The Smoke Jumper Read online

She got dressed and pulled on her boots and got her stuff together. Her heart was beating hard and her head whirling and screaming with all kinds of different things. She felt mad and proud and scared and defiant all at the same time. If they thought they could break her like this, they had another think coming.

  They hiked single file, Glen leading the way with his headlamp and Julia behind. Skye wondered where they were taking her but she didn’t want to give them the satisfaction of not telling her so she didn’t ask. They were heading down through tall trees into a valley and she could hear water somewhere below them in the darkness but they never seemed to reach it. Then they bore left and walked a more level route that seemed to head up the valley, the water still rushing below them. They walked in silence, just the crunch of their boots on the pine needles. It surprised her that neither of them spoke, because she had expected them to start banging on at her right away, but maybe that wasn’t the idea.

  Soon it began to get light and through the gaps in the trees to her right she watched the other side of the valley rear out of the gloom, a wall of dark and dappled green a mile high, laced with strands of mist and patched with pale rock and she watched the sky above it turn from the blue of night to the kind of pearled pink she had only ever seen on the inside of a seashell.

  She had no wristwatch and no notion of how long they hiked but it was many hours. They headed downhill again and out of the trees and into a meadow filled with wildflowers and came at last to the water. It was a narrow creek of tumbling foam and dark swirling pools which looked as if they would suck you down to hell itself. By one of these pools there was a shelf of rock and here they stopped and put down their packs. They gathered wood and Glen lit a fire and cooked oatmeal and raisins and they sprinkled cinnamon and brown sugar on it and it tasted good and warm and comforting.

  They ate and still nobody spoke but Skye had a hunch that it wasn’t going to be long before they started in on her and she steeled herself. She looked up along the valley and in the far, far distance saw a mountain shaped like a pyramid and Glen saw her gazing at it and told her that was where they were headed. It looked about a million miles away and Skye thought at first he must be joking but he wasn’t.

  Then he started telling one of those dumb stories the staff always told when they wanted to teach you some great lesson about yourself or Life with a capital L or whatever. This particular dumb story was called ‘The Wolf and the Rock’ and it was about a little wolf cub called Nooshka-Lalooshka. Give me a break, Skye thought, do I look like I’m five years old? One day this wolf cub was chasing a chipmunk and ran into a rock and really hurt himself and all the other wolves laughed at him.

  ‘The chipmunk got away and Nooshka-Lalooshka felt embarrassed and mad and he told the others that he’d meant to crash into the rock and it hadn’t hurt one little bit. So they said, okay, if it didn’t hurt, do it again. And so as not to lose face, he did. And this time it hurt even more and he got this big bloody bruise on his chest but the other wolves roared with laughter and said how funny he was and how tough he must be.’

  No prizes for guessing who this is supposed to be, Skye thought. Glen looked at Julia and asked if she’d like to take over. Skye figured they must have rehearsed all this between them, how they’d break her down. It seemed like a pretty feeble start, although, despite herself, she always liked these stories and was already interested in what happened to the dumbass wolf. Julia took up the story:

  ‘And from then on whenever the wolves got bored, they’d say, hey, Nooshka-Lalooshka, do your rock trick for us! And if he said he didn’t want to, they’d taunt him and tell him he was chicken and so to prove he wasn’t, he’d crash into the rock again. And his wound never had time to heal and as he grew older it got worse and worse and infected his leg so that he began to walk with a limp and he got thinner and thinner too because soon he couldn’t run fast enough to keep up with the pack when they all went hunting. The others gave him a little of what they caught but only on condition that he’d do his rock trick for them and so he’d do it, just to get fed, still pretending it didn’t hurt, until one day he found he couldn’t run at all and could only, kind of, collapse onto the rock instead of crashing into it and the other wolves got bored and said it wasn’t fun to watch anymore.

  ‘They told him he was of no use to the pack because he couldn’t hunt and now that he couldn’t even entertain them, why should they feed him? And they banished him from the pack and Nooshka-Lalooshka limped off, alone and forlorn, into the wilderness.’

  Now it was Glen’s turn again.

  ‘Well, he got thinner and thinner and sadder and sadder. And soon he didn’t want to go on living. So he found a cave which he thought would be a good place to die and he lay down and waited. And every time the sun came up he thought, this day will be my last. Then, when death was nearly upon him, one morning, he woke up and there was this little pile of nuts right in front of him, right at the end of his nose. And he thought, that’s weird. He sniffed at them and they smelled good. And he had just enough strength to eat them and they tasted good too. And he felt a little better and slept all day and when he woke up there was another pile of nuts there and he ate them, wondering who had put them there. And it happened again and again, every time he fell asleep, until one morning he pretended to be asleep but kept his eyes just open enough to keep watch.’

  ‘And after a while,’ Julia went on, ‘he heard a scrabbling and a huffing and a puffing and he saw this little old chipmunk, sweating and staggering along, carrying a great armful of nuts and dumping them down in front of him. And Nooshka-Lalooshka opened his eyes and said, hey! And the chipmunk nearly jumped out of its skin and fell over and said, please, please don’t eat me! And Nooshka-Lalooshka said, why would I want to eat someone who has saved my life? And he asked the chipmunk why would he be so kind to a wolf when everybody knows that wolves eat chipmunks? And the chipmunk said it was because once, long ago, a wolf had been very kind to him and instead of eating him had let him go and crashed into a rock, just to make some other wolves laugh.’

  Julia smiled. Both of them sat looking at her and for a moment or two nobody said anything.

  ‘Is that it?’ Skye said.

  ‘Unless you want to take it any further,’ Julia said.

  ‘Like, the wolf grabs the chipmunk and bites his head off.’

  ‘If that’s how you want it to go.’

  Skye looked away and stared at the mountain. There was another silence.

  ‘So I guess I’m supposed to, like, “identify” with someone in that story?’

  ‘Well, do you?’ Glen asked.

  Skye thought for a moment, then shrugged.

  ‘Yeah. I’m one of the nuts.’

  Julia burst out laughing and then Glen started laughing too. Skye looked at them in amazement. Hell, it wasn’t that funny. But they didn’t stop. Julia’s shoulders were shaking helplessly and the more she laughed the more Glen laughed. Skye tried to keep her own face stony straight but it was really hard with them both going on like that and soon she just couldn’t hold out any longer and she felt her lips begin to twitch and stretch into a smile which she tried to correct but couldn’t and then it spread into a grin and soon she was laughing too. And it felt so strange, as if some alien power had taken her over and was shaking her insides around, unlocking something there. The three of them just laughed and laughed and went on laughing.

  Then something even stranger happened. Although Skye was still laughing, she felt a heaving in her chest, like ocean waves breaking and shaking her whole body in a way that was both happy and sad, desperately sad, at the same time. And she felt tears start in her eyes and begin to sluice down her cheeks and she heard her own laughter turn itself into a kind of convulsive animal howl. And all the time this welling, rising, shocking release inside her, like a volcano bursting and pouring out of her in these great shuddering sobs. She cried for herself and for her whole life and the mess she’d made of it and for her mother and all that they
both had suffered and for all the terrible things she’d done, like killing that young cop on the highway. And she remembered her dream, her long-lost father standing on the hill with his arms reaching out to her and she cried for him too. For all this, for all these people and deeds and misdeeds, she tilted her streaming face to the sky and wept and howled.

  So blinded was she by her own grief that she didn’t see them shuffle close but she felt their arms slip around her and take hold of her. It was the first loving touch of another human being that Skye had felt for a long time and she had neither the strength nor the will to resist. They hugged her and she could tell that they were weeping too and although it struck her as strange that these two people she barely knew and to whom she had shown only contempt should shed tears for her, she didn’t fight them or doubt them. And for a long time the three of them clung together and wept together like survivors of a woeful storm.

  They reached the peak of the mountain an hour before sunset the following evening, just as they had planned.

  In two days they had walked twenty-eight miles and talked many thousand times that many words. Julia had been on three quests before but none had been like this one with Skye. It was as if a dam had broken inside the girl and sixteen years of repressed pain flooded forth.

  She talked about her father leaving and the dream she’d had the night before and about her mother’s drinking and slow descent into depression and despair. She talked about the men her mother brought home to the trailer who all ended up yelling at her and beating her and sometimes beating Skye too and how she couldn’t understand what her mother saw in them, especially the one she’d gone and married who beat on her more than all the others combined.

  She talked about how she’d started staying out all night, hanging out downtown by the railroad with all the other lost souls because she was too afraid to go home to the trailer. And about how she’d gotten into drugs so that she didn’t have to think about these things. First glue then pot and poppers and speed and then pretty well anything anyone came up with, except crack and heroin, which made you mad and killed you. And about how she’d gotten into thieving, which was the only way to get the money for the drugs except, of course, for dropping your pants for some filthy old pervert which was what some girls her age and younger did but she never had and never would.

  And while she talked they hiked steadily west up along the valley following the bends of the drainage, sometimes clambering over rocks and sometimes taking a winding trail through the trees. And always ahead of them was the mountain and always below them the rush and babble of the creek. Sometimes the mountain would drop out of view behind a ridge or a forested bluff only to reappear half an hour later, bigger and clearer. And as they walked, the words just poured out of her. And so did the tears. Julia had never seen such epic weeping. Soon on Skye’s cheeks there were great pale patches where the tears had washed away the grime. Every so often she would start sobbing so badly that they would have to stop and Julia and Glen would circle up and hug her till it subsided and then on they would go.

  The first evening they had camped by the creek and Skye made her first bow-drill fire. She did it without any help from either of them and with such little effort it looked as if she had been doing it all her life. She grinned cheekily as the flames leaped and said see, she wasn’t that dumb after all, she’d watched and knew all along how to do it.

  They cooked a stew of tofu with peppers and rice and while they ate, the sun lowered itself behind the mountain and Skye looked up and pointed. Directly above them and flying west was a perfect V of geese, so high that the undersides of their wings still caught the sun and glowed white against the coral of the sky. When it was dark and the fire had crumpled to its embers, Julia asked Skye what had happened on the day the young police officer died and for a long time Skye said nothing, just stared into the embers. Then she took a deep breath and began to tell the story. She spoke in a low, steadied voice that cracked only when she came to how the man’s arm had gotten trapped behind Sean’s seat and how she’d seen the look of pure fear in his eyes.

  And now, the following evening, they were coming up the shadowed side of the mountain toward the summit. It was a hike, not a real climb, and when they were only a little way off Glen told Skye that when they reached the top there would be someone waiting to meet them. Skye wanted to know who it was but all he and Julia would tell her was that it was someone she’d never met.

  A few weeks ago Julia had called the number Connor had been given by his Blackfeet smoke jumper friend and found herself talking to John Standing Bird. He turned out to be a lawyer who had devoted his life to working with young people on the reservation, trying to give them a sense of belonging and to kindle in them an interest in Blackfeet history and culture. Julia had told him all about Skye and without even having to be asked, he said he would be happy to help in any way he could. When they decided to take Skye on a quest she called him again and together they came up with a plan. All day she had been excited about it but now she was feeling anxious, wondering if it was such a good idea after all.

  The final slope to the summit was smooth and easy with a wellworn trail that curved up and around its southern side. And as they came around they saw the sun again, going down in a blaze of orange and red and purple and saw the silhouetted figure sitting on a rock staring west. John Standing Bird turned and saw them and he rose and came to meet them and Julia introduced Skye and they all shook hands. He was tall and broad-shouldered and had the sort of face that was difficult to age. Julia figured he was probably in his mid-forties. His hair was streaked with gray and he wore it in long braids. He had on a black hat with a wide, flat brim and a white shirt buttoned to the neck and a red and black blanket patterned with running buffalo was draped loosely over his shoulders. Skye shook his hand nervously, darting a sideways frown at Julia. John Standing Bird smiled and kept his kind black eyes fixed on her.

  ‘I’ve heard many good things about you, Skye,’ John Standing Bird said. ‘It’s good to meet you.’

  Skye didn’t seem to know what to say but it didn’t matter. John Standing Bird suggested they join him on the rock to watch the sun set and by the time it had gone in a sudden last explosion of light, the mood among them was calm. John Standing Bird had gathered some wood and he asked Skye if she would light the fire and Skye got her bow-drill set from her pack and did so without any demur. Julia and Glen went down to the tree line to gather more wood while the other two made supper and when they returned Skye was chatting away as if the two of them were old friends.

  Julia had given John Standing Bird the name of Skye’s mother and he had done some research and over supper he told Skye the line of her family and where they had come from. He told her about the Oglala and what a great and proud people they had once been and how one of the greatest warriors of all, Crazy Horse, was an Oglala. He asked Skye if she had heard of him and Skye said of course she had, every idiot had, but she’d had no idea that she belonged to the same tribe and she grinned at Julia and Glen and said how cool was that? John Standing Bird nodded gravely and said he thought it was pretty damn cool and Skye said he shouldn’t cuss and now he had to give twenty alternatives, which he duly did.

  He went on to tell many stories about the Oglala and how they used to live and what had happened in the end to Crazy Horse, how he was betrayed by his own people and murdered. Nobody now knew what he looked like, John Standing Bird said, because he had never allowed his photograph to be taken. Not once did Skye take her eyes off him. She hung on his every word, her forehead puckered in a little frown and her mouth slightly open in a sort of subdued wonder.

  After the last story and when the last piece of wood had burned they watched the distant red and green flicker of the aurora borealis streaking the northern sky. It was the first time Julia had seen it and the sight moved her to tears. Something inside her had been rubbed raw by the past two days and Skye saw her crying and put an arm around her and that only made her cry more
.

  The following morning the four of them walked down the mountain and two miles west to where John Standing Bird had left his truck. He drove them along logging roads back to within a couple of miles of where they knew the group would now be. He got out of the truck so they could say their goodbyes and Julia and Glen thanked him. He said he hoped he would see all of them again and he held Skye’s hand in both of his and said that maybe, when her time with WAY was over, she might like to come visit with him up in Glacier. She said she would like that. Then he handed her a book, saying he thought it might interest her. It was called Black Elk Speaks and was all about her people, he said. Skye muttered her thanks and seemed unable to look him in the eye. It was obvious that she hadn’t been given many gifts before.

  They watched him drive off and stood staring after him until the dust drifted away.

  ‘Shall we go join the others?’ Glen asked.

  Skye nodded.

  9

  Henry’s was a murky corridor of a bar at the far end of North Higgins. It was one of those mysterious places whose parts didn’t add up to its whole and whose whole wasn’t to everyone’s taste anyhow. What it lacked in decor it more than made up for in what some called atmosphere and others just plain noise, much of which was generated on any given summer’s night by smoke jumpers.

  There were signed pictures of legendary ‘Zoolies’ behind the bar that ran along the right-hand wall and served just about every variety of microbrew beer known to man. For those who for one reason or another (mostly one reason) found it hard to stand, along the left-hand wall was a row of tall wooden tables where you could lean or perch precariously on stools. And it was at one of these, this particular summer’s night, that Connor Ford and Chuck Hamer sat staring morosely up at the TV news, counting all the money they weren’t earning.

  There were helicopter shots of a blazing mountainside and a plane flying in low and dumping a red cloud of retardant. Chuck Hamer called for quiet.