Just Fire

by Dawn Mattox

  Mercy the Magnificent had been at Mark’s house for the past two weeks. It was important to Chance that Mercy stayed on a training schedule and Mark clearly loved having her, so her temporary care worked out for everyone.

  Chance and I went to the cabin every year for Christmas, and while I wished he were here to keep up the tradition, I imagined him busy—drinking mojitos and serving beans to the poor. I could handle the being alone part. After all, I’d spent most of my life alone in the cabin. A few days more or less, depending on the weather, would be nice.

  PART Two

  “There was never any butterflies.”

  CHAPTER 22

  Patches of ice crunched and cracked underfoot as I made a final trip to the car. The air was sharp and biting with the promise of snow. The back of my Volkswagen held several good books and a suitcase with extra clothing. The front held my old Bible, Kissme wearing a red doggie sweater with white poinsettias, her bed, and a bag of canine cookies for her and her friends.

  “You’re going to Shane and Ashley’s house,” I told Kissme. “Be a good girl and have fun with the boys,” Kissme whined and looked doubtful.

  Shane and Ashley had invited me for Christmas dinner. I declined with a hug and asked Ashley for a favor instead. I almost lost Kissme last Christmas. She was just a little thing, and she had literally disappeared beneath two feet of fresh snow at a rest stop. This year, she was going to the babysitter. Ashley was dependably gracious, and in the holiday spirit, went so far as to carve out an exception in her new germ-a-phobic rules that would allow Kissme to stay indoors.

  Ashley greeted me at the door with open arms. She looked enormous, her eyes almost as round as her belly, radiating warmth as genuine as the rock fireplace that heated their home. Poor Ashley! She looked as large as Paige, although Paige was due any day now and Ashley’s kidlets weren’t due to hatch until February.

  “You’re not going to believe what I heard,” said Ashley as I wiped my feet on the doormat. “I heard that Pastor Mac has called off his engagement with Kinsey.” Ashley quickly closed the door behind us with a wistful sigh. “Poor Mac,” she sympathized. “Oma seemed so sweet. I guess you just never know.”

  Yeah, but we’re not clueless, I thought, flinching and making a mental note to talk with Mac when I came back. I owed him that, and so much more.

  “Hey, Ashley, your dogs are back in the house. Aren’t you afraid they’ll infect the unborn?”

  Ashley rolled her eyes. “It’s Shane,” she said. “He can’t stand the idea of the dogs freezing outside, so we compromised. I trained the dogs to stay in the kitchen.”

  “What about Kissme?”

  “Oh, don’t worry. Little dog, little germs. She’ll be fine.”

  I didn’t ask what that meant, but it wouldn’t kill Kissme to spend the next few nights in Ashley’s kitchen. At least she would have company.

  Back in the car, I turned on the radio. I was leaving my problems behind—a kind of sabbatical. I was going home.

  Olive Highway goes past Oroville Hospital on the way to Feather Falls. I pulled in for a quick check on Duncan. Not knowing if it was inappropriate to bring a man flowers, I bought him a coffee mug from the gift shop printed with OUT OF SICK DAYS — CALLING IN DEAD.

  The BORN TO RIDE tattoo on Duncan’s arm made me uneasy. In some ways it was charming, but then, ink always implied a contract, a legal relationship, and Duncan wasn’t exactly biker material.

  Duncan was mostly asleep, although he appeared to be coming off his meds when his eyes fluttered. He moaned, softly tugging against the IV attached to his good arm. His complexion was whiter than the bleached sheets around him. Poor Duncan! I felt responsible for him buying a motorcycle and falling into the elevator. Now both his left arm and right leg were in casts, not to mention a thick gauze pad taped to the corner of his forehead. Damp hair framed his childlike face. I leaned over him and gently brushed it back.

  Moved with compassion, I took a red Sharpie from my purse and drew a heart on his cast and wrote: “Get well soon, love, Sunny.” I gave him a little kiss on the cheek and whispered in his ear, “I’m sorry, sweetie. I know all about wrecks,” I said, vividly recalling my own motorcycle accident and lengthy recovery. “I’ll make it up to you.”

  Two more stops; gas and Raley’s Supermarket before the one-hour drive to the cabin. Raley’s is next to a couple of department stores that were filled with women toting gifts and men milling around on the sidewalk looking like sad reindeer that didn’t made the cut during the rut. The grocery store reminded me of driving on a highway with no lines and all the lights green. But I bought my game hen, my stove top stuffing, a packet of instant potatoes, eggnog, and frozen pumpkin pie—all the trappings of Christmas dinner—checking out with a giant ache in my heart. I almost drove back for Kissme.

  Overhead, the sky looked as gray as the pavement. Black clouds pushed up against the Sierras, creating a dark towering mountain chain that soared high into the heavens, mirroring the earthly one below. I thought they looked majestic, although some people might use the word foreboding. It held the promise of an early snowfall that called to me, ringing in the season.

  So many reasons to go to the cabin, but mostly I needed some time to get back in touch with the One who was the reason for the season.

  Leaving the valley behind, I began my ascent up the narrow winding road to the town of Feather Falls. Of course, the town was long gone. The sleepy little logging village with its rustic company houses had gone the way of the mill—demolished by environmental regulations and the slow death of the timber industry—leaving behind a few scattered residents and the grade school.

  The cabin was the center of my universe. It was home. The one place, the one thing, that my parents had agreed on. Slanting walls covered with aged cedar shakes, and a roof that sometimes leaked. Add-on rooms that rambled and a large kitchen with felt papered walls and a plywood floor. That was before Chance and I fixed it up. We still cooked on the propane cook stove, and the propane refrigerator still chugged along. It hadn’t been pretty then, but it was cozy now—always looking out on a garden full of promise, an orchard rich with produce, and mountains that echoed with freedom.

  Home.

  Home was the place where Starla had meticulously embroidered vines dotted with colorful flowers and butterflies on clothing that she had made on her treadle sewing machine. Where she did yoga standing on one leg, arms clasped above her head as if reaching for the rising sun. Where songs were sung as we worked in the garden and canned fruit. Those remembrances remained alive, lingering and fragrant in my mind.

  It was the place where the tired framework of the cabin hugged the living room window where I had stood, enchanted, watching my mother dance under a full moon to music only she could hear, marveling at her beauty and her mysticism. The cabin was her true north. The compass of her heart would always guide her back, regardless of how long she was gone or how far she strayed. Eventually, this is the place where my mother would return.

  Home also is where Lefty rode in like a king with his entourage, heralded by the deep-throated roar of his Harley, dressed in black leather patched with his red Hell’s Angels death head. My father would scoop me into his strong arms and laugh and tickle and tease, teach and guide.

  People, including his biker friends, had all feared my father and his metal hook. Lefty had not embraced life, but neither did he fear death. So strong and so powerful was my dad, that the feeling of safety still permeated the little cabin, long after he was gone—long after his death. If my father could return from the grave, he would surely come to the cabin.

  Visits to the cabin always kindled pleasant childhood memories. Chance had a hard time understanding that, what with all the violence that had transpired there—my father beating Starla and Logan beating me.

  “Why not sell the cabin?” Chance had once suggested.

  The thought was inconceivable. The outside world would always be more intimidating than the cabin. It w
as true that dark memories of Logan’s abuse and my mother’s abandonment inhabited the domain. But treasured remembrances of my father, Frito, and the happy years with just the three of us would always be the sunshine that chased the clouds away. Part of me would always be a wild creature living in a domesticated world.

  “I’d sooner sell a kidney,” I had replied. “It’s part of who I am.”

  Chance just shook his head and together, we made some major repairs and went on to create memories of our own.

  “I’m dreaming of a white Christmas . . .” My spirits soared, rising on the wings of elevation. Up and up, past the manzanita, whose silvery leaves flashed and danced like schools of fish when it rained, and mighty valley oaks—those loan sentinels standing guard over golden rolling hills. “. . . just like the ones I used to know . . .” The valley vegetation gave way to gnarly ancient black oaks and their neighboring tall, rangy digger pines. “May your days be merry and bright . . .” I knew I was almost to the cabin when I saw the crowning glory of the Sierra Nevadas—those majestic towering sugar pines with cones nearly two feet long, and their stately queens, the soaring cedars—both of which stood guard over the little cabin. “. . . and may all your Christmases be white.”

  No tweakers, no break-ins, squatters, or reindeer nailed to the door. After a quick cursory check around outside of the house, I hurried to unlock the front door and the padlock on the propane tank, cranking it on to power the stove and refrigerator.

  “Stuffy” was a good sign, but the place begged for freshness. The sweet winter air seemed to knock on the living room windows, asking to be let in. A few tugs on the single-pane windows were all that was needed—a healthy alternative to pine-scented aerosols.

  Another trip to the car and back. I hauled the suitcase upstairs. Each step groaned like a stooped grandpa picking up a grandchild that has grown too big to carry. I paused before the bedroom that had once embraced my parents, calling out in spontaneous, joyful silliness, “Hi, Mom. Hi, Dad. Hey, Frito love.”

  No greetings in my heart for Logan. The later memories of Logan in the bedroom completely obscured the earlier, romantic ones.

  I hurried to the woodpile and warmed to the job of splitting kindling. “Thank you, Lord, for dry wood,” I said, tugging on the old canvas tarp that the wind had tossed up, exposing cord wood that looked like a stack of knobby legs poking out from beneath a giant blanket. Balancing an armload of firewood, I headed indoors just as the first flakes of snow kissed my face.

  Secure in my cocoon, wrapped in a soft fleece throw and an even softer sense of peace, I curled up next to the heater to sip hot chocolate and read my old friend, the Bible. It seemed the perfect place and season to remember the birth of Christ. However, it was ironic that I finally escaped the clutches of Ishtar—the apparent fertility goddess of Butte County—only to find myself immersed in another pregnancy and birth. I winced to think that God had even thrown Mary a surprise baby shower with the arrival of wise men and their camels loaded with gifts. Apparently, there was no getting away from the pregnancy-childbirth thing.

  The new day arrived bringing the first soft puffs of snow, filling the world with a sense of wonder that something so delicate could come from something as cold and miserable as freezing rain. The snowfall quickened, twirling around like a feathery dust devil, every inch deepening the sense of tranquility.

  Snow and the summertime equivalent of drowsing on a rock in the middle of a stream, always feel like the arms of Mother Nature wrapped around me, keeping me safe from predators. By nightfall, the snow was three inches deep.

  I didn’t need a weatherman to tell me that this storm was going to be a big one. My only regret was not having brought Kissme and Mercy. Still, I thought, this is how a retreat is supposed to be—a time for thoughtful meditation. It didn’t matter at this point. Volkswagens are not designed for snow chains and I wasn’t going anywhere.

  Stretching across my bed, cradled under a goose-down comforter, I indulged in a nap and a dream.

  Logan’s eyes were dark and dreamy, full of passion and promise. His hair was black, shiny as polished onyx, hanging in waves to his shoulders. His skin was the color of oiled patina that glistened in the moonlight that splashed across our bed.

  “I can’t believe you’re mine. I can’t believe I got Lefty’s daughter. Umm, sweet!” Logan whispered in my ear. His words made me feel like a priceless treasure as his hands wandered, exploring, brushing, teasing, and arousing my young body to unimaginable heights.

  “Don’t hurt me,” I gasped, trembling. The first time had been so painful that I had begged him to stop. The following morning we were “married,” and pretty soon I didn’t want him to stop.

  “Never, baby. Never. Trust me.” And I had—until the violence began.

  The first year had been a thrill ride—a roller coaster of wild romantic highs followed by increasingly deeper, more unstable lows. I was in love with a dangerous man.

  The heart of an advocate beat inside of me long before I became one. I was always excusing and defending Logan’s behavior, even when I was the victim. I wanted to rescue him, to make him happy, to set him free from his childhood abuse.

  Motorcycles and outlaw gangs were Logan’s heritage. His father had stabbed a guy from a rival gang and serving life in prison before Logan was out of diapers. Mom’s new boyfriend was also a biker—a vicious man who had occasionally beaten both him and his mother. She was dependent on his drugs, and Logan was dependent on his mother.

  Everything has a breaking point, and Logan was no exception. As a teenager, he defended his mother by taking a baseball bat first to her boyfriend’s motorcycle and later to the boyfriend. That was when Logan became a national statistic. He was one of the “majority of boys” in prison between the ages of eleven to eighteen, there for killing his mother’s abuser.

  A part of me, a small part, still remembered and pitied Logan.

  CHAPTER 23

  The aroma of hot oatmeal and cinnamon

  lingered long after the last dish was put away. My heart felt lighter than the puffs of snow that continued to fall. The Cornish game hen sat thawing, resting on the counter next to the pumpkin pie. Humming a favorite Christmas carol, I picked up a wicker basket and headed outdoors. It was time to decorate the cabin, and I headed out in search of sugar pine cones and branches of the holiday-red toyon berries that grew down by the Indian grinding stones.

  Tomorrow I planned to visit my neighbors, Joyce and Kenny. But tonight was Christmas Eve, and that meant family. Although my family was either dead or far away, I could feel their presence.

  By the end of the day, the halls were decked, and kerosene lamps lit. It was time to bring in wood and start dinner. It was going to be a “silent night.” I stuck out my tongue to catch the falling flakes of snow and chanted a mantra of thanks with a grateful heart as I walked to the woodpile.

  “Thank you, God. Thank you for the snow, the good memories, and the firewood. Thank you for—” I did a double take, unsure if I had prayed too soon—or too late.

  An intruder puffed and staggered down the driveway, looking like a drunken sailor trying to keep his footing on a rolling deck.

  I wasn’t afraid. Clearly, the person was in distress and in need of help.

  I hurried toward the ghostly specter as the form slowly took shape through the whirling curtain of falling snow.

  "Good God! Paige, what are you doing here?” The words exploded in angry white puffs. “Where's your car?"

  Paige was sweating profusely; her red face looked hot in spite of the freezing temperature. She practically collapsed onto the chopping block.

  "Car . . . up on the road," she panted, referring to the paved road about a half mile away. “Water broke. Help me.”

  My scolding turned to ranting as I helped her up. “Why aren’t you in a hospital? Or with your parents? What would make you come up here in your condition? You must be out of your mind.

  “Come on,” I growled with fin
ality. “Let’s get you indoors."

  Clucking like a hen, I eased her onto the sofa and continued to rebuke her even as I flew around the cabin trying to make her comfortable. She wasn’t going anywhere soon, so I brought a pillow and bedding down from upstairs and added wood to the old Franklin heater.

  “Thirsty,” she croaked. I hurried to get fresh water to quench her thirst and then made tea from the kettle that I kept on the heater.

  Dismayed, I rambled on about how hard it was snowing as I squeezed the tea bag. Although Paige had been to my home in Yankee Hill and worked alongside me at the district attorney’s office, even sharing my husband for a time, she had never been to the cabin. More than intruding on my privacy, she was invading my sanctuary.

  "You want honey or sugar in your—” I pulled up short to study the once beautiful young woman, who was now gaunt in the face with dark circles under her eyes, curled up on the sofa, sound asleep. There was nothing I could do. She probably just needed to rest, and then we would go.

  I looked out the window.

  No way can my car make it up that driveway.

  I pinched my lips.

  When she wakes up, we’ll walk out to her car and drive to the hospital.

  There was no phone, no electricity, and no cell service, or I’d have dialed 911. Once we get out of here and down the road about eight miles into a good cell area, I would call an ambulance. One thing was certain—the baby was on its way.

  Paige woke with a yelp that triggered a panic attack in me.

  “Paige, can you make it up the driveway? Out to your car?”

  I was pretty sure I could pack Paige up the driveway on my back if necessary. They say that women in crisis have been known to lift a car, freeing their child trapped beneath the wheels, and this felt like a similar kind of crisis.