Page 2 of Mountain Air
Chapter One
Park Ranger Garrett Flores was happy to be home. Happy to be in the familiar landscape of Eastern Oregon where he grew up. The mountains were a bit barren as they emerged from winter but soon the spring growth would take over and then it would be the sparkling sun on the water and visitors to the state park would swarm the lake and campground.
He’d understood why his uncle Mario sent him away to college. Not like he could’ve refused. Bad form to outright defy the head of the conclave, especially when he’s also your uncle. It’s always confusing trying to explain the dynamics of mountain lions. The arguments that he’d gotten into while at the University of West Virginia were epic. While humans knew about shifters, they had no clue about shifter dynamics — which was perfectly fine with him — and based everything from watchingLion Kingor the National Geographic channel. How his eyes hadn’t rolled out of his head during his four years still amazed him. Did he look like Simba? And while he was gay, he wasn’t in a pride. A bachelor’s in Wildlife Management was going to get him into the National Park Service eventually, but he could’ve gone to U Oregon — go Ducks! — for Environmental Science. But that hadn’t been good enough for his uncle though.
He’d worked for a few years in Florida after getting his degree and the small conclave down there had accepted him, but it wasn’t the same. The tropical-ish woodlands just didn’t soothe his lion. When he’d gotten the position with Oregon Parks, Garrett was finally able to take a deep breath.
Garrett stopped on the top of the rise overlooking the lake and just breathed it all in. Home. He was out on patrol today on foot — four instead of two. They’d given him the area to patrol but didn’t specify he had to do it in his vehicle. His section wasn’t that far from the ranger station anyway. He needed to stay close to be able to meet with the incoming researcher to guide him around. Why him? Supposedly, it was because of his degree in wildlife management, which made no sense since the research was about plants but … whatever. Add him being the newbie?Garrett Flores, at your service. He could still hear his supervisor, “Doctor Brown will be arriving and staying in the area for the foreseeable future. If things go correctly with Brown’s research it could mean some serious funding for the park. So show him whatever he wants.”
With a name like that was he studying flux capacitors?Guess his obsession with 80s movies was showing. Garrett chuckled to himself which came out as a chuff in his lion form. He’d been out on patrol for a few hours so he should probably head back to the station. Nothing had looked off to him; the camping area needed some new trash cans and the benches a fresh coat of paint from the weathering this winter but nothing a day and a volunteer or two couldn’t handle.
Giving the lake one last look, Garrett turned and bounded off the rock, landing gracefully on the path to the station.
§ § §
Rob pulled into the ranger station and looked around. The data he’d been seeing regarding the Japanese knotweed taking over the Pacific ninebark was troubling. He wasn’t sure why this area seemed to have the highest concentration of the plant but that’s why he was here. Something needed to be done to protect the delicate balance of nature. There was so much damage from the Northern California wildfires that the native plants were having a hard time fighting for their space. Fucking irresponsible fire bugs.
As Rob stepped out of his F-150, he felt a shiver go down his back. Looking around, he couldn’t figure what caused that. It was a warm fifty-seven right now according to his phone. Perfect weather for hiking. Now if he could find the ranger that was supposed to be meeting him. The station looked dark when he approached the door. A twist of the knob told him it was locked.
“Well, fuck,” he muttered. A quick walk around the area closest to the station would help him start his observations. Granted, they tended to groom around the public areas, cutting back the more invasive and potentially harmful, but couldn’t hurt to take a gander.
Glancing either way, Rob randomly chose to head off to his right which should be east. There was a path that seemed well used so he took off. He didn’t bring his pack with him with supplies so he couldn’t go far. That would be for another day when he had a guide.
After about a half a mile, Rob heard whining. What the hell? There shouldn’t be any wildlife this close to where people would be. Following the sounds, he found a pair of cubs. They seemed to be mountain lions, but he wasn’t going to get too close. He didn’t see an adult lion around. These two didn’t look old enough to be alone. Maybe the parent was hurt somewhere? A ripple went down his back, distracting him.
As Rob turned to look in the brush behind him, an adult female mountain lion jumped between him and the cubs and screeched.
Shit!
