Hell's Bottom, Colorado

by Laura Pritchett

  He saw that he was right. He watched her face flit between concern and interest and then back to self-centered sleepiness, and she never once lifted her eyes to him with an inquiring look, wondering if they should answer the call for help. What she finally said was, “Will the fire get here?”

  “No.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Yes. I guess I should go up there, but I’m not feeling so good today.”

  “Did you take your medicine?”

  “No.”

  “Why not?”

  “It doesn’t work.”

  “It should work. That’s what it’s for. I think you should see another doctor. That’s what I’ll do today. I’ll make you another appointment. Is that all right with you?”

  He didn’t say anything, but he felt himself rock a bit with assent, and then felt her surprise.

  “Okay, then.” She shuffled off in her slippers to his desk in the living room, and he was left to listen to the reports of the fire, of wind shifts, of the crew’s weariness. Goddamn, he should go up and help, he knew it. Well, if he could muster the energy to go, he’d tell whoever was in charge that he was willing to haul cattle and workhorses, but not any expensive Arabians or city kids’ ponies. And if given grief about it, he’d tell them to hell with it. He’d say he ought to be raking his hay to get it baled before the rain came, the rain so desperately needed and that everyone wanted except for the few like him who had their grass cut and needed dry weather till it was baled. Cattle or workhorses, he’d say again, that’s all I’ll do. Otherwise I’m going to go sit on my tractor and rake hay and hope for dry weather, because the heck with all of you.

  It was because of Anita, he knew, that he hated the rich out of proportion to what made sense, perhaps because he equated her wealth with her neglect. What he wanted, of course, was some acknowledgment of his life. Something about how gorgeous the landscape was, how hard he worked, how relaxed and easy he was on a horse. How he, at least in some respects, was the one with the life worth coveting.

  If she did say such a thing, he’d go ahead and admit that she’d been brave to leave the ranch, to learn about and build a new life. But they were too different now to try to appreciate and understand the other in the sort of way that takes effort and time—no, he doubted if either of them had enough strength and energy for that now.

  When the call came, he wasn’t surprised much. As he listened to Eddie yelling over the buzz of his cell phone and the bawling of cattle, Ben looked at his sister, sitting on the couch hunched over the yellow pages opened to “Physicians.” He glanced toward the kitchen window that faced the mountains, which was the direction Eddie was calling from. A billowing cloud of dark smoke rose like a mushroom cloud above a far slope of pine trees and spread like a fan in the air.

  “I’m at the After-Math Ranch,” Eddie was saying. “Ted Austen’s place. You know where it is?”

  “I was on my way up anyway. Just now. I’ll drive straight up.” That’s what he said, but he wanted to say that he’d just had it with this world, and didn’t anyone else get like that, just fed up and tired? Didn’t they ever get to a point where they couldn’t even get shamed into caring, because there was just nothing nothing nothing inside?

  He left Anita curled up and hugging herself, and went outside and backed his pickup up to the red stock trailer. He rubbed his stomach and ate a handful of Turns, a bottle of which rattled around with all the other junk on the seat. Just as he was pulling away, Anita came running out, waving for him to stop. She was dressed, now, wearing jeans and a white T-shirt and ball cap.

  “I want to come,” she said. “If I’d known you were going, I would have asked to come along.”

  He regarded her for a minute. “Why?”

  “Oh, Ben, who knows.” She walked to the passenger side and opened the door. “Can I come or what?”

  He reached out his hand to help pull her into the truck, and then, so that his frustration might dissipate, he began to talk. “We’re going to the After-Math Ranch. A retired math professor owns it. Get it? But it has another meaning, too, because ‘after-math’ is the stubble after a crop’s been cut.”

  “Clever. It might have a third meaning after this fire.” She laughed and, perhaps because she feared her comment was not appropriate, she grew solemn. “I hope not, though.”

  “Oh hell.” He was surprised by the edge in his voice, and was relieved when Anita laughed again.

  “I should care, shouldn’t I?” She rubbed her temples and closed her eyes. “I’m having a hard time caring about anything these days.”

  Here’s where they were still a bit alike, that’s what he wanted to say then, but before he could form the words, she was talking again. “Every once in a while people surprise me,” she said. “Look at this.”

  Ahead of them was a line of trailers that wound up the canyon as far as they could see, a couple miles at least, he figured, of pickups and trailers back-to-back. The sight did make his throat feel tight with pride, mostly because he could show off this bit of generosity to his sister. “We got horse people,” he said, lifting his finger off the steering wheel and pointing to a fancy new trailer in front of them, which was being pulled by a matching truck, both painted with swirls of turquoise. “And we got cattle people.” Now he pointed at the trailer in front of it, a beat-up brown thing that looked much like his own.

  “Money,” she said.

  “Yep,” he said, and then, “I don’t believe a rich and poor person can be true friends.”

  “And if someone thinks they can, I bet you it’s the richer person who thinks so.” She laughed. “Oh, Ben, I can see that, even from where I’m at.”

  He felt a sudden surge of gratitude. Her words weren’t much, really, but after all these years of almost nothing, they seemed like enough.

  They didn’t speak much the rest of the drive, and it was the radio announcer who kept the silence from being difficult. The information his animated voice conveyed was interesting to them both, simply because it was new, and perhaps because it involved pain for someone else. Before evacuating houses, the announcer said, homeowners should put a sprinkler on the roof, cut away trees and brush, dig a ditch, pull up all the plants. “It’s called a defensible space, folks,” said the announcer. “Create this space if you have the time.”

  “Defensible space,” Anita said. “That’s a fine idea.” Then, “That’s something I should tell Richard about.”

  He could have told her that he understood—he’d just been thinking about Renny, how they’d moved apart for that reason, for just a bit more space. Instead he looked out the window at the river curling alongside the road. Usually there were rafters and kayakers, folks fly-fishing and families having picnics, but now the river was deserted and there was only the water, tumbling down rocks and pooling near the banks. But it was the sky that caught his attention when they rounded a corner. Ahead was the billowing cloud of gray smoke, a dark smudge against the backdrop of a bright blue sky.

  “There’s our Rattlesnake Fire,” she said. The news station had dubbed it that, since so many firefighters had experienced run-ins with snakes. And also, at the beginning, the fire had spread out in a zigzag, like a snake lying in the sun.

  “You ever been bit by a snake, Anita?”

  “No. One of those life experiences I’ll never have.”

  “I got bit a couple of years back. Surprised a rattlesnake, and he just zapped up and got me quicker than lightning.” This is one of the many stories he would have liked to have told her soon after it happened. He had practiced telling her the story in his mind, and when he told Eddie and Renny and Carolyn about it, he imagined he was telling Anita instead. It was silly of him to want to impress her with stories and know-how, like he had way back when he’d put the worm on her hook or had her big-eyed at the story of a mountain lion he’d seen—those times when they’d clung together because they were two lonely ranch kids with a lot of work to do and not much to make them feel special
. Crazy, a grown man still wanting acknowledgment, interest, love from his sister. But Anita was looking out the window and didn’t seem all that interested in his story, so he concentrated on the road ahead and let the silence seep between them.

  The radio announcer was describing the county fairgrounds, filled with rescued livestock. Ranchers from all over the state were offering free pasture for animals, free hay, opening their homes to displaced folks. “It’s not Rattlesnake Fire that’s such a sight to see,” the announcer said. “It’s the people swarming to help, that’s the thing worth noticing here.”

  When Ben pulled into the After-Math Ranch, an old trailer was already backed up to the corral, and Eddie and another man were pushing the back door closed on a load of cattle. Ben let his truck idle until the other driver, whom he didn’t recognize, drove away. Each man lifted his fingers off the steering wheel in a muted wave as they passed one another. Then Ben backed up his own trailer, following Eddie’s gestures.

  When Ben climbed out of the truck, he was surprised by the strength of the smell. The air didn’t look particularly smoky, although bits of ash floated past his eyes, but the smell of scorched earth was strong. The cows in the corral were bawling, and there was a distant buzz of airplanes and whine of helicopters. The hot sunlight and the noise made him feel dizzy. He leaned against the pickup for a moment, bowing his head to regain his balance.

  “Glad you came.”

  “I was on my way.”

  “Ted took my truck down awhile ago. I told him I’d stay and load the rest of the cows for as long as I could. You should have seen him, Ben.”

  Eddie’s face was full of sweat—there were so many little rivulets of moisture that Ben was struck with a sudden worry for him. He reached into his truck for a jug of water and handed it to Eddie, who tilted it up above him, letting the water flow first into his mouth and then across his face. “You don’t look so good yourself,” Ben said.

  “Ted looked like he was about to keel over. He’s been working round the clock.”

  “Hard for him to leave, I reckon.”

  “He wanted to stay, but the last thing someone needs to see is his life burned up. I made the whole family go, take my truck down. Do you think I did right?”

  “Sure,” Ben said, but only because he had no other words to offer, and because he wasn’t sure whether it was better to stand strong and fight a futile battle or get the hell out. If he knew that, he’d know what to do with Renny, with Anita, with his life.

  “Guess we better get a move on,” Eddie said. “This’ll be the last load. They told us to get out twenty minutes ago. Fire’s close for sure, but I don’t think we’re in any real danger.”

  “Naw.” Ben turned to follow Eddie toward the pens, but then stopped and turned toward Anita, to see, perhaps, if he had her consent to stay, or if she was frightened, or to see if she had been listening at all.

  She was still sitting in the truck, looking toward the house and the barn behind it. She turned, then, perhaps knowing he was looking for an answer. “Don’t worry,” she said and shrugged, “I don’t have the energy to be worried.”

  As Ben and Eddie rounded up the cattle, Ben heard the slam of the truck’s door. Anita was walking toward the house, cocking her head and looking uncertain. She emerged a moment later carrying a small coffee table, then later with a painting and a quilt, all of which she loaded into the bed of the truck. Soon she was walking quickly between house and truck, running almost, and for a moment she did not look like a well-cared-for woman, someone who lived in a house that cost as much as his entire ranch, but someone who was afraid, who was working hard out of necessity and fear, laboring for survival. As he he-yaawd at the cattle and flapped his arms at the cows who tried to back out of the trailer, he watched her jog, faster and faster, from house to truck. On one trip, she emerged from the house with something that looked like an old sewing machine table, which looked similar to one their mother had owned. Anita was bowed backwards with the weight of it but still walked as fast as she could, jerking and stumbling, and he wanted to rush and help her. He couldn’t, though; he was leaning against a cow’s rear to encourage her to step up into the trailer, and if he let up on the pressure, the cattle would turn and bolt. He could only watch and wince as Anita strained under the weight, frightened by the way she lurched toward the truck.

  Just as Ben was pushing the trailer door shut, a calf darted, slipping away between two fence poles. As he and Eddie dodged around the corral trying to get her in, Ben remembered his grandfather telling him about the war, how the worst part was the screaming of a colt that had its back legs blown off. They had agreed that humans could inflict whatever evils they desired on each other, but that animals ought to be left out of it. Some animals screamed, and some suffered silently and dumbly, which was how he imagined the death of two cows who’d gotten stuck in a ditch and frozen last winter. Humans did that, screamed or suffered silently, maybe depending on the situation or the individual soul. Oh Jesus, how he’d like to tell Anita that he was sorry she had pain going on inside her. He’d say, I got some of my own troubles too. We seem to be the quiet sort, or quiet is what our particular distress calls for, who knows, but we’re hurting anyhow, aren’t we?

  He felt sick, still. The smell of diesel from his truck mixed with the smoke, and his stomach felt empty and he wished he had taken in a bit less coffee this morning. He should have slept in a little later, like his sister, instead of rising with the sun. Most of all, he wished he could sit down, just for a minute, in some cool, quiet place.

  Ben forced the last calf in, pressing her against the others already in the trailer. The cows bawled and kicked, and the ones on the edges put their noses out of the slats and snorted as the men pushed the back door closed behind them.

  “It’s for your own damn good,” Eddie grunted as he locked the back of the trailer. “We’re trying to save your ugly asses.”

  Ben chuckled. “You gonna ride back with us, or face the fire and the snakes?”

  “I’ll take a ride with you, if you’ll have me,” Eddie said. “I already opened the gates for whatever cows are left. Let’s get the hell out of here.”

  They both stood for a moment, catching their wind and wiping sweat from their faces. Ben was hot clear through, and he couldn’t tell if the heat came from him or if the fire was getting closer, but in any case, he wanted to get away, get down to his ranch and sit by the coolness of the river. As he walked to the front of the truck, he could see that Anita had loaded up quite a bit. Plants and rugs and boxes full of knickknacks were coated in a thin layer of ash, which, when he looked up, he could see falling like snowflakes from the sky. As he climbed in the truck beside her, he saw that the hair on her brow was wet, and she too was sucking in air in an effort to catch her breath. She was staring at a lamp in her lap, one that looked like it was made of stained glass.

  “Nice of you,” he said, nodding at the lamp.

  She nodded but didn’t speak. He thought she looked on the verge of tears, and so he busied himself with starting the truck. She had to move closer to him to make room for Eddie, who squeezed in on the other side. “Watch out for these,” she said as she moved closer. She nodded at a jumble of animal figurines dressed up in fancy clothes. They were crammed into the seat between them, and Ben considered, for a brief instant, what sort of strange world produced porcelain rabbits in hoop skirts and how they came to be staring up at him from a seat littered with bits of hay and pieces of cows’ ear tags and baling twine.

  As he drove away from the After-Math Ranch and turned onto the main road, he saw the billowing smoke of Rattlesnake Fire in his rearview mirror. Where smoke met land, an orange glow bloomed into the air. The truck was heavy with cattle, and he had to shift to a lower gear and concentrate on the curves. They passed a police car heading up the canyon with its sirens going, then caught up with the line of trailers snaking down the mountain with horses’ tails or cows’ sides showing through the back doors and side wind
ows.

  Anita held the lamp with one hand and rubbed at her eyes with the other, and Eddie kept wiping the moisture from his forehead. After a while, though, Ben felt their breath even and their bodies cool, and now they were listening not to their pounding hearts, but to the sound of porcelain animals clinking against one another and the cattle bawling from the trailer.

  “Tonight there’ll be quite a sunset,” Ben said. “Sad to think of it that way, isn’t it? But that smoke will make the sunset so red, all that red above those blue mountains.”

  “I didn’t think of that,” Anita said.

  “That’s what this fire’s taught me,” he said. “That devastation looks pretty damn good from afar.”

  She laughed, then, and with her laughter there seemed to be some sort of surrender, some release of a tightness within her. She said, “You got that right. So the least we can do is pull up lawn chairs and watch it.”

  “All right,” he agreed. “That’s a fine idea.” He gave one last look in his rearview mirror, at the fire that was chasing livestock and wild game and humans down the canyon. Things that should never come close were being funneled together, and he wondered whether such a moment could save them as they fled down the mountain.

  A NEW NAME EACH DAY

  I WISH MOM WOULD say something, but instead she just stands, hands on hips, and looks in the opposite direction from Billy and Ray, who are drinking water from an old milk jug. That’s something I discovered about her once. How she gets back at you by pretending you aren’t worth noticing.

  “Rachel’s driving this time,” Ray says, taking Mom’s hand and leading her to the pickup. He’s making her drive because I let the truck lurch around too much. He’s been yelling at me about it all day, about letting the clutch out smoother, because he says it’s like riding a bucking bronc up there. He’s been standing in the bed of the truck, stacking the hay bales that Billy throws up, grunting and yelling as I pitch us down this endless field between rows of hay.