Isabel's Daughter

by Judith Ryan Hendricks

  Starting back to the guesthouse, taking my first step in the gravel, it amplifies from discomfort to dread. A flicker of light. Of heat.

  One more step and then I’m running. Into the guesthouse, jamming my legs into jeans, zipping up as I shove my bare feet into jogging shoes, lifting the flannel shirt from the doorknob, pulling it on as I’m grabbing my purse and my keys and running for the door and trying not to trip on my untied laces, out the door, out the gate, into my truck and three blocks down Canyon Road before I remember to turn on my lights.

  When I get to the Highway 14 exit off Interstate 25, the sun is shouldering its way above the horizon and a warm wind is gusting across the road. I drive fast, as fast as my little truck can manage, praying I don’t see any cops. I remember the old joke about getting pulled over by the cop who says, “Okay, where’s the fire?” It doesn’t seem funny at all, because I know where the fire is.

  It’s in Bluebird Canyon.

  I drive without questioning how I know this or whether I’m too late or even if I get there early whether there’s anything I can do. All I know is that everything I own, and everything that I am, is in that cabin. And I hear Amalia’s voice as clearly as if she was sitting in the cab next to me.

  You have the gift, niña . And someday when you need—it will come to you.

  Cresting the hill just above the Rio Bravo, my eyes find a thin plume of dark smoke rising in the hills, close to the spot where I think the cabin should be, and my heart sinks, but I push my foot down harder.

  Before I get much beyond the café, I have to slam on the brakes. A New Mexico Highway Patrol car is parked sideways across the road. A husky guy with silver glinting in his crewcut ambles up to my side of the cab. I half expect him to ask me if I know how fast I was going, but he just says, “Going to have to ask you to turn back, Miss. We got a little brushfire workin’ up in the hills.”

  “Brushfire? In February?”

  “I know,” he says. “Crazy, ain’t it? Just been so dang dry, and then that pipeline explosion this morning up near Perdido.” He raises his eyebrows into the shade of his hat brim. “This wind ain’t helpin’ matters either.”

  “But I’ve got to get in there. My house—”

  “Where d’ you live?”

  “Bluebird Canyon, it’s just up the road about a mile.”

  He gives me a level look. “Yep, I know where it is. Bad area for fire.”

  “Please, I’ve got to—everything I own, money, everything—it’s all—” I don’t even care that a couple tears have spilled out, dribbling down my face. I’ll plead. I’ll cry. Whatever it takes.

  “Wait here a second.” He ambles back to the cruiser, like there was all the time in the world, leans in, and picks up his radio. I sit bunching my hands into fists, my right leg bouncing up and down like the needle on a sewing machine. Please. Please. I start coming up with desperate options, like flooring it past him—he can’t very well leave his roadblock. Except I’m not sure there’s enough room to blast around him. I could leave my truck and run. He looks a little overstuffed; I could probably outrun him, but then it’s a mile to the turnoff and just under two more miles to—

  He suddenly reappears at my window. “Fire’s moving slow right now,” he says. “They’re landing some crews up there somewhere, but they have to follow the main fire, so you can’t count on them to get to your place. I can let you go get your stuff—”

  “Thank you. So much,” I blurt. I want to kiss him.

  “Just get in and get out,” he says. “Wind could change any time. When you get there, wet a kerchief and tie it over your face. And keep your eyes and ears open. You see the fire, you hear the fire, you haul yourself outta that canyon. You understand?”

  “What does fire sound like?”

  “You’ll know it if you hear it,” he says. “I’m gonna move the cruiser. Remember, don’t dawdle.” He looks at me sternly. “Ten minutes.”

  He barely backs his car across the line when I whip by him.

  The gate is open, so I drive right in, going way too fast. The truck bounces and bucks in the ruts till I think my teeth will shake loose. I slide to a halt about fifty yards from the base of the ridge, jump out, and start running. The smell of smoke is on the breeze, although I can’t see anything. What I saw driving down must be farther away than I thought.

  I’m here, it’s going to be okay. I’ll get everything and then I’m gone. I’m focused so intently on the cabin that I don’t see anything else, and then my brain pulls back for a long shot and I stop. I stand in the road and stare. The land all around the cabin is level and charred. My brain stumbles. Am I too late? Did I miss something? How could the house be standing if the canyon burned?

  When I notice how straight the blackened edges are, it dawns on me. Alonzo. He said he was going to clear the grass for my garden. The cabin is sitting in the middle of a little square placemat of charred ground. I jog the rest of the way to the portal, unlock the door and go in. The air is still.

  I don’t have a kerchief with me, so I pull a square of plain blue cotton out of Isabel’s box, wet it at the kitchen pump, and tie it around my face, bandit style. I put the green box on the bed, then my cigar box of treasures. I take the Querencia plaque off the wall, lay it on the pile. A couple of books I’d brought down with me. Rita’s Missing-you-on-St. Valentine’s-Day card and latest letter.

  It looks like those funeral pyres in India where all the dead person’s belongings get burned up with them. It seems odd that in twenty-six years, this is the sum total of my accumulation. This and the cabin that’s probably going up in smoke here shortly. I wish I could take the furniture. The rocking chair and the hat rack I could probably get down to the truck by myself, but not the bed or the chest or the table.

  All I have to do is fold up the four corners of the bedspread, tie it in a knot, and I’m on my way. I guess the question is, on my way to what? Back to Santa Fe, living in Paul’s guesthouse? Driving down to work at the Rio Bravo three days a week?

  I sit down on the bed, knowing I should leave, but reluctant. This is mine. The first place I’ve been that didn’t belong to someone else. Where I haven’t felt like I was just passing through, drifting on to the next stop. Maybe because it belonged to Isabel. Because she felt safe here. Or maybe not. Who the hell knows? It tears at my heart to walk away.

  I get up with a long sigh, pull the bedspread up around my things and open the door. And nearly break my neck tripping over something sitting just outside on the portal. A compact brown-gray bundle that squeals as my jogging shoe catches his scrawny ribs. Coyote Dog.

  “What the hell are you doing here? You want to be Rover on Rice?”

  He doesn’t answer, just looks at me accusingly.

  “Well, I’m getting out of here before this canyon turns into a giant weenie roast.” I give him a meaningful look. “And it’s your weenie.”

  I step around him and head for the truck. Smoke’s a lot more noticeable now. Tiny flakes drift down like snow, dancing on gusts of hot wind. Except it’s ash. That stupid dog is going to be a crispy critter if I leave him here.

  He’s half coyote, they have survival instincts. They know what to do in case of fire. Like what? Break the glass, pull the alarm? No, they just run away. Except in a canyon fire, he could get confused about where to run. He could be trapped in here. I look back. He’s sprawled out on the portal like a dogskin rug, chin on paws, watching me. Oh for Chrissakes.

  I whistle. “Come on, let’s go.” I slap my thigh. He sits up tall, his ears twitching. But he stays on the porch.

  “Come on, boy. Let’s go!” I make little kissing noises. He raises his back end like he’s going to come, then changes his mind and lies back down. Head back on his paws.

  “You stupid twit. Stay here then. Be a chicken-fried dog. I don’t care.” I stomp toward the truck.

  When I’ve gone about ten yards, I decide I’ll give him one last chance to listen to reason. But when I turn back, what I s
ee kills the words in my throat. Black smoke is rising over the top of the ridge, and through it I glimpse tongues of yellow flame like a crown, all along the ridgeline.

  I begin to run. Back to the cabin.

  The decision is made in a split second, faster than the human brain can process information. It’s not a conscious choice of the mind, it’s a gut reaction. Or maybe a resolution of the heart. However I view it, it’s done.

  As I’m reaching the door, two thoughts collide in my head. One—the roof is metal, and that’s good. Two—I’ve got kerosene in the storeroom, and that’s not good.

  I literally kick Coyote’s butt in the door ahead of me, dump my stuff on the bed, race back out, hands shaking as I fumble with the padlock, grab the can of kerosene, take it back inside, and empty the reservoirs of the two lamps back into it. The dog is starting to whine.

  “Shut up!” I tell him, and he does. I screw the top on the can, slip out the door, and run for the truck as fast as my legs will move.

  I read in a history book once about the great prairie wildfires the pioneers sometimes faced, how they survived by starting small fires that would burn the area all around them, forming a safe zone, where there was no combustible fuel left. So that when the huge grassfire came sweeping at them, they would huddle in their burned-out patch while the fire parted around them like the Red Sea parting for Moses, simply for lack of fuel.

  Remembering this cheers me. I want to believe that Querencia truly is a safe haven, although, as I race back to the cabin, I see plainly what a pitifully small burnout I’m sitting on.

  By the time I reach the cabin, flaming embers are beginning to fall nearby, smoldering in clumps of drought-dead grass. I watch transfixed as one explodes in flame, as if a small bomb had dropped there. I run inside and slam the door behind me.

  Dog is whimpering softly. “You had your chance. Now just lie down.” Amazingly, he does. I hastily undo my bundle, throw the bedspread in the sink, and start pumping water on it, sloshing it around, section by section till it’s all wet. I pile all my treasures in the middle of the floor and lay the wet bedspread over them. I pull the two pillowcases off my pillows and wet them in the sink.

  When I open the door again, it’s like I’ve stepped into a war zone. Yellow-orange fires bloom all around like weird blossoms and the wind is gusting, pushing flames out horizontally, jumping them from bush to cactus to patch of grass. An ember lands crackling on the wooden floor of the portal. It hisses when I slap it with the sopping pillowcase.

  I don’t know what to do next. I feel helpless and incredibly stupid. I’m going to die and they’ll all say, “Why the hell didn’t she just drive out?” A cloud of black smoke catches a downdraft, engulfing the whole portal. I try to take shallow breaths through my wet scarf, but I choke anyway, and my eyes burn and tear.

  Through my slitted eyes, through the gray air, I see with a leaden sickness that Alonzo only burned off the area in front and on the sides. Behind the cabin is a narrow strip of ground dotted with dry weeds and grass. Wet pillowcases aren’t going to be much help back there. I drape them over my shoulders and run around to the storeroom.

  The furnacelike blast of air blowing off the ridge almost knocks me over. Up the slope not fifty yards from me bright orange flames hopscotch playfully from one brittle bush to the next.

  When I touch the door handle on the storage room, it’s like grabbing a branding iron and I scream in pain. I kick the door open and hunt frantically in the dim light till I find my big shovel. I pull the door behind me and wedge it shut with my little trowel, then run behind the cabin where a patch of dry bunch grass is burning merrily. With the first thrust of the shovel, I understand how badly I burned my hand. I can feel the skin slip against muscle. Or at least that’s how it feels. I wrap one of the pillowcases around it and resume shoveling dirt on the grass. The flames vanish abruptly in a belch of smoke, heartening me.

  Now a shriveled sagebrush ignites, seemingly by spontaneous combustion, and the flames leap at me, searing my cheek. I catch a whiff of singed hair. I keep shoveling. Hacking at the smaller brush, chopping it and batting away from the house with the shovel. My arms ache to the point of numbness, and my wet bandana mask is bone dry.

  It’s so hot now that I can’t tell when I’m too close to a fire, and I nearly back into one. Embers and ash are falling like rain, tiny hot needles burning my skin. I slap at them and keep shoveling.

  I break away to go back inside, stamping out some embers on the portal, and remembering to grab the door handle with the damp pillowcase. I rip off my mask to wet it again, stunned by the amount of black ash trapped on it. Just thinking about what I must be breathing in, my chest tightens reflexively. I wet the pillowcases again, tie one on my head, like an Arab sheik, the other around my shoulders. I strip the sheets off the bed, wetting them. Is it my paranoid imagination, or is the flow of water slowing down? One sheet I throw over the dog. He looks silly, like he’s wearing a huge bridal train. I fold the other sheet in quarters to slap down flames and rush back outside, forgetting my face mask.

  One of the posts on the portal is burning. Trotting out every swear word in my vocabulary, I attack the flames with my futile fury and little wet sheet. My eyes are burning now, tearing so that everything blurs. Hot grit fills my mouth and throat, each breath scorching my nose and searing into my lungs. I stumble back inside to get my wet mask. Dog looks ready to make a break for the door and I kick viciously at him. He slinks behind the rocker.

  Time jells, becoming even thicker than the air. I know I’m slowing down. What I don’t know is how much longer I can keep moving at all. I feel like an elephant. My legs burn from fatigue. My mind drifts into neutral as I stagger back and forth from the sink—it’s not my imagination, the water is down to a trickle—to the back of the cabin, bending, digging, chopping, flinging dirt with the shovel that I can barely hold, slapping embers on the porch with my sheet. Brush flames up, cracking loudly like breaking bones. I’m moving through a dreamscape of orange flame and oily black smoke, stumbling, down on my knees, feeling nothing in my hands when I push myself up.

  I feel my lips cracking, and my fogged brain can only think that Will Cameron won’t want to kiss me.

  At some point I stagger inside and shadows stare out at me from the dark corners of the room—I peer back, searching for a familiar face, but they’re only eyes and silently moving mouths. I sink down on my knees, pressing my face into the wet bedspread, breathing the dampness into my parched throat, and I suddenly know I can’t get up. I roll over on my side, pull the cool bedspread over me. I don’t know if I’m going to die and I don’t care.

  I close my eyes, moaning a little.

  Suddenly I’m hearing things—a train whistle, marching feet, rain falling on the tin roof, a man singing opera. An explosion reverberates in my head. The truck blowing up? I roll over and open one eye. Jesus God, there’s a space alien in a green suit standing in my doorway.

  “Christ Almighty,” it says. Then “Ray! Quick! We got a couple of live ones!”

  I shut my eyes and sleep.

  epilogue

  A full year has passed since the night I saw Isabel’s portrait in Paul’s guesthouse. Querencia, while it’s still my safe haven, looks kind of forlorn, sitting in the middle of the patch of char that saved it, but already, little sprigs of green are poking up through the ash, and next week Alonzo is coming to help me get the ground ready for a garden.

  Almost becoming a French fry has been a fairly humbling experience.

  I spent a few days in the hospital—three? four?—being treated for burns on my arms and hands, smoke inhalation, and various cuts and scrapes. I also wrenched the hell out of my back.

  I have only the haziest recollections of the first day—partly because of the trauma and partly all the drugs. They said I kept calling for Cassie, asking her if I was going to die. That makes sense, considering the only other time I’ve been anywhere near a hospital was the night I got bit by the rattle
r.

  I don’t remember when everybody started showing up, only that they always seemed to be there when I woke up. At first, it was only supposed to be family. So Paul showed up and told them he was my stepfather. Then Cookie came in, saying she was my auntie. The next night there were my cousins, Miguel and Bettina. He smuggled in dinner—turkey mole, Spanish rice and refried beans, sweet corn tamales with raisins and piñones and cinnamon. It was like a party. Too bad my throat was so raw I could barely swallow. But, God, the beer tasted good.

  Later that evening after they’d gone I heard a commotion outside the door to my room—high heels and the nurses’ soft-soled shoes, voices stretched taut like people arguing but trying to be quiet about it. Then I heard a familiar voice say, “I am family. She’s my half sister, and I drove up here all the way from Albuquerque as soon as I got off work, and I am going to see her.”

  When Rita dashed into the room with the night nurse hot on her tail, tears massed in my eyes and spilled down my cheeks.

  “Oh, Ave, look at you. You look like death eatin’ a cracker.” She came over and pulled a tissue out of the box on the table and started blotting my eyes and putting her cool little hand on my forehead.

  “Ten minutes,” the nurse said to me. “And no more talking.”

  Rita turned her sweetest smile on the empty doorway. “Don’t worry, I’ll do all the talking.”

  She scooted the only chair up close to the bed and focused her worried frown on me. I could tell she’d stopped using Miss Clairol Summer Gold. Her hair was more of a honey color than true blond, and curlier than I remembered.

  “Girlfriend, you’re crazy as popcorn. What the hell were you trying to prove?”

  “Just taking care of the cabin,” I rasped. “Who told you?”

  “Don’t forget, honey, I’m sleepin’ with the top investigative reporter in the state. Jesus God, when he told me what happened, I was afraid you—” She looked away for a minute, swallowed, then said, “Oh, you know.”