Dangerous
“Dangerous,” Kevin thought to himself. The March air was warmer, but the snow just kept coming. It wrapped the mountain in layer after partially melted layer. Roscoe had told him that he would learn 90% of his job on 10% of his days. Today was one of those days.
Mount Zen was glorious. The sun glinted off the snow, reflecting a thousand tiny stars. Kevin’s skin had grown a dark brown on his cheeks, but his goggles had left a pale yellow halo around his eyes. He brushed the snow off his new uniform. His official training had finally begun. He was a ranger now with the all the gear except the gun. He still had to finish his training, but he was on the payroll of the United States government now. He smiled to himself at the thought of health insurance and paychecks. It had been too many months without them.
Roscoe held up his fist. It looked like he was hand-signaling a right turn, but Kevin had learned long ago that the sign meant that he needed to be still, quiet and listening. Kevin strained his hears, dreading the sliding whoosh of a snowslide. He had never encountered an avalanche, but he and Roscoe had had a couple of close calls with snowslides. His pulse quickened as he listened and he felt as if he was in the military. The enemy, however, wasn’t human. It was the soggy snow that caused avalanches. It was the powdery snow that caused avalanches. It was the snow. Kevin listened for the enemy.
Instead, he heard laughter. His fear grew within him until he could feel it bursting out of his chest. Boys! Two of them by the sound of it! Roscoe rushed ahead, skiing carefully around the unmanicured mountain. Kevin followed him. Skiing this time of the year was tricky. The idea of two untrained kids playing around in this area was deadly. Kevin heard Roscoe’s voice before he saw the boys, “Stop! You’re in an avalanche area! Do not move an inch!”
Kevin saw the two teenagers come to a halt on their skis. His fear transformed into a raging anger. It was kids like these that caused avalanches in the first place. Kevin couldn’t even hear Roscoe’s scolding voice anymore. He looked the kids up and down. They were a couple from that group of troublemakers from Emigration. Roscoe continued to reproach them, explaining the dangers of the mountain.
“This ain’t no ski resort, kids. You could get yourself and a buncha other people killed. You wanna be the one that buries Merriton in an avalanche of snow?”
The boys weren’t listening. They weren’t even looking at Roscoe. Kevin felt their eyes on him. One of them didn’t even try to hide the look of disgust on his face.
“It’s a National Forest. You’re tellin’ me I don’t have the right to ski here? What? You gotta be some Olympic Chink to be able to ski here?”
Kevin didn’t see Roscoe move, but the boy lifted his hand to his face. Roscoe replied, “I see you hit a branch while you were skiing. That’s the dangers of skiing here.”
“I didn’t hit no branch. You hit me with your pole.” A long welt of red appeared on the side of his face. It DID look like the boy had run into a tree branch.
The other boy shrunk away and cautioned his friend, “Drop it. Let’s just get outta here.”
“It ain’t that easy, son.” Roscoe looked at the shy boy. “This is your second time out here. You think I don’t remember ya? You both are goin’ with me and we’re gonna have a little talk with your parents.”
Kevin helped Roscoe bring the kids down the mountain without causing a slide. Their goal that day was to get to the south side so they could take some snow samples. His shovel hung uselessly at his side. “Aren’t we going to finish our Rutschblock tests today?” Roscoe shook his head. “We’re gonna have to try again tomorrow. It’s more important that we get these kids out of here before they get hurt… again.” The tall ranger eyed the first boy threateningly.
“Dangerous,” Kevin thought to himself and realized that he could have been the one with a red welt down the side of his face mere months ago.