Two Medicine (22 page)

“
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 honesty 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.

Greg nodded and laughed at
my description of the article, “Sure, this place is paradise, if
you come for a few days, but living up here full time takes
determination, and grit.”

“
It takes commitment,” Dee
chimed in as she cut a potato up for Ophelia, who didn’t seem
interested in it. “A few months into a hard winter and you think
you’re on the moon.”

Greg looked over at
Ronnie, “Ronnie, what made your decision to work here?”

“
It’s a
lot better than Detroit,” Ronnie said, and chugged his
2
^nd
beer straight from
the bottle, saying nothing further. He just sat there and slowly
guzzled the beer for a few seconds, with us just watching him. When
he was done, he breathed out a sigh, and then went back to eating,
not saying another word.

It was on the verge of
becoming awkward, with all of us just staring at him, when Greg
suddenly piped up and began to tell us a joke about the rangers in
the park. It was something about rangers that rode horses, and
something about horse shit (Ophelia looked up at him when he said
that), and when he got to the punch line we all laughed, even
Ronnie, and the rest of the dinner conversation picked up after
that. It was the first feeling of family I had in a very long time,
as I sat at the table and talked to Greg and Dee; although I had
just met the rangers I felt at home with them.

My association with the
idea of family had always been a muddled one, and it mostly
centered on my father, who came to mind whenever I thought of
“family,” even as distant and formal as he was. But with this small
family in this little ranger house in the middle of the mountains,
I felt at ease and happy and like I belonged, in a way I had not
felt for a long while. Even Ronnie dropped his silent reserve and
was laughing with Greg about life in the store by the end of the
dinner.

When the meal
was over, Ronnie said he had to get back and after
thanking them for dinner he then made a quick exit. I didn’t really
want him there anyway so I didn’t object to his sudden departure,
and Greg said he’d drive me back. Dee went to give Ophelia a bath,
and Greg and I moved out to the back and sat on his back deck on
some fold-out chairs. We leaned back against the wall, staring out
into the night and casually sipping beers. I saw a glimmer of
moonlight reflecting a few yards off between some trees.

Greg noticed me squinting
at it and said, “That little river flows from your lake; it goes on
for miles until it dumps into another lake – the Lower Two Medicine
near Browning. You can take a boat from the store and just float
all the way to my back porch. Kayakers float by all the time not
even knowing ‘the cops’ are watching through the trees.”

“
Cops?” I asked, not
understanding his joke.

“
Rangers are sometimes
called ‘Khaki Cops’ around here,” he said. He took a gulp of beer.
“Like mall cops I guess.”

The crickets had started
up with a scratchy fast whirring sound. “I actually always wanted
to be a cop,” Greg said. “My dad was a cop in Missoula his entire
adult life. He made it to chief, but he died from lung cancer. He
was one of the last of the great chain smokers – always had a
cigarette going, big messy ashtrays everywhere.” Greg took a sip of
his beer. “He was a tough old bird though, got a lot done for the
Missoula PD.

“
After a year of college I
went and signed up for the academy; I wanted to join the Missoula
police force just like the old man, but I flunked out.”

“
What happened, if I may
ask?”

He either cleared his
throat, or laughed, “Flunked out on the written portion – didn’t
answer the questions right, believe it or not.” He tossed his empty
bottle into a trash can at the end of the porch. “I’m dyslexic –
for the rangers it doesn’t matter though. The Khaki Cops don’t
care.”

I glanced over at him. I
wondered if he was getting drunk, but he didn’t sound tipsy, just
regretful.

“
I tried to join the army
when I was a senior in high school,” I said to him, “but they
wouldn’t take me because my spine was too crooked.”

I didn’t tell him that I’d
always been secretly thankful, however, because how I would have
fared in the military I couldn’t image – it would have been hell
for me, most likely. I had only gone to the recruiter station in an
errant impulse – like so many before me probably had, and impulse
that I had always been grateful hadn’t panned out.

Greg nodded, “Well I
wanted to be a cop to help people, save lives, protect people from
being hurt, like my dad did. And being a ranger I can still do
that.” He didn’t sound altogether convinced, though, more obstinate
that inspired.

I noticed the
night was getting darker, and I saw that the stars
had come out innumerable and bright in the time we had been on the
porch, even with the moon rising above the distant trees. In the
Two Med sky I could sometimes see the sweeping band of the Milky
Way stretching across the dome of the night sky in a delicate and
cloudy streak, if it was dark enough.

Greg walked in the house
and got a couple more beers, even though I wasn’t done with mine.
He came back and sat back down on the bench. He didn’t seem like he
wanted to go back into the house just yet.

“
When my dad retired, he
gave me his badge and the medals he had won on the force,” Greg
said quietly, looking out into the dark woods in front of us. A
single light hung over his porch which just illuminated the area of
grass in front of us a few yards. Outside that circle it was
getting very dark, as if we were the only living souls in the
wilderness around, the only light on the porch besides the moon.
“He never said anything, but I know he was disappointed with me
that I didn’t become a cop. The old bird didn’t come to my
swearing-in as a ranger.”

“
Fathers become
disappointed pretty easily, is my analysis,” I said. “Mine was
disappointed in me quite early on; so at least I spared him any big
hopes from the get-go.”

Greg laughed quietly and
shook his head, “Ophelia can do whatever the hell she likes when
she grows up – or nothing at all.”

I told him I agreed with
his philosophy and we sipped our beers. An owl hooted from far
away, echoing faintly over the hills around the river.

“
Alia was beaten up
horribly,” Greg said suddenly, in a graver voice. I looked at him
and saw that he was looking down at his boots. He said, “She was
clothed, you should know, but she was battered and bruised in a way
I haven’t seen before. She had her purse, her wallet on her
still.”