The Park Service: Book One of The Park Service Trilogy by Ryan Winfield Page B

me.
    “Ya remember that thing ya did that nigh by the fire?”
    “What night?”
    “The first night,” he says. “The poem.”
    “Yeah, I remember.”
    “Can ya really read?”
    “Sure, I can read.”
    “Good,” he says, smiling. “Follow me.”
    He leads me up a narrow path into the red-rock cliffs. We climb high, passing exposed bulkheads of rock with shells and fossils peeking out from their weathered faces and I wonder at the strange fact that all this was once under sea. He stops when we arrive at the opening of a cave.
    “Ya dun’ mind goin’ in, do ya?
    “No, I don’t mind. Really. I’m fine.”
    Stepping inside, he uses his flint and stone to light one of several torches waiting there. He offers one to me, but I wave it away and follow him into the cave. The opening fades behind us and our world shrinks to the ball of light cast by the torch. The flame flickers in the musty air, sometimes almost touching the ceiling of low passageways, sometimes casting a faint glow on stalactites hanging high above like teeth ready to close down and swallow us forever into the belly of the Earth.
    I feel panic creeping on, a familiar feeling of being closed in, trapped with no escape, the way I felt the first fifteen years of my life. I breathe in, breathe out, and follow Jimmy deeper.
    Reaching a small circular cavern, he touches his torch to others waiting propped in the cracked walls, and with each new flame, the cave’s contents come more clearly into view.
    It’s an underground junkyard, a hoarder’s heaven—but to Jimmy it might as well be Tutankhamun’s tomb.
    He leads me around the room, touching everything once as if to make sure it’s still there. Strange, leftover things. Things I recognize from lessons and educationals, things that must be a mystery to Jimmy. A rusty manifold from some ancient internal combustion engine. Two warped wheels without tires. A boat propeller with a broken blade. An iron post. Bits of glass. Antique transistors. A green-plastic circuit board from some twenty-first century computer.
    When he finishes touching everything, he leads me to an old rusted oil drum resting in the farthest corner. Propping his torch up, he reaches his arm inside and removes something heavy, wrapped in oil-soaked leather. He stands holding it in his arms, caressing it as if it were a pet.
    “This is a big, big treasure,” he says, his eyes both excited and solemn at the same time. “It was recovered from the city before we left. My people keep it hidden here many centuries now. This here ...,” he pauses to hold up his covered treasure, “This is our foundin’ father.”
    “One of the first presidents?”
    “Maybe even a god,” he says. “My grandpapa was named after him, my papa. Even me. My son I will name fer him, too. And then maybe even he has a son to name James.”
    He pauses, staring into my eyes, the torch flame reflecting on his black pupils. Then he continues:
    “My pa says it is our duty to multiply, to carry on the race. He says we’re seeds. He says we must survive until a golden time comes again. It is our duty, our right. You understand?”
    I nod that I do.
    “Good,” he says, nodding, too. “I need a favor from ya.”
    “Sure,” I say. “Anything.”
    “None of us can read. Well, not much anyways. I hoped ya could read me this writin’ here.”
    He holds the heavy treasure out in his trembling hand, and with the other he pulls the leather cover free, revealing a bronze sculpture of a man’s head. A gleaming bust, worn and polished by a thousand years, a hundred hands, but an unmistakable and boyish face with thick wavy hair and perfect features—features I recognize immediately from lessons on American culture.
    He twists it so I can see all sides in the torchlight, then he points to a plaque at its base. The plaque is etched with dates, the name, an inscription honoring the man and his short career.
    “What’s it say?” he asks, excited, pushing it closer