by John Hansen
“Business is booming,” I said, putting down the metal scraper and wiping my hands on my apron. “I was wondering when you were gonna stop by. Hungry?”
He shook his head and walked over and leaned against the big kitchen table, glancing through the door that separated the kitchen from the rest of the store. He was wearing the park ranger uniform, and set his hat down on the table. I noticed he carried a gun on his belt.
“Yea, Two Med’s campground has been at capacity almost these last three weeks,” he said casually, looking back at me after a moment. “Gonna be a busy summer.”
I offered him a soft drink and he shook his head. “I can’t stay long, thanks.”
He leaned against our large kitchen table and folded his arms and looked at me. “Listen Will, I actually came here to talk to you about something that happened.”
“Really?” I took off my apron and set it down at the table. I couldn’t image what possible trouble I might have gotten into – the fireworks? “What’s up, Greg?”
“I was told recently that you have been seeing a girl named ‘Alia,’” Greg said, watching me as if searching for some kind of reaction.
“Do you know her?” he asked.
I hesitated a moment, my mind running through various reasons why a park ranger may want to know about my involvement with Alia… Did she do something?
“Yeah, I met her, here at the store. Is she ok?”
He waited a moment, and then shook his head and said, “She’s dead.”
His words were like a hard punch in the gut; I stood up from the table and let out a quick breath. I felt a coldness creep over my chest.
“She’s dead?” I asked, louder than I intended.
Greg looked behind him into the store again and then back at me. “Yes, she’s dead Will. That’s why I’m here. Sit down again,” he motioned to the bench. “When was the last time you saw her?” He shifted his weight leaning against the table and crossed his arms again.
My mind was frozen with shock and I couldn’t answer. Dead... I couldn’t believe what he had told me. I would never see her, or hear her voice again. I pictured her, for some reason, lying on some dirty street in Browning, in a small, crumpled heap. I pictured those eyes looking up at me from my side as we lay in bed. I could feel her necklace, which I had habitually worn ever since, around my neck as I stood there like a statue.
“Will,” Greg said, reaching out to me and gripping my shoulder lightly. He now seemed to have an expression of honest concern in his eyes, “You ok buddy?”
“Yea,” I sat back down again. “What happened to her, Greg? What the hell happened? She was just here yesterday.”
“She was found this morning, very early in the woods but not far from the main road that leads here – within the park’s territory. I can’t tell you much more because it’s an ongoing investigation, but I wanted to check with you, privately.”
The word ‘privately’ didn’t sound good. I looked back at Greg. “How did you even know I knew her; I mean why even think of me?”
“I talked to her roommate in Browning this morning, and she said she talked about a Will at Two Medicine – had to be you, of course,” Greg said.
He cleared his throat. “So, the last time you saw her was when?”
“Yesterday,” I said. “How’d she die, Greg?”
“Can’t tell you; not now. What time did she come by yesterday.”
“She came by and we chatted while I was working,” I said.
“What time did she leave?”
A subconscious flash of concern told me that I needed to guard the details of Alia and I’s relationship, as brief as it was. I looked at Greg’s uniform, his gun, and even though I thought of him as a real friend, I felt some primitive instinct to watch out.
“Late,” I said.
Greg studied my face. I was staring back at him and gripping the rolled-up apron in my hands. A silence grew between us that was noticeable.
“You can’t tell me what happened?” I asked.
“No, Will.”
I thought of Ronnie, and how he had seen Alia and me later in the evening, heading up the stairs to my room. I glanced out the middle kitchen door into the rest of the store – I couldn’t see Katie and Ronnie anywhere.
“Late, but I don’t know exactly when.” I said again.
“Did she seem upset, like anything was bothering her?” Greg asked.
“No,” I shrugged, “on the contrary she seemed pretty happy.”
Greg stared at me for a second more, and then straightened up. “Did they know Alia? Ronnie and Katie?” He nodded towards the store.
I shook my head.
Greg sighed and then nodded his head slowly. “People die up here every summer, Will, but it’s from easily-determinable causes. Dying from exposure, mauled by bears, you know – stuff like that. Nature is rough here, so it’s nothing new to find a body. But,” he said slipping his ranger hat back onto his head, “Alia’s death was not ‘easily determinable.’”
“You can’t tell me how she died, but where was she found?” I asked.
Greg shook his head and got up to leave, “In the park, but near Browning.”
He nodded again towards the store. “I’ll talk to the rest of the staff later; I’ve got to go to Browning in person now, to contact her family if I can find anyone.”
“She didn’t have any family,” I said to him as he walked towards the screen door.
Then it dawned on me, “You came here just to talk to me about her, before you even tried to find and talk to her family? Why was seeing me so important?”
“Because your name came up, and I felt like you needed a warning before the investigation really begins, Will,” Greg said, looking at me with a sorry expression. “Browning has jurisdiction over this, for now, so you’re going to be questioned most likely. There’s no local police in Browning, as you may know – we rely on Bureau of Indian Affairs to police the area. But I wanted to talk to you personally before things heated up and the BIA finds their way here.”
Greg handed me a card of his, with his personal number scribbled on the back. “Like I told you,” he said, “at Two Med we look after our own.”
The phrase “going to be questioned” struck me. I followed Greg as he walked out of the screen door and headed over the gravel pathway around the store to his truck.
“What should I do, Greg?” I asked. “If Indian Affairs comes around, what am I supposed to do?” Do I need to get a lawyer or something? The very idea of talking to a lawyer was ludicrous and a gross shock in that wild and remote outdoor landscape.
“Just be careful, buddy,” he said, unhelpfully, as he got into the truck and slammed the door. He rolled his window down. “Call me if you think of anything else, and don’t hesitate to come visit us at the station.” Then he drove off, leaving me standing there alone.
I watched some campers walking down towards the lake, readying a camera for a shot of Mount Sinopah across the water, resting like a king with the world at his feet. The family was small: a husband, wife, and a child. Their voices were a distant, happy, and energetic as they stopped at the lake side and took shots of the mountain and then the store, with me still standing there in front of it dumbfounded like a wooden carving set there for decor.
I looked back at Mount Sinopah behind me and wished I was back on the summit, looking down at the whole valley, untouchable.
I walked over to a log that served as a bench near the store and sat down. Alia dead… I still could not believe it. I could still smell her. I touched the little metal arrowhead on her necklace. A thousand questions shot through my head in a moment: How did she die? Why did she die? Did she suffer? Was she scared? Am I going to be a suspect?
I looked out over the water. I had to find out more; I couldn’t simply not know. Not knowing was far worse that the truth. I resolved to go see Greg later that night when I was off shift and demand to know what he knew. I’d tell him in confidence every detail I kne
w about Alia, with our time together in the proper place, in return.
I went back to my shift that afternoon and worked like a zombie – burning the burgers on the grill, dropping frozen lumps of French fries in the fryer absentmindedly, causing an eruption of oil all over the stainless steel fryer. I was a thousand miles from the Two Medicine Store, staring off into the boiling fryer oil and turning over in my mind the thousand possible scenarios of her death. I finally gave up after an hour and went and found Phyllis and told her I was sick.
I avoided everyone on my way back to my room, and just lay in bed staring up at the ceiling. How could something so grisly, so criminal, so ugly, happen out here in this pristine land? It seemed like such an urban crime. Just like Larry’s gross behavior, his Kansas mannerisms, the hokey gift shop crap, Ronnie’s drugs, Katie’ aloof distrust, this criminal investigation, with its companion words: murder, cops, lawyer – none of it belonged in this world that I had believed in, that had sold me on the move in Atlanta, a world that included Alia moving to California, finding happiness, and maybe even being with me – the both of us finally finding happiness, if only for a moment. But the whole place looked different to me now: the mountains, the store, the customers, my room.
This horrible slap in the face caused me to feel like I barely knew the place now. Two Medicine was just a remote spot on the map, and what was Browning? A distant, dangerous, crazy neighbor – best to be avoided. Alia was on her way to escaping from there – but did it catch up with her again? Or did she die near Two Med? Was it from someone here that she met her fate?
A girl I had slept with and had somehow fallen in love with was dead, only a few hours after leaving my bed. I lay in the same bed that evening and watched the two bats cleaving to each other in a crevice in the wall, motionless, dead to the world and caring nothing for its concerns. It would be good to be motionless, tucked away in a crevice and grasping Alia, far away from this place and both of us dead to the world.
Eighteen
I worked the next day’s shift in daze again – nothing was important. A thunderstorm came and it rained heavily outside. Thunder boomed down the mountains and bowled over us like a sonic tide, shaking the old windows each time. The store was consequently slow, but whenever a visitor did come, they would rush in drenched, covering their heads with hoods and cardboard from the deluge. All day I kept looking at the front doors to the store each time some person walked in, expecting to see a badge and uniform of an office with the Bureau of Indian Affairs – the big, bad, BIA from Browning. I had never met any of them, but I heard they were a pretty aggressive police force from some of the locals that came by the store. Yet, that day, no such person came through the door.
After cooking my last meal of the day for a final customer, we closed down the kitchen, scraping over the grill, dumping the frying grease, and cleaning all the pots and pans. Ronnie talked a lot, and he seemed uncharacteristically edgy. I just grunted an agreement him here and there, barely listening, with enough on my mind to not ask him what was wrong; and as soon as we were done I headed up stairs to change. I intended to be out the door towards the Two Med ranger station as quickly as I could – I had an overwhelming compulsion to find out more from Greg about Alia’s death. But I couldn’t shake Ronnie. As I came out of my room, ready to go, he was standing in the hallway, as if waiting for me.
“Hey Chiefy!” he said. We had begun to call each other ‘Chiefy’ on a regular basis after watching Jaws together earlier in the week. “Where ya going?” He seemed cheerful enough, but also overly watchful, too interested.
“Just heading down to Greg’s – he invited me for dinner,” I said, inventing a plausible explanation.
“Oh yea? I’ll come along.” Ronnie jogged back into his room and grabbed his wallet and put on his watch, calling from his room. “I don’t suppose one more mouth to feed is a problem for them.”
“I thought you didn’t like him,” I said to him down the hall, remembering Ronnie’s attitude at the ranger orientation.
“Nah, he’s alright,” Ronnie shrugged, coming out of his room and heading down the hall with me towards the stairs.
“What about ‘never trust a cop?’”
He paused, “I’m just keeping an eye on you. Is that a problem?”
I just shrugged and told Ronnie as we walked that Greg had “mentioned” dinner before but may have forgotten, just to cover me in Ronnie’s eyes since I didn’t really have an invitation and in case Greg and his family had already eaten or something. The drive in Ronnie’s car to the ranger station took about only a few minutes, and it was on the way towards the main lodge on a road I was familiar with now.
The Two Medicine ranger station was more a house than station, but served for both since Greg and his wife and his little girl lived there for the duration of the summer. It was a small, ranch style house with a little playground in the grass, a plastic jungle gym faded in the sun. Greg’s ranger truck bristling with antennas sat in the driveway.
Ronnie kept chattering to me as we drove. He seemed even tenser than before, taking hungry, rushing drags off his cigarette. I was finally about to ask him what was wrong with him, when we suddenly came right up on a huge moose just standing in the middle road, barely visible in the dark until the car’s feeble headlights illuminated it.
“Jesus!” Ronnie shouted, and slammed on the brakes. I wasn’t wearing a seatbelt and was hurled into the dash, cursing as my head bumped the windshield. The moose, for his part, was spooked and quickly trotted off into the dark as Ronnie and I just sat motionless in the car for a minute. I looked over at Ronnie and he seemed even more rattled than a moment before.
“Jesus…” he muttered again, shakily. “This place is gonna be the death of me.” He lit another cigarette, his hands trembling, and then started off again down the road, at a snail’s pace now.
I reached over and borrowed his cigarette, taking a puff. We drove on in silence the rest of the way until we got to Greg’s house.
Greg’s wife answered when I knocked. She was small, like Greg, and I could see at once that she was at least part Blackfoot. She was pretty in a plain, unadorned, natural way. She had a soft, small face, a skinny frame, and was wearing a ranger uniform as if she had just come home from work.
“Can I help you?” she asked, obviously at a loss as to who were and what we wanted. She didn’t seem unfriendly or that surprised, though, and I assumed that from time to time campers and visitors probably stopped by for help, seeing that the house was a ranger station and wanting directions or some help.
“Yea, hi,” I said, “we work at the Two Medicine store and we wanted to see Greg.” I added after glancing at Ronnie, “Greg invited me over, but he’s probably forgotten…” I shrugged as if saying “that’s Greg for you….” “I’m Will and this is Ronnie,” I nodded over at Ronnie.
“Ah, nice to meet you guys, Greg actually was just talking about you,” she said. She opened the door for us and invited us in. “I’m Deanna, people just call me ‘Dee. Come on in!”
She led us through the foyer into a small living room with a couple couches and a TV, which was on. A little girl with a burst of dark curls was stationed in front of the TV sitting on the floor, entranced by the screen.
“This is Ophelia,” Dee said with obvious pleasure as she watched her daughter. “She’s our little mini-ranger. Say hi to Will and Ronnie, Ophie.”
The little girl glanced over at us for a second with a blank stare, didn’t say anything, and then returned to her screen. On the TV some bizarrely dressed dancers were bobbing around a fantasyland scene, singing a song with erratic music blaring and stuffed animals bouncing all over the place.
I looked around the house and what I could see was a small, cozy little place with the kind of comfortable shabbiness that young couples, who are into the outdoors and are kind of artsy, and who don’t have much money, usually exhibit in their furniture and décor. I liked the unpretentious feel of the house; and I felt an hon
esty in the place.
Dee walked us through the living room and into the dining room. Greg was at the table with a laptop, typing quickly on the keyboard. He looked up distractedly as we walked in, for a second not seeming to register who we were, then a smile spread across his face as he recognized us.
“Hey boys!” Greg said as he shut his laptop. “What can I do for you?”
I said, “Well I thought I’d take you up on that offer, and see how you rangers live when you’re off duty.”
Greg stared at me for a second with a questioning look, then he nodded. “Right…” he said, looking doubtful for a moment. Then glancing over at Dee he said, “Let’s set up a couple of more plates, babe, and show these boys how the other half lives on the government cheese.”
He waved us over to the table and sat back in his chair then, stretching his back. Dee brought us each a beer, which Ronnie chugged, and it wasn’t long until we had a meal before us. Dee had prepared a roasted chicken with salad and had thrown in some extra rolls and potatoes while she was getting it all ready to add to the menu for the new guests. Red wine was poured in each of our glasses with candles on the placemats, which Greg set out to “add some flair,” as he said. Ophelia had been coaxed into sitting at the table in her little kid chair, but she was mostly busy fiddling with a little game tablet she had set next to her plate. Every once in a while she would steal glances at Ronnie and I, and then at her mom and dad, but soon her little face was peering back down on the tablet’s bright screen.
As we ate, Greg talked about how he became a ranger, how he and Dee met (which was at someone’s wedding they knew) and about the park. Ronnie didn’t say a word; he had this moody expression on his face as if he had regretted coming.
“This place is getting more crowded every year, the ‘best kept secret’ is getting out,” he said, quoting the slogan from the advertising.
“That’s what it was called the first time I ever read about Glacier and Two Med,” I said. I told them about the magazine article I had read in Atlanta and how that had triggered my decision. To date I had never told anyone about that magazine article and how it was a catalyst for my change in life, because it sounded so trite and ridiculous; but I trusted Greg and Dee. Ronnie, I figured, could do no harm with it.
