On the Divinity of Second Chances (27 page)

“Depends on so many things,” he answers. “We could always carry Flash at that point because there’ll be no hurry.”

“Okay, choice two: we could stay on the ridgetop, where we can watch the fire and choose to go off either side depending on conditions. We can be easily seen by choppers up there, too. Choice three, we could go off the other side now, hope the fire doesn’t jump the ridge and rip through that dog hair down there. If that happens, we won’t stand a chance. The forest will be slower to go through and we won’t be able to see what’s going on. If we make it to the river, we might not burn, but if the fire gets close and we breathe that superheated air, we’ll die anyway. Our last option is to go back just a little, to the top of the draw to our north, so that we avoid the forest altogether and go down on that side of the other ridge, where hopefully the fire won’t reach today, but if the wind changes and goes back there, there’s really no place to go. We’d have to run uphill, and we know we can’t outrun it uphill,” I say.

“Storm’s coming. They always come from the south. Winds are going to blow the fire over this ridge today. If we’re down in there, in all that fuel, there’s no doubt we’ll die. In tonight’s burn area, we may get burned, but we won’t die. I really think the road is the way to go. On the ridge, there’s talus. The air under those rocks will fan the fire and create superheated conditions. We’re safer on a road,” Lightning Bob argues.

“Keep your pack light; we’re going to need to run fast.”

He exhales. He knows I’m right. He packs three quarts of water, a first-aid kit, and his book of poetry, then clips his radio to his belt. He hands me a flashlight and takes one for himself.

“If we’re on the road, I can let the base know our route so they can know right where we are and pick us up,” Lightning Bob says.

“Winds like this flip choppers. They’re not going to send a chopper out in this. They’re not going to send a truck out either. If they send anyone out, they’re going to look for the firefighters that haven’t come back yet,” I argue. I think it’s stupid to go with a plan that’s dependent on other people rescuing us. We can’t afford the consequences if it doesn’t happen.

“Maybe the firefighters are on the road. I still say the road.”

“Okay, we’ll stay on the switchback while it’s still dark and take it down to the road. By then it should be light and we can really run. Is that the plan?”

“Yeah,” he answers.

“Bob, I don’t know. If we stay on top of the ridge, we can always run downhill to the road or over the other side. Ridgetop is shortest and most direct. If we can get to there”—I point to a place on the map—“we’ll be safe. That’s not that far. Please, Bob, let’s go ridgetop.”

Lightning Bob pauses and thinks. “Okay, we’ll go ridgetop.” He radios our intended route, and we start down. We walk as fast as we can against the high wind. It would be useless to try to run against it. Flash stays close, but still out in front, checking back on us, occasionally running behind us as he would a herd of sheep. We walk too fast to talk, keeping our flashlights pointed in front of us, watching each step. As it grows lighter, the winds shift. They begin to blow the fire back east down the little valleys, back toward Mont Soleil and us. The morning winds begin to blow more fiercely at our backs, and we begin to run.

I hear Lightning Bob breathing hard. “Here, let me take the pack for a while.” I intend to take it for the duration of our escape, but I know if I offered that, he wouldn’t give it to me. Pride. I take the pack, shout “Go!” as I put it on, clip the hip belt, tighten the straps, and start off running again.

The morning winds blow all the smoke toward us, darkening the sky and turning the sun red. It looks like the end of the world.

The fire creeps into my peripheral vision to my right. It has indeed swept right down the road. I follow the road down a couple switchbacks with my eyes, down into yesterday’s burn area, and see a burned truck. I hope only the truck was burned and that the people made it out. Regardless, there’s going to be a price on Matt’s head for this. I hope he makes it to Mexico. Stupidity isn’t the same thing as malice. Whether stupidity should be a punishable offense is debatable.

I see fire out of my left eye now, too, and call to Lightning Bob to stop a minute. We turn to see a wall of flames at the top of the draw to the north of us, and scattered patches of fire on the next ridge north. Behind us, less than a half mile away, the grass burns, spreading fast. “Morning winds should die down soon,” I say.

“I wonder if the tower is gone by now.”

“Water?” I ask. Flash is panting hard.

“We don’t have time,” he answers.

We start off at a jog again, negotiating a rocky outcrop. Where we find the top of the highest chairlift, the ridge begins to drop and descend toward Mont Soleil.

We scramble over the loose rocks of a talus slope. The rolling rocks startle two deer below, who run off. Lightning Bob looks up at the deer instead of his next step and I watch him lose his balance and land on his left foot. It looks like a stellar recovery until his ankle rolls and he goes down. He yells out in agony.

“Forrest, it’s broken. I heard a snap. Get two sticks for a splint!” As I find two sticks, he takes off his shirt and rips up the lower part. I return with the sticks, and as I hold one on either side of his leg, he ties strips of his shirt around them tightly. Flash sniffs Lightning Bob’s leg as I help him up. Above us, we see grass and small shrubs ignite. “If we don’t make it out, it will be my fault,” he says.

“We’ll make it out. Just don’t pass out.” I get on his injured side and put his left arm around my shoulder. The reality is if we don’t make it out, it will be my fault; after all, it’s my bad fire karma. We walk the rest of the talus slope and hear trees explode to the northwest. Once we get on regular dirt, I say, “Run this like a three-legged race. Our outside feet are one and our inside feet are two. Two is when you put all your weight on me. Ready? Start slow and get faster. One, two, one, two . . . !”

We run like that to the bottom of the summit chairlift. We continue down a ski run. The trail forks. A little sign with a black diamond points directly downhill, while a sign with a green circle points across the hill. “Which way?” I call out.

“Green circle. We’d never be able to keep footing like this on the black diamond.” We follow that run as it winds its way down toward the base lodge. We slow down when the river’s in sight and the fire’s not. By now, the wind’s died down—it must be early afternoon. Lightning Bob radios for a ride to the hospital and we watch a green Forest Service truck pull into the lodge parking lot as we descend down our final stretch.

The man gets out of the truck and runs up to meet us. Both of us supporting Lightning Bob, one on each side, we try to get him into the passenger side.

“I don’t think that’s going to work,” Lightning Bob says. The man and I reach down with our outside hands behind Lightning Bob’s knees, creating a chair with our arms. We lift Lightning Bob into the back of the truck. He yelps. Flash jumps in.

“Can I give you a ride anywhere?” the man asks me.

“Nah, I’m good,” I reply and watch them go.

“We made it! We made it!” Lightning Bob shouts as they drive away.

I smile and wave and start to make my way toward Jade’s.

The Moon on Germination
(August 2)

The moon above sees it all. She sees the thousands of acres of charred land and a pile of ashes that once was the home and prison of Forrest. The moon sees through the illusion of death, as though it were just another new moon, another time when what is truly there isn’t visible. As she prepares to make herself full again, she knows the Earth is preparing, too. Underneath the veil of ashes, possibilities await divine timing. Forrest’s old home and prison, now just elements in the soil, will nourish new life, a new beginning. It is true—water cleanses, but only fire purifies.

And the moon sees that Forrest, nourished by his own disaster for the last thirteen years, is ready. His divine timing has come. Like a pine seed, able to germinate only after fire, Forrest, too, is ready to sprout.

Forrest on Blowing It
(August 2)

I see Jade outside her house, sleeping. When she’s asleep, there’s no waking her. I let myself inside and take a shower. I rub the bar of Dr. Bronner’s peppermint soap on my T-shirt and scrub it in with my hands, then take my T-shirt off, rinse it, and drop it on the shower floor. I do this to each article of clothing. My socks take the longest. Then I wash my body. The soap rinses off onto my clothes. I step on them repeatedly to give them a second wash. I turn off the water, step on my clothes a few times to wring them out more, and wrap myself in Jade’s towel. I reach under the sink where Jade keeps some Comet and a scrub brush just for me. I sprinkle some Comet on the shower floor, scrub, and leave it on so it can continue to bleach my stains and kill my germs.

I carry my wet clothes in one hand as I sift through her drawers in search of some sweatpants. I find some old gray ones that will do and put them on. Then I walk out her back door and hang my laundry on her fence.

When I walk back in, there’s a huge man in her room, turning down her bed.

“Who are you?” we ask each other in unison.

“Jade’s brother,” “Jade’s friend,” we say simultaneously.

“Oh, Peter Lemonjello,” he says.

“In the flesh,” I reply. “My main house burned down today.” I gesture toward the forest fire. “I just got out.”

“Wow,” he says, and waits for more of the story. I don’t tell it to him, though. Instead, I just blurt out, “Oh, you’re Nisa-Josh,” as I put two and two together.

“I’m Josh,” he says, confused. “What does Nisa mean?”

Uh-oh. “She didn’t tell you.”

“Tell me what?”

“She remembers you from before.”

“From before what?” he asks.

“From before this life.”

“Na-uh,” he says. That’s my out.

“Yeah, you’re right. I was just messing with you. Please don’t kick my ass.”

I must not have been very convincing because then he says, “Wait, you were serious, weren’t you? What did she tell you?”

“Hey, do you have any clippers?” I return to Jade’s bathroom, find her scissors, and start to cut off my dreadlocks and hack back my beard. I start to make a pile on the counter so I can donate it to the birds for their nests later.

“What’s Nisa?” he asks again as I chop away.

“Who,” I correct. “Who’s Nisa. Nisa is Jade’s old best friend from some place in Africa—I don’t know how long ago.” He looks both amused and skeptical. “Look. If she thought you really wanted to know or thought you were ready to hear it, she’d have told you. It’s not really my place to tell you anything. But if she ever tells you anything, believe it. She found me when I ran away thirteen years ago. I could have been anywhere. I was in the middle of nowhere and she found me. I didn’t even know where I was. Jade knows stuff.”

Now Nisa-Josh looks uncomfortable.

“But, she doesn’t know everything. . . .” This isn’t helping; he still looks concerned. “Hey, just forget about it. I mean, besides skating around in a superhero cape and refusing to wear shoes, she’s totally normal.” I go to the kitchen for a used lunch bag, return to the bathroom, and put my hair in it. “I’m just going to take this and go,” I tell him, and leave with my bag of hair.

Man, what a day. I return to the chairlift tree house and sleep for fourteen hours.

Jade on Her Astral Dream with Aretha, Complementary Colors, and Secrets
(August 3)

I dreamed last night I was petting Aretha’s soft, soft fur. My senses were heightened, making Aretha even softer to me. So soft. Soft like I had never felt soft before.
And I thought I’ d never do this again.
I laughed at myself for being so silly, for thinking death was permanent.

I was so happy to be with Aretha, to have found her. I began to lead Aretha home.

But when I reached home, Aretha was no longer with me. Where had she gone? Where had I lost her?

My room was still dark when I woke. Grace was sitting in my rocking chair. “Oh, you silly girl. God, you’ll try anything, won’t you? Aretha can’t come back here with you like that.”

So it was real.

In my divorce with God, where God seemingly got custody of my dog, I at least got visitation privileges, it seems. Oh, gracious God.

And with that low-vibration sarcastic thought, Grace disappeared.

Josh was behind me, spooning me. The first night he slept here, I was shocked to wake up with him next to me. While he slept, I studied him. His features are so different from mine, his brow, his cheeks, his lips. His upper jaw is pronounced. There’s nothing angular or sharp about his face. It is so beautiful and soft, but not delicate.

Each night I fall asleep in the gravel hole where Aretha sunbathed, where I can stare at the stars and imagine her flying among them, and in the middle of every night, I wake up next to Josh, both of us still in all our clothes. I stare at him for a while, then go back to sleep, and when I wake up again, he’s gone. We haven’t talked for days.

I look at where his arm and my arm cross. The two of us are at opposite ends of the color spectrum. I think we’re beautiful. When I was little, and coloring while Mom painted, she showed me that blue made orange look more orange, and that orange made blue look more blue. She explained that if you put each color of the rainbow in a circle, blue and orange would be on opposite sides, as would yellow and purple, and red and green. She showed me how opposite colors bring out the beauty in each other. They are called complementary colors. That’s what our skin reminds me of—complementary colors.

I flip over under the weight of Josh’s arm. Instead of studying his face tonight, I just embrace him. I don’t know why he feels compelled to stay with me, but it’s nice. It’s comforting. I’m thankful. He’s not as soft as Aretha, but still nice to hold on to after a dream that left me feeling sad. I give him a little squeeze. He makes a lovely, low “Mmm” sound, shifts his arms on my back, but doesn’t wake up. I rest my head on his chest and give him another little squeeze before I fall back to sleep. As I drift off, I feel him kiss the top of my head, and I melt.