Page 34

Emmy, the park ranger

After lunch, as I do my round of the lower loop, the sight of that man in the bushes continues to rattle me. It wasn’t so much that he was spying but the fact that, when discovered, he didn’t pull his binoculars down so I could get a look at him. You can’t sneak onto Limuw. Even the private boats have to register. There’s never anyone here unaccounted for. Still, these people could be anyone. For the most part, they’re here to enjoy nature. Occasionally, you get someone who’s ready, through incompetence or malice, to burn the whole place down, and that’s where my badge comes in. Sometimes, this makes me feel powerful. Other days, I realize how futile it is. We are on an island, cut off from society and its resources by a channel. Hutash, the Chumash’s earth goddess, has her own rules. Through wind and rain, she can send hikers off course, can strand people here, people we didn’t want on the island in the first place. And I have zero power to do anything about it.

I spin the steering wheel on the UTV to traverse the full circle of the lower loop, surveying the campers as I try to relax.

A woman comes sprinting over. “Help! Help!” She’s in her forties, here with her husband and reluctant teenage son.

I hit the brakes, the UTV thudding to a stop. I don’t like the frantic expression on her face.

I straighten my vest, which has risen, and walk toward her. “What seems to be the problem?”

“A raven. It ran away with a bag of tortillas.” I wait for her to explain how her husband chased after the bird, tripped, and broke his ankle, or how her son, in the chaos, knocked over the pasta water boiling on their camping stove and burned himself. “It went that way.” She points to the brush behind the camp.

Sure enough, in a eucalyptus tree behind her tent, a bag of tortillas dangles from the bird’s mouth. What does she want me to do, arrest the bird? Shoot it down?

“All that plastic.” Her voice shakes. “I’m so sorry. I turned my back for a second.”

“That’s all they need.” I may have laid the their bellies will fill with plastic and they’ll get sick on a little too heavy. “Let me see if I can get him to drop it.” I call all ravens he. Probably because they’re all little assholes.

I walk around her tent and tiptoe into the woods, careful not to spook the bird. It’s not tagged. Only a few dozen of the ravens on the island have been tagged and GPS-chipped by CEI scientists hoping to track and subsequently prevent their predatory ways. They feast on the storm petrel and their young, stealing their eggs.

The raven stares down at me, the bag gripped tight in its beak. Like I said, little assholes. If I could shoot these ravens, I would, but they have become part of the island. I took an oath, which I’ll honor, even if it means protecting these conniving, predacious birds. Something stirs in the brush. It shifts my focus away from the bird.

It’s a man, his back to me, running uphill, off trail, which isn’t allowed. He’s wearing that camouflage cap.

Was he following me? Spying on me? A panic rushes through my limbs, one that’s all too familiar, one that wakes the vulnerable girl on the beach, whom I’ve tried to bury in therapy and bulletproof vests.

Instinctively, I put my hand on my gun, then remove my hand from the holster. I’m not going to shoot someone for being off trail. And there’s nothing illegal about using your binoculars on public land. Above me, I hear the sound of the bird taking flight from the tree, now airborne with the tortillas.

“Wait,” I shout, chasing after the man who has almost reached the crest of the hill where our staff housing is located. When I scramble up to the compound, I don’t see anyone running through camp. On the deck of the common cabin, Sam sits with the two researchers who are currently staying on the island, eating a late lunch.

The cabins were built to be temporary. Decades later they’re still where the staff and researchers live.

“Did you see anyone run up here?” I ask, catching my breath.

The three of them eye each other. “Nope, no one.” “I don’t think so?” “No, sorry.”

Sam puts down his bowl of pasta and leans over the railing. “All good?”

Like any island, Limuw has its ghost stories. There are visitors who see shadowy figures in the coves and hear howls at night. I’ve spent enough time here to know this land is sacred, not cursed. Despite that, the fact that I saw a man running, one who did not appear at the top of the hill, makes me uneasy. Over the years, I’ve learned how to stay steady. I don’t like this feeling of coming undone. I don’t want to have to take a leave again.

“Earlier, there was a guy spying on the school group. I thought I saw him run up here,” I explain.

“Maybe he was paparazzi,” Sam jokes. “That would be a first.”

“There was a guy on the boat,” the new researcher, one I haven’t met yet, says. She’s young and pretty, with a braid like a rope down her back, which she tugs as she speaks. “Gave me the creeps.”

“How so?” I ask.

“He just . . . was alone? And every time I looked at him, he was staring at me.” She’s a pretty girl. I imagine that happens often. “I can’t explain it. It was creepy.”

I feel a chill down my spine, knowing it’s the same guy. As my mind starts to wander places it shouldn’t, Sam’s laugh intervenes.

“Ah, he’s harmless. I clocked him at check-in. He was asking where he could fish. One of those guys who gets you in a conversation you can’t get out of. Just lonely, I think.”

The researcher raises an eyebrow, intimating that she’s not so sure. As much as I like Sam, it’s easy for him to write off someone like this. As a man, he doesn’t have to be afraid.

“Do you know where he’s staying? I’ll pop by.”