Chapter 4 — Forest Keeper

Three days later, Khue decided to return to the scene of the cable trap, this time bringing all the tools to survey the surrounding area more closely. Brown was volunteered by May to help look after the baby in the morning - the baby langur is now much less scared, clinging to May's sleeve, asking for milk when hungry, and has even started making chirping sounds to be held whenever someone comes near the cage.

She went with another ranger at the station this time, according to regulations, but when approaching the old crime scene, her colleague took on the task of patrolling another nearby route, leaving Khue free to survey the trap area in her own way — carefully, slowly, without missing any detail.

She followed the slope where the trap was set, expanding her search scope further than the previous day. Not long after, she discovered new tracks: deep ruts of truck tires in the soft ground, leading from a trail hidden in the trees, a road that according to the reserve's official map did not exist — perhaps an illegal opening, clandestinely cleared for transportation.

Khue knelt down, measured the width of the tire tracks with a tape measure, and carefully recorded it in his public service notebook. The tire tracks are quite wide, suitable for medium-sized trucks, the type often used to transport sawn timber. She walked along the trail for another five hundred meters, and what she saw made her chest tighten.

A small area of forest, about a few hundred square meters, has been neatly cut down. Not the indiscriminate felling of small-time loggers hastily cutting and running, but an organized logging area - tree stumps were sawed close to the ground, branches were neatly cleared to the side, signs that people had been doing this for days, even weeks, without being detected. Among those trees, Khue recognized at least four ancient trees - a rare type of wood, on the list of strictly prohibited exploitation, with a particularly high value on the black market because it is popular for making fine arts and exporting.

"It can't be," she muttered, standing still in the clearing, the sunlight now shining straight down, no longer obstructed by the foliage, a strange and heartbreaking contrast to the dense shade surrounding her.

She took photos of the entire scene, measured the size of the tree stumps, and recorded the estimated number. This is not a small incident that can be handled with a normal administrative violation record. This is a sign of an organized and methodical illegal forest product exploitation ring, with specialized transportation vehicles and knowing how to avoid the regular patrol routes of forest rangers.

On the way back, when passing by a small stream, Khue accidentally met Mr. Hoang Van Chinh. The man was in his sixties, with mostly white hair, sitting alone fishing by the stream, an old conical hat blocking the sun, the relaxed appearance of a retiree. He was a veteran park ranger at Ngan May station, Khue's father's closest teammate for nearly twenty years of work, before retiring a few years after Mr. Thai passed away.

"Uncle Chinh," Khue called, greeting him with the politeness he had kept since childhood.

Mr. Chinh looked up, his sun-tanned face showing a familiar gentle smile. "Is that Khue? Are you patrolling alone?"

"Yes, I went with Tung but he's on another route." Khue sat down next to him, looking at the clear stream water flowing through the rocks. "Do you still come here often to fish?"

"Yes, I'm retired, I have to find something to do every day, otherwise I'll be bored." He smiled, but Khue realized that smile did not reach the bottom of his eyes.

She hesitated for a moment, then decided to get straight to the point, even though she knew this was a bit hasty. "Uncle Chinh, I just discovered a large illegal logging site in the northeast of Nam Dam, including a professional steel cable trap that killed a white-rumped langur. I see... I think it's very similar to the cases my father handled in the past. Do you remember anything?"

Mr. Chinh's hand, holding the fishing rod, trembled slightly, enough to cause the float on the water surface to fluctuate abnormally. He didn't answer right away, his eyes were still glued to the stream surface as if he was intently watching some fish, but Khue knew clearly that it was just an excuse to give him time to think.

"There are a lot of loggers in the forest now, my son," he said at last, trying to keep his voice neutral. "In difficult economic times, people are more reckless than before."

"But the layout of the traps, the types of cables, the transport routes to avoid patrols... I find it very organized, uncle. Unlike the spontaneous villagers." Khue looked straight at him, trying to read something behind his avoiding eyes. "You've worked at the station for nearly twenty years, so you probably know a lot better than me. Has anything similar happened in the past?"

Mr. Chinh put down the fishing rod, sighed deeply, his thin hand rubbed his knee, a gesture Khue recognized as a sign of deep hesitation. For a moment, Khue thought he was about to say something important, but then he shook his head, stood up, and packed up his fishing gear.

"It's late, I'm going home. You should go home early too, it's going to rain." He spoke, his voice had returned to its usual social tone, but his steps as he left were a bit more hasty than usual.

"Uncle Chinh," Khue called out, unable to hold back. "If you know anything, even if it's just a suspicion, can you tell me? I... I just want to know the truth about my father."

Mr. Chinh stopped walking, stood with his back to her for a long time, his shoulders shaking slightly, not sure if it was because of the cold wind or because of some other emotion he was trying to suppress. "Your father is a good man, Khue. The best man I've ever known in this profession." He said, his voice choked. "But there are things... let me think about it more. It's not the time yet."

Then he walked away, his figure much more bent than when Khue first met him, disappearing behind the bend in the trail leading to the village.

Khue sat alone by the stream, her heart full of thoughts. Mr. Chinh's words "it's not the right time" echoed in her head, evoking more questions than answers. If it's not the right time, then when is the time? What are you waiting for, or are you afraid of something?

She remembers, when she was young, every time her father and Uncle Chinh came home from patrol, the two men would sit on the front porch, drink a pot of tea, and laugh and talk about things they encountered in the forest - which roe deer had just been born, which beehive had just been discovered, which group of young men in which village had sneaked into the forest to trap birds. That friendship, according to Khue's mother, has stuck together through countless rainy and sunny seasons, even through times when they faced aggressive loggers together, and together carried injured people down the mountain at night. A friendship like that, Khue thought, is not easily erased just because of the passage of time. So what made Mr. Chinh, who once considered her father as his brother, now have to avoid even a simple question about him?

She looked down at the water in the stream, thinking about her father's notebook kept in his desk drawer, the torn pages, the symbols and coordinates she hadn't yet deciphered. She thought of Ma Van Loc's strange reaction when hearing about the old file. And now, the reaction of Mr. Chinh — a man who was once her father's closest friend, now avoids questions about him as if carrying an unshared burden of guilt.

All those fragmentary pieces, even though they did not form a complete picture, began to evoke a premonition in Khue that she could not deny: her father's death, even though it had been closed on file eight years ago, had never really closed in the hearts of those who knew him. And perhaps, it was never really an accident either.

On the way back to the station, it rained as Mr. Chinh had predicted. Large raindrops fell on the forest canopy, creating an endless rustling sound. Khue pulled up the hood of her raincoat and walked faster, but her mind was still wandering at the stream bank, at Mr. Chinh's bent figure, at that unfinished sentence full of meaning.

Arriving at the station, she saw May waiting at the door, looking a bit worried. "Are you back yet? I got a call from the Provincial Department, saying that next week they will send a wildlife veterinarian to support our rescue area. I heard that due to a report on the rescue of a white-rumped langur, they felt it was necessary to have veterinary expertise on site."

Khue nodded, took off his raincoat and hung it on the hook, his mind still busy thinking about Mr. Chinh. "Yes, that's great. With professional support, Brown will receive better care."

"By the way, Nau is now willing to pick up her own food, she doesn't need me to feed her anymore," May boasted, her voice becoming more excited, pulling Khue out to the rescue barn. "Besides, he kept looking at the door, probably waiting for me to come home."

Sure enough, when the two people approached, the baby langur was clinging to the B40 net, its two tiny hands holding tightly to the mesh, its dark eyes lit up when it recognized Khue's familiar figure. It let out a series of chirping sounds, both happy and sulky, as if blaming her for leaving it at home all day. Khue sat down next to the cage, sticking her finger through the mesh slot for it to grasp. A familiar warm feeling spread in her palm, temporarily soothing some of the turmoil still swirling in her mind.

"What's wrong with you? Your face has been pensive since you got home," May asked, sitting down next to her, his voice turning serious.

"I met Uncle Chinh at the stream. Asked about my father, he seemed to... know something but didn't say anything," Khue replied, his eyes still not leaving Nau. "Uncle said 'it's not the right time'."

Cloud was silent for a moment, then placed his hand on your shoulder. "Maybe he's just waiting for enough courage, sister. Old people here, many things they keep in their hearts all their lives and don't dare to say, not because they don't want to, but because they're afraid."

Khue nodded and said nothing more. She stayed by Nau's cage until it was completely dark, watching the baby langur snuggling into the warm blanket preparing to sleep, while letting her mind settle down after a day full of unanswered questions - about the cable, about the illegal timber yard, about the strange reactions of both Loc and Mr. Chinh, and above all, about the last hanging sentence of her father that she never had a chance to complete: "Let me see to make sure, then I'll report."