Ranger

Cancer.

I said I was sorry again, he said.

We used to come up the old route before they rerouted it, came up through the burn, and then cut over.

A regional sales manager from Boise who came up here as a kid in the 1980s could also theoretically remember it.

It was possible.

It was not a flag by itself.

But the thing he said next was.

He said, We used to stop at the old station at the junction.

Me and my brother.

Cold water from that pump.

I kept my face flat.

I put another spoonful of stew in my mouth.

I chewed it slowly.

There was a small ranger station at the junction of the old route and the upper ridge trail.

It was built in 1952.

It had a hand pump that drew from a spring.

It burned down in a lightning-caused fire in July of 1998.

The foundation is still there.

The pump handle is rusted in place, and the spring was redirected during the 2004 reroute.

I know this because my father used to take me up there when I was a kid, and I remember drinking from that pump when I was 10 or 11, which would have been 1993 or so.