On Fire (6 page)

“I don't understand,” I called after him. “I haven't told anybody!” I was blubbering so much I had to wipe my nose on the hem of my shirt.

I waited for what felt like hours. Allard came out to check on us a couple of times. Marsh knocked on the door. But Dan wouldn't come out.

The sun was down behind the mountains when I got home. Crickets were making their raspy music, which I usually liked. Now it made me think of metal sawing away at dry bones.

That was the end of the Golden Age.

15
G
ONE

I
GOT UP VERY EARLY THE
next morning. I found the tent out in the garage and an old life jacket. I hid them in the bushes and bracken of the house next door. When I poked around for a bailing pail, I also found an inflatable rubber raft. It was heavy but I got it into the bushes as well.

My plan was to move everything over to Cato City that night, including whatever canned food I could get away with. Then early the next morning I'd get Dan and we'd be gone.

Because of all that activity, I got to the jail house a little later than usual. Dan wasn't sitting outside and the door was closed. I waited for a while trying to decide if I should go home and give him some more space for a few hours.

Marsh drove up in his truck and got out while I was waiting. “Matti,” he said. His face was all pulled together.

“You're not taking him to the hospital now,” I said. “Frank isn't here and I need another day.”

“We've run out of time,” Marsh said.

“What are you talking about?”

He swallowed hard. “Dan's gone.”

“What do you mean?”

Marsh pointed to the jail. “It's empty,” he said.

I tried the door. It wasn't locked anymore. The bed was made and very neat, but Dan wasn't there.

I ran back outside. “I said I needed time,” I yelled. “And you said I could go with him.” I hit Marsh very hard in the chest with my fists. Once. Twice. Three times.

He took hold of my fists and held them tight.

“I didn't take him anywhere, Matti,” he said. “He left. He was gone when I checked on him at six-thirty this morning.”

“I don't believe you.”

“It's the truth. He's not here anymore. He's gone.”

“But he can't be,” I wailed. “I had plans.”

Marsh shook his head. “He took everything and left. I've driven half way down toward Kingman and I can't find him. I'm very sorry Matti, but he's gone.”

16
O
NE
L
ESS
C
RAZY
P
ERSON

B
LACKSTONE
V
ILLAGE IS SMALL BUT THERE
are lots of places where you can disappear. I searched and Dan wasn't in any of the ones I knew about. I considered that maybe he was thinking what I was thinking and he'd already gone across to Cato City so I went down to the beach.

The sand was chewed up by the dock like a person had been there. Maybe two people. But that could have been from birds. Or rabbits. Or a dog someone had brought back with them. It didn't mean anything.

What did mean something, I thought, was finding Dan's silver ring shining up from the sand at the water's edge. I picked it up. Why would he have left it there unless he wanted to leave me a clue?

Maybe he wanted me to know he was swimming across. He wasn't that strong yet, but he might have been able to make it.

Even at the time I was thinking that though, I knew it was mostly a wish. I held on to it for a while, the way you do when you don't want to see how things really are, but underneath I was afraid he'd started to swim across to the other side, but couldn't get there.

Or worse, maybe he'd just gone out into the water and hadn't even tried to swim. That meant he'd left the ring to say goodbye.

Think about it. Something so bad had happened to him that he'd forgotten who he was. Then he saw those guys in yellow and they terrified him. Maybe when he was lost out in the fire area, fire fighters really did attack him. They could have held him down and burned him. How do I know what guys get up to out in the wilderness?

Being lost and confused and tortured would be enough to make most people want to drown themselves. I even thought about it myself while I was sitting there.

I promised to save Dan's life. I tried, but I failed him. Just like I failed my mother.

I wanted to walk into the lake and disappear.

When I finally left the beach I decided not to tell anybody what I'd found out. Marsh said he and Frank didn't use words like
crazy
or
lunatic
. And I didn't think Mrs. Stoa would. But some people in town might.

I could just imagine what they'd say. “Did you hear about that lost kid who ended up in the lake? One less crazy person in the world.”

I couldn't stand to think of people talking that way about Dan. It's bad enough to be confused and screwed up. You shouldn't be blamed for it.

17
C
ONFLAGRATION

I
STAYED IN MY ROOM THE
rest of the day with the door locked. I got a chain out of my dresser drawer and put Dan's ring on it. Then I hung it around my neck. After that I laid down on the bed and stared out the window.

I don't think I noticed the wind coming up at first. When I finally did, I didn't pay any attention. What did I care about the weather? Dan was dead.

It seemed like I heard Marsh's voice through the floor boards for a while. And there were steps on the stairs. Sometimes heavy. Sometimes light. And lots of knocking which I didn't answer.

It got dark while I was lying there. Somewhere in my brain I was aware that it was pretty early for that. Lightning flashed a few times. There was thunder. I basically ignored it all — rolled over and zombied-out.

The next thing I knew Mrs. Stoa was rapping on the door. And not so quietly this time. “Matilda!” she called. “Open the door. I need to talk to you.” I pulled the pillow over my head and didn't answer.

“It's serious. Open this door at once!”

I threw the pillow on the floor. “What will you do if I don't?” I shouted. “Force your way in?” I actually had to laugh, thinking about Mrs. Stoa with her little bird bones trying to break down my door.

“There's a new fire, Matti.” Now it was Marsh talking. And he was using what I imagined was his war voice. “We have evacuation orders. Open up!”

I unlocked the door and opened it just a crack. “I don't want to talk to you,” I said. But to be honest I lost most of my steam when I saw Marsh's face. It looked like it was carved out of stone.

He and Mrs. Stoa were both standing in the hall holding flashlights. That's when I understood that the electricity was off in the house. “We don't have time for this now,” Marsh said. “They've had lightning strikes up on Devil's Thumb and the wind's blowing the fire this way fast.

“Get your suitcase and come down stairs. That's an order.”

By the time I'd done that, and I was pretty quick, Mrs. Stoa was sitting on the living room couch wearing her green mask. Her suitcase was on the floor beside her. “Marshall is making one last check before we leave,” she said.

She kept the mask on to talk and I didn't comment about it. I stood with my back toward her and watched out the front window. I could barely see across the street for the smoke.

“So it's finally here,” she said.

I started counting breaths. About every fourth or fifth, I felt a little catch in my throat.

“It's here,” she said again. This time a little louder.

I whirled around. “Listen, Mrs. Stoa.This is a very hard time for me, and I don't want to hear anything from you about the end of the world. As far as I'm concerned, it's already happened anyway.”

“I never said the world was ending,” she told me. “I said conflagration was coming. A great fire.”

“That's close enough.”

“It's happened before. We'll survive. We're mountain people.”

I turned away from her and looked out the window again. I was in the process of taking back what I'd thought about not caring if we burned up, when I saw two orange lights like eyes coming through the haze.

I thought at first it was Marsh, but it was an army truck filled with firefighters. It went past. Then another. And another.

After that a jeep with a revolving light on the top came by from the opposite direction and stopped in front of our house. A guy in some kind of uniform got out and started up the front walk. I opened the door.

It was like we were in a movie — everything slow and lazy except my heart, which was beating like a stopwatch. “Anyone in the house who needs help getting out?” the guy asked me.

“It's all right,” Marsh said. He'd pulled up behind the guy in the uniform and came running up onto the porch. “We're leaving.”

18
D
FOR
D
EAD

I'
D EXPECTED
M
RS
. S
TOA TO RIDE
in the front of the truck with Marsh, but she got in the back of the extended cab beside me. After we'd gone through a couple of roadblocks, she turned to me and whispered, “I know you're worried about Dan, but he'll come through.”

“Like your guy Dante, I guess you mean,” I said. “But you've got the wrong
D
word.”

I wanted her to leave me alone so I told her flat out what I believed. It didn't matter that I'd said I wasn't going to. I didn't see myself then as a person who kept her word.

“Not D for Dante,” I told her. “D for Dead. He drowned in the lake.”

“I don't believe it,” she said. “Do you have any proof?”

I showed her the ring, which I still had on a chain around my neck. “He always wore this. I found it by the water's edge.”

Mrs. Stoa shook her head. “Rings get lost. But he won't. He'll live.”

I wanted to believe what she was saying, but all she had to go on was an old story. What was it called, anyway?
The Divine
Comedy
? So far I wasn't laughing.

D
AN

1
N
OTHING
C
AN
T
RACK
A H
UMAN OVER
W
ATER

H
E OPENS THE DOOR OF THE
town office and looks out cautiously. The sky in the east is humming with colour but it's already hot. And the air is hushed. In all of creation he thinks he may be the only one awake.

Except for the ravens. Two of them fly down and settle in the fir tree nearby. They cock their heads and look at him. Bob up and down and click their thick beaks. They want him to go. Now that the demons know where he is, it isn't safe to stay.

He stuffs his clothes into the backpack, walks out and closes the door behind him. When he reaches the lake, he squats down and dips his hands in the water, sluicing some of it on his face and up over the back of his neck.

The snake ring slips off his thumb and sinks down into the sand. He starts to reach for it, then straightens up when he feels the shadow of something behind him.

He turns and looks into eyes that are level with his and rimmed with darkness. “You're the amnesia guy,” the mouth below the eyes says.” Do you have another name to go with that yet?”

Dan shakes his head.

“I'm Virgil.” There follows the whisper of a handshake. “I guess you remember meeting me the other day with what's her name. Frank Iverly's girl?”

Dan doesn't answer.

They size each other up, although Virgil does most of the sizing. “Okay,” he says. He nods a few times as if he's made up his mind about something. “Have a good one.” He turns and walks toward his boat.

“Wait!” Dan is trying to remember something. “You're . . . a guide, aren't you?”

Virgil stops and turns around. “You need one?”

“I might.” Dan points across the lake. “What's over there?”

“Cato City? History, mostly. Mine tailings. Lots of rotten wood. Buildings falling down. A few still standing, like the ones me and my relatives live in. Why? You want to go over there?”

“Maybe. What about people?”

“Everybody's gone for the summer except me,” Virgil says. “And I'm about to leave myself.” He turns toward his boat again. “Make up your mind if you're coming. I've been up all night . . . checking on things in town. I just need to get a little sleep at home and pack up before I leave for Kingman.”

While they're launching the boat, Virgil gestures toward the two ravens who've settled on a rock at the water's edge. “You three together?”

“They follow me around,” Dan says.

“We have quite a few ravens here, especially this summer. You sure they're always the same ones?”

“They tell me they saved my life.”

“Oh, yeah?” Virgil steadies the boat while Dan climbs in. “Ravens told you that?” He gets into the boat next. “Of course ravens are known to exaggerate.”

Virgil picks up a paddle and holds it above the water while he thinks. “Two of them together means something, though.” He knifes the paddle down through the water and pushes away from him. The boat moves out into the lake.

“What?” Dan asks.

Virgil shakes his head. “I'm kind of like you.” He drops the paddle on the floor of the boat. “There's a lot of stuff I can't remember. Better hold on,” he says as he starts up the kicker. “This is a powerful motor.”

“Two stroke?” Dan asks.

“You know about motors?” Virgil asks.

“I know about how they sound. What's your horse power?”

“Where I come from we say moose power. About five.” Virgil watches Dan as they move slowly out into the water. It's possible he winks, although it may be the breeze off their passage catching in his eye.