“You’ve got to be kidding.”
Scottie turns toward the window. “Well, that was encouraging.”
WE HAVE OUR ORDER. If all goes well, we’ll set back fires three miles out of town, along the top rim of the gorge. If it jumps the gorge, game over. It’s a fueled sprint to Chisel Falls, where Salome lies.
Mox gently knocks his head against the glass, Fez and Fats look lost, and Scottie mutters. What a team.
“Don’t worry, Scottie.” I scoot over beside him. “They’re evacuating Salome right now. I’m sure of it. You saw the nurses—”
“This doesn’t change what you did.”
He’s right. It changes nothing.
CHAPTER 35
I ZIP DOWN THE LINE toward the top of the gorge, the gang of four close behind. It is near. Very near. We land near the lip, establish the safety zone, and peer down into the crack.
Wood splinters and cracks, and I whip around.
A dozer. My best friend right now. The hulking machine crunches up, and Keith Garrison leaps out. The right side of his face is charred black.
“I cleared her back from the lip. She’s hot.” He kicks the dozer. “Baby almost melted.”
Steam hisses from the machine. “Give her a rest,” I say. “We’ll cut ’er and light her back.” I slap Mox’s back, and he nods. His head swivels from side to side, that once-fierce gaze doesn’t snag on anything.
“Snap out of it, Mox.” I kick his boot. “No time. No time!”
We secure our packs, and the five of us grab chainsaws and dash toward the inferno, across the trampled path the dozer cleared. Scottie winces, pulls up when he reaches the standing brush line. “Here!” he shouts.
“Closer.” Mox looks up. “No use here. Push her back.”
“Here!” Scottie rips the cord on his saw, and it snarls to life. The boys glance at Mox, then to me.
“Follow Scottie.”
Saws roar and chew branches and stumps and leftovers Keith’s dozer missed.
“Lots of food here!” Mox slaps my back. “This won’t do. She’ll reach here and speed-run to the gorge.”
“And then?”
He points to the other side, at Brockton’s second dozer hauled in and waiting for the dozer crew on the far side. “Thirty feet from here to there. One gust and she’ll jump.”
“What would you do?”
A pinecone explodes at his feet. “Cut in another hundred feet here. In its teeth.” Mox points to the other side of the ravine. “Just to buy time for that dozer to clear.”
I nod, pause. “You wanted to kill Salome.”
“No.”
“You thought I’d make her jump?”
“She did.”
Around us, trees heat and blister. Mox stares at them. We’re not so different, he and I. The adrenaline that surges through us, the love of the rush. We’re not so different. We could be brothers. Friends. In some other life, where fires and family and good and evil didn’t exist.
“Let’s knock it out,” I say.
His eyes narrow, and the gleam returns. The wild flash that terrifies and comforts transforms his face, and he smiles.
“Fats!” he yells.
From in front, a whoop goes up, and Fatty and Fez tramp toward us. “You’re back!”
Mox scans. Each smoking log and firebomb, every wind shift and surge of heat—it all goes into his head, twists and rearranges like the sculptures do in mine. He blinks hard; the plan’s made. “Where’s Scottie?”
“He won’t go any closer.” Fats throws up his hands. “The boy’s falling back to the dozer, to the safety zone.”
“Fair enough.” I take a slosh of water. “Go! Go!” We race toward the blaze. Heat rises with each stomp nearer the devourer, and ground sparks fly.
“You’re too close, Jake! Here, we cut its throat here.” Mox points to the sky and chainsaw roar fills the air. Mox dances and curses. We’re on the line, we’re doing what we know best.
It’s a strange poetry, and from the outside, it looks random. But to an Immortal, to any fighter on the inside, the beauty is inescapable. Odd to call an ax and a chainsaw beautiful, but when eight arms sweep and saw, each move in concert, and behind it all, the heat and fury of the blaze. Yeah, it’s stinkin’ beautiful.
The fire crackles and hisses. I hiss back.
“Stay away from Sal. I won’t lose her again.”
A fueled tree limb explodes, falls, and missiles down the hill. It zips by and catches Moxie square across the chest. Both feet fly up, and his body propels backward. Sparks rain down on Fez and Fatty. They scream and fall back and claw at their faces.
I stand alone for a moment, frozen in the heat. A shadowy outline glows orange around the edges, races toward me, shouts, “Jake!”
“I’m here, Scottie. I’m okay. Man down!”
Scottie’s fear-strengthened arms grab me and yank me back. I throw them off. Mox groans.
“He’s not worth it.” Scottie’s eyes are wild. “Let’s go!”
“No.” I race back to Mox, his body a combination of rough breath, blood, and wood splinters.
“Drew,” he coughs. “He made it through that ropes course, did his spin. We flew in to pick him up, but it was dark, and we tangled him up on extraction. You can tell Salome . . . he was a good man.” Mox winces and lets out a groan. “Go, kid.”
“No!” I lean into the scorching trunk that has him pinned. It scalds through my jacket, and I scream. Another push. The tree limb shifts and rolls off. I reach down, hoist Mox over my shoulder, and stagger back to the dozer.
“Get everyone out of here.” Mox’s voice is weak. “Fats, Fez . . . Scottie.” Mox is losing blood from somewhere. By the time I reach the dozer, it covers my jacket.
I lay him in the cab. “Take him down, Keith.”
Keith gives a determined nod and revs the engine.
Wind gusts, and fires pop up around us. One strong blow, and she’ll leap the gorge.
“They dropped us on the wrong side,” I say to the three remaining.
“It’d take hours to walk around this canyon.” Scottie pushes back his helmet, winces, and wipes sweat from his forehead.
I look toward the canyon lip. “Yeah, it would.”
CHAPTER 36
I WALK TO THE EDGE of the gorge and lay gut to ground. I drop my helmet into the abyss. Five seconds. Ten seconds later, I think I hear a crack from the helmet hitting ground. Either way, our rope won’t reach.
“I need to go get my helmet.”
“Don’t, Jake.” Scottie tries to act all big brotherly, but that time’s past, and the dozer on the other side needs to move. The second crew hasn’t been dropped in yet.
I lower myself over the edge, give the openmouthed guys a wink, and disappear. “Go down with Mox! Now.” I traverse the wall. I’m too heavy in my gear, and my toe is too big to find the nooks; if I make it, it’s a miracle. Even I’ll call it that. Rock climbing is worse down than up. It’s a blind thing. You can’t see the ledges, and bad holds feel like good ones through the steel on my boot’s toe. I bounce on each footfall, test the strength.
Twenty-five feet down I rest, hug the rock, peek up. Scottie’s on his stomach—his face peeks over the edge.
“Get going, idiot!” I yell.
“Not until you’re down. Keith and the others left.”
“So you’re lying there with no way down?”
He doesn’t answer.
I move speedily, I have to. My body loses precious strength I’ll need for the climb up on the other side. I take risks, stop testing holds, and scamper. Thirty feet from the bottom I double-time, finish in minutes. I run to my helmet. It’s cracked in two.
So much for that.
I race across the cut and climb. Past Dusty’s ledge and the tree that now smolders. I place my mind on Salome and climb as if she waits on top. And freeze.
Seventy feet up, I glance down. I can’t move.
I’ve never been afraid of heights and have nev
er understood those who are. Seems so unreasonable. It’s only space, the same space as if you look toward the sky, except you’re on the other side. But it hits. Panic. Fingers claw.
“What’s wrong?” Scottie yells. “Move. Move!”
“Can’t.” I slap my face against rock. “I’m too high up—”
“Of course you are. You’re a freak of nature, but you’re almost there! Geez, Jake, do you know how high up you are—”
“Shut up!” I whisper. “Please.”
You’ve done this hundreds of times in hundreds of places. You climb and dive and . . .
I vomit onto the cliff, and another nauseous wave crashes over me. Hands tremble, legs buckle, and in the cut all is still. But inside my head, this giant boulder swells, fills my mind. Thoughts fly off it like electric shocks, terrify me.
I’ll never see her again.
“I want to live, Salome.” I gather strength. “Live!” I holler. I hoist a shaking foot upward, bring it down on solid rock. I smile. It makes no sense, but I tingle with the thought of living. That thought is enough. Snap. My panicked fingers snap into action, and I wobble to the top, roll over the edge, and look back.
“I made it, Scott—No!”
Fire burns to the far lip. A wall of flames licks the rim where my brother once lay. She broke through, ran for the gorge, just like Mox said.
I cry and curse and flail toward the dozer. I climb in, touch metal, and burn my flesh. “No!” I jam my hands into my gloves and try again. The cab is a furnace. I turn the key, and she fires up.
“Now let’s see what you got!”
I bulldoze angry. I’m no expert, but I know the principle. The dozer senses my hate, takes it on, and together we clear a swath back from the edge.
Hiss. All is steam, and for a moment I’m blind. I look up, watch a copter rotor away for more water. It’s damp around me, and my heart soars. I turn to make another swath, finish, and do it again. More water falls on my world.
Then the wind gust comes. Sparks burst into my cleared row. I watch. They fizzle, die out. Hours later, I’ve made a third pass, then a fourth. It’s night, and hourly water drops push back the fire’s reach. Wet. Crunched. Beneath my line there’s plenty of fire food.
The dozer chugs and quits. Out of gas.
I stagger from the cab, light-headed, fighting to stay vertical.
Then I hear them.
Dull roars in the distance. With the dozer still, the sound of chainsaws cut through the ring in my ears. Crews battle on my left and right. I can’t see them—I don’t need to—but they’re there. With me. I’m not fighting alone.
Two to one. Two hours work, one hour rest. Not tonight.
My heart swells. I grab the chainsaw from inside the cab, and it roars back to life. I will not leave my job. I will hold my line. Salome counts on me.
I work through the night, I think. Morning should come, but the sky is black. I work until my calluses bleed through my gloves, until my eyebrows singe into nothing, until I feel it—a breeze at my back.
She’ll hold. With the wind shift, the line will hold. The flames across the gorge die down.
I collapse across a boulder, and my world spins. I must fall into sleep because I dream. I dream a voice calls to me over and over from across the abyss.
“You still there, brother?”
CHAPTER 37
I WAKE UP, STIFF AND SHORT of breath. I grab the water and tools from the dozer and start the long pack out. It’s hours back to Brockton, but in the darkness of noon, it feels like days. The world feels emptier today. There’s not so much to hate, not so much to love, either. How do I explain Scottie to Dad or Salome?
Or myself. Because I seem to have a hand in everything. Again, I was there, right there when Scottie died.
I told him to leave. He stayed on his own. To watch over me.
Tears fall easily. It’s a loud, ugly cry, the kind I’ve seen in others, but worse. Because I don’t cry well—don’t know how to do it—and it croaks out in awkward bursts.
I choose the gentle roundabout way back, the one that splits the clearing of the Rush Club. The fire didn’t get this close, and beneath the birdless darkness, flowers still bloom. I doubt the blaze is contained, but she’s taken a few to the midsection. We’ll likely stand.
In the murky day, the clearing where I spun the wheel feels foreign. The mystery, the club’s strange attraction, has vanished with the sun. Now the grassy stretch looks like what it is: a place where countless young men made a decision to die.
“You should’ve burned.” I glance at the fire pit. “If anything in this world should’ve burned, this place should have.” I walk its perimeter and sniff. Ahead, there’s a smoldering. It’s partially me, covered with fire reek. But the scent strengthens. I walk into the bushes and freeze. A ring of dusty ground smokes.
I sweep earth away with my boot and stare at what lay beneath.
The Rush Club wheel is charred black.
I hoist it onto the grass, plop down beside it. “All to be in the spin. To be immortal.”
The ground is dry, and I don’t want to leave the wheel hot. I jam fingers beneath it and heft the disc onto its side. It balances, and I yank out my ax, rear back, and notice writing through my blurred gaze. On the back, left untouched by fire, carved into the wheel.
For tortured souls who have no home
Come and play
While you’re young and free
Come and play
Before courage leaves and we die
Koss
I chop it into splinters. There will be no more game, no more playing.
Suddenly, the world spins. I turn from the pile and wonder if Kip knows what his death did, what his best friend did. I wonder if he sat and looked down and laughed or cried when Kyle died, when Drew died. I wonder what he’ll say if he sees Mox again.
And inside my heart is a burning desire to read Salome’s words, to find her and say hello. Would she hear a difference in my voice? Probably not. But I’ll say it all the same.
BROCKTON IS A GHOST TOWN. Aside from the base manager, a few emergency vehicles, and exhausted crews sleeping in the villa, nobody’s here. Keith crosses Main, and I give a shout.
He curses. “That can’t be you, Jake.”
“It’s not.”
He slaps my back, and I wince. “Let’s get you to medical.”
I gladly throw my arm around his shoulder and let him lead. For the next hours, I’m faceup in the medic’s tent.
“Ninety percent contained, that’s what they say.” Aronson never could shut up. He sews up some spots, places cold sheets over burns. “Should be out of the woods here. Up mountain wasn’t so lucky, but here we were, and sometimes that’s all you can ask for, right?”
“Where exactly wasn’t so lucky?”
“Oh, turns out there’s an old junkyard up that face. It’s a lost cause. Though a crew sure gave their all to save it.”
I smile. It hurts. “I owe them for trying.”
He nods. “Shouldn’t be hard to thank them. It was Mox and your crew. Before they called you out, your whole team was up there fighting on their own. It’s where Troy was injured.” He sets down his gauze. “Man was pinned beneath a collapsed ramp, but he’ll be fine.”
I lay my head back down. Life is so strange. Who to hate, who to love gets all jumbled in the living.
“Where’s everyone now?” I ask.
Aronson shakes his head. “Mox was too bad off for my tent. We airlifted him to Chisel Falls.”
“They didn’t evacuate?”
“They didn’t need to, I guess.” He removes the cool squares from my skin. “It would’ve been tough. Some people there are pretty bad off.” He looks at me, purses his lips. “But you already know that.”
I rise slowly and drag over to Dad’s. The key to the Beetle is buried beneath his heaps, but I find it, ease into the car, and zip toward Salome.
The hospital is full, every bed, a nurse says. In the ha
llways, zombie doctors whisk around gurneys and wheelchairs. You wouldn’t know the worst was over.
I walk slowly through the chaos. A nurse ricochets off me and gasps. “Triage is first floor.” She grabs what’s left of my jacket. I gently remove her hand.
“I’m okay.”
“Gwen!” A call from down the hall and she jumps, backs away slowly. “Stay right here. I’ll have someone—take a look—”
“Gwen!”
She rushes away, and I continue toward the one door that matters more than any other.
I’m here. I’m not leaving again.
“The Rush Club did your job. Someone had to weed out the weak ones. Kip died because you didn’t.”
Mox?
I hear the voice and glance to my right. Mox is propped up, his face contorted. He still burns. Richardson and a man I don’t know take notes from the other side of the bed.
The scene is too much. I’ve seen too much, lost too much.
Mox’s gaze catches mine, and the others follow. I slump against the door frame.
Richardson stands. “Geez, Jake. Get yourself looked at.”
I look at myself, boots to shoulders, and nod. I slowly slip out of my jacket, the one with the I ripped right down the middle. I toss it into the room.
“Doesn’t fit anymore.”
Mox squeezes his eyelids tight and winces. His lips part.
“Never did, kid.”
I straighten and continue my shuffle.
“Do you want to explain that, Jake? Jake!” Richardson calls, but I’ve no desire to see the feds. Not today. Not tomorrow.
Salome is three rooms away.
Two. One.
I peek around her door frame and blink. Dad snores in a corner chair, the Lees hold hands and stare out the window, while Scottie leans over Salome and strokes her head.
He’s alive!
He has his hand on Salome.
“Hey, brother.” I say. Scottie flies at me, his face light and free. He checks me over and slugs my left rib. I groan.
He yanks me straight and hugs hard. Beyond him the Lees do the same.
“You weren’t moving on the cliff, and that was a thousand gallons of water that fell from the heavy,” Scottie whispers. “Not even you makes it through that.”