The dusty park service pickup inched its way into the campground where I was working. The minute I recognized who it was, a flush of anger warmed my cheeks. It wasn’t even lunchtime, and my supervisor, Bill Dye, was checking on me again. Was he trying to catch me shirking my duties?
Almost from the April day I’d started as a summer rehire at the Dinosaur National Monument, Bill had made it a point to find me during the workday. Whether I was cleaning the dinosaur quarry near the main entrance or testing the water at the campgrounds on the far side of the park, he appeared. Sometimes more than once. Our run-ins were no accident.
That first summer with the National Park Service, I’d rarely seen Bill, except mornings for my daily work orders and afternoons when we filled out our