The Shoshone Secret.

Welcome to Two Forks

The year is 1995, a fairly quiet year thus far, only one fire has been prevented, and surprisingly, no kids trying to light fireworks.

"Two Forks, come in." A voice calls out softly, sounding a bit muffled. "Two Forks, this is Thorofare Tower, pick up."

A quiet grumbling breaks the silence of the tower, then a metallic squeaking. A person sits up in the shabby bed, blinking away the grogginess in their eyes.

"Come in, Two Forks." The voice calls out again, this time louder and sterner.

The person stands sluggishly, and hobbles over to the desk across the tower, wrapping a hand around a yellow walkie-talkie, and bringing it close to their mouth.

"Uh...hello?" The voice replies, sounding quite feminine.

"Ah!" The walkie-talkie exclaims. "I'm glad you're up, it's been kind of a busy morning."

"Um..yeah, sorry..." She replies, turning a head over her shoulder to glance at the clock hanging on the wall. *1:45PM.* "Shit! I didn't realize I had slept that late, sorry!"

The voice then laughed and replied in a soothing tone. "Don't worry, it happened to the last ranger too. Anyways, once you're awake and ready to go, give me a call. I have your first task. But first, what's your name?"

"Uh.." The voice still sounded sluggish, and very drowsy. "Jesse Roads."

"Well hello Jesse, my name is Delilah. Nice to meet you."

Then the line went quiet with a small whisper of static, and Jesse set the walkie-talkie back down in it's charging station. "Alright...so time to get ready."
Blue eyes flickered around the small cabin type room, trying to familiarize herself with everything's placement. There was a tiny sink and counter combo, a small bookshelf storage unit, a dinky old bed, a desk filled with lots of papers, a large trunk at the foot of the bed, and some sort of circle map in the middle.

She first walked over to her trunk. Lowering down into a squat, and clicking the latches open, throwing the lid upwards. She kept all her clothes and personal belongings in the trunk, and it was a bitch to get into the tower.

Digging around for some clothes, she pulled out a pair of worn jeans, a long-sleeved shirt, and a pink baseball cap. Once changed, she made herself a quick bowl of cereal, sitting on her bed with her legs crossed.

She was looking out over the forest, taking it all in. It was very unlike her to take this job, she wasn't really into nature, nor was this a career interest for her. The more Jesse thought about it, how many people actually took this job because they wanted to? Okay maybe people who seriously wanted to be a forest ranger did...or people who wanted to study nature. But to Jesse, it seemed like everyone was trying to escape from something.

Jesse stood up and finished up her breakfast as she walked across the room and dumped the bowl and spoon into the tiny sink. She then turned to the desk, eyeing the walkie-talkie with an odd knot in her stomach. After a few moments, she found herself sitting at the chair, walkie-talkie in hand.

"Uh, Delilah, this is Jesse, um...over?" She said quietly, feeling embarrassed that she knew so little of this lingo.

Delilah was laughing as she replied. "Over? Kid, you don't have to be so formal, pretend it's a phone." Jesse could hear some sort of shuffling around on the other woman's end, as if she was shifting to get more comfortable. "Okay, so your first task is to hike down to Jonesy Lake, and look for some sort of animal tracks, or anything that could have been attacked by an animal. I got a call this morning from the head office, some hikers had reported some animal raiding their tent and ripping everything to shreds last night. They normally would have just high-tailed it back home buuuut..." She paused, letting her end go silent.

Jesse waited a few seconds before realizing that she was supposed to reply. "But I now need to risk my life retrieving something they left behind, don't I?"

"Bingo!" D replied with an almost too excited tone. "It's some sort of notebook that has a tiny silver lock on the side, I guess it's really important to the hikers. So once you get down there, page me and tell me what you find out."

"Okay, heading out now." She didn't know why a notebook would be that important, unless it had some sort of government codes inside it. Pocketing the walkie-talkie, and equipping her yellow backpack over her shoulders, she exited the tower, locking the door behind her.