The fire.
I walk past her into the cabin trying as I hard as I can to focus on remembering the things I need to throw into my pack. The living room has been cleaned. The hardwood floor sparkles with fresh polish. Her laptop computer is open next to mine on the dining-room table. She's brought the tulips and the baby shoes and placed them like a centerpiece.
The gear room, too, has been cleaned. Coiled ropes are stacked neatly on the bed, and carabiners and cams I'd left piled in heaps on the floor have been organized and placed on hooks on the wall. I start tossing things into an open pack. Every movement requires careful, conscious thought.
“Where have you been, anyway? Mungo and I have been waiting for you all day.”
“Climbing.”
“Alone?” I can tell she's trying hard not to have the word come out as an accusation.
The answer, I know, is worse than yes. “No. With Roberto.” I turn and look at her. God, she's beautiful. My breath leaves my lungs without me wanting it to. “It's what I love to do, 'Becca.”
She studies me back. “Every time I look at your face, Ant, I see that scar. You almost died when you got that. It reminds me how close it's been for you. You've been touched by death; it put its brand on you. And that's okay. Really. But what's not, what I don't understand at all, is why you keep going back for more.”
I put my fingers to my temples and massage them. “What if I told you that you couldn't write stories anymore? That I wanted you to go to work as a stockbroker. Or an accountant. Would you do it?”
“It's not the same and you know it.”
“The passion's the same. Listen, 'Becca. There are two times when I feel totally alive, totally focused on being alive. One is when I'm making love to you. The other's when I've got a lot of air below me, when I'm holding on to the rock with all my strength.” I force a smile into my eyes. “And as much as I'd like to, honey, I can't make love to you all the time.”
The smallest of smiles raises the corners of her lips. “Maybe you could. You could try it.”
For a moment I feel like I could. Make love to her for the rest of my life. All day, every day. The moment ends when I look at my watch. She speaks before I can tell her that I've got to go.
“What about your job? That's not a passion. Not anymore. I can tell.”
“Yeah, I think you're right. But it's all I know how to do.”
“You're young, Ant. Barely thirty. You can learn to be good at something else.”
“I'll think about it. Just not law school, okay? Promise me you'll never ask me to go to law school.” That makes her laugh. It's a small, light chuckle that shoots right through my chest. I put a rope on top of the pack and cinch down the straps. “Listen, I know it's a bad time, but I've got to go—”
When I sneak a look her way I see the spark that had so briefly returned to her eyes has been extinguished.
“You're going climbing? Now?”
“That woman you met the other night? Cali, the assistant county attorney? She's been kidnapped. I don't have time to explain, but this old man she calls her uncle is holding her on a peak near here. We think he's going to throw her off.” I pull the pack up over one shoulder. For what it's worth, I'm careful not to mention jumping out of planes or the fire. “Will you be here when I get back?”
She stares at me and shakes her head in disbelief. I feel like a recalcitrant but loved child all the same, prone to breaking maternal hearts. “I'm going to go meet my dad for dinner. Then . . . we'll see.”
When I look at her again she looks like a little girl now instead of a mother, standing there barefoot, so forlorn in her baggy shirt and shorts. “Go. Be careful, Anton. They say that fire's a big one. Stay away from it.”
THIRTY-SIX
I PARK MY LAND CRUISER at the empty curb just outside the airport's terminal. Wokowski's truck is nowhere in sight.
It's seven o'clock in the evening and this part of the valley sits in the great shadow of Rendezvous Peak's summit pyramid. Over the mountains the dying sunset is one of the most spectacular I've ever seen. The sky there is stained by the smoke to colors ranging from a dark orange to a vivid purple. The sun impales itself over the Tetons' sharp spikes with open-mouthed horror.
I watch it for a long moment before getting out.
From the back of the Pig I toss out a small tarp and spread it on the sidewalk. I open the pack, wondering what items I forgot to bring. On top of the tarp I pile a skinny 8.5-mm rope, a pair of lightweight harnesses, a dozen carabiners, and a half-rack of chocks and cams. Everything seems to be there. I carefully wrap all the metal parts I can with athletic tape so that they won't clink and rattle when we're climbing. When we scale the butte's back side I don't want to make a sound. I stuff everything back into the small pack. After a moment's thought I add in a pair of ascenders and etriers from a crate just in case Wokowski is less athletic on the rock than he'd appeared in the gym with the punching bag. I'm finishing tightening the straps when his Sheriff's Office Chevy Tahoe skids to a stop behind me.
He cuts the engine and headlights, jumps out, and calls me over. From the rear seat he drags out what looks like two backpacks, not much larger than mine but with even more nylon straps—a full-body harness, I realize—and a leather rifle case. After them he throws two big duffel bags down at my feet. The sheathed rifle brings a fat Jackson police officer hustling out from inside the terminal with a hand over his own holstered gun. He slows when he recognizes Wokowski and notices the official car behind my own.
“Going hunting, Wook? Little early in the season, ain't it?”
“Official business, Dave.”
The man laughs. “Sure. Somebody probably spotted a twelve-point buck running from the fire.”
“I'll tell you about it later. Can you get us out onto the runway in a hurry? We've got a plane to catch.”
The officer, probably still believing we have an important elk to poach, is game. After providing a handcart, he leads us at a fast walk into the terminal and through an inner security door. We pass stacks of luggage and the back sides of the treaded machines that spin it out to the passengers. Another door, this one smeared with greasy fingerprints and covered with warning signs, takes us out onto the runway. There's an airport-security pickup truck here where we load our baggage. Wokowski and I sit on top of it as the cop drives us out to where the private planes are kept.
“Did the smoke jumpers lend you this stuff?” I ask, indicating the packs and duffels piled around us in the bed of the truck.
“You don't want to know.”
“Why not?”
Wokowski smiles faintly. “Because when we get back, I'm going to be charged with a felony.”
The plane is a red-and-white Cessna Caravan. It looks small and fragile in the runway lights, like it's made out of old Coke cans held together with library paste. The propeller on the front is already turning, giving off a choking, irregular roar. The pilot doesn't inspire much more confidence. Jim comes out of the door hatch and waves at us as we approach. Seeing his red ponytail bouncing and his earring glinting, this is starting to seem like a very reckless idea.
It's a strange feeling, getting into a plane you know you'll soon be jumping out of into that orange-glowing sky. I set down the duffel bags and take several deep breaths before picking them up again and trudging forward. Jim slaps my shoulder and says something meant to be encouraging as I haul the bags up the couple of metal steps that lead into the cabin. It's just as well that I can't hear his words over the throb of the engine.
The cabin holds only two seats in the forward area. The main part of the small fuselage is dirty steel, strewn clothes, and old mattresses. Several cases of the local nectar—Snake River Ale—are tethered to a part of the bulkhead for Jim to take back to Cheyenne.
The police officer shouts from behind us, “Whatever you boys are hunting, good luck!”
Then Wokowski trudges up the steps with the rifle and the parachutes. Jim comes up behind him and secures
the door. Although the sound of it slamming is entirely different, I picture a cell door slamming shut. There's no turning back now, no admitting this is a very bad idea and hoping the winds will calm and the FBI's Hostage Rescue Team will make it in time.
“Uh, Ant, I got to tell you,” Jim yells in my ear. “The suits say I'm not supposed to fly anyone on official business. They think they'll get sued if something happens. Tell me this isn't official, okay? Even if it is.”
“Don't worry, Jim. Consider this a private charter. I'll pay you whatever you think's fair when we get back.”
He nods, and I add, “By the way, thanks for doing this. I'm sorry about that thing with the gun the other day. I've been an asshole lately.”
He grins. “Hey, QuickDraw, that was nothing. It's cool.”
“Take us up to seventeen thousand feet,” Wokowski yells at him. “Due east. I'll give you more directions as we go.”
Jim nods and smiles again then makes his way to the front of the plane. Wondering what Wokowski thinks of our plane and pilot, I squat on a mattress and stare at the gear as the plane pulls out onto the runway. The engine knocks wildly as it accelerates.
“Put this on.” Wokowski tugs an enormously heavy pair of coveralls out of a duffel bag. He also sets two football-like helmets with wire mesh face masks onto the mattress next to him. “Damn. Sorry, forgot to get us some cups. Watch for sharp branches. Cross your legs if you're going into one.”
“What's it made of?” I ask about the dungarees as I step into them.
“Kevlar.”
“Tell me—is it like a vest? Will it stop a bullet?”
He smiles grimly. “Not that thick. It might on the other side, after it goes through you.”
He seems almost cheerful, finally able to be doing something for Cali, while I feel none of the excitement I normally do when gearing up for a climb.
“You've used a sport chute before, right?” Wokowski yells in my ear. “Rectangular canopy?”
I look at the pack he's holding up. It looks a lot smaller than the ones I'd jumped with when my father had taken Roberto and me. Those had been the size of a suitcase. But I was a smaller person back then. The plane is racing down the runway now, its nose starting to lift into the air.
“I think so.”
Wokowski stares at me. “What do you mean, you think so? How many times have you jumped, Burns?”
We're in the air. There's no sense in lying about it now. “Twice. Fifteen years ago, when I was a kid.”
He sits back on his haunches, still holding the chute in one hand and keeping his balance with the other. The cheerfulness is gone from his face. He says, “Fuck!”
“Just tell me what to do and I'll do it. Don't worry. It's on my head, not yours.”
He stares at me, as if dumbfounded, for what must be half a minute before he speaks again. “I don't even know where to start.”
“Start with what's most important.”
He closes his eyes for a few more seconds, then stands up and motions me to do the same. He pushes me around so that my back is to him. I half expect him to kick me in the ass, and I probably deserve it. Instead he slips the straps over my shoulders, turns me back to face him, and connects more straps around my chest and up between my legs. While he does this he speaks in a low, urgent voice. “This is the rip cord.” He points to a metal handle like a giant pull tab next to my right pectoral. “I'm not even going to bother trying to explain about the backup chute, 'cause the way we're doing this, if the main doesn't work, you're already dead.”
I touch the metal cord three times for familiarity and luck.
“We're going to jump at fifteen thousand feet,” he says. “The air's going to start getting thin as we get higher. Tell me if you start to feel light-headed.”
“I was at fourteen thousand eight hours ago.” I don't like being the ignorant one, being schooled by him. I also don't like the fact that he must think I'm a complete idiot for doing this.
He makes me feel even dumber by ignoring my comment.
“That means we'll be about four thousand feet above the butte and the lookout, and about forty-five above the surrounding forest. I wish we could land on something relatively flat like the butte, but like you said, he'll shoot us for sure and probably Cali, too. So we'll try to land somewhere southeast of it. Aim for any open spot you can find, and pray you find one because the country is real ugly down there.
“You steer with toggles on the lines of the chute. I can't show them to you—you'll just have to figure it out. Try to land into the wind to slow you down. Run as you hit, or roll, or do whatever you can to break your fall.” He pauses to shake his head while staring at me. “After that it's your show. You get us up the cliff, then I'll take over with the rifle.”
He begins pulling on his own Kevlar coveralls while I look out the window.
We're almost directly above the fire now. The landscape below is appallingly clear in the orange light. Staring down is like getting a clear view of hell. Behind us is a flame-lit smoking moonscape of charred earth and ridges. Directly beneath is perhaps a mile or more of burning forest. And it's burning with a vengeance. As I watch, flames are shooting hundreds of feet into the sky, trees are exploding in great showers of sparks, and the earth is so hot it glows like lava. Farther back, where the fire has already passed, embers glare up at the sky with a thousand evil eyes. Ahead is our butte, surrounded by mile upon mile upon mile of high-octane dry timber.
“Now here's the important thing,” Wokowski yells in my ear, drawing me away from the scene below. “We're going to go out the door together and hang from the strut. When I yell Go, you let go. I'm going to ride you down, arching on your back. Then I'm going to push away. When I push away, you count to three. Like this—one Mississippi, two Mississippi, three Mississippi, then you pull the cord! Got that? Three and you pull the fucking cord.”
I know that people have survived a chute not opening. My dad had told Roberto and me stories about that. Two guys he commanded once had failed chutes during a single High Altitude Low Opening jump, and only one of them died. It's a hopeful thought for a moment, fifty-fifty odds according to that small sampling, until I remember what he'd said had happened to the survivor. I'm sure he would have rather been the one who died.
“How should I carry the climbing gear? And how are you going to carry the rifle?”
He clips the rifle's case on a short sling that dangles from the parachute's harness. Then he clips the backpack of climbing gear to mine.
“Make sure it stays below you. Don't let it foul the lines.”
I expect us to circle around for a while, that there will be more time before I have to confront the horror of stepping out of the plane and dropping into the sky. I need time to digest what I'm about to do. But we're only in the air for a few more minutes before Wokowski tells me to put on my goggles and helmet. My hands are shaking with more than just the engine's vibration when I comply.
“There's the butte. Let's go, Burns. Remember to pull. Three seconds after I release you. And arch, okay? Arch like a motherfucker.”
He slides open the door. The wind that tears into the plane is like Satan's breath—hot and stinking of sulfur. It blows over me in one continuous exhalation and whips loose papers and clothes around the inside of the plane. Wokowski grabs my arm and pulls me toward the open space.
I've looked down the seven-thousand-foot wall of the Washburn Face on Denali and felt nothing but the thrill that comes from conquering fear. At such times the Rat has screamed in exultation. Through skill and the strength in my muscles and mind I'd conquered that mile-plus of perpendicular stone and vanquished gravity and all the air below.
But now the Rat is as silent as the grave. And the air below doesn't look at all vanquished. Here there will be no strength or skill to protect me, no belay to act as a safety cord. All I can do is jump and arch and try to remember to pull the fucking cord.
Wokowski lets go of my arm and points at the wing. A ri
b of white aluminum diagonals from the wing to the fuselage. The strut. For a moment I'm shocked that he wants me to go out there and hang from the thing. But I do it. I do it with a numbness filling my brain like a dentist's Novocain needle pushed a little too far.
I grip it with all my strength, fighting to keep the wind from ripping me off. I turn my head back—a difficult move because of the bulky helmet—and see the tail looking as sharp as a razor blade behind me. It's going to cut me in half. I force myself to think of physics. The plane's going maybe 120 or so miles an hour and so am I. It's not like stepping out of a speeding car where the earth is still. But then, when you step out of a speeding car, the ground's not likely to be on fire.
Roberto wouldn't be this scared. He'd be grinning a big stupid grin and yahooing his head off.
It's too late anyway. Wokowski is beside me now, his great mass drooping in the wind and the rifle case swinging out behind him. “Hold on!” he screams into the gale.
What the fuck do you think I'm doing?
About two miles ahead and a mile or two to the south of the fire line the orange light illuminates a tabletop plateau. From this angle it looks like a giant doorstop, with the only low-angle side facing the flames.
My greatest fear is that I'll be mesmerized by the ground and forget to pull the cord. Dad had told me a story about that, too. About how a rookie just got hypnotized by the earth rising up to embrace him. Only it wasn't an embrace—it was the most vicious slap that can be swung. I tell myself again and again so it becomes a mantra: When he releases me, count to three and pull. When he releases me, count to three and pull. When he releases me . . .
“Go!” Wokowski screams.
I will my hands to let go from the strut but at first I don't think they obey. But then I'm falling, looking up and behind me in terror, half expecting the plane's tail to cut me in half. But the plane drifts by overhead, almost slowly, and suddenly I'm staring down as a new and far more realistic terror grips me.
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