The men were immediately irate, and, apparently, drove straight to the superintendent’s office the next morning to lodge a complaint.  Later, when Karen stood in front of his desk, Superintendent Rusk read a sentence from the men’s written complaint: “An otherwise perfect night was ruined by the ranger’s rude comment.”  When Karen tried to explain, Rusk said, “People, Karen, people—our job is to serve people.”

As far as Karen was concerned, however, there was only one thing that kept hers from being the perfect job: people.

It was having to deal with difficult people that caused her friend, Petra, to quit her job here at the park.  Petra was one of the best rangers—courteous, friendly, helpful—but ultimately she just got fed up with the constant complaints from overly critical visitors, and when an IT position for which she was qualified opened in San Diego she applied for and got the job.  She was gone two weeks later.

During the drive to the superintendent’s office at Tukopi Karen recalled a conversation she’d had with Petra when they were both on campground duty together.  They were standing on a hill not far from one of the bathrooms looking down at a swarm of people.  Petra, who’d been at the park several years before Karen showed up, said, “Just look at them.  They’re no different than the animals of the forest.”

“How do you mean?”

“See that woman with the black hair bun and dark blue blouse down by the red tent?  She’s just like a Steller’s Jay.  Watch her.  She’s hopping around from one side of her campsite to the other, squawking at her kids, hawking over their belongings as if somebody might steal something at any moment.”

“I guess I see that.”

Petra said, “Check out those four guys sitting in identical lawn chairs in front of the black tent.  Campground coyotes.  When the moon rises late tonight they’ll still be sitting around the fire, drinking illicit alcohol, rehashing stale jokes, howling at punch lines.  If you walk over and tell them to keep the noise down they’ll be sheepish, astonished to learn they’ve been making a ruckus.  Ten minutes later they’ll be at it again.”

“Funny,” Karen said, looking around the campground for other candidates for typecasting.  Spotting a portly couple, a man and woman sitting at a picnic table with their lunch spread out before themselves, she said, “What about those two—what are they?”

“Black bears,” Petra said without hesitating.  “Their sole interest is the consumption of food.  They roam the grounds at all hours, their mouths stuffed with gorp, baked potatoes, hard-boiled eggs, anything, in short, to keep their mouths full.  A fatal mistake other campers make is being friendly to the bears, who then invite themselves into their campsite, ask about the food they’ve brought along, and outstay their welcome.”

“How do you come up with this stuff?”

“Too much time on my hands.”

Into the spirit of the name game now, Karen pointed to a group of campers—no less than six—who were all standing in front of a family sized forest-green tent.  “What about that group?”

“I’m surprised you can’t ID them.  Clearly deer.”

“Deer?”

 “What do you see?  A group standing there, not a chair in sight.  They got here an hour ago and haven’t unpacked anything.  Check out how timid they are, nibbling at snacks, eyes always on the alert, never fully able to relax among the other animals.  Any small disturbance will spook them.  Hell, I wouldn’t be surprised if they collapsed their tent, jammed it into the back of their SUV and drove right out of the campground without spending the night.”

“Oh my god,” Karen said, laughing.

Petra laughed, too.

Karen said, “I really wish you weren’t leaving.  This place won’t be the same without you.”

Now, as she drove up the service road behind the visitor center at Tukopi, she wondered which animal she was.  Perhaps a mountain lion—shy and solitary, but dangerous when provoked.  Or maybe a badger, defensive about the tiniest threat, ready to dig in and fight over her territory.  More likely, though, she was a dove: shy, sensitive and flighty, afraid of all other animals.

Behind the visitor center, Karen parked her Jeep in front of the narrow walk that led to the office.  Rusk had made it more than clear what would happen to her in the event of another incident, and he was a man of his word.  She didn’t resent him for what he had to do, she just wished she could find the words to defend herself when asked for an explanation.  The trouble, of course, was nothing could be said in her defense.  In front of his door she hesitated, took a deep breath, and knocked.

Dale Rusk was sitting at his desk when Karen entered, finishing a last swallow of black coffee from an evergreen mug.  He gestured with his raised eyebrows for Karen to sit in the brown cloth chair in front of him.  Rusk was a man in his early fifties, a rugged sculpted jaw beneath a stubborn five-o’clock shadow.  The furrow between his eyebrows was deep, scar-like.  When Karen sat, he picked up a manila folder from the top of his desk and held it in front of him as if he were weighing the cardboard.  “I’ve got a letter here from a Nevada man who says his family decided not to stay at the park after an encounter with a woman ranger at the contact station.  I’d like to hear your version of the incident.”

Karen went through the whole story as carefully as possible, making sure to explain it without excuses for her gruff behavior.

After he had listened attentively to everything she said, nodding at appropriate intervals, Rusk said, “I’ve reminded you repeatedly that our job description outlines the importance of public relations.  So I think you’ll agree, Karen, we’ve reached the point where something must be done.”

She knew him well enough to know he expected no response.

He stared at her for a moment, biting his upper lip as if he hated to speak.  Then he set the manila folder down on his desk.  “I’m going to suspend you for two weeks,” he said, “effective tomorrow morning.  Perhaps that will give you time to think about your situation.”  When Karen remained silent for an awkward moment, Rusk said, “Is there anything you want to say?”

There was a lot she wanted to say, but she said, “No, Sir.”

Rusk looked at the watch on his left wrist.  “I apologize for having to rush this along, Karen, but I’ve got another appointment in a few minutes.”

She stood.  Before she left the office, Rusk said, “Give yourself the full time off before making any decisions.  Will you do that?”

“Yes, Sir.”

 

When Karen left Tukopi, she drove down the two-and-a-half-mile road to the small ruin at Wukondo.  Even though it was still early, she was surprised to find the parking lot empty.  Glad to be alone, the solitude gave her a chance to think about what had just happened.  Rusk hadn’t wasted any time, suspending her and then dismissing her abruptly—an indication of how much he valued her.

Wukondo looked especially fine this morning.  The sun hung low in the sky, making strong, dark shadows on the pueblo.  She walked around inspecting the stone walls, peering through open windows, marveling for the hundredth time at the handiwork.  While she stood gazing into one of the ancient rooms, an image of herself as a Native American came to mind.  She pictured herself grinding corn on a metate, smiling peacefully, blissfully content living in a simpler society.  In the same instant she realized she’d never have been happy, suffocated by other people in an overcrowded pueblo.

The sound of car tires whining down the long stretch of asphalt road brought her back to reality.  On her way to the parking lot, a freckle-faced teenaged boy with thick wire-rim glasses, an expensive digital camera hanging around his bony neck, rushed by.  At the head of the winding sidewalk that led down to the ruin, his mother appeared, a large round woman wearing a red flannel shirt and jeans.  She had a trumpet voice.  “Slow down, Dwight,” she blasted, looking back at her husband for support, disdain for her spouse evident on her face.  The man, seeing Karen, said nothing.  There was that quality about the husband, Karen thought, an obvious timidity, though he was as large as a bull elk.  Both parents nodded at Karen as they passed.  “Good morning,” Karen said.

 

At the contact station, things had picked up, and George was too busy dealing with tourists to ask what had happened with Rusk.  Karen was grateful for the heavy traffic because she knew her voice would quaver explaining the scene at the super’s office, and hearing herself sound weak always provoked self-loathing.  Later, by the time the morning rush had slowed, she was able to tell George about her suspension as if it was something that had happened to someone else.

George was one of the sweetest rangers in the park, an old-timer who would be retiring in less than a year.  Just looking at him always made Karen feel better, his leathery, sun-tanned face, his smiling blue eyes.  Karen always got along with George, and she knew he meant well when he said, “You want me to talk to Dale?  He and I go way back.”

“What would you say?”

“That two weeks is too long a suspension for someone who cares about this place as much as you.”

Karen tried to smile stoically.  “It’s probably for the best.  It made me realize I’ve obviously been working the wrong job all this time.  It’ll give me a chance to look for something else.”

“You don’t mean that.  You’re meant to work here.”

“If only I could handle tourists like you do.”

“It took more years than you might imagine for me to learn how.  Give yourself time.”

 Karen remembered the conversation she’d had with George after her second reprimand, when she was flirting with the idea of moving to California.  He told her then that he’d thought about quitting plenty of times.  When she asked what made him stay, he said, “Oh, lots of things.  I was too lazy to find another job, for one thing, and I always loved working out-of-doors.  Guess it was a combination of things.”  His words didn’t inspire, but what had she expected, a revelation, pearls of wisdom to live by?

Now, as they stood staring down the long curve of road leading out of the park, George grew silent, as if, for him, the issue had been resolved.  When he reached his bear paw up to scratch the crown of his white head, she understood she could never be disappointed in him.

The influx of tourists through the gate kept the rangers so busy they had to take turns eating lunch.  Karen went first, requiring only fifteen minutes because she had little appetite.  George took a bit more than half an hour, sitting in the wooden chair with his feet up on the counter, sipping strong-smelling coffee from a beige thermos cup, eating a ham sandwich he had made for himself.  His wife had died last year.

While he ate, he talked about his wife, Dinah, how he could never make sandwiches like hers.  He talked about what a good person she was, and what a good relationship they’d had.  At any other time Karen would have been receptive to George’s reminiscences.  He surprised her a moment later, saying, “If we’d have had kids, Dinah would have wanted a daughter just like you.”

 “I’d have been a disappointment.”

“Are you kidding?  There aren’t many people as kind as you, kiddo.  You just don’t know it yet.”

“I know I don’t practice the Golden Rule when other people can’t even be polite.”

Right before knock-off, the phone rang and George answered it, nodding into the apparatus as if he could see the person on the other end.  A co-worker in the visitor center needed to talk to him in person, and George left in a hurry without saying goodbye.  Karen didn’t have time to think about it, though, because her relief, a young ranger named Dave Coleman, showed up to replace her in the booth.

Later, on the way home, she turned her Jeep on impulse up the dirt road that led to Pumice Peak.  Not far off the main road was one of her favorite places, a small mountain above the campground that overlooked the Hermoso Lava Flow.  She parked at the side of the road and stepped out to survey the country.  Her abdomen felt hollow, a sensation brought on by a strange nostalgia, as if she already had been gone from this place for years, and had just returned as a visitor.  She stood gazing at Huberts Peak, one of her favorite sights.  A sprinkling of powdered-sugar snow dusted the very crest.

Was she actually considering leaving this place for good?  Staying meant finding a way to deal with people no matter how they treated the park.  There had been plenty of good experiences with good people who thoroughly enjoyed the place.  Why did the negative experiences seem to carry the greater weight?  Couldn’t she focus on the positive, overlook everything else?  She could use the two-week suspension like a vacation, from which she’d return refreshed and recharged, sporting a new attitude about her job.  She was about to leave, picturing her cozy little home on a quiet street.  But that image made her think of the vacant house next door, which immediately brought to mind the incident with her previous neighbor, Janet.

 

She’d gone home for lunch that day to see if her income tax refund had come in the mail.  The check wasn’t there, but something else caught her attention: one of those cards the letter carrier delivered weekly now, the headline “Have You Seen Me?” above a photo of a missing kid.  Normally, Karen barely glanced at these pictures, but this card carried an image of a missing girl who looked very much like Janet’s daughter, Loretta.  The information below the girl’s picture identified her as Jennifer Jocelyn Leonard, missing for two years from Lewiston, Idaho, last seen with her mother, Callie Lee Leonard.

Karen’s first impulse had been to call the 1-800 number listed on the bottom of the card, but she didn’t.  After all, in the short time Janet had lived there, she’d been a good neighbor, quiet, but friendly.  Karen was in a bind.  As an officer of the law she was required to follow the rules, but strict adherence to rules often created more harm than good.  The longer she waited to act, the more indecisive she became, until finally, about a week later, card in hand, she approached Janet across the side yard wall.  Janet had just washed clothes and was hanging them on the line to dry.  When she saw the photograph of her daughter, Janet’s normally warm smile disappeared.  She immediately invited Karen over for a cup of coffee and an explanation.

Her ex-husband, Danny, a child-abusing drunk, had filed for custody of their daughter.  According to Janet, he had already abused Loretta sexually.  So when the court awarded Danny custody, Janet had taken the kid and run.  “Please don’t turn us in, Karen,” Janet begged.  “Would you want child abuse—incest—hanging over your head?”

Janet’s story had been so convincing Karen promised to say nothing.  And she hadn’t.  A few months later, though, cops showed up next door to take Janet and her daughter into custody.  Karen had just got home from work when she heard the commotion, and she ran outside to see if she could intervene.  But Janet, seeing her, screamed insanely: “You dirty bitch.  You filthy lying bitch.”  The mask of hatred on Janet’s face stopped Karen from saying anything.

A few days later, the local newspaper ran a story on the incident.  A medical examination of the little girl revealed a body battered by years of abuse.  The most recent—six deep bruises on the girl’s backside—proved the real abuser was the mother.  The photo accompanying the story showed the little girl being reunited with a grateful father who for years had searched desperately for her.

 

Now, gazing in the direction of Desierto Pintado before turning to leave, something in the near foreground caught her eye.  When she went to inspect it she found several candy bar wrappers wadded together at the entrance to the small cave where she sometimes came to eat lunch.  The cave was something of a private sanctuary, to which she retreated when the pressures of her job became too great to bear.  So it was even more aggravating to find a small fire ring just inside the entrance, an amateurish circle of stones probably fashioned by some kid who had come up here to eat candy and burn paper.  There were even newly laid footprints in the black sand outside the cave—further evidence of innate carelessness, a total disregard for the sanctity of special places.

Ordinarily she would have pocketed the litter and broken up the fire ring, disassembling the stones, smoothing over the ash-gray dirt with her boot.  But this time she threw the candy wrappers into the fire pit, thinking, in that instant, that she’d arrived at a decision about her job.  She got into the Jeep and drove back down the mountain, out of the park, and onto the highway back to the city.  In thirty minutes she reached her house near the university.

 

After a TV dinner for supper, Karen called Petra and told her about the suspension.  Months ago, Petra had suggested Karen move to the coast to live with her.  That was after Karen’s second reprimand.  Karen hadn’t been interested in living in San Diego then, but the idea appealed to her now.  When she asked if she could visit, Petra said, “When can I expect you?”

“I’ll leave first thing tomorrow morning, before the desert gets too hot.”

“Stay the whole two weeks, see if the Left Coast is the place for you.”

After she hung up, Karen wondered if she’d done the right thing.  She remembered the first time she had visited Petra:  the long, hot drive across the desert, the brief respite from the heat while crossing the coastal mountains, then the steep descent into the insanity of the city, fighting freeway traffic to nudge her way across lanes to the exit Petra had warned against missing.  When Karen found the street, she was shocked at the size of Petra’s house.  For a $450,000 home it was downright tiny.

The two friends had a good time together, touring art museums, strolling through the botanical garden at Balboa Park, driving down to the old lighthouse at Point Loma.  Several times they had walked the beach at sunset, watching a rouge-red sun dip into an ultramarine ocean, pencil-line clouds on the horizon.  Every place they went had one thing in common: people.  They were everywhere.  And something else she couldn’t warm to about San Diego were the mornings, the grey marine layer that didn’t burn off until noon.

Karen was packing a suitcase in the bedroom when the telephone rang.  She figured it was Petra calling back to say she couldn’t entertain a guest, after all, but when Karen put the receiver to her ear, she heard George’s gruff voice.  “A kid’s gone missing from the campground,” he said, his breathing heavy, as if he’d been running.  “Dale asked me to round up all available hands.”

More short with him than she meant to be, Karen said, “I don’t work there any longer, George, remember?  Besides, isn’t it too dark to look now?”

“We’re organizing people for a morning search party.  The kid disappeared early this afternoon, but his parents didn’t report it until after dark.  They kept expecting him to turn up.  Thirteen-year-old boy.  He and the folks had a big tiff.  He’s run away before, but never at a place like this.”

The image of the crumpled candy bar wrappers and the fire ring popped into Karen’s mind.  Of course, anybody could have left those wrappers there.  Any kid could have climbed the mountain from the campground, built the crude fire ring.  Yet the cave would be a logical place for a runaway to hide.  And if the searchers knew where to look, it would save them a lot of time and energy.  But instead of mentioning this to George, she said, “Does Rusk know you’re asking me to get involved?”

“Not really,” George said, “but he told me to find available people—and you’re available.”

Karen knew what George was trying to do, and at another time she might have appreciated it.  But now she said, “Actually, I’m not available.  I’m leaving for San Diego first thing in the morning.”

Without missing a beat, George said, “Heading to the coast, are you?  Wish I could tag along.  Dinah and I used to love driving to the ocean.  We used to go at night, stay out of the desert heat.”

“I don’t like driving at night.”

 “Well, if you change your mind,” he said, “or have some free time at first light, stop out.  We could use the help.  If I don’t see you, have a good time.”

“Good luck with the search,” she said, halfheartedly.

Later, after a shower, Karen lay in bed trying to sleep.  She hadn’t meant to act that way with George, but she couldn’t believe he’d called to enlist her aid, as if he’d completely forgotten about her suspension.  In reality, he just meant to keep her involved, to remind her of how important he thought she was to the place.

When restlessness made sleep a distant prospect Karen rose and went to the kitchen to warm a cup of milk, which she sipped sitting at the table.  Afterwards, with all the lights off, she stood in the living room staring out the window toward the invisible mountain north of town.  A flash of lightning surprised her.  Half a minute later another flash went off, a distant spark that illuminated a cloud over Huberts Peak.  Then another flash, and another, each time in a slightly different location.  Karen tried to guess where each successive flash would appear, but the lightning flitted like her thoughts, brilliant little flares that revealed the great hulk of black mountain brooding over the city.

Later, back in bed, she had an imaginary dialog with George.

“Give me one good reason why I should help in the search for that kid?”

“I’ll give you a good reason, kiddo, because, deep down, you’re really a kind person who cares about the welfare of others.”

Before she fell asleep she pictured a frightened boy cowering in a dark cave, his puny fire snuffed by high winds, lightning X-raying his hiding place.

 

Karen locked the front door behind herself.  The morning had dawned bright and beautiful.  The Jeep needed gas, so she stopped at a service station on the main strip.  Then she made the thirty-minute drive north to the park, thinking that if the kid wasn’t at the cave she’d still be able to beat the heat across the desert floor.  The sight of the mountain encouraged her, a blue giant looming over town.  Sunlight had already begun filtering down through the green pines at the timberline.  On the ride the question kept popping into her head:  ‘Is this is the right thing to do?’

By the time she neared the cave, she had convinced herself of the futility of the effort, so to see a kid dash across the road toward some large yellow boulders was stunning.  “Hold it,” Karen yelled, jumping down from the Jeep before it had rolled to a complete stop.  The authority of her command froze the kid in place.  He turned to face her, and immediately she knew she had seen this boy before.  It was yesterday morning, out at Wukondo.  He had rushed by her with his camera.  And from behind him had come the squawking commands of his mother, a hen who wouldn’t let her chick too far out of sight.

 She expected him to be scared and submissive, but he wore a hostile expression when she reached him, his eyes complacent behind thick, wire-rim glasses.  Karen said, “Did you spend the night up here—in the cave?”

“What if I did?”

“Your mom and dad must be worried sick about you.”

He put his hand on his left hip and cocked his head to one side.  “You think I give a shit about that?”

Karen took a deep breath.  Maybe the kid had good reason to be defiant.  Karen said, “Right now a group of rangers is organizing a search party to look for you.  A search party like that costs a lot of money.  Guess who’s going to pay?  Your parents.  How do you think they’ll feel about that?”

“I don’t give a fuck how they feel.  I’m not going back to live with them, anyway.”

“Look—kid—what’s your name?”

“Who wants to know?”

Karen took another soothing breath, inspecting the boy.  His faded jeans had sooty stains on the thighs, from where he had rubbed volcanic pumice off his hands.  His black windbreaker had a fresh scar on the left sleeve, snagged, no doubt, on a jagged volcanic rock.  His rumpled brown hair was thin on top, almost as if he were balding already, and Karen saw him that way, an obnoxious middle-aged man, bossy and arrogant, bullying his own kids around.  She fought hard against that image, forcing herself to remember he was a thirteen-year-old kid.

“How about hopping into the Jeep?” she said.

 He laughed, a little pig snort.  “I’m not going anywhere with you.  Who the fuck are you, anyway?”

“Hey, how about knocking off the swearing, kid?  My name’s Karen Donner.  I’m a ranger here at the park.”

“If you’re a ranger, where’s your uniform?”

“I haven’t put it on yet.”

“For all I know you’re some psychotic bitch that goes around snatching innocent kids.”

“You’re no innocent kid.  You’ll have to take my word for it, I’m a ranger.  At least I was a ranger.”

“What do you mean, ‘Was a ranger?’”

Why not level with the kid—what would the truth hurt?  “I’ve been suspended from my job for two weeks.”

“Suspended?  What for?”

“For the same reason you’re up here.  I can’t get along with people.”

“Let me get this straight.  You’ve been suspended, but you’re helping the search party.  Why?”

She shrugged.  “It seemed like the right thing to do.”

He shook his head, a cynical old man.  “Boy, what an ass you are, lady.”

The comment hit a little too close to home, and Karen grew defensive.  She took a step closer to the teenager and stared into his defiant eyes.  “Don’t make me resort to violence, kid.  Get into the Jeep.”

He examined her face and body posture to see if she meant business.  “Okay, but you’re taking me back under protest.”

He started for the Jeep, but suddenly bolted across the road, scampering rapidly to the top of a massive boulder.  A stunted pine grew next to the rock, and the kid grabbed a low branch and began to climb.  As agile as a monkey, he reached the top in a few seconds.  “If you want me now,” he said, gloating down at Karen from his high perch, “you’ll have to come up and get me.”

Her calm demeanor disappeared instantly.  She walked with determination to the rock, scaled it, grabbed a branch of the tree and swung up.  She could climb with the best of them, but what would she do when she reached the kid, grab his leg and pull him down?  He had a worried look on his face when she tilted her head up to see him.  She said, “Make this easy on both of us, kid.  Come down.”

“No way.”

She started up, stopping halfway to coax him down again.  But he refused.  So she climbed until she was one branch beneath the bough where he stood.  She considered reaching her hand up, but seeing her intention, he said, “Put it there, lady, and I’ll squash your knuckles.”

The absurdity of the scene suddenly struck her.  If she’d left for California like she planned, she’d already have driven through the Verde Valley on her way to Phoenix.  Her impulse now was to grab the kid’s foot, tug him out of the tree.  But an image of him falling to his death on the boulder below stopped her.  With that thought in mind, she slowly began descending.

The kid didn’t notice until Karen nearly had reached the rock.  Then he said, “Hey, where’re you going?”

 “Down.  I don’t have time for this shit.”

“Wait a minute.  What kind of ranger are you?”

“Not a good one.”

His whole demeanor suddenly changed now, and he seemed shaken by her actions.  He said, “Are you going to leave me up here?”

“That’s the idea.  And don’t worry, I won’t tell anybody where you are.”

She’d nearly reached her Jeep when the kid said, “Hey, I’ll go with you, lady.  But I’ve got a problem here.”

Turning to face him, she said, “What problem?”

“I’m stuck.”

She had to climb back to the boulder and coach him down, directing his feet to specific branches, pointing out the best route to follow.  He came down excruciatingly slowly, finally speeding up when he had reached the relative safety of the lower limbs.  When he jumped to the rock, he reverted to his old self, a cocky kid who needed a knock on the head.  He dusted his hands off, holding them out to her, palms downward, crossed at the wrists.  “Aren’t you going to cuff me?”

“I’d like to ‘cuff’ you.”

They got into the Jeep, and Karen turned around on the mountain road.  She drove fast, the vehicle bouncing over rocks.  The kid had to hold tight to the grab handle above the passenger window, but he seemed to like the ride.  Halfway down the mountain, the boy, who had inspected the inside of the Jeep and seen her luggage, said, “Going on a trip?”

 “Right.”

“Where to?”

“San Diego.”

“Take me with you, lady.  Please?  I can pay my own way.  I’ve got money.  I’ve always wanted to live on the beach.”

She looked him over, shaking her head.  “In five years, kid, you’ll be an adult.  Then you can do whatever you want.  You can move to the coast, be a vagrant, sleep on the beach.  For right now, though, you’re going back to your folks.”

“You don’t know what you’re doing.  They’re going to beat the shit out of me.”

“Somebody’s got to do it,” she said.

This early in the morning, nobody manned the contact station booth, and a wooden sign in the window read “Drive Through.”  Behind the visitor center a few rangers had already gathered, the first members of the search party.  Karen recognized Bill Saunders and Dave Coleman, who stood together drinking coffee from Styrofoam cups.  They waved to her when she drove by, not paying attention to the kid sitting beside her.  She spotted George Simpson examining a map with two other rangers near the dirt road that led to the rangers’ quarters.  When she pulled alongside the three, depressing the clutch pedal to let the Jeep idle, George said, “Decided to join us, after all?”

“I decided to save you the trouble,” she said, gesturing with her head to the kid.  “Here’s your man.”

George leaned forward to peer around Karen’s body, his mouth dropping open at the sight of the boy.  “Well, I’ll be damned.  Where’d you find him?”

“On the Pumice Peak road.  I found some candy bar wrappers up there yesterday, and I thought there was a chance he’d left them.  I played a hunch.”

The boy sitting beside her said, “Shit.”

“You sure this is the kid?” George said.  Addressing the boy, he said, “You’re Dwight Stevens?”

The kid said, “Dwight?  No, I’m Danny, Danny Edwards.”

“Take my word for it, George,” Karen said, “this is the kid.”

The boy lowered his head, his chin almost touching his bony chest.  “I’m Dwight Stevens,” he said, resigned to the trouble that lay ahead.

“What’s wrong with you, son?” George said.  “You’ve caused a lot of trouble for people.  It’s a good thing Karen here found you, or your mom and dad would be shelling out money for an expensive search.”

All of Dwight’s early cockiness disappeared, and he sat with his head hung low, his lips drawn back in an expression of submission.

Mrs. Stevens’ maternal shriek pierced the early morning quiet.  “Dwight?” she screamed, running toward the Jeep with her arms outstretched, her stomach bouncing above her belt like a huge bowl of Jell-O.

 Before climbing out, the boy looked at Karen as if she had delivered him to a demon.  “You don’t know what you’ve done, lady,” he said.  Then he was locked in his mother’s embrace, smothered between her ample breasts.  Her initial relief at finding him safe suddenly gave way to anger, and she pushed him away gruffly.  “Ooh,” she said, “what did you do?”  Before he could respond, she grabbed an ear and tugged him back toward her husband, who was advancing toward the two like a dutiful father.

When they were out of earshot, George said to Karen, “I can’t begin to tell you the trouble we’ve had with that kid’s mother.  I can see why he ran away.”

“Yeah?—well he’s no bundle of joy.  They deserve each other.”

“I want you to know,” George said, “that Dale Rusk hears about this as soon as he comes in.”

“Naw, don’t bother telling him.”

“You can’t be serious?”

“Don’t make a big deal out of it.”

Patting her on the back, George said, “Nothing’s a big deal to you, is it, kiddo?  Have a nice time in San Diego.”

She let the clutch out, spun the Jeep around, and headed out of the parking lot.  Bill Saunders waved to her as she passed.  Before she even left the park she was smiling hard— almost laughing out loud—already thinking about the story she’d tell Petra tonight.  She could picture the two of them sitting at the kitchen table over beers, Petra’s mouth half open in disbelief.  “And then he said,” Karen would say, dragging it out, “‘For all I know, you’re some psychotic bitch that goes around snatching kids.’” The air would wheeze out of Petra’s lungs as she laughed hysterically.

Karen couldn’t wait to get there, away from this land of the dormant volcano.  By day’s end, she’d be standing on the beach at sunset, gawking at the crazy natives who inhabited the coast.  Just another tourist in California.