They came back with different questions and different shoes. Not hikers this time. Not just uniforms. Four cars parked at the ranger lot and people stepped out carrying folders instead of packs: a county attorney with a neat braid and shoes that wouldn’t like mud, a high school teacher with a canvas tote full of handouts, a pastor with a thermos and the kind of careful smile you practice in hospital hallways, and a man in a denim jacket who introduced himself as “local journalist, but my site says blogger, don’t hold it against me.”
Deputy Kline, Rangers Morales and Chu, and EMT Mae were there again, keeping the same promise they had already kept twice. Kline did the introductions on the gravel so the titles came out clean and no one had to shout them at a fence.
“Leigh Chen, County Atto
