“AJ? Is that short for something?” His eyes, now black in the dimness, danced with interest in the firelight.
“Yeah,” I said with a light smile of my own.
He swallowed and drew curious eyes slowly up and down. Assessing? Flirting? Deducing?
I shifted and poked at the fire with a stick.
“Alexis Joan?”
“Nope.”
Now he smirked. Not only did he look spooky in the firelight, but he looked…mischievous?
“Alice Jennifer?”
I smiled deeper, to my surprise. “Nope.”
“Angelina Jean?”
I snorted.
He ate in silence. I watched in silence.
“Thank you for sharing the fire.” He put his backpack on with a wince. “All my years of hiking and biking haven’t taught me to pack a light load.”
“Good night, Reid.”
“Good night, AJ,” he said, rising. Seemingly more weighed down by thoughts than the heavy pack, he left, his bike swishing slowly in the night. He paused and turned over his shoulder. “I’ll be just over there,” he said with a flick of his chin.
“Okay.”
Soon, it was me and the sounds of katydids and crickets of late summer night. Their ch-ch-ch humming was melodic, seductive, and soothing. My eyes grew heavy.
I waited until Reid was out of sight and sound before I retreated to my tent. My sleeping bag awaited me. I went to untie my bootlaces but stopped myself. Deciding to keep them on, I crawled into my bag. I laid the kitchen knife beside me, on the opposite side from Will, and then picked up the tire iron, hugging the cold steel against my chest as I struggled to go to sleep, allowing the insects’ evening music to lull me. I inhaled the scent of Will’s fresh, clean hair and then closed my eyes.
In the early morning hours of daybreak, while Will slept peacefully beside me, I opened my journal. To my delight, I found a map neatly drawn on the inner flap. Will, I thought, shaking my head in fondness. He had drawn an approximate blast zone around Wyoming, complete with labeled cities, a volcano in the middle of Yellowstone spewing ash into the air, and a tiny airplane near Denver.
Beside it was our black cat. Snow had a frown.
Will’s cute drawing of Snow, even if he did have a frown, spurred me to write about the good I’d experienced since his diagnosis and since Harrison’s death. There was hope and humanity out there. I needed to know how to find it and move past my anxiety. My mind briefly darted to my pill supply, but I nixed that. I needed to learn to reset my thinking.
After writing, I tiptoed outside. A thick haze hung in dawn’s bright orange glow. Pink hues outlined a sky filled with earth’s viscera, the clouds burdened with secrets. They were changing, no longer buoyant and feathery. I could almost taste the metallic rock and glass in the air.
Birds chirped by a nearby stream.
I wasn’t the only one awake. I heard the whirring shush of a bike and clank of a metal cup.
There are good people in this world, I encouraged myself.
There are.
I found myself gravitating toward the sound and taking a deep plunge of trust.
Chapter Six
Reset
“Do you like volcanoes?” Will asked, flipping through his book.
“I suppose it depends on what kind,” Reid responded from the seat beside me.
“Why should that matter? Oh, you mean like a stratovolcano, cinder cone, shield, or a fissure? I like the stratovolcano…no wait, the cinder cone. They’re not as massive though. We climbed one in Craters of the Moon in Idaho. Finn ran ahead of us all the way. Uncle Brandon chased after him. Mom and I took longer. So which kind?”
With an indirect glance, I saw a smile crack Reid’s face.
“He won’t stop until you answer. Once you humor him, there’s no going back.” As I said it, I was surprised to find the trace of a smile part my own lips and work underused muscles. I coughed and flinched at the pain in my throat as I fought the truth that a cold was upon me. With a jittery hand, I grabbed the water bottle and took a few sips to abate that thought.
“Well, I like cinder cones, too. Interesting that we both like the same kind.”
Will pulled out a fresh piece of paper and clipped it to his clipboard. “What are you going to call it?”
Reid searched my face for help. “All volcanoes have names,” I clarified, lifting an eyebrow.
“What do you name yours?” Reid asked.
“Mine have all different names. Mantumbo, Punoko…,” Will said. “Finn makes up funnier names.”
Reid glanced at the Peregrine’s Atlas I had wedged between the seats. “Peregrine Cone. How’s that sound?”
“I’m not sure if there are falcons there.”
“Huh?” Reid asked.
“You need to watch animal documentaries, Mr. Gregory,” I said lightly. “Peregrine falcons.”
“I suppose I do. And it’s Reid. Don’t need to feel my age.”
“Okay, we’ll use it anyway and pretend there are falcons there. Mom doesn’t like volcanoes anymore.” Will lapsed into silent drawing mode.
I tried to not pass too many inquiring glances to our new travel companion. What were the appropriate conversation topics for this type of journey? A guy I’d just met was riding in my passenger seat.
A stranger was in my car as passenger and copilot.
A gosh-darn stranger.
And here I’d thought I’d wised up after the robbery, gun altercation, and the thugs in the red pickup. Yet…this guy seemed different. Perhaps I was being a hopeful romantic, or I believed in goodness in humanity. My radar beep just didn’t go off with this man. God, let me be right. Let me trust again. What was a world without humanity and trust? I had to start somewhere. I had to believe.
Waves of wheat and cornstalks lined the highway as I drove, lost in a pool of thoughts.
Reid speaking shook me to the present a short while later. “I think we should stay south on Route 57, then go west on 60.” The Peregrine’s Atlas lay open across his lap.
“Isn’t that out of the way?” I tapped my fingers on the steering wheel. More detours?
He cleared his throat and lowered his voice. “Chicago was bad. St. Louis may be the same or worse. We’re getting closer.” He cast a look upon the fields that surrounded us. “We should avoid populated cities until we can’t, even if it seems like it’ll take longer. If that sounds like a good plan with you? Your car, your decision.”
“Yeah. Sounds like a good plan.”
“I’ll tell you more about Chicago later,” he added in a whisper.
Well, if that didn’t make me shiver, I wasn’t sure what would.
“I heard you!” Will said.
I shared a resigned look with Reid. “The cities aren’t the only places with unrest, though,” I added, my stomach coiling in remembrance.
“Yeah!” Will said. “We got robbed at a gas station, and some guys tried to break into our car while we were sleeping.”
I focused ahead of us, feeling a flush of shame cross the bridge of my nose and flood my cheeks.
Reid’s voice lowered. “I’m sorry that happened. You guys okay?”
“Yeah, we’re fine.”
“Mom drove really fast!” Will said.
I grimaced at Reid.
His eyes said it all. “And a popped tire. Bad luck.”
“Yeah, you can say that.”
Grayness hung in the air, and it quickly suffocated my spirit like a smothering cloud. We now drove through what might as well have been a soggy and foreboding charcoal wall. Even with the closed windows, it engulfed me. Rain slowly splattered the windshield, and I turned on the wipers. My blood pressure escalated. I’d hated rain before Harrison’s car accident. Now…
I tightened my grip on the wheel in hopes to alleviate the tingles in my fingertips. I turned on the headlights.
Only two pills left now. As sorely as I wanted one, I couldn’t take it now, and not in front of this s
tranger.
Because I had listening ears in the back seat, I ventured a neutral conversation with Reid. “Where are you from originally, Mr. Greg—Reid? Did you grow up in Colorado?”
He rubbed his chin and cleared his throat. “I was born near West Point, New York, but my parents moved around a lot and settled in Colorado. Army brat who became an army grad.”
“Have you served overseas?”
“Two tours.”
“My brother was in the air force. He does security work now and lives in California with his wife and daughters. They’re near San Diego.”
“Ah, nice. Never been, though we moved a lot.” Reid closed the atlas and sipped his water. “My father was originally from Pueblo, Colorado. My mom was from Poza Rica, Mexico. She came here when she was twenty. Met my dad while in college in Colorado,” he said casually. “They moved to New York, where my sister and I were born, and then they lived in Texas near Fort Hood. They eventually retired in Denver.”
“Lots of moving for you guys.”
He shook his head. “Yeah. The army shuffle. Sorry, you didn’t need to hear the entire Gregory family history there. I got carried away.”
“Nah, that’s okay. So, you know the Denver area well?”
“Pretty well.”
“Then I’m lucky you needed a ride, huh?” I said lightly though my pulse quickened with his affirmation.
“Perfect timing or amazing coincidence,” he added.
And hopefully not more crummy luck. “I’m not one to put much stock in coincidence. I’m more of a fate gal.” Did I really just say that? More importantly, did I really believe that?
Reid scratched at the coarse stubble on his chin. “Your son is there? Your brother is with him?”
“That’s the ironic thing. We just returned from a family trip, yeah. Our flight had been overbooked and delayed, so my brother stayed behind with my other son, Finn. They were supposed to have boarded a plane in Salt Lake City, and the first layover was in Denver. I think they made it as far as Denver at least before it all went to shit.”
No reprimand came from Will, although I knew without a doubt he’d heard me swear.
I continued, “Perhaps they’d likely be in one of FEMA’s shelters or a mobile hospital or maybe an air force base?” I sighed. I couldn’t remember any of the bases in Colorado. Perhaps a few were listed in the atlas. All of Brandon’s talks in his heyday of the air force, and I couldn’t remember a damn thing. I swear all the information inputted into my brain before kids had been emptied into abyssal trashcans somewhere, unable to be retrieved.
“Yeah, my thinking, too. It depends on how fast FEMA sets up the shelters and where the mobile hospitals are located. I know a few of the shelters based in the area, too. How old’s Finn?” Reid asked.
I swallowed. “Seven.”
“Man…a little guy,” Reid said. “Where’d you last hear from them?”
My grip tightened on the wheel. “Salt Lake. Brandon texted that he and Finn were boarding. It was several hours before the eruption.” I traced a thumb on my throat and coughed, my memory sluggish, yet I knew the details all too well. “The flight—mine and Will’s—was at eleven a.m., but that’s Mountain Time. Brandon and Finn’s flight was two hours later, at one o’clock. It took them to Denver, with an arrival around three and then a departure at four to a second layover in Dulles, and then on to Portland, Maine.” Saying it aloud made my head spin. That was a lot of layovers for my Finn. “I should’ve heard from Brandon by seven or eight that night, Eastern Time, when they got into Portland on that day. But…”
Reid finished for me. “The eruption began around three thirty, Mountain Time. Right when they were at the Denver Airport?”
“Yeah,” I said, miserably. “A substantial quake hit the Denver area. The news showed the airport…” I stopped, not wanting to go into the gory details around Will.
He was immune to it anyway. “It got wrecked!” Will chimed in with sound effects of explosions and wild hand gestures. “Now that I think of it, Mom, I don’t think Finn would’ve seen the eruptive column from there. It was too far away. Ash fall though for sure. Lots of damage from the quake!”
I tuned out Will’s enthusiasm and calculated again what time Brandon should have returned to Portland. “I’ve never been to Denver. I’m not sure where to start.” For a planner, I was still working on that plan.
“Then it’s definitely convenient you found me, huh?”
I turned to him. Friendliness glimmered in his face. I lifted an eyebrow. “Indeed.”
Reid’s voice was gentle. “I’m sorry about your son. Denver’s airport is solid. I saw the news, too, though.” He paused for a moment. “I have a few ideas. We can check churches and schools that are designated to be disaster relief stations, as well as military bases and hospitals in the region. You think your brother and son are definitely there? In Denver, I mean? You don’t know if they caught their connecting flight to Dulles?”
I shrugged. “I’m not certain. That’s the kicker. Maybe his plane took off from Denver and landed elsewhere? They would’ve been grounded in a safer area if they’d taken off. He would’ve been able to get through to me though. My last message from him was when he boarded the flight to Denver…if he even got on that flight. They could still be in Salt Lake City.” I tightened my grip on the steering wheel with that verbal admittance.
“Perhaps there will be information on the radio as we get closer. We can start with Colorado Springs and work our way north to Denver if—” he said, but cut himself off.
I nodded. “Yeah. If it is all still there.”
“It is. Denver was in the outer blast zone. It sustained damage from the quake, but not from the eruption. It’ll be okay. Communication may be disabled, but the city is not.”
Salt Lake City is, I wanted to say but didn’t. Not a word from Brandon in the past five days. I nodded nonetheless. “You really don’t have to help us once we get there. I can drop you off and you can point me in the right direction…”
“Nah, consider it payment for the ride. My legs will be eternally grateful. Besides, I’m a savvy tour guide.”
I cleared my throat and mind. “So, your sister. She lives there, too?”
“Yup. The Gregorys have a soft spot for the Rockies. It’s a pretty area year-round. Lily lives near Pueblo. I live in Colorado Springs. I had to travel east for business last week, and then, well, then it all went to shit.” He gave me a light smile as he mimicked my words.
I released a “hrmmmph” of acquiescence. “I’m sure she’s okay, too. Like you said, that area, south of Denver, seems to be okay.” I didn’t fully believe the words myself. I’d read one too many chapters in Will’s volcano books about the aftereffects of eruptions: telecommunication disruptions, blown power transformers, halted transportation, clogged drainage and sewer systems, soiled water supplies, downed cell towers, collapsed roofs, destroyed crops, and horrible health concerns especially for those with lung or asthmatic issues…and death. So many dead.
I wheezed as if on prompt. Then I coughed. Ouch, pain. I hyper-focused on the lozenges in my first aid kit…that was buried in the car somewhere.
I looked at Will. Not a hint of lung distress in him. Yet.
“Where’s a woman named Anna June from?”
“Not even close,” I said with a grin. “Pennsylvania Amish country originally.”
He raised a thick eyebrow. “Like horses and buggies? Didn’t know the Amish could drive SUVs.”
A lightness and ease danced in my arms at his airy humor. “New amendment to the rules,” I teased.
“I visited Hershey Park once as a kid. Smells like chocolate.”
“It does. And manure.”
He laughed. I suppressed a chuckle.
Did I just laugh?
“Eww!” Will interjected.
“I now live in Maine.”
“Sweet. Never traveled there yet. On the bucket list.”
“Oh, you should. They
don’t call it Vacationland for nothing. Lobsters, lupine, and endless shoreline. Our mountains may not rival the Rockies, but Katahdin can give you a run for the money.”
“Sounds lovely. I like a challenging hike. The Appalachian Trail finishes there, right?” He shifted, rubbed his knees.
“Yup.”
“Someday, then. I always wanted to do the Pacific Crest Trail but never found a buddy to take it on. Never been sailing either. Colorado’s a bit landlocked.”
“That it is. We live south of Portland, in Cape Elizabeth, near the coast. Closer to civilization. The area is an outdoors hub.” I blinked. The cold must have been screwing with my vision. I blinked again. Nope, it was still there. I nodded toward the windshield. “This rain is gray.”
“Yeah, it’s dark,” Reid said, craning his neck to see the looming clouds above us.
I flipped the wipers to a faster setting. Thunder rolled as distant lightning flashed. I jumped but loosened my grip on the wheel.
“No, I mean it’s gray.” I pointed toward the windshield. The drizzle smeared across it, and instead of being clear droplets, the ones bubbling on the surface were tinged with gray. I turned off the wipers and stared at the windshield briefly.
“Ash!” Will said what my mind thought. I heard the click of his helmet going on. “Need to be prepared for lava bombs!”
“Will! This is not—” My voice broke. I wheezed, paused, and put on my best supportive, understanding mom hat. “Yes, this is exciting, but we’re not close enough for lava bombs. You know that. And the volcano has stopped erupting.”
“Here.” Reid offered me my water bottle from the cup holder. I tossed a glance in the rearview mirror.
Will traced a finger on the window, following the path of droplets that rolled backward. “A new vent could open! That supervolcano hot spot is gigantic. You never know. There could be another eruption!”
I downed a substantial gulp of water.
“We’re in the ash-fall zone now,” Will continued. “No, wait, it’s probably air currents and a cold front bringing it this way. They said ash only fell into Kansas with the initial blast, right? Well, the fatter particles fell first in this zone and then the smaller ones will drift eastward,” he said, lifting a drawing on his clipboard and tapping it. “See?”
Will Rise from Ashes Page 9