The Haunted Traveler December 2017 Edition

45
in Ben’s head got weaker every day. He relaxed. If he weren’t running out of food and
clean clothes, he might not have wanted his father to visit.
By Saturday morning, Ben’s hearing was so clear he heard the horses coming a half
mile away. He followed them up the trail with his binoculars.
“How are you doing, son?” Dad said. “Hope you haven’t been too lonely.”
“No, it’s nice up here.” Ben actually smiled. Dad smiled back.
Ben was introduced to the district forest ranger from Idanha, who brought Ben a
green Forest Service shirt with a metal badge designating him as an official volunteer.
“When it warms up in July, you’ll start to get hikers up here, on the weekends mostly,
probably around lunch time or a little later. You can wear the shirt and the badge. It
helps keep people from building unauthorized fires or hunting. Also, the Indians will
probably try to make you leave unless you’re wearing the uniform.”
“Why would the Indians bother Ben?” Dad said.
“They claim most of the Butte lies within the reservation,” the district ranger said.
“The dispute has been in and out of federal court since the end of the War.”
“I’ll be all right, Dad,” Ben said.
The district ranger set up a two-way radio for Ben and gave him a supply of batteries.
Ben had already figured out how to use the Osbourne Fire Finder, but the ranger
showed him a few fine points and left him a stack of smoke and fire reports on which
to record any observations. Dad was visibly pleased with the visit, smiling and slapping
Ben on the back before he and the ranger rode down the mountain.
A week later Mel showed up with enough supplies for two weeks.
“Your dad seemed to think you were doing really good up here on your own, so I
thought it’d be okay for me to come up every two weeks, if that’s okay with you?”
“Sure,” Ben said. The buzzing in his head had stopped, and he’d developed a
comfortable routine for doing his chores and fire-spotting.
“You know, I can come up here and relieve you for a day or two, if you’d like to go
to town or maybe take a shower at the resort.”
“I’m okay up here for now,” Ben said.
“Oh, one last thing. The ranger reminded me to talk to you about the insulated
chair. You’re sitting on the highest point for forty miles in every direction, so once the
thunderstorms start in a couple of weeks, you might have to deal with lightning strikes.”
Mel held up a beaten-up wooden chair with green glass insulators attached to the ends
of the chair legs.
“What do I do?” Ben said.
“You sit in this chair with your feet on the rungs until you are sure the storm is over.
Don’t touch anything else in the cabin while you are in the chair.”
“For how long?” Ben said.
“Until it’s over,” Mel said. “But here’s the tricky part. Lightning sometimes strikes