“Out of an unknown number of parts.”
Let’s cut to the chase here. I’ve got a new story I’m working on! And this is the first part! It’s very much inspired by the excellent Search and Rescue Woods stories from Reddit’s r/nosleep, which, as a source of stories, is always kind of hit or miss when it comes to things that are actually good versus recycled nonsense. If you’ve got a spare thirty minutes, read some of them, or if you’ve got a spare two hours, listen to them on Youtube, like I did the first couple of times. They’re not much of a “story,” and they’re written in that vaguely frustrating reddit way where it’s like some guy at the bar is talking to you with little direction or reason. But the imagery and sense of atmosphere about them is top-notch.
Fun fact, these stories were also made into season three of Channel Zero, which is the only season of the show I haven’t seen, so I have no comment on its quality. Except to leave a reminder here that you should really, really watch the first two seasons of Channel Zero. They are, to this day, some of my favorite horror media and I don’t talk about them nearly enough. Oh, I miss the days when I could record an actual TV show on my actual television and watch it later, and then have to delete it to free up space for next week’s episode of Survivor: Season 69, This Time They Have Sex On an Island. You know what, scatch that. DVR’s were a plague upon this world.
Anyway, here’s a story in that same vein of odd national park horror. What a very specific kind of horror that is, too. Especially because nothing scary happens in this part, like, at all. This is just, basically, what a day at work for me at Philmont was like. Hmm. Here it is anyway.
“Pine Sight,” By Andy Sima (2023)
The hot summer wind sauntered in, smelled the collective overheated aroma of vacationing families in the outdoor amphitheater, found them lackluster, and moved elsewhere. Much to my dismay, and the dismay of the vacationing families. Beads of sweat dragged themselves with slick fingers along the back of my neck as I wrapped up my ranger talk. A talk I had given a hundred times this season, and knew by heart because I had written it. The sunlight bearing down as a thousand-ton weight tasted like salt. And sulfur, because there was a lot of that here. My voice roiled and burned in the air as a dying fish on land. “The next time you go to a hot spring, think about the senses the animals use, just like we do.” I scanned the sunbaked crowd, watching as they roused themselves upon realizing it was almost time to retreat into the shade. Out of this sweltering no man’s land. It was August in Yellowstone, alright.
“Whether it’s the mule deer, with their big satellite ears,” and here I held up one hand and cupped it above my head, “or the discerning palette of the wolf’s nose,” I stuck my hand above my nose and imitated a snout sniffing out prey, “or the picture-perfect eyes of the bald eagle,” I rolled my hands around my eyes like binoculars, “we could learn a thing or two from the way animals pay attention to the world around them.” I paused for a second, and then took of my campaign hat and grinned. “If you want to feel the bison pelt again, I’ll be here until two.”
The crowd clapped, a sound dampened by the weight of the sun around us and the sweat that clung to everyone’s hands. In the same motion they made while clapping, the tourists around the amphitheater got up and dispersed with a low, talkative thrum.
I nodded my head in thanks and put my hat back on, stepping away from the center of the amphitheater to the small display table at my right. Although most folks had decided to escape back to their air conditioning, or at least shaded campsites, one intrepid family had lined up to ask questions and get a closer look at some of our animal parts.
“Nice program,” the person I assumed to be the father said. He wore a beige baseball cap emblazoned with a no-frills Yellowstone National Park design that he likely got earlier this morning. His probably-wife stared intently at me through enormous, bug-eyed sunglasses with a second, inexplicable set of tortoiseshell sunglasses hanging from her pink tank top. Three children, one blonde, one brunette, and one resembling the color of dying embers, palmed the various display pieces I had on hand.
“Thanks!” I beamed. “I’ve been doing this one all summer. If that wasn’t obvious.”
One of the children, the brown-haired one, rubbed his hand over the thick fur of the bison pelt, and clenched and unclenched his fingers experimentally. “Don’t the buffalo get hot in this?”
“Well, do you get hot in your clothes?” I asked. Mom’s brow furrowed.
“Sometimes,” the boy shrugged and looked up at me.
“If you’re wearing a jacket, and it’s hot outside, what do you do to cool off?” I asked.
“GO SWIMMING!” The youngest, fiery-haired girl shouted, smiling through missing teeth. Her blonde sister clamped a hand over the little one’s mouth and gave her a dirty look. Muffled giggles ensued.
“I guess I’d take off my jacket,” the boy said.
“The bison do that, too,” I said. “They lose their hair in the spring and grow it back in the fall. This is a winter coat, so it’s pretty thick. It helps them not feel the cold so much.”
“But it’s hot now,” the boy said. “Why do you have out their winter coat?”
I chuckled. Children had a way of poking holes in whatever illusion you tried to cast. “This is the only bison pelt we have at the Canyon Village visitor center, and the Old Faithful team didn’t want to share.” The adults laughed. The boy crinkled up his nose in distaste. The littlest girl licked her sister’s hand, who recoiled with a scream.
“Hey, at least you won’t need it soon. It’s gonna get real hot when that volcano blows, huh?” said dad. “How much hair you think the buffalo’ll lose then?”
“ALL OF IT!” the gap-toothed girl shrieked.
Inwardly, I grimaced. Outwardly, my face remained unchanged, though perhaps the sweat heaved its way a bit more quickly down my face. “Well, we’ve got at least a few hundred thousand years before that happens, so you don’t have to worry about it too much,” I said.
Mom made a sound that was somewhere between a sigh and a harrumph. If I hadn’t known better, I might have thought it was a sound made in approval. But perhaps she wanted the eruption after all, just so she’d have something better to do.
“Thanks for your time,” the dad said, and stuck out his hand to shake mine. It always caught me off-guard when people did that. I barely wanted the sweat on my own skin, and I certainly did not want to add a stranger’s to the mix. But I shook his hand anyway, because I love my job and a positive public interaction is still a positive public interaction. “Kids, let’s go.”
The dad turned around with the expectation that his progeny would follow him, and they did, a fact he knew by the way the littlest girl stirred up a small storm of air as she raced ahead. The blonde rolled her eyes at the mom, whose thin smile broke into something more natural for a moment. The boy, still staring at me with eyes that could have pierced the clouds themselves, offered me his fist for a bump. With no hesitation, I returned the gesture. Then he was off.
I waved at them as they walked off, one hand on the bison pelt and one hand pushing the leaden air near my head. When they were over the rise of the amphitheater and out of earshot, I dropped my hand and sighed.
Why was that always the question folks wanted to ask? That, or at least something near it. Every time. It didn’t matter what the program was about. When will the volcano erupt? Did you know it’s a thousand years overdue? Is Yellowstone going to end the world? How much time do we have left? And every time, I gave the same answer. A couple hundred thousand years. And every time, I felt like an idiot. I wanted to set the record straight, and jump up and shout and say, it will probably never erupt in our lifetimes! Not you or your children’s children’s children a hundred times down the line. It’s not overdue! Volcanoes don’t work that way! We’re all gullible for thinking they ever did! And does it matter if it does erupt? Look around you, for God’s sake! Ask about something, anything else! The trees! The rocks! The river! It’s right there, for crying out loud. Ask about something you can feel!
But that wasn’t fair. I could feel the volcano. Underneath my feet, there was undeniably a power there. A thing brewing, spinning, heating and cooling and rising and falling and breathing in and out and giving off steam and releasing pressure and spitting out bubbles of mud that could scald your skin and flash-fry a thanksgiving turkey. It was undeniably there. And people wanted to know. People are always drawn to things they think are just beyond perception and possibility. But if you’re really in tune with things, it’s not beyond perception at all. In the scent of the air, the taste of the water, the vibrations of the rock as they hum in the language of the Earth changing, the very shape of the land under our feet. We can’t see it. But we know it’s there. Even if we don’t “know” it’s there.
“This is Canyon Village Center to Ranger Conroy,” my radio squawked, jarring me into a different kind of awareness. “How’d the program go?”
“Great,” I said, pressing the button on the small walkie-talkie at my shoulder. “What do you need?”
“How’d you like to go for a little ATV ride? Help you cool off?” the radio chattered. I could hear my boss rubbing his beard stubble through the receiver, lopsided grin preparing to spell out my next several hours. I frowned. There had to be a catch.
“First aid?” I asked. Stupid question. I knew that wasn’t it. They wouldn’t call me for it, anyway.
“Nope. Better. Dead critter duty,” he said. “We just got a call that there’s a fresh deer kill right off the trail up at the Seven Mile and Washburn spur.” Same place we had calls last week about weird noises in the woods, which had turned out to be woodpeckers, and too much poop, which had turned out to be bears.
“Shouldn’t maintenance go and get it?” I paused. I had work to do for this weekend’s big geology program, but then again, who would pass up an ATV ride in a national park? That I’m getting paid for? “On second thought, I got it,” I said.
“Great!” my boss chirped. “I heard it stinks. Take a shovel and hop to it.” Oh. There’s the catch. I love my job, I told myself, and half-smiled……
That’s the end for this week. How long did it take you to read? Because it took me way longer to write than it probably should have. Comment your number down below, and then comment as to whether or not you have met a child that screams everything they say. Because I have. Many, many times.
Ok! I am liking it so far & very interested to see where it goes!! 😊
I can picture it very vividly, having been there 3 times. 😉😘