Feb 22 22
It is an agreement of footsteps that make a path — cutting through some low chuparosa Legishon’s boots were following the consensus of an unseen group of coyotes. The trail ended abruptly hitting the chainlink that bordered the aqueduct. Through a rapidly deteriorating Mojave dusk he could just make out a figure beyond the opposite fence.
Across the dividing plank of water Legishon shouted “Hello! You alright?” No response; just distant engines on the 15 and wind moving through things. He squinted; it was human in shape but appeared to be made of straw. Another one. He squinted harder; like dried reeds stuffed into a strange looking track suit. For a moment he thought it an actual scarecrow, but it rotated and bolted into the graying field of junipers, bouncing jaggedly among the swaying puffs. Eventually he couldn’t see it; all elements converging into murk.
With one hand Park Ranger Legishon Ketema rubbed his jaw and moved his gaze from the shadowed field down into the faint swirling eddies of the engineered river.
The warmth was leaving. He turned and let the crunch of his footfalls join another conversation, this time back to the truck. Opening the black door he pulled himself up into the cab and started the engine, but sat sideways so that his feet rested on the running board. He felt empty and slightly nervous.
He kept a small red plaid square, cut from a shuka, pinned to his uniform. Tonight, as was too often the case, it brought to mind the Maasai proverb: the eye cannot penetrate darkness.
Above him the Mojave’s grim rainbow was morphing to oceanic navy, soon to be pocked by millions of white dots. On his phone, almost automatically, he typed “inner and outer landscapes are mutually defining but irreconcilable.”
He sat forward, closed the door, and tossed the phone onto the passenger seat. The wheels crackled and popped along the access road; his lights illuminating some bugs and weeds along the blur of cyclone fencing. He turned the wheel hard to the left, and like a planchette being pushed by unseen hands he turned onto the two lane asphalt and headed back to the station to file another report.
Across the dividing plank of water Legishon shouted “Hello! You alright?” No response; just distant engines on the 15 and wind moving through things. He squinted; it was human in shape but appeared to be made of straw. Another one. He squinted harder; like dried reeds stuffed into a strange looking track suit. For a moment he thought it an actual scarecrow, but it rotated and bolted into the graying field of junipers, bouncing jaggedly among the swaying puffs. Eventually he couldn’t see it; all elements converging into murk.
With one hand Park Ranger Legishon Ketema rubbed his jaw and moved his gaze from the shadowed field down into the faint swirling eddies of the engineered river.
The warmth was leaving. He turned and let the crunch of his footfalls join another conversation, this time back to the truck. Opening the black door he pulled himself up into the cab and started the engine, but sat sideways so that his feet rested on the running board. He felt empty and slightly nervous.
He kept a small red plaid square, cut from a shuka, pinned to his uniform. Tonight, as was too often the case, it brought to mind the Maasai proverb: the eye cannot penetrate darkness.
Above him the Mojave’s grim rainbow was morphing to oceanic navy, soon to be pocked by millions of white dots. On his phone, almost automatically, he typed “inner and outer landscapes are mutually defining but irreconcilable.”
He sat forward, closed the door, and tossed the phone onto the passenger seat. The wheels crackled and popped along the access road; his lights illuminating some bugs and weeds along the blur of cyclone fencing. He turned the wheel hard to the left, and like a planchette being pushed by unseen hands he turned onto the two lane asphalt and headed back to the station to file another report.