hug, the relief clear in every movement. He didn’t speak for a long time. He let me go and stood me at arm’s length looking me over. No black eyes, no bruises, no bullet grazes, no cuts… I was still in one piece. Considering what I usually came home with, it was a miracle.
“You’ll never guess what I did today,” I said. Might as well get it over with right at the start.
“What?” he asked, knowing it was going to be a doozie.
“I went tiger hunting. And I bagged a big one.”
“Okay, this I’ve got to hear. How about Zeke’s? I think I might need a beer to go with this story.”
When we were settled at a table in Zeke’s bustling pizza place the atmosphere returned to its former somber mood. I had tried to sound glib about the tiger but Rusty wasn’t fooled for a second. He understood how much I loved animals and knew that I would never have shot the tiger unless things were very close. He was also aware that I’d not been armed. He concluded that things had come up unexpectedly, so I continued from a different point of view.
“Why did Lou give me all these forms? There’s one for everything, every step of the whole operation. How am I supposed to know which ones are for me and which ones I can ignore?”
“Welcome to the club. The boring part of search and rescue. Lou probably gave you all of them this time because he wanted you to see what it entailed. You’ll have to file a general report and the one where you explain why you fired the gun.”
“What do you do if you fired someone else’s gun? Guess I’ll have to go into some detail. I hope these forms have plenty of writing space. There was a tranquilizer gun and a rifle but the tranquilizer darts didn’t seem to work. I couldn’t tell if they had any effect on the tiger.”
“I think you better start at the beginning.”
I began by taking care to mention that Lou had followed us and had been prepared to act if needed.
“And so this guy was standing there shaking so bad he couldn’t have hit anything. The tiger was slowly getting closer and the guy didn’t trust me to be able to hit it. Guess I wouldn’t either if I saw me standing there. The guy was lucky he gave up the rifle when he did. I brought it down with one shot. I didn’t want to. You know I hate to shoot animals. But if I hadn’t, the guy would have had a heart attack or gotten mauled.”
Rusty looked on in disbelief. “I know you’re not making this up. If anything you toned it down so I’d feel better.”
“You know these calls aren’t always what they sound like at first. Nobody knew there was a tiger on board that plane. I bet there will be a big investigation about why tigers were being transported that way in the first place.” I paused. “Rusty, why were you so against me going on this call? I’ve never seen you so worked up before. This was different for you somehow and I don’t understand it.”
He looked at me closely, obviously assessing something. He then bowed his head with a defeated expression on his face.
“Tell me about when you saw the crash site,” he said. “Was it rough?”
I knew he had worried about that. Still, his feelings were too strong for this to be all there was to it.
“It was really bad for a very short time. When I first caught site of the wreckage I felt sick inside. But it passed quickly once I focused on the job. Lou was watching out for me. When I saw the tracks of the tiger I headed towards the plane, to check for any evidence that they had been transporting a large cat. Lou stopped me and sent Thez instead so I wouldn’t have to look.” The relief was written in every worried line of Rusty’s face. “Once we knew the situation it was time to focus on the job. I was okay as long as I kept my eyes off the plane and only on the ground.”
“You know, if you stick with this you’ll have to get some training. Are you ready for that?”
“What kind of training?”
“First will be reserve officers training. Then comes EMT training. If you are the first one on the scene, you need to be ready to take charge. Many times search and rescue gets there first, especially in your line of work. Tracking will take you where ambulances and fire trucks can’t go. Right now you are just finding people but eventually you will work as part of the team and you will be expected to know what to do.”
“That might be good for me,” I said. “I’ve got a good start with my Marines training. I just don’t know if I have the right mindset to do this from a medical point of view. I don’t faint at the sight of blood or anything but…”
“I know what you mean and it does take a certain mindset. If the idea appeals to you though, start the training. Lou won’t send you where you can’t be used for your own talents. If it turns out to only be tracking then he’ll just call you when he really needs a tracker. If you turn out to be good at something else he will be glad for those skills as well.”
“Rusty, you have to know, even though Lou stopped me from going into the plane, I was willing to go. It was my job. I’d have done it. I let him stop me because I knew it was something that you would have wanted. And I’m sorry that I stood up to you this morning. Did it make you look bad in front of Lou?”
“No. Lou is amazing. He reads minds or something. He knows what was going on. And you were right. You had to go. It was just hard to let you.”
“Maybe I’ll go to police academy, too.”
“No!” he said, suddenly alarmed again, “Level Two. Shoot for a Level Two. It’ll give you the skills you need without scaring me to death. And it’ll make it so I can call you up for cases, too. But please don’t join the force. I couldn’t handle that.”
One night a few weeks later I was restless. City life was confining and I needed to get out for a while. I went to the gym hoping a workout would still the call of the mountains. If training for search and rescue was in my immediate future then I needed to get into better shape. I was already fit from going to the gym several times a week. I also jogged regularly and would hike whenever I was overpowered by a feeling of wanderlust. I was usually in the gym during the morning and I could see the nighttime crowd was different. I went through my normal routine purposefully, then hopped on a treadmill to jog. I was into my second mile when Rusty wandered out of the weight room. I’d never seen him at the gym before but since he didn’t have time for a morning workout it made sense that we’d never run into each other previously. Like every other woman in the gym I watched him while he wandered from machine to machine. He would sit to begin his work out, but he didn’t change the weight settings on any of the equipment. After several repetitions and never having adjusted any of the settings he’d select another machine and continue his workout. It appeared as if he was killing time and cooling down from the weight training. No matter what tension the machines had been set to, he didn’t seem to have any problem with them. He turned towards the treadmills and noticed me jogging. As he neared I slowed the machine so I could talk easier. Every woman in the gym gave a collective and disappointed sigh when he approached me. I could see their ears pointed in our direction wondering what kind of pickup line he was going to dish out. Should I wait to see what it was or come up with my own and see what happened?
“They should pay you to work out here,” I said.
“Oh yeah?”
“Yeah.”
“Why?”
“These women are in better shape than the morning crowd. They come to the gym when you’re here and they stay until you leave. How long have you been working out?”
“Two hours.”
“You can’t do that! The newbies will kill themselves in two hours here.”
He smiled. “So what are you doing here?”
“You