Page 23

Emmy, the park ranger

Over lunch, the children pepper me with questions.

“What’s the baddest someone’s been hurt?”

“Did cattle really used to live here?”

“How do you get to be a ranger?”

“Don’t you get lonely with no video games?”

“How do you clean your clothes?”

The children all bounce in place, nearly bursting with excitement. Their parents, on the other hand, are focused on the sidearm at my hip. I admit that people do occasionally get hurt here. Usually, it’s on the cliffs where the brush catches them before they get too badly injured. A sprained ankle, at most a broken arm.

“But don’t worry.” I make eye contact with a fidgety mother. “We won’t let that happen to any of you.”

Yes, I say, the island was a cattle ranch for decades. No, there weren’t any predators that ate the cattle. The island fox is the largest predator on the island, and as they’ve seen, it isn’t exactly scary. I’ve known I’ve wanted to be a park ranger since college. I leave out what drew me toward nature, how I’d settled for a law enforcement position after the law had failed me. If they want to be park rangers, too, I tell them, they need to go to school to get certified, so they can learn CPR and search and rescue. It’s very competitive to become a ranger because who wouldn’t want to live on an island like this? Yes, it does get lonely sometimes, but I’m not much of a video gamer—horrified expressions on many of the children’s faces—and even though I miss my friends, I get to meet new people every day.

While the children are clearly disappointed by my answers, I can feel the relief as the parents’ attention drifts to cleanup and gossip and some of the smaller kids’ naps. Even as they move on to other things, I still feel like I’m being watched. It makes my skin tingle.

We don’t have video games, I tell the children. We do have a TV with a DVD player in the park housing. They begin to get excited until I inform them it’s only for rangers and scientists who stay in park housing while they’re researching the island. Two particularly inquisitive boys ask what they come here to study, and I explain that it can be everything from seal breeding to air quality. As I’m about to tell the kids that the researchers are very serious about their work so they shouldn’t bother them, one of the more rambunctious boys blurts, “What’s a DVD player?” I don’t know how to answer this without sounding a million years old. The next question comes before I have a chance to field that one, and yep, someone is definitely watching us. It’s not one of the parents. It’s someone else, someone lurking. I feel it everywhere.

Although I may not be an officer off this island, I’ve had my training. I can sense danger when no one else can. And I don’t question my instincts.

I’m so focused on determining where that feeling is coming from, where someone might be hiding, that I don’t anticipate the inevitable question, and don’t direct the conversation away from it, before one of the boys—it’s always a boy—asks, “Do you ever shoot anyone?”

A silence ripples across the children. I glance at the two mothers sitting with us, expecting one of them to intervene, but they seem curious too.

“I’ve only ever shot my gun for practice—at a shooting range in Ventura,” I tell them, leaving out the four times on the island that I’ve had to draw it.

One of the boys is about to ask a follow-up question when another blurts, “Has anyone been eaten by a shark?”

“Okay,” someone interrupts. “I think that’s enough questions for Ranger Emmy.”

It’s the art teacher. It takes me a moment to recall her name. Stella. She digs her hands in the pockets of the fleece jacket they all wear. It looks different on her from how it does on the others. More like a uniform. “Why don’t we give Ranger Emmy a big thank-you for joining us for lunch.”

The kids offer me a reluctant thank-you, disappointed not to have the goriest questions answered. I’ve never seen a shark attack here. Like anything else on Limuw, that doesn’t mean it hasn’t happened. That it can’t happen.

“Before I leave”—I shake the junior park ranger pamphlets in the air—“we have a few positions open. If you can complete this packet before you leave, I’ll swear you in as a junior ranger.”

The inquisitive boys scramble to their feet, as do a few of the quieter girls. Most of the boys hesitate and turn to a kid who seems bored by the prospect of my assignment. He has a haircut that would look like it was trying too hard on an adult. On a nine-year-old, it’s utterly ridiculous. The party-clad girls take his cue and keep their distance.

For some reason, I want to win them over, so I add, “There’s a prize for the person who sees the most foxes.”

“What is it?” one of the girls asks. I can’t tell from her tone whether she’s excited or skeptical.

“It wouldn’t be a surprise if I told you, now would it?” Truth is, I haven’t decided yet. Either gear from the lost and found or a park shirt, if I can find one in their size.

“How will we be able to prove we saw the most?” the stupid-haircut kid says with a lilt of interest. I’ve got them.

“We work on an honor system here. Mark down where you’ve seen each one, and I’ll trust that you wouldn’t lie to me. Now, who wants a packet?”

They all dart toward me, and I’m relieved that I’ve got another stack in the back of the UTV.

As I hand out the last of the ranger packets, my skin’s still tingling, that feeling of being stalked activated.

“Sorry about that,” Stella says, jogging up to me. “Some of them have a morbid imagination. I wanted to ask you: I’m hoping to get some painting in while I’m here. Is there somewhere that’s particularly scenic at sunset? I know, silly question. Every inch of this island is perfect. I’m just really invested in light, and I’d love to—” Suddenly a rock thuds at our feet. It makes Stella jump and causes me to reach for my service weapon. We both spin in the direction of the saltbush. “What was that?”