 |
ONE
|
|
| I savoured the sunrise from the eastern butte. Today’s was extraordinary: splashes of molten gold as if the sun had dripped burning liquid on the plains. The sand and the silhouette of the distant western ranges gained colour with each moment, turning pale pink like the chest feathers of the cheeky galahs that swept the plains. The mulla-mulla was in flower too after a recent rain –a carpet of deep purple. |
| Birrimun Park: the last natural habitat in the world. |
| My father gave his life to this place, and, if it came down to it, so would I. Birrimun was the only place in the world that I felt whole, and sane, which was why I was about to accept a deal with my previously estranged mother and give up my work as park ranger to become her spy. |
*
I sighed loud enough that my horse, Benny’s, ears flicked back at me. Perhaps that was an overly dramatic summation of my current situation, but then life had taken some dramatic turns of late. Not so long ago, Nate Sixkiller of the US Marshal Service had joined Parks Southern as my colleague. I hadn’t welcomed the coupling, but I was beginning to tolerate it a little better than at first. I worked better alone, and so, I decided, did he.
Together, he and I were supposed to be assisting the Global Joint Intelligence Commission (GJIC) in their preparation to halt some kind of Other Worldly coup. Read the rest of this entry »
