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quaranmine · 11 months

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The Incandescence of a Dying Light (Chapter Nine)

Grian goes looking for answers, for better or worse.

Chapter Nine: 10,266 words

<< Chapter Eight | Masterpost | Chapter Ten >>

arising from the dead nearly two months later with the longest chapter of this fic so far, which was already split in half! Once again I want to preface this chapter saying I have no issues with search and rescue and don’t really want this to come across negatively to them? Grian is just a very bitter pov character because he’s hurt.

No CW for this chapter other than themes I assume you've already signed up for if you made it this far.

July 1989

Grian wakes up to the sound of fireworks. His first thought is just—why? Firstly, it’s not the Fourth of July anymore. It’s several days past, in fact, and therefore everybody should definitely give it up already with the fireworks. Secondly, it is barely even four in the morning. Who does that? Lunatics, that’s who.

Thirdly, he becomes suddenly aware that sound is nearby. It cracks sharply through the hills, with just the faintest edge of an echo. It’s remarkably clear. It’s not like the fireworks he saw days ago, colorful and in a district so far away the sound didn’t carry. These are close.

The whole situation is a bit unusual, to say the least. He wonders who’s setting them off, and where they’re at. Jonesy Lake is the mostly likely spot, given how popular it is with campers and hikers. Most of the hikers he meets or who pass his tower are going there.

The sound of the fireworks dies off, and he lies in bed awake for a moment in the new silence. The darkness in the cabin is complete, but as his eyes start to adjust he can begin picking out things across the room in the dim moonlight. Kitchen, desk, firefinder, backpack on the floor, jug of water.

Nothing else. He’s always a little convinced there might be something else.

In the beginning the total darkness unnerved him a little, not that he’d ever admit that to anyone. Grian was, by all means, a city boy—raised in towns and metropolitan areas where there was always just a touch of glow in the sky or a streetlight on the corner. It’s one of the reasons he and Mumbo liked moving out to Colorado. They were at the perfect jumping off point for all kinds of weekend trips and adventures, to places where the sky was always dark and the mountains tall and you didn’t fall asleep to the sound of cars on the street outside.

Of course, Grian learned quite quickly upon taking this job that there’s a difference between camping alone and camping with someone. The darkness in the tower is complete, and there is no civilization around for miles, and there is nothing but you and all the mysterious creatures and things that go bump in the night. Grian got used to it quickly because he had to get used to it quickly, but he’d be lying if he said it wasn’t a bit unnerving for the first week or two.

Tonight, though, the darkness is neither empty nor quiet. It is filled with idiots.

When the firework sounds die off, Grian’s first reaction is to give in and go back to sleep. He can deal with all of this in the morning. When the sun is up, like normal people. His eyes gratefully slip shut without any bargaining at all, still half-asleep to begin with, and then—

Boom!

Great. They’re still setting them off.

Grian sits up in bed with a huff. He can see the colored spray of lights start to fade out his window, confirming that it’s in the vicinity of Jonesy Lake.

“Don’t they know those are banned?” he groans. He checks his watch, squinting in the dim light. “Don’t they know it’s four in the morning?” This is a silly thing to wonder, because the types of people who are worried about whether or not fireworks are banned are not the type of people who set them off in the middle of the night.

It’s too early to wake Scar up, Grian would feel awful about that. Scar’s a bit of a night owl, but not an awake-at-four-am-happily sort of night owl. His tower is dark over on the horizon—in fact, it’s so far away that Grian can’t even pick it out in the night if the light isn’t on. And honestly, what could he do anyway? Commiserate with Grian? No, Grian can handle this on his own.

Handle it? Who said he was handling it?

Grian shakes his head. He’s off tomorrow—well, technically today—and will be for the next four days like usual. He had been hoping to get a good night’s sleep before then. He has big plans for everything, this time. He’s going to get answers, this time.

The backpack on the floor has already been packed for his travels. Grian’s hiking out tomorrow, getting in his old car at the trailhead, driving 19 miles down a bumpy dusty road to the main highway, waltzing into the national forest’s main office in Cody, and getting answers.

He knows now that he doesn’t have the full story. He knows now there’s blame to be placed somewhere, and someone who has more answers than he does. He knows enough now to go and steal those final puzzle pieces for himself. He’s going to ask questions, he’s going to make himself heard, and if all else fails, he’ll just find another method of getting answers.

He’s gonna do that…in the proper morning. Not the middle of the night morning.

Another firework goes off, and anger floods Grian. He kicks the blankets off. “Idiots,” he mutters, reaching for his glasses in their case next to the bed. He’s already wearing a t-shirt, but he tugs on a pair of trousers. He walks across the floor to where his boots are next to the door. “Idiots,” he mutters again, and begins to lace them up.

Boots on, he stands up and scowls in their direction. “Idiots,” he says a third and final time, and snatches his daypack, a single bottle of water, his flashlight, and his radio for good measure.

He steps out onto the catwalk and locks the door behind him. The night air is cold. There’s always a bite to it in these higher elevations, even when the midsummer afternoons are hot.

It’s not really his job to go stop people from setting off fireworks. He’s not a ranger. But at the same time, it definitely still feels like his job. He’s here to protect this forest. Someone trying to set a fire doesn’t just make his job more complicated, but it endangers other people as well. Human-caused fires, other than prescribed burns of course, are always suppressed.

These idiots might start the fire, but they’re not the ones who have to stick around to fight it. They’re not digging fire lines or dropping flame retardant from helicopters. They’re not jumping from helicopters and hiking for hours in hot, heavy gear. But if Grian can catch them, take their fireworks and maybe even identify them, well…maybe they’ll get a fine and he’ll stop them before they do any damage.

He also won’t admit it, but it makes for a great excuse for his trip to the main office later today. He was planning on going anyway, but this time he can say he’s turning in contraband and making a report to the rangers. It gives him plausibility for anything he does next. He now has a reason to be in the office, and perhaps even a reason to go beyond the receptionist’s desk without even lying about it.

Grian’s boots crunch softly in the gravel as he picks his way down the hill in the dark, the wan light of his flashlight illuminating a small circle of ground before him. The moonlight is weak and covered at various points by clouds, leaving the forest gloomy even after his eyes adjust. He’d like to not risk a twisted ankle all the way out here, so he clings to the area his flashlight commands.

When he gets to the meadow before the lake, he stops. “Oh, they’re so dead,” he mutters, stalking closer. There’s a small simmering campfire in a stone ring. A small illegal campfire. There aren’t any flames anymore; it’s clear that it’s been a few hours since someone put new wood on it. It glows far too weakly for him to have been able to see from his tower.

“This could’ve set the whole meadow on fire,” he says. Although it is in a ring, it would only take a stray gust of wind to carry some sparks or an ember. The fire still glows orange. The grass in the meadow isn’t dead by any means, but the recent dry stretch of weather is not doing it any favors.

He pulls the water bottle out of his bag and uses it to douse the embers with a sizzle. Then, he carefully stomps it out into the dirt until it stops glowing. Satisfied, he looks around the people’s makeshift camp. There’s a poorly pitched tent up, that looks like it hasn’t been used all night. Of course it hasn’t—people who set fireworks off at 4 AM are people who did not actually go to bed in the first place. Nobody wakes up at this hour to cause problems. They stay up to this hour to cause problems.

There’s also a bag lying on the ground that most definitely contains food. Grian groans when he sees it. “Bear country,” he mutters, and picks the bag up. Its owners are clearly down by the lake—he can faintly hear their laughter—and that also happens to be where the nearest cache box to this campsite is located. He plans to confiscate any remaining fireworks, but he won’t take their food. He’ll just lock it up like it’s supposed to be.

As he walks closer to the lake, his apprehension spikes. Is this really a good idea? What if this goes badly? People can be weird. He’s not technically being paid to do this. But just as he thinks about turning around—

Crack!

Another one goes off, so close Grian flinches at how loud the noise is. He picks up the pace immediately, running the last several meters and practically bursting out of the bushes onto the lakeshore.

“HEY!” he shouts. “Stop that!”

It’s not the most intimidating of orders, but it garners a reaction.

“What the f-” starts one of the people, at the same time the other says, “Who the hell is that? I thought you said we were alone out here!”

He glares at them. They have a lantern sitting on a log to illuminate their workspace, a somewhat concerning amount of empty beer cans, and a range of other items Grian doesn’t want to examine too closely. Maybe clothing? Like he said, he’s not examining it too closely.

It’s a young woman and a young man. They look to be a few years younger than Grian, but definitely in their 20s. They stare at him in shock. It’s a fair reaction. Grian would be pretty shocked too if he was in the middle of nowhere in the middle of the night and a strange man emerged from the shadows to yell at him.

“Hey man, I don’t know what your problem—” the man starts, taking a step forward that instantly frames himself as combative.

He cuts him off anyway. “My problem is your fireworks,” Grian snaps. “They’re banned, idiot. Didn’t you see the burn ban? And your campfire too, it’s like you’re trying to set everything on fire.”

“Oh, come on,” the woman whines. She’s wrapped in some sort of towel or blanket, probably cold from swimming in the lake earlier in the night. “We’re not setting anything on fire, we were just having fun! We’re right by the water anyway.”

“Yeah!” the man says. “Who even are you anyway?”

“I’m a forest ranger,” Grian lies. It sounds a lot more intimidating than “fire lookout,” and he frankly doesn’t want these people to go messing around in his tower when he leaves later today. If he pisses them off enough, he doesn’t exactly want them to know where he lives.

The woman looks at him critically. “You don’t have a uniform,” she says, before turning to the guy, whom Grian is assuming is her boyfriend. She tugs on his arm. “Chris, I think this guy is just crazy, let’s go.”

Grian sighs and rolls his eyes, making completely sure that these people can see how exasperated he is with them. “Dude, it’s 4 AM,” he says. “Of course I don’t have a uniform, I was sleeping. Like you all should be. I put out your ridiculous campfire and I’m taking these fireworks too.”

He marches over to where the box is sitting next to the lantern. It’s depressingly almost empty but, ah, better to have taken the dregs away from them than for them to have used it up.

“Hold on,” the guy says. “Those belong to us, you can’t just take them-”

“Give those back!” the girl cries.

“Do you want to be fined?” Grian says, voice stern. “More than you already will be, of course. You’re violating, um, 7 CFR section 1429. I have to report this, you’re going to get a ticket. And,” he drops the bag he picked up earlier in front of them, with a flourish of his arm, “I can cite you for this too. Really, I can’t believe this. What were you thinking? Leaving food out unattended like this in bear country?” He shakes his head. “You’re lucky it’s only me who found you and not the grizzlies.”

The law Grian just cited was made up off the top of his head, but these people don’t need to know that. He’s sure there is some sort of…regulation, rule, or policy somewhere, he just doesn’t know the specifics. He’s a fire lookout, not enforcement. Hopefully if they do receive a citation, they’ll have forgotten whatever numbers Grian just stated.

“I-I didn’t know-”

“And that is your irresponsibility,” he bites. “Put this bag in the cache box over there, it’s like a bear box. Never leave it unattended again, clean up your trash, and I will be taking these fireworks.”

“You’re just a thief,” the woman says. “You just want to come steal our stuff!”

Grian raises an eyebrow. “I’m not stealing anything, I’m confiscating it. Let’s see, did you buy this at some 4th of July sale at a roadside shop? Half off? Well, if your fireworks right here did cause a fire in this backcountry, you’ll be on the hook for thousands of dollars. Let’s call it like I’m doing you a favor.”

With that he scoops the box up, turns around, and disappears back into the shadows. The couple begins to bicker in the background, the sound carrying further than it did earlier as they raise their voices. Grian doesn’t even bother to suppress his self-satisfied smile. That felt good.

»»———-　　———-««

Grian ultimately decides to just hike out after the confrontation. By the time he gets back to his tower, fireworks in tow, it’s nearly 6 AM. There’s a glow to the east; the sun is already about to rise. Considering how far he has to go today, he’d better start now.

He discards the day pack for his larger pack, refills all his water, and consolidates the fireworks into a smaller bag he can carry more easily. The original box they all came in is so unwieldy it’s a wonder the couple even made it all the way down the trail carrying it. In addition to all their booze, he has to begrudgingly give them credit for the amount of weight they must have been carrying.

If everything goes well, Grian’s going to get to his vehicle before the end of the day and make it to the office the next day. He’ll get his information as politely as possible but unpolitely if needed. He’ll check in for a night at the motel down the street and experience the wonders of full electricity and running water again. Then, it’s back on the search.

Most lookouts go back into town on their days off. They don’t spend their days off doing search grids and camping in the backcountry the way Grian has. He’s sort of unique in that way. He suspects that Scar doesn’t go back into civilization as frequently as the others do either, if for no other reason than to save himself the energy.

He waits until it’s closer to 8 AM to call Scar. That’s their official starting time, but it’s an open secret that a lot of them just roll out of bed to answer the radio for their morning reports. Grian’s pretty sure Scar is one of these people, although he’s yet to be able to confirm this since his voice is always annoyingly bright no matter the hour.

“Hey Scar,” he says. “I’m out today. I’ll see you in a few days.”

“Good morning, G-man!” Scar says. His voice sounds distant, and a little staticky. The radio’s signal is fading. “Going all the way back to town? It’s a big trip!”

“For a day or two,” Grian says. “I’m on the trail now already.” He hesitates, and debates telling Scar about the fireworks.

Why hesitate, though? What’s there to lose in telling him? He mentally smacks himself. There’s no secret here to hide. It’ll probably even help Scar do his job better, assuming one of the many fireworks they set off did throw a spark.

“I had an adventure this morning,” he starts.

He’s stopped next to a large boulder, taking a break from hiking to talk to Scar. If he goes any further, he’s likely to lose Scar completely until he’s heading back home. The radios don’t like being so far apart, and Grian is already a few miles down the trail. The transmissions are clearest when both Scar and Grian are on top of their towers, each in their respective high spots with no obstructions in between. Right now he’s on the ground with countless hills in between.

“Oh?” Scar says. “What happened?”

“Some idiots down by Jonesy Lake. Woke me up in the middle of the night by setting off fireworks!”

Scar gasps. The static crunches the audio. He’s playing up his horror, but Grian knows some of it is genuine. “How dare they?”

“This might have been stupid,” Grian says, “but I…” He trails off.

“Stupid? I love stupid. Please tell me what stupid thing you did.”

“I went to go tell them off! They also had a campfire and I put it out. And food that wasn’t put up properly! I think I scared them. I confiscated their fireworks. I want to take them back with me to the ranger’s station in town. Maybe they can pull the permit and fine them.”

“You confronted them?” Scar asks.

“Was that bad?”

It’s difficult to hear, but Scar fakes crying and says with a melodramatic sniff, “They just grow up so fast. I’m proud of you, G.” He snaps back into his normal voice. “Man! I wish I could’ve seen their faces when you showed up!”

Grian laughs. “They definitely didn’t expect someone to come running out of the woods at 4 AM to go yell at them, that’s for sure. I also might have pretended to be a ranger? Not like I’ll tell them that at the station, though.”

“Well,” Scar says, “I don’t think you were, uh, supposed to do any of that, but I’ll tell you I wish I’d done that quite a few times over the past eight years. You should ask at the main office for a raise! I’ll even give you a reference: above and beyond,” and Grian imagines a flourish of his hands at the last line.

“Well, that isn’t all I’ll be asking for at the main office,” Grian says softly. “I want more information, Scar. I’m going to get it.”

“Oh,” Scar says, sobered by the turn in the conversation. “What will you ask for?”

“Everything. The case file. The search patterns. The helicopter search routes, letters, and any correspondence about it. His permit. More maps. I want to know what they aren’t telling me.”

“What makes you think they’ll give it to you?”

“I’m the main contact, aren’t I?” Grian says. “My name’s on the missing persons report. They should be giving me all the information anyway.”

“You’re the main civilian contact,” Scar says. “They don’t have to tell you their whole process. They’ll give you updates, and conclusions, but what you’re asking for—” He stops, briefly. “That’s just how they were able to lie to you the first time, G.”

“I work here,” Grian says. “They hired me. Doesn’t that count for something?”

“I work here too, G, and for longer,” Scar says. “You know how that turned out. We’re seasonal fire lookouts, not law enforcement and investigations. We’re the lowest rung of the need-to-know ladder.”

“Then I’ll get my answers another way.”

“Don’t do anything stupid,” Scar says. “Please.”

“I thought you said you liked stupid,” Grian replies and then before Scar has any chance to respond again, any chance to dissuade him of his actions, he flips the subject. “Anyway, I just wanted to tell you about the fireworks before I’m out of range completely. Keep an eye on Jonesy Lake while I’m gone, alright? Who knows if they set a fire last night or not.”

He takes a deep breath, and steels himself. For what—the hike ahead? Ending his discussion with Scar? What he might do before the day is up?

“I’ll be back in a few days,” he finishes. “See ya, Scar.”

He turns the radio off, and hikes onward.

»»———-　　———-««

It’s bright and early at the District Ranger’s office in Wapiti, an unincorporated community outside of Cody. The District Ranger is in charge of all the activities in this sector of the park: campground maintenance, road and trail maintenance, vegetation and wildlife habitat management, permits, fire lookouts, rangers, and more. Shoshone National Forest has five districts, but both Grian and Scar report to the Wapiti office in the management structure. It’s the oldest Forest Service office in the entire country, built in 1903—before the agency’s official creation—and has been in use continuously since.

It’s also the office that issued Mumbo’s faulty permit. It’s the office in charge of closing, inspecting, and repairing trails. It’s the first line ground support for search and rescue in the park.

If there’s a problem to be found, it’s here.

Grian is sitting in the parking lot in his Chevy Blazer and waiting for the building to open. There's a few other cars in the parking lot and not one person has paid him any mind. He regards the building with distrust.

He made it into town after dark last night and spent the night in the same little motel he’d stayed in that very first night last year. He doesn't even want to admit how nice it was to take a real shower instead of a camp shower. He wishes he slept better—his thoughts instead racing about what he plans to say today—but the experience has been overall refreshing.

Feeling refreshed? Time to tackle the world, then.

He's not sure if going into the office as soon as it opens will be in his favor or not. Maybe, if their day hasn't started yet, everyone will have more time to help him. He hopes this will be the last stop of the day for him, and that he can be on his way back to the lookout this evening. But if the District Ranger’s office can’t help him, or if they don’t have what he needs, he’s going to have no choice but to try and escalate things at the Forest Supervisor’s office.

He waits until the clock hits 8:15 AM. He’s already been in the parking lot for some time now, but he doesn’t want to come in the minute the doors are unlocked, so he forces himself to wait just a little bit longer. He doesn’t have a good reason for waiting, he’s just—he’s nervous.

He’s nervous.

He follows a pair of women into the office. They’re at least a decade older than him, and clearly planning on hiking based on their clothing and tied-back hair. They must be here to pick up a permit. One of them holds the door open and smiles at him, and he nearly forgets to smile back.

He hangs back while they talk to the receptionist. She’s a woman of about 40, with long and unruly curly brown hair. She hands them some paperwork. They hand her some money, just a few dollars, for the permit. They leave a few minutes later, ready to start whatever adventure they have in mind.

He can’t help but wonder if they were issued a correct permit. He can’t help but question her basic skills—has she read the name of the permit right? Has she double checked the dates? The closure status? Does she read all her memos? Even that sticky note on her desk? Is she sure?

If he commits the faces of these women to memory, would he be able to say he knew where it went wrong if they go missing later?

The woman behind the counter beckons him forward. She seems friendly enough. Grian’s locked in his own head. He hopes he’s acting polite enough toward her. He hopes he’s not watching her too intently. He can’t really tell. Every action he takes is distant from the constant background noise of his brain.

This is a different woman than the ranger he interacted with last year when he reported Mumbo missing, but that’s to be expected. When he made the report back then he’d called the supervisory office, not the district one.

“Can I help you?” she says, and he realizes that he probably should have said something by now.

“Um, yes, sorry,” he says. “I’m a fire lookout? My name’s Grian. I work at the Two Forks lookout.”

“Oh!” she says. “You’re the one with the nice accent. Nice to meet you! My name’s Linda. We don’t typically get to see much of you folks down here at the office, you know.”

This time Grian’s smile is real, and it takes him a little off guard. He’s not friendly with this woman. He’s suspicious of her.

“I think some of us choose the job so we don’t have to come into the office,” he says wryly. From what little he’s known about the other fire lookouts besides him and Scar, they’re not the type for traditional structure.

Linda is still looking at him expectantly. “So, what can I do you for?” she asks brightly.

He holds up the bag with the fireworks. “I need to talk to the District Ranger about an incident in my sector,” he says, and then wracks his brain trying to think of the man’s name. It’ll all be no good if he doesn’t even know the man he needs to speak to.

The District Ranger is technically his boss’s boss—the man above the one who reprimanded Scar. To get even more specific, Scar and Grian have the same boss. Scar’s supervisory status is mostly a seniority-based thing looped around an order to train Grian, the new guy. He’d rather think of Scar as his boss though. He never speaks to their real boss, and he doesn’t want to speak to the guy.

That’s already a dead end. They won’t get anywhere with him, he knows that. He told Scar to stop poking around, so why would he let Grian poke around? That’s why he has to escalate.

She narrows her eyes a little at him, nearly imperceptible if he wasn’t scrutinizing her so hard. Is she worried about letting him speak to someone higher on the chain of command? Going over his real supervisor’s head? Is she going to tell him he needs to start there instead? Is she going to make him write the message down for her to pass on at her leisure? Does she trust him? Does she know that he doesn’t trust her?

She probably does deliberate on these things, but the end result is favorable to Grian. Another hiker has just walked in behind him, jangling bells tied to the door’s handle. It’s far busier than he expected it to be right after the office opened, but it’s likely because so many people want to start their hikes in the morning and didn’t manage to get a permit earlier in the week. It’s working in his favor.

She jerks her head over to a door labeled Staff Only. “He’s all the way down the hall to the left,” she says, and then throws in an eye roll at the end of the sentence. “He should be in by now, but he always manages to be about 10 minutes late every mornin’. You can wait if he’s not there.”

Grian takes off through the door without a second thought, and also before she had time for second thoughts. He walks down the hall, and commits the doors to memory. He’s been here a few times before—once in connection with Mumbo’s case, and once when he was being given an orientation for his new job. There’s maps hung up all around the hallway as decoration. Some of them are topo maps, others seem to be maps labeling the extent of previous fires, and others seem to be related to wildlife migration patterns. There’s a few historic photographs from the old days of the agency. He doesn’t stop to peruse them.

He passes the door to the break room, a room with three desks inside labeled administration, a room labeled fire management, a room labeled public outreach and affairs, a room labeled as the Forest engineer’s office, several offices for rangers that are down another corridor, and a room labeled for conservation and watershed management. The district office is not large, but modestly sized.

He passes a storage room with files, and makes a mental note of it.

The District Ranger’s office is the nicest, of course. It has a beautiful wooden door with a frosted glass window in it. The placard by the door says the room belongs to a Larry Copenhagen, and that’s when Grian finally remembers the name of the guy he needs to talk to. He’s not in the office, so it seems like Linda from the front desk was wrong about him already being here. Grian leaves the door half open and sits down in one of the chairs. It's awkward.

Larry walks in a moment later, and hardly seems surprised at all by Grian’s presence. He’s tall and about 50 years old. There’s lines in his forehead, and his skin looks sun-beaten. He might be in a more supervisory position now, but he certainly started his career out in the field. It’s painted all over his features. He’s carrying a cup of coffee with him. Break room, then?

“Good morning,” Grian says. “Linda told me—”

“She said you could wait here, I know. I ran into her in the hall.”

Grian starts speaking right away, because he’s getting a feeling that this man isn’t the highest on patience this morning, although he is being polite right now.

“I just wanted to make a report about something that happened last night in my sector. I’m off right now for the next few days, so I figured I’d just come into the office. Since I was coming into town anyway, of course.” He was not coming into town “anyway, of course,” but Larry does not need to know that.

The man sits down behind his desk, and motions for Grian to continue.

“Some people down by Jonesy Lake were setting off a lot of fireworks,” he starts, and then explains the rest of the story. He leaves out the part where he pretended to be a ranger, but keeps in nearly everything else, including the fireworks he confiscated. He hands those over now.

Larry scribbles down a few notes on a notepad. “Jonesy Lake?” he says. He leans back with a sigh. “Yeah, that’s a popular spot for it, alright. I’ll tell someone to pull their permits so we can issue a fine. Were they camped there?”

“Yes,” Grian says. “They were in that first campsite by the lake, a man and a woman. They had a fire too, but I put it out.” He pauses for just a moment. “Do you keep a lot of records in this office? So you can keep people’s permits and things? What about the Supervisor’s Office in town?”

Larry looks quizzical for a moment. “Yes, we have copies. The Supervisor’s Office does too. After a while we fax things to the regional office for longer term recordkeeping. Why?”

Grian smiles. “Just interested in how it works, that’s all. I want to make sure you'll find them so they can be fined.” He shakes his head slightly, as if to redirect his thought process back on track, but it’s all calculated. He continues, “I also told, uh, Scar over at Thorofare Lookout to keep an eye on my sector while I was off, in case they started something with their fireworks. Since there’s no volunteer lookout taking my place this week, of course.”

Larry nods. “That’s a good idea. Well then!” He claps his hands. “Is that all you came in for? I’ll let you get on with the rest of your day off. I’m plannin’ on taking a half day myself. Going fishing.” He looks at Grian with a specific sort of implication in his eyes. “Which means there’s a lot I gotta get done this morning first before I can leave, you know.”

Grian’s unphased. Out of the office this afternoon, he says? That’s convenient. He files that thought away, and barrels forward.

“Actually,” he says. His voice is steely, completely flipped from his earlier tone. “No, that isn’t all I came in for. I want more information from you on a missing person’s case. My best friend’s case.”

The man sighs. “And what case would that be?”

“I think you know who I’m talking about.”

He cuts his eyes toward Grian. “Yeah,” he says slowly. “I remember who you are. I know your case.”

“Well?” Grian prompts.

“Well, what do you want to know?” Larry says back.

He clenches his jaw. The words are too flippant to his ears. “I want to know everything,” he says. “I want to know everything you’re not telling me. Starting with why the search was botched.”

Larry leans back and his seat and furrows his brow. “The search wasn’t botched. We searched for over three weeks before calling it off. I’m really sorry, but I know this was explained to you before. We didn’t abandon the search, we just stopped it because the odds of success were so low.”

“But it wasn’t zero. You abandoned it.”

“You had a discussion with the incident commander about it, Grian. They didn’t suspend the search without your input. You agreed to stop the search.”

Grian looks down. “That was a mistake,” he says quietly. “I knew you wouldn’t keep the operation running no matter what I said.”

Larry looks him in the eyes, gaze soft. Grian’s still looking down though, avoiding his gaze. “I know it’s hard,” Larry says. “I don’t want to be the bearer of bad news either. But the search and rescue organizations we work with are busy. Our rangers are busy. Our helicopter pilots were needed to go pitch in with the fires in Yellowstone. The survivability statistics—”

“Mumbo isn’t a statistic,” Grian snaps. “He’s a person.”

“You’re right,” Larry says. “I’m sorry though. We can’t spare extra time for cases when it’s been determined there are no longer chances of survival. Our resources are already spread too thin and other people need help, too.”

Grian shakes his head. “No,” he says. His voice wavers just the tiniest amount. “Try again.”

“Try again?”

“That’s not the truth,” he bites. “There’s more to the case than that. I know there is. The worst part? I know there’s more and you didn’t even mention it just now. So, try again.”

He sputters. “I’m sorry? What else do you know that you think I’m not telling you?”

“More than you think,” Grian says. “Try again.”

Larry shakes his head. “I’m sorry that the outcome of your friend’s case was bad. I know that there weren’t perfect conditions for the search and that the fires in the Forest caused some issues, including visibility issues for aerial searches. If you—”

“The bike,” Grian says. “Someone found it earlier this summer. Left it at my tower, actually. They told you something very interesting, I heard. They said they found it on the Pinnacles trail. Why was he over there? That was miles away from where we searched.”

“I don’t know why the bike was found there, that’s true. Your friend’s case remains open until we find him. Just because there isn’t an active search doesn’t mean it’s closed. He deserves that. Since this was new evidence, we arranged a few aerial—”

“Did you think they were going to find anything?” Grian says. “Looking out of those silly helicopters a whole year later? You did that to cover yourself. I did the real looking. What I want to know is why you didn’t look there to start with.”

Larry takes a moment to think. “We searched based on the information you relayed to us,” he starts, and Grian feels something start to rise in him, like a dog bristling its fur. “Your friend’s travel plans were for the Cloud Lake Trail, if I remember correctly. One of my rangers found his car there. He’d been issued a permit for the trail as well. We saw no need to search a trail as far away as Pinnacles. I’m sorry if that was a mistake.”

Grian hits the table, smacking it with his open hand and causing a pen to roll off the side. Larry startles at his outburst. “The permit is exactly the problem,” he hisses. “It was wrong. It shouldn’t have been issued. Did you think I wouldn’t find out that the Cloud Lake Trail was closed for maintenance?”

“It’s—”

“Trail maintenance belongs to the district office, doesn’t it? And the permitting does too. He would’ve stopped here as the first step on his trip. That means the problem lies with you. Was it Linda, over there at the front desk? Is she the one who issued his permit?”

He can’t stop. He leans in. He feels like a lit match, a spark, a firework.

“She seems awfully nice. Would you bet your life on her, though? Bet your life that she did her job? That she didn’t screw up? Bet your life that your rangers did their jobs? I don’t think you would. I wouldn’t. I think that’s why you’re lying to me. I think that’s why you’re having people who talk about this case reprimanded.”

The District Ranger stares at him a moment, and then tightens his mouth into a hard line. “The permit was a mistake,” he says after a moment. “It should not have been issued, but the person who issued it did not realize the trail had not been repaired yet. But we had no other reasons to assume he did not go on the trail he planned. There is no connection between Cloud Lake and Pinnacles.”

Grian shakes his head. “Try again,” he presses. “If there wasn’t a connection, how would he have gotten there? I found the connection. Unmarked trail that goes over the ridge into the valley that meets up with Pinnacles.” He meets Larry’s eyes, gaze hard. “Figured you’d know all about that one, it’s probably popular with the fishermen. Lots of stream crossings..”

Larry says nothing. Grian continues.

“One of your trail crews blocked off the side trail. There’s a log across it now. Seems like they knew about it to me.”

“My trail maintenance crews are doing their job,” Larry responds sharply. “They block all things they think might lead someone off the main route. It was part of the process for reopening the Cloud Lake Trail. I don’t know what side trail you found, but nobody in this office told them to cover anything specific up.”

“Why didn’t you mention the trail was closed?” Grian asks. “Why didn’t you tell me that originally? He must have turned around and decided to go a different way.”

“The permit was our mistake. But your friend still chose to go on a closed trail—”

“He probably ignored the sign because you gave him the permit!”

“—and still chose to deviate from his planned route into an area that nobody knew he was going to. We did not have any additional information about where he was hiking.”

Grian stops short. “So that’s it? You’re the one who lied to me, and you’re just going to blame it on him? Tell me it was all his fault that this happened? That it’s his fault we didn’t search in the right places or find him? It’s his fault because he went off-trail?”

“We did not lie to you, we—”

“Okay, you didn’t lie,” Grian says, only slightly hysterical this time. “You just didn’t tell me everything. That’s just lying with less steps!”

“It wasn’t relevant to how we handled the case.”

“It just should’ve been. You should have known to try looking elsewhere.”

“You didn’t know he was hiking elsewhere either. Our team—”

“Stop!” Grian cries. “Just tell me. Just the two of us in the room. No notes, no copies, nothing on the record officially. Just us talking.” He sucks in a breath. “Why didn’t you find Mumbo?”

Larry hasn’t given up much information the entire time Grian has been grilling him. Maybe it makes him good at his job. Good at being in a government management position. He admitted the permit was a mistake, as he should—Scar noted that the trail closure is documented on paper somewhere in the file system. That’s traceable. But search routes, plans, and investigation? It’s harder to prove the gaps, prove the negligence.

He’s evading everything else Grian has set in front of him by claiming it was either Mumbo’s fault to begin with, or bad luck none of them could have seen coming.

His response to Grian’s question is simple. “We tried our best,” he says.

“I don’t believe you.”

Larry sighs. It’s long-suffering. Grian can’t tell if they’re actual sorrow in it, or if it’s just a placation, a reaction to his extreme emotions. Larry says, “Your friend’s case is a tragedy. I don’t like seeing missing persons cases go unsolved, you know. This is the first case since I started this job where we didn’t find someone.”

Grian scoffs. “You worried it’ll mess up your numbers now? Is that why you won’t admit any fault? You’ll lose your job?”

“No,” he says. “I’m telling you I’m sorry.”

“That isn’t good enough,” Grian says. “I want him found. And I’ll do it myself, if I have to. I’ve already done most of it myself. I want to see his case file.”

“I’m sorry, but we can’t give you that,” Larry says.

“If you can’t give me the case file, then you’re not really sorry about what happened,” Grian says. “Why not? Why did you have Scar reprimanded for asking questions?”

“I didn’t reprimand your friend. His manager did, likely because he was pressuring people into giving out sensitive information.” He makes eye contact with Grian directly. “He can’t do that, you know. How would you feel if we gave the same information to anyone on the street? I also cannot give you the files for the same reasons.”

“I don’t get it,” Grian says. “I’m the emergency contact for the case. I’m not any random person on the street. Mumbo’s family is in a different country. That makes me the only family here you have to work with. I have a right to know.”

“We have given you all the information relevant to the case, and you were allowed to make judgement calls throughout the case. But unfortunately, I cannot hand over that information. I can give you conclusions, but not processes. I assure you we are not holding back anything.”

Grian scoffs. He’s getting sick of this conversation moving in circles. It’s pointless now, he sees that. He’s not going to get anything out of this man by playing nice. No matter what he says, the District Ranger has a neat way of wrapping the conversation back up.

“Well, we’ve already established you’re holding back information,” he says. His voice is much calmer than he feels. It’s clipped but steady. He continues, “But that’s fine. I’ll just—I’ll do that, uh, information request thing. You’ll have to give it over then.”

“A FOIA?” Larry says, eyebrow raised. “This information is exempt from mandatory disclosure since it pertains to an investigation. I’m sorry.”

Fine. He’ll just have to take the information himself, then.

Grian has played nicely so far. Yelled at the guy, sure, but he requested information in the proper way. Then he tried to see if he could request information in a way that legally forced them to give it up. Since none of that has worked? It’s just time for step two.

Grian gets up, shoving the chair back abruptly with a harsh squeal. “Well then,” he says. “I guess we’ve come to a non-agreement.” He smiles, throwing every ounce of spite he can into the expression. “It’s the least I could do to let you get on with your work this afternoon. Wouldn’t want you to miss your fishing trip, right?”

As he turns to leave, the District Ranger calls after him. He sounds weary. “I should expect to see you here again soon, shouldn’t I?”

“No,” Grian says over his shoulder after a moment. “If everything goes well, you won’t.”

»»———-　　———-««

Grian thrums his fingers on the car’s steering wheel, deep in thought. It’s the afternoon now, with the clear bright sunlight dappling the road. The area around the ranger’s station is a flurry of activity. There’s cars zipping by back and forth on the road, and the campground parking lot is full. It’s not hard to understand why. It’s a lovely day—warm, but not too hot, and the air is clear and not smoky.

It’s a lovely day to commit a crime.

Grian, who has been known to “borrow” from his friends and sneak into movies without paying with Mumbo, is not otherwise much for criminal activity. He speeds a little on roads, but he never runs a red light. He pays his parking meter, but tries to trick Mumbo into thinking it’s his turn to pay instead when they go places together. He lies about being a ranger, but only for the good of the forest. He does his taxes and pays for insurance. He’s always down for mischief, but only if nobody gets hurt, right?

Today, however, he’s jumping to a big one: theft.

Theft of government documents, that is. Of course, he can rationalize this however he wants. He already has. This is not wrong. What he is doing is not wrong. These documents are only copies. He works there. It doesn’t matter if they’re considered sensitive, or if he isn’t allowed to request the entire file—

There are worse things to do in the name of someone you love. The rules aren’t fair, so he doesn’t have to follow them. Is it even a rationalization if it’s true?

If he’s going to do it, though, he’s going to have to sell the lie, or be fast enough it doesn’t matter.

He turns off his car—backed into a parking space in case he needs to leave quickly—and slides in the door of the District Ranger station as inconspicuous as possible. It’s about an hour before it closes. He won’t need the entire hour, of course, but his timing is calculated: just as it is outside, there is a flurry of activity inside. Afternoons are busy, and this one is no exception. He needs it to be busy because he needs all of the workers to be distracted.

There’s two rangers in the room; one is talking with a child and the other is going over topo maps with a studious-looking young man. Grian waits his turn while some people ahead of him seem to have an extended discussion about the variation in campground rates across the Forest, and gives Linda a big smile when he reaches the front. She’d noticed him the moment he stepped inside, but had quickly turned her attention back on the debate at hand.

“Well, hello again,” she says warmly. “Grian, wasn’t it?”

“That’s me!” he says. “Hey, listen, I’m just gonna go into the office. Larry told me he’d meet with me later in the day.”

She furrows her brows, but then thinks better of it. “Uh, that’s fine,” she says and waves him off towards the door. She immediately turns to the next person in line, a teenager wanting to buy a patch for his jacket.

He gladly accepts the unceremonious dismissal and moves through the door. There’s something in her expression he doesn’t like though. Is it weird for him to ask permission to go into the rest of the office? He works here, after all. He doesn’t have a key for the other employee entrance though. Did he just draw attention to himself by announcing his presence, or did he plausibly explain his presence? Is he thinking too hard or not enough?

He has to wander the halls again for a moment before he can remember where the storage room he saw earlier is. It’s dark inside when he finally finds it. He flips the switch and closes the door behind him. There’s tons of filing cabinets lining the walls, old and brown and metal and alphabetically organized and locked.

He finds the drawer Mumbo’s file should be in easily. He cautiously tries to open the door, but it catches. So, the lock is the next issue. What can he use to pick it?

He feels his pockets, and then glances around the room looking for anything that could help him. An unbent paper clip he could wiggle in the lock, maybe? It can’t be that durable, it’s just factory standard. It’ll be faster than trying to steal a key off someone’s desk. There’s a table in the corner with a lamp, as if for reviewing materials, so he walks over to it to see what he can find. He’s about to open its drawer when—

Someone walks by in the hallway.

Freeze.

His heart rate spikes. He doesn’t dare move.

He barely breathes. Be quiet. Don’t be heard.

And—they don’t walk in, because of course they don’t. They’re just passing through the hall like a normal employee. He’s just a normal guy looking at files.They don’t know he’s out of place. They shouldn’t know he’s out of place. They shouldn’t even know he’s there unless they wonder why the light is on under the door.

This is stupid. It’s stupid, and it’s wasting his time, and if he can’t even hold it together for long enough to execute this task, then what is he even good for? What is even good for when he’s panicking all the time?

He finds a paperclip in the drawer.

He wiggles it in lock and it pops open easily, and the anxiety of the past minute melts away almost instantly. It’s okay, he’s in. He quickly thumbs through the labeled files, trying to find one that matches Mumbo’s name. He’d made a bold assumption that it had been filed under his surname and it’s time to back that up.

The labels are handwritten and not by a skilled penman. He has to squint to read them but he’s narrowing it down fast. He mostly flips through boring things—copies of maps, watershed reports, community meeting minutes, letters about funding, MOUs with local companies, land right-of-ways, and a transcript of official communication about a fire in 1978 that shares the first three letters of Mumbo’s surname.

He flips through all of that, and then he flips through it again. And again. And again. Because there’s nothing—this cabinet contains nothing about Mumbo at all.

“What?” he murmurs. “Why? Do I have the wrong one?”

He shuts the one he has, and then tries another. Mumbo’s first name, then. It’s an unorthodox way to organize official documents, but nothing about this nightmare has felt orthodox so far has it?

There’s nothing there either.

He tries another, trying to see if it was broadly categorized under missing persons.

Nothing.

Another—search and rescue this time.

Nothing.

Another—whatever he can think of.

Nothing.

Grian’s a little hysterical at this point. He’s pulling files out now, replacing them haphazardly. He’s running out of time. He’s running out of time because his guilty conscience weighs heavily on his chest, and there’s only so long he can stay here and make a fuss and pull out files and ruin organizational systems before he’s caught. He’s running out of time because he’s stupid and he can’t figure this out.

It’s here, isn’t it? It should be here, but there’s nothing here. But the District Ranger had told him this morning that they kept copies in this office too and not just the main office, so it should be here. It should be here but it isn’t.

It should be here, but—no. It was here. It just isn’t anymore.

He’d asked the District Ranger about the case that morning. What if he’d gone and pulled the file after Grian left? A charitable reading of the situation suggests maybe he left it in his office. A pessimistic reading says maybe he took it with him so nobody else could view his mistakes. If it’s the former, Grian might have a chance. If it’s the latter, there’s nothing he can do. Grian’ll just have to hope it’s the former for his own sanity, then.

He creeps back out into the hallway.

The District Ranger’s office is at the end of the hall. He strides toward it purposefully, but falters a few steps away from the door. There’s a lock on the handle, unlike some of the other rooms. What if this office is locked all the time? What’s he going to do, break the frosted glass on the door? It’s insane!

Fortunately his brain catches up to the situation before the panic in his chest can grow. Obviously, he should just try the knob first. The door glides open silently—there’s always another crisis on the horizon, but at least this one is resolved.

Grian steps inside and closes the door softly. He doesn’t turn on the light, instead relying on the beams of sunlight that stream through the window blinds in bright lines. The desk is empty, except for a scribbled note and a pen. Grian checks it, but it’s just a nonsense personal memo. Not important. Irrelevant.

He glances around the room. There’s a large shelving unit to the right of the door filled with document containers. Grian winces. Is he going to have to go through that?

“Ugh,” he whines. “I guess I should start. I shouldn’t spend too long poking around in here.”

He pulls one of the boxes down and starts. It’s tedious work, doing one after the other. He skims the labels over and over and over again with no luck. Most of the documents seem to be directly related to the District Ranger’s job, and they go back years. He picks up the next box, and tries again. Still nothing.

He gives up after the third box. There has to be a better way to find something, or a better hiding space. He moves around the desk, and there it is—a drawer attached to the desk. This time the door is locked, but Grian still has his paperclip from earlier that he jiggles in it. It pops open after a few seconds.

Right at the top lies a manila folder, and without even reading the label Grian knows this is it.

He snatches it, and falls back onto the floor. Just sitting there, folder in his hands. He gives it a long stare.

Is this it, after everything? Is there finally an answer here? If there’s answers in here, then there must have been answers all along. Grian doesn’t like that; it burns him from the inside out. This could be the key to finding Mumbo, though. It could be the missing information he needs.

He flips it open with what feels like finality. No cheering, no congratulations, just the faint bustle of the visitor’s center up front and the loud beating of his heart. And—footsteps?

Grian has just enough time to scramble up off the floor when the door swings wide open. Linda stands there, looking critical. “I thought I’d find you in here,” she says. “After you left I remembered that Larry was supposed to be out all afternoon. So why would he be meeting with you again?”

Grian shrugs sheepishly. “Canceled his fishing trip for some important business?” he asks.

She scowls at him.

“Sorry!” he blurts. “I was actually about to leave, sorry, I’ll be gone in a moment.”

He walks around the edge of the desk and oh, that was a mistake. Her gaze shifts to the file in his hand, and then back at him. To the desk, then back at him. He quickly puts his hand behind his back. It’s a ridiculous move, like a toddler trying to hide something they know they’re not supposed to have.

“What’re you doing in here?” she asks. “You’ve been back here an awful long time.”

“Larry left something for me,” Grian says. “I just came to pick it up.”

“By messing around on the floor behind his desk?”

“...Yes.”

“Why don’t you just give me that file,” she says. “I’ll clear it with Larry, sign it out to you, and you can have it then.”

“No!” Grian cries, and then reels his outburst in immediately. “I mean, no, sorry. I need it today. He told me it was fine.”

She gives him a long look. His heart sinks. Isn’t she the one who Scar had called for information a few weeks ago? He’d told Grian he had a friend in the main office who had pulled the records for him to tell him what permit Mumbo had. Did he mean Linda, or someone else working that desk? Did he mean the District office or the Supervisor’s office? If this is the same person Scar knows, then why won’t she just let Grian get away with it?

But Grian isn’t Scar, and he doesn’t really possess the same silver tongue. He’s already asked nicely and failed. This woman has no reason to trust him at all.

Linda turns, angling her body, and calls down the hall. “Sarah?” she shouts. “I know you haven’t left yet, can you come give me a hand? I need your help with something.”

The Sarah in question shouts something back, but Grian doesn’t comprehend it over the way his whole body suddenly feels like a live wire. Linda’s not letting him leave without more questions, and why would she? She just caught the random new guy breaking into the big boss’ desk, taking something, and then lying about it.

But he can’t give up the file in his hands. He clutches it, feeling the paper shift slightly. This is the key, this is what he needs. If he lets her take it, he’ll never get it back since he was never authorized to see it in the first place.

So he has to find a way out.

Linda says something else to him, but he doesn’t hear. Could he push past her, and run down the hall? She’s blocking the doorway, and he’s not a particularly physically intimidating guy. He could get by her if he made a run for it, but what if she tries to stop him? He can’t let this escalate into something worse than it already is.

He contemplates this, and then scraps it immediately. There’s footsteps in the hall, which must be Sarah. He thinks she’s another ranger in their district. He’s heard the name before. She’s supposedly nice, but he’s also attempting to steal sensitive government documents. Nice only goes so far when people are protecting their job.

There’s the window behind him, the one that’s casting little rectangles of light all across the room from the blinds. He steals a glance at it quickly—the sill is worn and without dust. Does the District Ranger frequently open it, when the weather is nice? Was it open this morning? He can’t remember, but he’s confident it won’t get stuck.

“Hey, what file are you holding?” Linda asks. “What are you going to do with it? Why do you want that?”

“It’s my friend’s,” Grian says, voice tinged with desperation. “That’s all it is, it’s my friends!”

“Alright,” she says, drawing out the word. “Will you come with me first?”

No, he thinks. He can’t. She’ll take it away and this is the only way he’s going to be able to find Mumbo. He’s worked too hard for this. Mumbo’s survived too long for this.

He makes his decision.

Back turned. Blinds yanked. Window flung open as fast as possible, with a satisfying creak to its decades old frame. He’s rushing into the sunlit grass on the other side before he can even comprehend it.

“What—Wait, stop!” Linda shouts from behind him, and he hears her cross the room.

He’s already running towards the parking lot.

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#hermitcraft #grian #goodtimeswithscar #mumbo jumbo #hc_firewatch_au #hermitcraft fanfic #quara fanfic

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