Chapter 2
two
We traveled another mile, all of us too worn out to share much conversation. Shade was at a minimum on this side of the mountain, but we finally turned a curve that was cool and protected from the sun's harsh rays by a steep, sheer side of rock.
"Check for rattlers before you set your sorry asses down on any of those boulders," Mixx reminded.
"Sure thing, ma," King said, adding in a weak salute.
"All right, someone give King some water," Mixx suggested. "He's getting the grumpies."
"Fuck off, Mixx. I'm not grumpy. Just how many times have we been up in these snake infested hills? We know there are damn rattlers up here. We probably know that better than anyone else on the whole fucking planet, including the snakes themselves."
Angus stomped over and shoved his canteen toward King. "Mixx is right. You're grumpy."
"You can fuck off too," King grumbled as he begrudgingly took hold of the canteen and gulped down the water.
I found my perch, a fallen log, snake and red ant free from my vantage point.
I let the heavy pack slide off my shoulders.
It landed with a thud, kicking up a fair amount of gritty dust. I could still taste the faint remnants of smoke in my charred throat.
My shirt was plastered to my back with sweat.
The faint breeze blew against my wet skin giving me a moment of relief from the brutal heat.
King trudged over with his pack and let out a loud groan as the heavy load fell off his shoulders.
The sound sent several birds skittering from a nearby Manzanita shrub.
He plopped down next to me and stretched out his legs.
I followed. My legs felt like wet noodles, ready for a rest and ready to be off this damn mountainside.
Like every other inch of us, our boots were caked with ashes and dirt.
Mixx pulled out his satellite phone for another text. "Yeah, we've got time, so we might as well rehydrate. I've still got trail mix in my pack if anyone needs some food energy."
King shifted his eyes my direction for a second. "He's like the world's most peppy camp counselor. How does he still have energy? I feel like I've got a pile of bricks connected to each ankle."
"Maybe it's all that trail mix," I muttered.
He elbowed me. "So are you going to the one year memorial?"
I leaned a little away from him, one, to show him I was annoyed and two, because he was beginning to reek like something that got dragged out of a swamp. "Why the hell wouldn't I go?" My tone could not have been interpreted as anything but pissed.
"Jeez, don't get yourself in a twist. It's a perfectly legitimate question. We all know that you and Bulldozer had—had differences. Or maybe you forgot the fist fight that left both of you with black eyes and you with three broken ribs."
"That was—just an off day." I thought about the day when Bulldozer and I came to blows.
I hadn't seen it coming and I wasn't entirely sure I'd deserved it.
Or maybe I had. He outweighed me by fifty pounds and had been a boxing champion in high school so I was on the losing end.
He could be such an asshole. He had been a damn good firefighter and I trusted him as a teammate, but it didn't erase the fact that he was an asshole.
"He treated Layla like shit, and it really tore me up. If I had a—"
King smiled. His skin was so dark from the ashes and dirt, his teeth looked neon white. "Ah ha, go ahead, buddy, spit it out."
"Forget it. Just forget it. I'm going to the memorial. Bulldozer, for all his faults, he was one of us. It hasn't been the same without him, and that day on the East Fork fire—fuck, none of us will ever forget it."
King kicked absently at some loose dirt. "Yeah, worst day of our careers."
I was relieved we'd dropped the subject of my contentious relationship with Adam Rafferty, or, Bulldozer, as we'd always called him. The guy could bulldoze through a cluster of burning trees, swinging his Pulsaki like fucking Paul Bunyan.
The topic had conjured up other memories, including one in particular. One I needed to get out of my head. "Hey, do you remember Millie Price? Robbie's mom?"
King chuckled. "Look who's bringing up our childhood.
Sure I do. Poor thing was always late bringing Robbie to school.
She'd be dragging him along, spitting on her finger and trying to tame down that spike of hair on the back of his head as she hurried him to class. What the heck brought her to mind?"
I shook my head as if it had just been random. Only it wasn't. "You know how those really shitty days stay with you, crystal clear, like the day Bulldozer died? Well, the opposite is true, you know?"
"Not following you but then I'm grumpy and dehydrated according to my crew mates."
I ignored the mix of sarcasm and self-deprecation and continued.
"Admittedly, perfect moments are rare, but I can always recall, with detail, no matter how short the duration, whenever everything seemed amazingly right.
Millie Price was part of one of those memories.
It was one of those extra cold days in Westridge. "
King scoffed. "When wasn't it extra cold?"
"Yeah, well this was the day of the fifth grade track meet, and even though the thermometer was dipping down to zero, the teachers decided not to cancel.
I had those shitty secondhand running shoes.
My toes were basically sitting in the wide open.
That same week, my mom's car had to be repaired and the fridge was basically empty so no breakfast. Then I got in trouble in third period just before lunch—"
"Seemed to happen to you a lot," King commented.
"Looks who's talking. Principal Harrison used to tell you he was going to have your name painted on one of the chairs in detention."
"That's right, he did, didn't he?" King beamed with pride about it.
"Anyhow, I missed lunch, and Harrison, jerk that he was, never asked if I got to eat. He sent me back to class. I ran three races at the track meet on an empty stomach and in a pair of shoes that were more air than shoe."
"Ah, I see why this is a perfect moment. You got two first places and a second that day."
I shook my head. "Nope, those ribbons didn't mean shit to me. I was so cold and hungry by the time the meet ended that I was pissed as hell."
King snapped his fingers and pointed at me. "That's right. You got into a fight with that sixth grader, Chuck whatever the hell his name was. He was pissed cuz you left him in the dust on all three races."
"Yep, took a punch to the stomach that knocked the wind right out of me. I couldn't wait to get out of school that day only I knew I was going home to an empty house . . . again . . . and an empty fridge."
A tarantula crawled out from beneath some dead leaves. The two of us left our nostalgic memories a second to watch the monstrously big critter make its way across the trail.
"Shit, that thing looks like it could carry off a squirrel or possum," King said. "So where does the crystal clear, perfect moment come into play? Cuz I've got to say—if this is one of your great memories, I don't want to hear about the bad ones."
A lizard skittered out from under the fallen tree we were perched on. "Thought you checked this thing for reptiles before you sat down," King chided.
"Yeah, the kind with diamonds printed along their backs. Those lizards are harmless."
King rested back on his hands. "When does this moment get perfect?"
"That's where Millie Price comes in. Robbie saw me sitting on the icy ground still trying to suck air back into my lungs.
He offered me a hand and asked if I wanted to go to his house and hang out for awhile.
I felt bad that we were always ignoring the guy, so I said yes.
Wasn't like my mom was going to be waiting for me with a warm bath and a plate of cookies. We walked to his house—"
"I only went inside his house once for a birthday party," King interrupted.
"It was small but I remember there was a red and white checked table cloth on the kitchen table.
I don't know why, but I thought that was cool.
I even asked my mom if we could get one.
She didn't even respond. I don't know why I liked it—guess it just showed Robbie's mom cared enough to put a nice cloth on the table. "
"Yeah, the same cloth was on the table. Along with those cookies I'd been dreaming about.
Chocolate chip. Millie gave me some warm sweats to wear.
She even stuck them in her dryer first to heat them up.
Robbie didn't mind me wearing his sweats.
In fact, I think he was kind of glad." I shook my head.
"Why the hell were we such jerks to him? "
King shrugged. "Maybe deep down we were jealous that he had a mom who baked cookies and put checked cloths on the table."
I nodded. "You might be right about that.
Especially after that day. I'd been freezing my ass off that whole, terrible day.
Hunger had been gnawing a hole in my stomach from the second I stepped out of bed, and after running all those races, I could barely see straight.
Millie sensed it too. She cooked up a can of tomato soup and tossed a cheese sandwich on a frying pan.
It was only stale white bread and that weird sliced stuff we called cheese back then.
It was the best fucking grilled cheese I ever ate.
And I remember that hour in Millie's kitchen, with her clock that had a rooster painted in the center and her collection of tea cups, like it was yesterday.
It was the best thing in the world after the nightmare of a day. "
"I'll bet." King leaned back and patted his stomach. "Speaking of a stomach gnawing itself with hunger. I think I'll head over to Steer Burger when we get back to the base. Wanna go?"
"Yeah, maybe. Let's first get down from this mountain before we start thinking about burgers, otherwise these next few miles are going to be torture."
"Let's move out," Mixx said as he heaved his backpack onto his shoulders.
It was almost harder putting the pack back on after a short rest. I grunted as I yanked it on. King made the same sound, only louder.
"Still don't get what made you think about Millie and her grilled cheese out here in the middle of a hot, dry trail," King said as we fell in line behind the others.
"Not sure," I said quietly. But I knew. King had brought up the memorial and that had triggered another memory, one that was so perfect every detail remained crystal clear in my head. Only thing was—it had no right being so damn perfect.