Page 12 of Duty Preserved

“Wherever Zayn’s got them this week, which I think is pretty far out. He rotates the herds between grazing blocks so they don’t strip one section bare.” I stood and stretched the crouch out of my knees. “Which means somebody’s driving three hours out and three hours back, and I already know it’s me.”

“It’s always you,” Alyson said.

“Because you two won’t do the far runs.”

“Because the far runs are three hours of nothing,” Daniel said. “Not to mention, half the time it’s a coin flip on whether anybody’s awake to answer the radio at the eastern post. Last month, I sat out there for forty minutes saying ‘Come in’ like an idiot to a radio that had already decided it hated me.”

“The radios are fine.”

“The radios are held together with hope and half a piece of duct tape.”

“You could come with me,” I said. “Both of you. We’ll make it social.”

Alyson looked at me like I’d suggested we’d skip all the way there. “You go to the middle of nowhere by yourself and talk to animals for six hours and you call it a good day. That’s not a personality trait we all share.”

“It is a good day.”

I meant it. I’d grown up in a house with two parents and five siblings who loved one another loud enough to shake the walls. I’d never had quiet until I’d come here, and now I couldn’t get enough of it.

“To you, it is. That’s what worries me.” She said it lightly, but she bumped her shoulder into mine when she said it.

We got the zebra prepped through the morning, the three of us moving around one another in the pen and the supply room with the ease of people who’d done it a hundred times. Alyson handled the paperwork and narrated a caption she wasn’t going to post. Daniel carried what needed carrying and made himself charming to whichever cook brought us plates so we wouldn’t have to stop to go to the mess tent.

Zayn Kipsang showed up a little after ten. The Kenyan government had put a dozen rangers at the conservancy a couple years back. They were young men, mostly teens and early twenties, meant to protect the wildlife and keep poachers out. Most of them had been handed a uniform and not much else and, consequently, rarely did anything. Zayn was the exception and the ranger we talked to the most. It helped that he spoke excellent English.

He came through the door dusty from the knees down and already chewing the end of a piece of jerky, which meant he’d skipped breakfast again.

“There she is.” He came to the rail and looked her over with the even, assessing calm he had around animals. “Leg looks good.”

“Where’ve you got her group? She’s ready to rejoin.”

“Moved them again yesterday. There’s better grass in the low lands now that the rain came through.” He crouched, and the zebra came over to investigate him, which she did not do for everyone. “I can run you both out this afternoon.”

“The low section’s muddy after the rain,” I said.

“Bring the boots you don’t care about.” He grinned up at me.

“How’s your week been?” I asked him. “I haven’t seen you since we got back.”

“Long.” Zayn didn’t do weighty replies. He’d told me once, months ago, that there was no one waiting for him at home because there was no one left in his family. Then he’d asked what my farm in Iowa was like and listened to the whole long answer without once looking away. He liked other people’s families. He asked after mine every chance he got. “How about your trip?”

“Paris. It was…” I thought about the nightclub, the elevator, the vomit, before pushing it out of my mind. “Too many people and not enough open sky. I’m glad to be back.”

“The animals are glad you’re back too.” He stood and brushed straw off his knees. “Busy week, though. We’re getting some trainers.”

“Trainers?” Alyson was labeling the antibiotic dose for the release. She didn’t look up. “For what?”

“Security guys. Coming to work with us, supposed to teach us things.” Something moved under the easy surface of him, an eagerness he was trying not to show mixed with a wariness sitting right next to it. “One is already here. I’ve been showing him around.”

“You like him?”

“Yes. He’s learning the land. The rest are coming soon.” He flicked the straw away. “I’ll see you at three o’clock for the run. I’ll even bring the good truck.”

We all knew there was no good truck, only a less-bad truck.

He was gone before I could answer, off toward the bunkhouse with someone already calling his name from across the camp. The zebra put her head over the rail to watch him go.

The afternoon filled itself with work. Charts to close out, a supply count, the hundred small things that stacked up so quickly. Somewhere in the middle of it, with my hands busy, I caught myself back in Paris again…felt Donovan’s palm flat and steady against the small of my back, walking me through a lobby that wouldn’t hold still.