Wildfire

by Carrie Mac

  Shook leads me to a very old but very tidy shack, where the first thing I notice is about three dozen chickens pecking at the patchy grass around a broken-down rust-bucket truck up on blocks, a quad, a tangle of bikes, and a well-maintained driveway that no doubt leads to the road that takes him into town, where the print shop—and the rest of civilization—is.

  “I’ll make you a cup of coffee,” he says. “Or you want some hot chocolate instead?”

  I can’t imagine drinking either, considering the nausea in my gut that threatens to explode out both ends. But I know I need the strength.

  “Hot chocolate, please.” I rest my hand on the younger dog’s big, blocky head while Shook goes ahead into the cabin. “You need a name, dog.” I squat, and he hooks a great big paw on my shoulder, nearly tipping me over. “I’m going to call you Otis. For the creek.”

  He wags his tail.

  “You’re a good dog, Otis.” His tail thumps the ground, sending a cloud of dirt up, which attracts several chickens for some reason. They cluck and grumble at my feet. I put a hand out, and a couple of the chickens come closer, two of the littlest ones, both with green-black feathers and shiny red combs.

  Otis doesn’t like me taking my attention off of him, so he butts me with his big head. I give him a hug, and he leans into me with so much force that I end up sitting on my ass in the dirt, which startles the chickens and sends them scattering. When he finally lets me get up, he’s wagging his tail so hard that it feels like a whip against my legs.

  * * *

  —

  “Hungry?” Shook shouts from inside the cabin. “Want something to eat?”

  Reluctantly, I follow Otis into the cabin so I can answer without shouting back. There is not one single shout in me. There are hardly any words either, because if I really start talking, I’ll tell him all about Pete, and I’m not ready for that. I don’t see a ham radio. Or a phone. Or even a walkie-talkie.

  “Yes, sir. Thank you. Do you have a phone?”

  “I do not,” he says. “There’s a radio in the shed. But it’s in about ten pieces and absolutely useless. I can take you to the gas station. There’s a pay phone there.”

  “That’s okay,” I say. “I don’t need it right now.”

  “Good thing you found your way off the mountain,” he says as he hands me a stack of clothes. “They came around with the evacuation notice, but I’m not going this time. The hell with it. I’ll be like that old man who didn’t leave when Mount St. Helens blew. Worse ways to go.”

  I see Pete, flushed red, his toes and lips turning black. Such a worse way. I squeeze my eyes shut, pushing the image back just far enough not to talk about it. Don’t talk about it. Let the fire take him.

  “Live here year-round now my better half’s gone,” Shook says. “My kids think I’m nuts, but I’d rather die out here in a wildfire than in an old folks’ home.”

  Now I’m thinking of Gigi. She always said she’d put herself on an ice floe if we ever tried to get her into a home. She said we could sing “Down in the Valley” as she drifted away, but no way was a stranger going to change her diaper and be in control of what was on the TV.

  “Those’ll be big. But dry. Change in there.” He points to the only other room.

  “Come on, Otis,” I say, and then catch myself. “I just called him that. I know it’s not his name or anything. Sorry.”

  “I don’t mind a bit.” Shook shrugs. “Otis it is. I’ll wring your clothes out and hang them up if you want. They’ll dry a lot faster that way.”

  “Yes, please. Thank you.”

  Otis, newly christened, follows me in, sitting politely when I close the door behind him.

  * * *

  —

  I peel everything off until I’m naked. Otis stands at the foot of the single bed. This is the old man’s room. A grandfather clock in the corner takes up most of the space. A wristwatch and some change on a small bureau under the window, which hasn’t been cleaned in forever. Prints of pen-and-ink geese tacked to the wall. I wonder if his wife drew those. One of his kids? Or maybe he did. Otis jumps up onto the bed, his mouth hanging open in a smile, drooling. He is truly a mutt. I have no idea what kind of dog he is, or what mix he is. Big. A bunch of kinds of gray. White muzzle. Lanky.

  “Get off the bed, Otis Creek.”

  And as if he knows his name, he does.

  I pull on Shook’s shirt and a pair of shorts that won’t stay up.

  * * *

  —

  Shook gives me a piece of rope for a belt and goes outside with my clothes and puts them through an actual wringer machine. He hangs them on the clothesline and then heads back inside to light a camp stove that obviously has a permanent spot on the counter, even though everyone knows it’s dangerous to use propane indoors. He skins and guts the rabbits in less than a minute each and then adds the meat to a pan with onions and garlic. He takes half a dozen dirty eggs from a big wire basket sitting at the other end of the counter. He gives them a quick rinse and cracks them and scrambles them up with some powdered milk and spinach and cheese.

  I eat and he talks, eating while he does, the eggs all green and slimy as he chews and goes on about his kids and the cabin and the river being so low this year. The eggs and the rabbit are the best things I have ever eaten in my life, without an ounce of exaggeration. I can practically feel the protein working into my exhausted muscles, knitting them back into the shape they’ll need to be when I leave here.

  After it’s dark out, he makes up the sagging, greasy old couch.

  “I’d put you in the loft, but nothing’s made up yet,” he says. “Grandkids were going to be coming next week, but now with the fire, who knows when.”

  “I’m not sure how long I’ll stay,” I say.

  “Until morning, when I’ll drive you into town.”

  Morning seems so far away, though. I don’t think I can wait that long, even if I really, really want to.

  “I know bone-tired when I see it,” he says. “We’ll go first thing.”

  Otis hops up onto the couch beside me as I lie down and curl on my side. He nearly shoves me off as he circles and circles behind my knees before finally getting comfortable and settling down.

  * * *

  —

  Shook and his old dog retire to the little bedroom. When he shuts the door, I find my headlamp and dig in my pack for the diary.

  It is so much smaller than I remember. Not much bigger than a paperback. I remember that it had a lock, but there isn’t one now. The corners are worn down to the cardboard underneath the shiny cover. The stars still sparkle. The unicorn is still trying to make that leap over the moon, which is still full and shimmering.

  Why did you take it, Pete?

  I open it, fully expecting to see my mother’s handwriting. My hands start shaking, my breath quickens. A thumping white noise gets louder and louder in my head. I can hardly believe that I can feel even less steady than I already do.

  Other than those two pages Pete filled, the rest of it is blank. I flip back to the front. Now I’m mad. Why didn’t she fill it for me? Why didn’t she fill every page, back and front, with things she wanted to say to me?

  I find the pages Pete wrote on, but I don’t read them.

  If I read what he wrote, I’ll be reading a message from dead Pete.

  I’m not ready for that.

  When I was little, I thought the worst day of my life was the day my dad left. And then I thought it was the day they found my mom’s body. When Gigi died, that trumped both of those days. Now this day is the worst, and nothing will ever be worse. It is ten minutes away from midnight, when this day will officially be over and the next day will begin. I don’t know what tomorrow will be like. The sun will come up, but the dark of it will be just as bad as the last dark moments of today.

  I have to
rest. Just long enough to gather the energy to get moving again. I shove the diary deep down into my pack and curl back up on the couch and close my eyes, even though I am sure that I will never, ever sleep again. Not while Pete is up on the mountain with fire closing in from two directions. I will rest an hour or so and then go. Otis sets his big head on my thigh and whines, as if he knows more about my plans than I do and doesn’t like them.

  I wake up with a start in the middle of the night, right out of a dream where Pete is dead in the tent with rosy cheeks and his glitter lip balm and the unicorn diary in his crossed arms, like he was arranged like that for his own funeral, except when I look out of the tent, the flames are right there. Where the hell am I? I scramble out from under—what? What is that? A dog? Where’s Pete? I’m in some kind of cabin. It smells dank. As my eyes adjust to the dark, I see the propane stove on the counter, the quilt, the shirt that I’m wearing—

  Where is Pete?

  What the hell am I wearing?

  The dog butts me with his big, blocky head and whines.

  Otis.

  “I remember you,” I whisper, patting his head. He butts me again.

  Then I remember, not in pieces, but all at once, like I missed a catch in dodgeball and took it in the gut instead. I bend over, hit hard, breathless.

  Pete is up there on the mountain, in that tent, the wildfire closing in.

  “I’m okay with that,” I say to myself. “I am. I am.”

  I picture the flames, willowy orange and hot, licking toward our tent. Calm, peaceful, quick.

  But I can’t imagine calm or peaceful or quick. I just imagine terrible cracking and snapping and crashing as the pine trees roast and topple, the animals fleeing with terrified eyes, the awful roar like a million angry beasts of hell, rocks snapping in half.

  No. Absolutely not.

  The wildfire cannot take Pete. I won’t let it.

  I have to get him out now.

  My shoes aren’t dry, but I don’t care. My clothes are, stiff from hanging on the line. I throw off Shook’s clothes and pull on my shorts and shirt.

  Should I wake Shook up?

  Should I ask him to drive me into town now?

  How far is it? Could I get there on one of the bikes?

  Or the quad. The keys are right in the ignition. There are three jerry cans along the wall of the shed, so I take the one that’s full of gas.

  * * *

  —

  I find an apple on the counter, and a jar of peanuts. There is a slab of hard bread and some butter. I cut off a piece and slather it with butter. There is no fridge, but there is a cooler. I lift the lid and recoil. It stinks of fish. I find another jar with dried prunes and take a couple of those. I wrap the nuts and prunes in a square of waxed paper that’s obviously been used many, many times before. I twist it and then hold it together with a little rubber band from a bowl full of them.

  Otis follows me around as I look for something to write on. I find a piece of mail, unopened, the back blank.

  Dear Shook,

  Thank you for helping me.

  I took your quad, but I’ll leave it at the gas station.

  I’ve taken some food too, but I’ll come back someday to explain, and when I do, I will replace it.

  Thank you for your hospitality.

  Annie and Pete

  When I see how I signed it, I want to rip it up, but there is nothing else to write on. So I leave it like that because I can’t bear to cross out his name, and because I know he’d be thankful for the old man too.

  * * *

  —

  Otis jumps onto the passenger seat while I’m sitting there, my fingers on the key, wondering if I’m really going to take this.

  “Am I?” I say to the dog, or to the night, or to nothing at all.

  Otis stares at me.

  “You can’t come,” I say. “Off. Get off.” When he doesn’t, I give him a shove. He doesn’t budge. “Get off!” I say as loudly as I can without yelling and waking up Shook. “Go. Go!”

  He stares at me, his big tongue lolling out, panting.

  What I want, more than pretty much anything else realistic, is for Otis to come with me. Even if it’s only as far as the gas station. I can leave him there, with the quad, in some shade. I will leave him there, I tell myself. Shook will come for him. Which is the right thing to do, when I’m not going to do the actual right thing to do, which is to not take him in the first place. The next best thing, Gigi would call that.

  I turn the key and the quad starts right away, much louder than our quads. I have to go quick or Shook will hear. I back out of the shed, reversing and turning so I can take a straight shot down the driveway. I grab Otis’s collar so he doesn’t fall off, but clearly he’s used to the quad, because he leans into each curve as if he were born on one of these. I let go of his collar and put both hands on the handlebars and lean forward to see the road better, because only one headlight is working, and it must be pretty dirty, because I can hardly see at all.

  It’s not long before the dark sky starts to lighten, and I can see long orange wisps of cloud ribboned through the trees. We’re speeding alongside the river now, and the rushing water looks like liquid silver.

  It’s good to be alive today! Pete shouts from behind me.

  I don’t look back. I know he’s not there. And it’s not good to be alive without him. Without Gigi. Without my mom.

  Loss upon loss upon loss.

  I have never thought that life was fair, but this is too much for one kid.

  * * *

  —

  The sun is peeking up from the ridge to the east. I crest a small hill and see a stop sign reflecting in my one dim headlight. Otis stands up. He must know that we’re getting close. I slow down, worried that he’s going to fall. He jumps off and runs full-out toward the stop sign, dodging off to the right just before it.

  “Otis!” I speed up. I can’t lose Shook’s dog too.

  But as I get closer, I see that he’s waiting for me at the junction.

  HODGES CORNER STORE + GAS

  GASOLINE

  FISH BAIT

  HUNTING LICENSES

  ICE CREAM

  PRINT SHOP

  POST OFFICE

  ’N’ MORE

  This is it.

  This is where it all becomes real.

  This is where it ends.

  This is where I tell.

  * * *

  —

  The pay phone booth has no pay phone in it. That discovery unzips the last of my nerves, and I sit shaking, my chest hurting, waiting for the store to open at eight. I sit on a picnic table. It was painted orange at one point, which I can tell from the parts safe from the sun. The same orange as our tent. But the top is bleached white now and peeling. Otis sits at my side, panting. I circle the building and find a locked bathroom, but beside it is a tap that works. I drink out of cupped hands and then let Otis do the same. We go back to the table. I eat a few peanuts. Otis eats a few peanuts. We both watch the building.

  I take out the diary and hold it in my hands. I do the opposite of opening it; I squeeze it shut. I put the rubber band from Shook’s cabin around it. I dig in the lid of my pack and pull out a plastic bag and put it in there, and then I find my duct tape and I wrap it up.

  I don’t want to read what he wrote, yet I also do want to. So I don’t. Not yet. Because you can’t undo something after you’ve already done it.

  * * *

  —

  There’s a clock inside, above the register, and when I check it, it’s not even seven, but as I turn to go back to the picnic table, the door opens and a big woman grabs me into a hug from behind.

  “Oh, sweetheart!” She spins me around. Short, tubby, long gray hair flattened by sleep, a face full of smoker
’s wrinkles, like Gigi. “You’re that girl, from the news last night. Where’s your boyfriend, darling, he with you?”

  “He’s not my boyfriend.”

  “Your friend, then, hon, where is your friend?”

  “Best friend.”

  “The news said…”

  Why did the news say anything? We’re not overdue yet.

  Tell her.

  This is it.

  This is when you tell her what happened.

  “This your dog?” She pats Otis’s head as he butts her hip. “News didn’t say anything about a dog.”

  “The news?”

  “Honey, search and rescue has been out there looking for you and your boyfriend for two days.”

  “We’re not late,” I say. “We still have two days.”

  “What day do you think it is, darling?” The woman pulls me into the store and lets Otis come in with me. She turns on the coffeemaker and unwraps a Danish. “Eat this. Coffee will be just a minute. I’m going to call the sheriff’s office. Search and rescue is way off track if you ended up here. Where’s the boy?”

  “Peter Alvarez Bonner.”

  “Where is he, darling?”

  I haven’t said it out loud, and now that I should, it seems entirely impossible. The Danish is limp in my hand. Otis grabs it, nearly biting my finger. The woman says hello to the dispatcher and starts explaining in a rush.

  “Is the boy okay?” She covers the mouthpiece with a hand. “Is he hurt?”

  Gigi is dead.

  My mom is dead.

  “Pete is dead.”

  “I’ll call right back. I will….Yes, I know….Only a minute!” She hangs up the phone. “That can wait a minute, then.” She hugs me again and doesn’t let go. “You’re sure? Absolutely sure?”

  I nod, and then I start to cry.

  The woman squeezes me tighter and starts to pray. It doesn’t matter that Pete is an atheist. I’ll take all the help I can get, and so will Pete. Even if he’s dead.