Machris remembers her first interaction with a visitor struggling with mental health issues. Her duty station the first time she came to NOCA was in the remote town of Stehekin, on the east side of the park, accessible only by foot, ferry, or float plane, where the climate transforms from rainforest to a drier, less dense, Colorado-like environment with pine trees and fat rattlesnakes.
An interpretive ranger at the Golden West Visitor Center had called to report yet another rattlesnake sunning itself not far off the deck of the lodge. Protecting visitors by wrangling rattlesnakes was not what Machris had signed up for, but she left her quarters and jogged down to the Hilton, which was what everyone called the seasonal rangers’ and transient fire technicians’ housing units, to pound on Dirk Talbot’s door. She needed the other ranger for back-up in case the snake evaded her. She was really very afraid of them, but she would never let it show.
At the lodge, Talbot grabbed the garbage can and Machris took the rake. Still unable to believe she was doing it, Machris maneuvered the rake a little below the snake’s head, using the tines to scoop him up as he snapped at the handle, then quickly flipped the rake twice in two directions so the snake’s body briefly wrapped over the rake in two places before she shook him off into the upright garbage can and Talbot slammed the lid shut.
“There has got to be a better way to do this!” she said for about the sixth time that summer, shivering in disgust. Worst dance ever.
Talbot laughed, like he always did, and good-naturedly grabbed both handles of the garbage can to carry it up the hill to their snake-release spot away from the lodge and the ferry landing and the rest of “town.”
As the snake streaked indignantly under a log, Machris yelped when she backed into a blonde girl, about 16-years-old but younger-looking because of her spaced-out expression. The girl shrieked in return, and muttered indecipherably but vehemently. Machris could make out a few words like “devil,” “sin” and “blood,” but the girl didn’t seem to see her.
Talbot mouthed “cuckoo” behind the girl. Machris gestured for him to stop and spoke gently to the girl, “Hello. Hello? Can you hear me?”
The girl looked up toward the sky, seeming to see something, then swiveled her head as if watching the thing float, but there was nothing there.
Talbot flicked his fingers above the girl’s shoulder, casting shadows onto her chest, and she turned fast, but he’d withdrawn his hand quickly, and she searched again for something that wasn’t there.
Machris glared and shook her head at him, glancing around to see if there was anyone nearby who might be with the girl, but there wasn’t.
“What’s your name?” She asked.
The girl’s head suddenly whipped toward her, and she directed a burning stare into Machris’s eyes, chanting in a low voice that increased in volume and intensity, “Do you dare speak to me? Do you dare? Do you dare? DO YOU DARE, HERETIC?”
Machris shivered, and Talbot covered his mouth, obviously trying not to laugh. Then Machris made a mistake, one she never repeated.
“Hey, let’s, um, let’s go find your parents,” she said carefully, reaching out a hand to guide the girl toward the lodge. When her fingers touched the girl’s arm, the girl released a piercing, inhuman howl and started seizing.
“Run get the paramedic!” Machris ordered Talbot. He took off, and Machris searched around for something to put in the girl’s mouth to keep her from biting her tongue off.
She found a small stick but was as afraid of the girl’s mouth as she was of the rattler’s.
A firefighter appeared within moments, followed by Talbot and a scared man and woman, who had been looking for the girl when they heard Talbot’s calls for help.
Whatever that was, psychosis or something more sinister, Machris had not run across anything like it since, but she’d learned to approach situations where people may not be in their best states of mind with respect and caution.
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