On Fire
ON FIRE
O
N
F
IRE
D
IANNE
L
INDEN
©Dianne Linden, 2013
All rights reserved
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Thistledown Press Ltd.
118 - 20th Street West
Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, S7M 0W6
www.thistledownpress.com
Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication
Linden, Dianne
On fire [electronic resource] / Dianne Linden.
Electronic monograph in HTML format.
Issued also in print format.
ISBN 978-1-927068-55-7
I. Title.
PS8573.I51O5 2013Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â jC813'.6Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â C2013-900960-4
Author photograph by Gary Ford
Cover and book design by Jackie Forrie
Printed and bound in Canada
Thistledown Press gratefully acknowledges the financial assistance of the Canada Council for the Arts, the Saskatchewan Arts Board, and the Government of Canada through the Canada Book Fund for its publishing program.
O
N
F
IRE
For my beautiful daughter,
For her beautiful daughter,
And for Adrian Jones, wherever he is
“
Some people need a story more than food to stay alive.”
â Barry Lopez,
Crow and Weasel
CONTENTS
9: YOU DON'T KNOW WHAT'S OUT THERE
1: NOTHING CAN TRACK A HUMAN OVER WATER
3: THE DEAD ARE ALWAYS WITH US
8: A DANGER TO HIMSELF AND OTHERS
16: A LITTLE GUY WITH SUSPENDERS
I
WAS OUT BEHIND MY HOUSE
practicing Karate when I saw him coming down the trail from the Blackstone Wilderness. I thought he was drunk from the way he was weaving back and forth. I picked up a rock because I'm not exactly a black belt yet.
When he got closer, I saw that one of his shoes was gone and his clothes were torn to shreds. Even closer and I noticed he had bruises and cuts everywhere.
I stood there not knowing what to do and then, right in front of me, he collapsed. There was a sound like a hiccup going backwards, several of them and they all came from me. “Get up,” I said. “What's wrong with you?”
“On fire,” is the answer he gave me. It didn't tell me much. Everything was on fire that summer. Prophet Mountain. Sawtooth Ridge. The Skulls. The Wilderness, especially.
“Get up!” I said again. I pulled on his arm. He just stared at me. His eyes were very blue and something was leaking out of them. I didn't think tears was the right word for it.
“Help!” I yelled. “Somebody,” even though I knew when I opened my mouth it was useless. Most of the folks in Blackstone Village had run away from the fires, so there was hardly anyone left to hear me.
Two ravens flew down into a nearby tree and squawked. That was it. There weren't even any dogs left to bark.
I decided to run and get the collapsible wheel chair from our back porch at home. It was for my mom, when she still needed one. “I'll be right back,” I told the on-fire guy. “Don't move!” Not that he looked like he was going anywhere.
“Help me,” he said.
“I'm going to,” I told him. And then I took off, maybe not like I was in the Olympics, but as fast as I could.
I was used to people making fun of me. At school they called me Tourette's Girl, like I came out of a phone booth wearing a costume and made weird noises for their entertainment. But I was a serious person who'd been waiting for a serious purpose.
So what if I couldn't control every little sound that came out of my mouth? So what if I wasn't average? I meant it when I said I'd help this on-fire guy. In fact I meant to save his life.
I hadn't been able to do that for my mom, and I was damned if I'd fail again.
I
TOOK HIM TO WHAT WE
called the town office. It was also the fire chief's office, and the mayor's office. And the office of the Justice of the Peace. But I called it
the jail
because a bear broke in one fall trying to get at the apples someone had stored there. After that we got bars on the windows.
We also put in a bed there so people who'd had too many drinks at the Hot Spot Restaurant and Pub could sober up before they drove home.
I knew the jail was empty because almost everyone who hadn't left town earlier was out fire fighting. The door was probably locked, but that wasn't a problem. I'd opened it before with an expired credit card I carry around for things like that.
The name of the fire chief, by the way, and the major and the Justice of the Peace is Frank Iverly. He's my father. I had to grow up fast after we lost my mother and I've called him by his first name ever since.
I almost lost the on-fire guy going over the doorstop. He'd gone to sleep and I had to grab him by the arm at the last minute and get him straight again. Then I opened the door and we went inside. It was hot because the jail had been closed up for a week or so, but I couldn't help that.
“Okay,” I said. “You can rest here.”
He just looked at me with his leaky eyes.
“This isn't really a jail. You're not under arrest or anything. Lie down. Then I'll go and get help.”
He didn't move.
I pushed the chair across the room to where the bed was. “It's comfortable. See?” I patted the mattress. “The bed's a little narrow but it hasn't been slept on by a murderer or anything.”
Still nothing.
I shook the chair a little. “Get out,” I said.
He went on sitting.
Finally I tipped the chair so far forward that he fell onto the bed face first and stayed there folded over on his side. I straightened out his legs the best I could. “I'm going to get help now,” I said again.
Then I ran off to find Marsh Dunegan, who's a friend of ours. I knew he was still around. He was part of the reason Frank let me stay on in the village after he left.
S
OMETHING HAPPENED TO
M
ARSH IN THE
war that made him not like being cooped up inside, so he didn't spend much time in a house like other people. I usually tracked him down by watching for his truck.
The day I found the on-fire guy it was parked outside the Hot Spot, which was the only business left open in town, except for the Gas and Grocery. That belonged to Frank and me.
I ran toward the truck and there he was, having a cold one and talking to Allard Grass, the Hot Spot owner. “I've got an emergency,” I said. “Come on.”
I grabbed Marsh's arm and pulled him up on to his feet. Then I ran ahead, but I could hear his hiking boots crunching on the gravel behind me.
Frank keeps a fan on top of the filing cabinet in the jail. Marsh turned it on when we got back and aimed it at the on-fire guy who was lying in the exact same position I'd left him in. Then Marsh sat down on the side of the bed.
“Hello,” he said. Not to me, of course.
“Flying,” the on-fire guy said. His face was bright red. It made his eyes look even bluer when he opened them. “Did you see me?”
“Afraid I missed that,” Marsh said.
“How I got here,” the guy said. “Ravens helped me.”
“I brought you here,” I said. “Ravens didn't have anything to do with it.”
The guy shifted his eyes over to me and shielded them with one hand like he was looking into the light. “Are you an angel?” he asked.
“Of course not,” I told him. My face suddenly felt very hot. I went and stood right in front of the fan.
He rolled his head over on the pillow until he was looking at Marsh again. “This isn't heaven then?”
“Far from it,” Marsh said. He wrapped his fingers around the on-fire guy's wrist and counted his pulse. “How're you feeling? Still flying?” He stretched the right eye open. Same for the left. “Follow my finger,” he said.
The on-fire guy stared at him like his eyelids were locked open in his head. Then slowly, slowly he let them close down.
Marsh opened the only window in the jail and cranked the speed of the fan up as high as it would go. Then he motioned me to follow him outside. “Where'd you find him?” he asked me.
“I was on the Wilderness trail head,” I said, “practicing my Karate when I saw him coming down.”