He reaches into a chest pocket, pulls out a picture, presses it against his chest, then quickly stuffs it back.
“Hover!” Mox steps out onto the helicopter’s skids. “The IC has the call, and this IC says, yeehaw!” Mox tucks into the pike position, pats his belly bag, and disappears down his rappelling rope.
“Stupid bastard!” Harv, our spotter, reaches for the radio. “Dispatch, Helicopter Five Hotel X-ray. Have visual of Incident One-Three-One with four souls left on board . . . make that three souls. Two. I take that back, one. Two sticks are planted. Only the short end still remains in the copter. Yes, they were told! Over.”
The pilot muscles his body around, jams his finger into the pine-tree logo on my jacket. “You stay put.” He grabs the radio, and I step out onto the skids.
I have no authority to leave this copter. I have to stay. Mox will get a hand slap when he returns. But maybe not me. I could get the superintendent’s boot.
“Jake!” Koss’s voice is thin and distant.
“Guess it is our war,” I say to Harv. “Later.”
Finding our safety zone. Securing the eighty-pound K-bag filled with saws and food, axes and survival equipment. There will be time for all that. But not now. I stand on the skid and stare out over the sea of green. Smoke rises from beneath the canopy of trees and sends spindly fingers up to grab me. It’s down there, waiting to destroy or be destroyed.
I glance at the tail rotor. No use waiting for Harv’s signal. It won’t come. My heartbeat races, and a smile so big I feel it spreads across my face. The smoke, it comforts me, and I remember camping trips with Dad.
“Jake!”
I zip down the line into the suffocating cloud. My feet hit Koss’s hands, and I hear curses and laughter. I slow. We descend together. The thicker the smoke, the clearer I think. The cloud that fogs my mind blows away, and I’m all here. Right now. Let there be light.
We drop into the furnace and this hell’s hazy glow. Feet hit the logging road at the canyon’s bottom.
“Glad you joined us, kid.” Mox smiles.
My eyes scan for safety zones—alternative spots to flee into, and I see none. There’s only the road. This is off to a great start!
“Gentlemen.” Mox points toward a wall of fire that stretches up one side of the canyon. “That is not our fire. Our fire is two miles over that ridge. Ten minutes ago, this fire didn’t exist. But Immortals are always in the right place at the right time.”
I turn from the blaze and bombs and falling trees.
Behind me, an untouched forest, dark and beautiful, stretches up toward the opposite peak.
“If this fire makes here, we’ll lose her. She’ll jump the road.” Moxie races twenty feet toward the blaze. “Here! This old fire line. She stops here. Widen it!”
I grab my cutter and rip the cord. The wind blows steady from the west, smacks the fire in the face. Chainsaws roar and eat up anything the fire might find tasty. We whack brush in the black, on the tarry patch of earth consumed before the wind forced her back.
The heat is unbelievable.
“Whew,” I say. “She’s hot.”
Koss turns his sooty face. His eyes dance. “And dirty. Kick.”
I kick at the ground brush and overturn fresh tinder. “We’re too close.”
A breeze, gentle and scorching, licks my lips. A northern breeze. Koss freezes. He knows it, too. Wind shift. Dirty burn. It’s not done with this charred ground.
“Hey, Koss,” I yell. “That breeze is circling—”
“Moxie!” Koss hollers. “What do you think about Chinese for dinner tonight?”
“Ask Fatty!”
“Mexican.” Fatty’s voice sounds thin, far away.
“Would you consider Chinese made by Mexicans?” Koss checks the wind, peeks back at me. “Stay close!” He moves forward.
“How come Chinese food is the only thing not made in China?” Mox hollers.
Koss laughs, wild and free. “You’re in the great state of California, my friend.”
I can’t see anyone but Koss through the smoke, but I don’t need to. Moxie’s, Fez’s, and Fatty’s chainsaws snarl in the distance. Hanging branches, fire food to the treetops, lie in piles on the ground. Fez’s handiwork. Fatty and Koss clear brush and saw anything that still stands.
We wind through Snake Valley. Another north wind blasts; heat singes my eyebrows. We’re too close.
Moxie is playing again.
“Fall back, Mox!” I rasp, and gulp water from my canteen.
Twenty paces ahead a charred ponderosa pops and explodes with a shower of embers. A second more, and another blows. Trees creak, fall. Koss turns and grimaces. A nightmare has begun.
“Make the road, Jake, dump your gear, and tent up like a turtle. This will be close!” Koss ditches his saw and claws at his survival tent. I drop my pack and run. Ahead, across the trail, embers ignite into fireballs and creep up fuel ladders toward the sky. She’s jumped the road.
Cut off from Moxie, Fez, and Fatty, I fall to my knees.
“Your shelter, asshole!” Koss hollers. “Get up. She’s blowin’ over. Now! Now!”
I look over my shoulder, see his black outline pull his head into his tent. I stagger to my feet and gasp onto the trail. I stare up the west side toward the ridge. In the fire’s light, I catch a silhouette against the burgundy sky. A home with a play set. The wind whips, crazed, deciding whose side it’s on. And shifts. East, straight east.
Oh, please, no.
More fireballs hurtle into fresh tinder. That house has five minutes, tops.
“No one said there was a house!” I shout. “Mox, nobody briefed us on the house!”
I clamor up toward the hot spots, stomp and snuff and hack.
“Deploy shelters!” Mox’s voice is faint.
“No!” I stare at the house, climb above the new burn, and start to clear. Three hacks with my ax, and a projectile lodges between my shoulder blades. I’m face in the dirt.
“Get into your damn shelter!” Koss rips the canister off my back.
I roll over and kick him hard in the chest. “The house!”
Back on me, he rips off my goggles, backhands me, and I see double. The world flips, and he presses my face into the earth, ups the tent, squeezes me inside. The material over me heats up, and I hear him curse outside. Then a crack, and the tent glows orange.
“I burn!” he screams, thuds to the ground.
Koss is not five feet outside my lifesaver. The air inside of my tent scorches my lungs. It’s a burnover.
For minutes, I cover my head and whimper, try to mute the sound of death around me. It sounds strangely beautiful. Not a roar. Just a gentle surrender of a forest to the monster—a crackle and a hiss and a voice. Koss.
“You’re a good kid, Jake.” He coughs, whispers, “Get as far from Mox as you can. Tell Rose I love her.” A choke of air catches in his throat, and he exhales slowly. “And kill the Rush Club.”
A shudder ripples my shelter. Another wind shift. An hour later, I squeeze out. Mox, Fez, and Fatty stand around Koss, charred, half inside his tent.
I retch and look away. Fine mist from a water tanker above coats my face, and the forest hisses around me.
Mox looks toward the sky and takes the mist full on. Mud and grime smudge his face. He kneels over Koss, whispers, “It was Jake, you know that, don’t you?” He stands, nudges Koss’s body with his boot. Mox’s blackened jaws tighten and twitch. His gaze finds me, pierces me; it would kill me if it could. “Okay, guys.” He wipes his eye with the heel of his hand. “Let’s do Chinese tonight.”
I SIT IN A DAZE while the crew reports in the base manager’s office. I nod every time I hear my name. After hundreds of nods, he lets me go. The others walk to the villa to clean up.
I walk across town.
I pound on Salome’s door. Mrs. Lee opens and gasps.
“Oh, dear Lord, are you all right?” She reaches for my ripped sleeve, but I pull away, swallow hard.
<
br /> “Salome,” I whisper. “I need her. Is she at Mid Cal?”
“No. She’s back this weekend for services. She’s at the church this evening, dear. Come in.” She reaches for my arm. “Let me get you to a doc—”
I watch her grab and pull as if I’m somebody else. “What day is it?”
“Sunday, of course.” A look of fear crosses her face. “Stay here. I’ll get Jacob.”
My mind clouds over, and I stumble backward down the step. I can’t stay, here or anywhere.
There was a house. Houses mean kids. I grab my hair and pull.
Her name is Rose. I know her like I knew Koss. They met twelve years ago while dancing and have been dancing ever since. I’ve seen pictures. She’s beautiful. And alone.
I walk away.
I wander the outskirts of town to Brockton Baptist. I go to be near her, to fill the guilty cracks of my mind with the thought of her. I circle the church and listen to them sing. The building is large and old and imposing, with doors so huge, no kid could open them.
They’ll be finished soon, and I circle again, pause at the steps.
No more waiting.
Up the steps. Through the doors. I stand on the inside. I cross through an empty entryway toward the big room, where 150 heads bow.
I slip into the backseat and fill the sanctuary with the scent of death. Across the aisle a woman gasps. Mrs. Ramirez. Heads turn one by one, and I scan. Third row center, Salome’s eyes widen. She stands and walks down the aisle. She reaches me, grabs my collar, and tugs. I rise and follow.
She drags me into daylight, reaches out, and strokes the singed portions of my sleeves. Keep doing that. My heartbeat slows. Then I remember.
“I killed him. I killed Koss.”
She stares and steps forward, buries herself in my smoky chest. We stand for minutes, and when she finally stops squeezing, I breathe deep.
“Let’s walk.” I say.
She nods.
We walk out of Brockton. The story comes out in short bursts. By the time we reach Northwest Gorge outside of town, I’m getting tired. I barely have enough strength to crawl up beneath the crumbling train trestle. We huddle together; she strokes my head, and I collapse into her lap.
“You know how to use that shelter.” Her hands are soft and perfect, and I’m so tired. “Why didn’t you crawl in yourself?”
I cough hard. “The house. The house had a light on. It had a play set in back.”
It’s silent.
“You can’t keep doing this to yourself,” Salome says.
I lift my head, stare into my best friend’s eyes. “Tell me how to stop.”
CHAPTER 21
I WAKE UP HUDDLED BENEATH Salome’s jacket. She sits some feet off, writing in her journal.
“You’ve scribbled in that since we were five. Don’t you run out of sheets?”
She slams it shut, smiles. “How long have you been awake?” She scoots toward me.
I shake my head. “Why?”
“I was just praying, that’s all.”
“God tell you anything?”
“No.”
I push up onto my feet. “He never will. Something inside you knows that.”
Salome starts to speak, but I interrupt. “And no. I don’t want to get into this right now.”
“You brought it up!”
“Did not.”
“You asked if God told me—”
“I—I’m going for a swim.”
Salome shrugs. “Have fun.” She plucks her pen from the grass and licks its tip.
I scoot away, slide down the grassy embankment, and follow the winding trail down to the river. I strip down to my boxers and dive. Cold steals my breath, and I break the waterline, goose-bumped and chest pounding. Water swirls around massive boulders, rushes through frothy channels, and whips me downstream. I let it carry me into a giant chunk of stone. I find footing and climb up, watch the world spin wild and random around me.
Black smoke billows to the south, and the smell of death, hideous and sweet, tingles in my nose. Yesterday doesn’t make sense. Koss shouldn’t have died. He couldn’t die. None of us can, not really.
Water splashes my body, and I feel small. I hate the feeling. Small feels weak—weak and stupid and helpless.
“Koss!” The rush of water swallows my loudest yell. I can’t even make a sound in this new world, where I sit, half naked and insignificant. I rub my hands over the boulder, feel the solid on my fingertips.
Salome!
A feeling, ugly and strong, grows in my gut. I don’t know it. But it jitters and spreads to my brain like a virus. I push gently back into the stream, then thrash toward the riverbank. I run like a Neanderthal through the woods, find my clothes, and whip them on.
I crunch up the path, full of this tense, anxious thing that feels like death. Be there, Salome. Sweat drips down as I bound onto the embankment, crawl up to our crow’s nest. Please, be there—
Salome.
“What’s wrong?”
Her words are always like that—simple and perfect. I calm and shake my head. “You’re still here.”
“Have I ever left you?”
I close my eyes. “No.”
Salome sets down her journal, glances up, stands, and takes my hand. She leads me to the top of the trestle. We look across the span—a hundred-yard tangle of rotten wood that trains used to trust—but not now. Five feet wide with no railing, a fall off the top and game’s over.
I’ve crossed it only three times.
“You don’t like it up here,” I say.
“You have that right.” She squeezes my hand. “But it’s where you live. It’s where Koss lived.” She lets my hand go and takes a slow step onto the first rail. “It’s where I have to go to reach you. It must be.”
I watch her feet. She moves them slowly, as if they weigh a thousand pounds.
“What is it about this?” She says it like she knows. Salome takes another step. “Why push it?”
“That’s not safe out there.”
She takes another large step, and I wince. She’s reached the Coffin Zone. The embankment below wouldn’t catch her, she’d . . .
“Come on back.” That jittery ugly thing bounces around inside my skin.
She turns. “Come get me.”
I step out, not fast and strong, but cautious. Scared, scared of being scared. I reach out my hand. She doesn’t take it.
“Yesterday, it could have been you. It could be me now.” She glances down, and I see her blink hard, close her eyes, and waver.
“Get back!” I leap to her, gather her around the waist, and pull her off the trestle. We collapse onto the grass.
We stare at the sky. She’s out of breath. I am, too.
“We’re not immortal, are we?” I ask.
Salome winces and whispers, “You saw Koss lying there. Did he look it?”
I turn toward her and ball up, as small as I can get. My mind swirls like the water, and the cloud fills my thoughts. “Koss. And Drew.”
“What are we doing, Jake? Are we lost?” Troy drops another pile of sunflower seeds on the forest floor.
“We’ll follow the seeds out. Besides, I know exactly where I am. You got to see this. I found it yesterday . . . there it is!”
I take off running.
“Slow down! I can’t drop seeds so fast—oh, wow.”
Troy and I look up at the maze of ropes that crisscross the top of hundred-foot pines. It looks like a man-made spiderweb.
“Who would put ropes way up there?” he asks.
“Don’t know. Let’s go up and find out.”
“No way. I’m not climbing up there.”
“Okay. I’ll tell you what’s on top.”
I ring the tree with the rope I brought and dig my baseball cleats into bark. I climb up lumberjack-style. Rope over rope, ten-year-old legs churn up to the first branch. From there it’s easy. I climb from branch to branch, reach, and grope until I finally feel the first rope
of the web.
“This is so cool!” I call down. “I’m going to climb across it to the other tree!”
He stands. “Come down! Mom said I need to be home by supper!”
“We will!”
I make my way out onto the rope web, look down at the ground below. Halfway across, I freeze. I stare into eyes that don’t stare back. Salome’s older brother, Drew, hangs there, fifty feet up, a rope tangled around his waist and another around his neck.
I inch closer. “Drew? Can you hear me?” I start to cry. “Why are you up here?”
His body gently twists. I can’t touch it.
I stare a long time.
Now Drew’s lifeless face morphs into Koss’s and springs to deadly life.
“Kill the Rush Club.”
My breath catches, and I exhale hard, but the smell—I can’t describe it.
“I said, did they look it?” Salome repeats.
“No, but Koss . . . I couldn’t see him, but I heard him. He told me to kill the Rush Club.”
She tenses. “Was Drew part of this club?”
I have no proof. I don’t have the one answer she wants more than any other in this world. But I have an idea.
“I think so.”
“Are you?”
“Not yet. I haven’t been invited. I haven’t spun yet. I think I took the first step. I took the jacket.”
She picks a flower and spins the stem between her fingers. “How’s that going for you?”
“Don’t think I can wear it anymore.”
Salome stands. “Then right now I’ll say what I didn’t before. Get out. Get out of this town. You might make it to twenty. You might actually live.”
I stand, brush the grass off my grimy jumpsuit. Had I not heard Koss, had he not spoken outside my survival tent, maybe I could’ve quit. But he did. And he spoke to me—he always watched out for me. I didn’t listen to him when I first arrived, but I will now. It’s the least I can do. I’m not leaving this crew until the club is dead.
“Well?” she asks. “Can you leave?”
“I need to finish it off first. The less you know, probably the better. Inside my tent, I made Koss a guarantee. Don’t think I could live with myself if I left now.”
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