Yellowstone Memories (43 page)

Jersey lifted her hands off the steering wheel in disbelief, not prepared for such a gushing philosophical lecture. Instantly regretting that she’d allowed Taka to ride along—
the opinionated jerk
. “Whoa. Sorry. I didn’t mean it like that. I just … assumed.”

“Assumptions are what build walls.” Taka turned his eyes in her direction. “I prefer to get to know a person first and then draw conclusions.”

Jersey’s jaw clenched as she punched the gearshift into a higher gear. “What are you, then? Muslim?” she snipped, keeping her eyes straight ahead.

“I’m a Christian. One of Japan’s less-than-one-percent, oddball Christians.”

Well, you sure got the oddball part right
. Jersey glanced over at his profile, keeping back any comments of surprise. Although she had to admit—even she hadn’t seen that one coming.

“You?” Taka glanced at her.

Before she could respond, her cell phone jingled from her backpack on the floorboard. She reached for it clumsily, still holding the steering wheel with one hand. The truck bumped over a bad patch of paving as she dug at the zipper.

“May I?” Taka reached for the backpack.

“No. I’m fine.” Jersey waved him away then thought better of it. She could see the photo in the
Jackson Hole News and Guide
: her ranger truck plowed into a bank of wild sunflowers, a dead mule deer sticking out from under the back wheel.

“Okay. Yes. Thanks.”

Taka unzipped her backpack and found her cell phone. His long, slim fingers brushed hers as he placed it in her open palm.

“Mom?” Jersey put the phone to her ear in bewilderment and switched on the hazard lights, slowing the truck and pulling over to the shoulder. “Is that … you? It can’t be.” She pulled the phone away and stared at the number in surprise.

Jersey put the phone back to her ear and shifted to N
EUTRAL
, frowning. “The connection’s bad, Mom. Where are you? Is everything okay?” She pushed the volume up. “We’ve got to talk fast because I’m on the way to … Sorry. I can’t hear anything. I’ll call you back in a few minutes, okay? Hold on.”

Jersey pulled back into the road and felt Taka staring at her. “What?” She kept her eyes on the road.

“Nothing. You just seemed surprised that she called.”

“Well, I am.” Jersey handed him her silent cell phone. “We haven’t spoken much in what, two years?”

Taka raised his eyebrows in an expression of surprise, which he quickly tried to cover.

Jersey scowled. “What, you think we American families have it all together?”

“No, I just … well, two years is a long time. And you seem like such a nice person.”

“Excuse me?” Jersey whipped her head around long enough to freeze him with a cold stare. “You think whatever’s happened between my mom and me is my fault? What, weren’t you just saying something about assumptions?”

She coolly shifted to the next gear.

Taka leaned forward abruptly, digging in one of his bags for a pair of binoculars. “
Cervus elaphus
,” he said, taking off his glasses and craning his neck for a closer look.

This researcher and his dratted lingo. “Elk?” Jersey looked up in irritation. “You’re talking about elk?”

“Over there.” Taka pointed. “Just around the bend, next to that large
Populus deltoides
. See there?”

Jersey pressed a hand to her forehead in irritation. “Sorry if this sounds rude, Taka, but could you please speak English? I do know a thing or two about trees, but most of the time I prefer to leave my Latin back where it belongs—in a dusty book in the classroom.” She glanced at her backpack. “And if you don’t mind, I’ve got to call my mom back as soon as we stop. She sounded upset, like something’s wrong.”

“I’m sorry. I actually don’t know the English tree names as well.” Taka swallowed. “Maybe … cottonwood? Is that right?”

“Ah. Cottonwood. That one I know. But I don’t see what’s the big deal over an elk, no matter what tree he’s under. The park is full of them.”

“No, Jersey. This one has an arrow sticking out of his side.” He twisted the binocular lens to see better. “I can’t be seeing right. But … it’s what it looks like to me. He’s trying to get up.” Taka winced and sucked in his breath through his teeth. “Ouch. That’s got to hurt.”

“What?” Jersey tore off her sunglasses and squinted in the bright sun. “An arrow? Hunting isn’t allowed in the park!” She jerked the truck to the side of the road, momentarily forgetting about Nelson’s bear call.

“I’m sure of it. You can see if you back up a bit.” Taka handed her the binoculars.

Jersey put the truck in R
EVERSE
and craned her neck to see. “Shorty runs the grounds out this way. It couldn’t be him, could it?”

“I don’t know.” Taka shrugged. “He did look a bit small for a full adult male
Cervus elaphus
, now that you mention it.” He cocked his head. “Did you ever think that
Cervus elaphus
means literally ‘deer deer’? You’d think they’d come up with a less redundant specimen label.”

Jersey’s jaw dropped at Taka’s random bit of information while an elk lay possibly injured. If he spouted one more of his silly Latin-isms, she might shoot an arrow through him, too.

“I hope it’s not Shorty.” Jersey eased the truck to a stop and took the binoculars. “He’s been a favorite around here for years. Survived brucellosis as a calf, although nobody quite knows how, and has a broken right rack.”

“The right rack, you say?” Taka stretched out his lips in a grimace. “Oh.”

“What? What’s the rack on this one look like?” Her heart beat loud in her throat as she lifted the binoculars, twisting the lens to focus. “I don’t know how you can see anything with these.”

“Here.” Taka leaned over to adjust, his breath tickling the sweaty strands of hair around her ear.

“Oh. There. Now I can see the trees, and—hold on.” Jersey fiddled with the lens again. “Shorty’s a bit too tame around people, but until today everyone’s treated him well. I just hope some poacher didn’t …”

She let out a cry, nearly dropping the binoculars.

I
can’t believe it.” Jersey thrust the binoculars back at Taka and scrambled for her seat belt. “Not Shorty. Why would somebody do that?” Her breath came fast and angry, almost tearful, as she thought of Shorty’s bearded grin, as if posing for tourists’ pictures. He’d chomp dandelions along the lake in cheerful bliss, unflinchingly close to curious passersby, pausing only to flick an ear at an errant fly.

“Do you have a good camera on you? Because I’ve got to document this.” She scrolled through the veterinarian numbers on her phone while she tugged the truck door open.

“Maybe. Let me see.” He unzipped one bag, digging through it, and then zipped it up and started on the second.

“You’re taking too long.” Jersey reached over him and stuck her hand in one of the pockets. She immediately let out a shriek as her fingers brushed against something nauseatingly cold and fuzzy, like a rotten Fukushima peach.

She jerked her hand out. “Gross! What on earth do you have in there?” she shouted, wiping her fingers on the seat.

“Oh. Sorry.” Taka’s head bobbed in apology as he looked up. “That’s my
bryophyta
collection. I’ve found a good sample of
Leucobryum albidum
, which resembles a pincushion, and—”

Jersey scrubbed her palm against the seat again for good measure and shuddered then covered her face with her free hand. “Forget the moss, okay? Just … forget it. Shorty’s injured. I’ll proceed without photos.”

“He’s alive though.” Taka reached for the truck handle and cracked it open, wincing at the mournful bellow that came, strained in agony, across the grass. “I can see him there still trying to get up. You think he can make it with an arrow stuck in his side?”

“Hey, you’re the zoologist,” snapped Jersey, stalking across the field in the sun.

“Biochemist.” Taka scooted out of the truck and grabbed the camera from his third duffle.

“Whatever difference that’s supposed to make.”

“Higher paycheck.” Taka bobbed his eyebrows.

Jersey’s shoulders jumped with an unexpected snort of laughter, punching in the phone number to call the nearest vet.

Jersey’s back ached as she took off her ranger’s hat outside the vet clinic and ran a hand through her messy hair, tugging at the knot at the base of her neck. She reached into her pocket for her keys and then nearly jumped when Taka stood up from an outside bench, holding out an earthenware mug.

“What? You’re still here?” Jersey dropped her hands down from her hair. “I thought you’d gone with Phyllis hours ago. She said she’d pick you up.”

“No need. I wanted to hear how Shorty’s surgery went.”

“Really?” Jersey hesitated a second then sank down on the bench next to Taka and accepted the cool mug. “I don’t know. They were able to remove the arrow, but he’s injured pretty badly. The arrow punctured his liver and intestines, and he’s lost a lot of blood. There’s no telling how much more internal damage he’s suffered.”

“I’m sorry to hear that.” Taka adjusted his glasses, which glinted back at her in the dim parking lot like glowing goggle eyes. “It seems that you have a special affinity for this animal, no?”

“If you mean that I like Shorty a lot, yes, I do.” She lifted the cup to her lips. “What is this anyway?” she asked warily, sniffing the earthy, wheat-scented liquid.

“
Mugicha
. Japanese barley tea.” Taka produced another mug and poured himself a cup then drank in silence.

“It doesn’t have moss in it, does it?”

“Sorry?”

Jersey raised her eyes to the starry sky. “Forget it. I’d just better not find spiders floating on top or anything.”

Taka didn’t reply, and Jersey hesitantly took a sip. Tasting something crisp and cold, surprisingly refreshing. She drank quietly, wondering what else she could possibly talk about that wouldn’t produce (1) Latin names, (2) long-winded, pompous discussions with scientific jargon, or (3) strange revelations in pockets of duffle bags.

“You know something?” Taka looked up abruptly.

Jersey braced herself. “What?” Her fingers tightened on the mug. “And the tea’s good, by the way.”

“Thanks. Well, did you know most species of plants have two sets of chromosomes in their vegetative cells, which makes them diploid? But by amazing contrast, bryophytes have only a single set of chromosomes—which makes them haploid.” He put his cup down and lightly pounded his open palm with a fist for emphasis. “Yet there are periods in the bryophyte life cycle when they actually do possess a double set of paired chromosomes, but this happens only during the sporophyte stage. Isn’t that amazing?”

Jersey was vaguely aware of her open mouth. The mug frozen halfway to her lips and a sudden longing to smack Taka again with a taxidermied squirrel.

“You know what?” she finally managed, setting the mug down coolly on the wooden bench. “I’ve … I’ve got to go. I’ll see you tomorrow.”
Or not, if I’m lucky
.

Taka didn’t seem to hear. “You must have a supremely satisfying job, Jersey. I envy you.”

“Excuse me?” Jersey sputtered, nearly upsetting her mug. “You what?”

“I envy you.” Taka faced her. “Normally I spend so much of my time in laboratories and inside closed walls, reading books and researching biochemistry. But you.” He nodded in her direction. “You’re free. You spend your days outdoors and
really live life
. I admire that.”

All of Jersey’s planned “go-read-a-dictionary” speech died in her throat. “Taka, you can’t mean that.”

“About you living life? I certainly do. People talk about it all the time, but few people actually have the courage to do what you do. It’s amazing. Just as amazing as … well, bryophyte life cycles and chromosomes.”

Was he mocking her? Or—in his own warped way—trying to give her a compliment—albeit a compliment of the absolute oddest kind?

“You must be joking. I feel about as free as a caged bear.” Jersey gestured to her weary face. “Look at me. I’m covered in blood from a poached animal, and I’m powerless to stop it. Almost nobody listens to the information on the tours anymore. I had to pull an X-ACTO knife away from a kid today, Taka. Two weeks ago I watched them pull the mangled body of a lost hiker—what was left of it, anyway—from the side of a mountain. He didn’t check in at the ranger station, didn’t bring extra clothes, and had carried—I kid you not—a Bic lighter, a wad of drugs, and a bag of banana chips in his backpack. No bear spray. Not even a compass.”

She raised an arm. “The computer’s down again, which means Don’s going to be mad at me because I can’t finish my report, and …” She flung up her arms, not wanting to add that she was “carting a weirdo researcher around the park” to her spoken litany. “My mom. I haven’t even called my mom back—all because of an elk.”

“But it’s not about an elk at all,” Taka added hesitantly. “It seems like it’s more about people for you.”

“You know what?” Jersey slapped her knee. “You’re exactly right. People. People who could care less about rules and even less about nature. Every day I go out there ready to risk my neck catching guys who bow-hunt animals like Shorty, who do nothing more than eat dandelions.” Jersey didn’t take a breath. “I’ve spent an entire month getting ready for a volunteer work crew from Oregon to come do construction work next week, and they bailed on me half an hour ago.”