On the Divinity of Second Chances (26 page)

“I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry,” she told Aretha through her streaming tears.

Her thoughts turned from gratitude to the fact that someone had killed her beloved dog and dumped her here as if she were trash instead of the love of her life. She began to feel crazy, angry and crazy. She shrieked up to the sky, “She was everything to me!” Then she just shrieked angry screams unlike any noises I’d ever heard her make before. She screamed and screamed, her screams echoing in the valley below. As unlikely as it was that anyone was out here, Jade hoped the person who’d left Aretha there could hear her, and she hoped it made him hurt. She sat surrounded by trash and empty beer cans in the stench near the bloodstains on the gravel and earth, just sat shrieking and screaming and stroking Aretha’s stiff fur.

“Oh, child . . .” I felt for her.

Jade went to her truck and dug out a space blanket from the emergency box. She lifted Aretha and laid her on the space blanket. She noticed that there was nothing but ribs left on the side of Aretha that had been lying on the ground. The smell was unbearable and got in her mouth as she struggled to carry the heavy corpse down the steep talus slope, away from the Budweiser cans, down through the sage. Although Jade liked the idea that Aretha was becoming part of all living things, coyotes, and crows, she carried her down to the aspens to bury her, to reclaim her. She carried her down, down, down to the aspen grove below, where the old aspens have died but new shoots promise the ever-continuing cycle of life. Jade put the collar of her T-shirt over her nose to filter some of the stench of death, though it already seemed so embedded in her nose and mouth that she was sure she would taste it and smell it for days. Maybe the T-shirt filtered a little—she wasn’t sure. Jade laughed as she remembered all the times Aretha had rolled in something dead, relishing the perfume, almost delirious with olfactory bliss, and how it brought Jade to new levels of fury each time. She’d angrily bathe Aretha with Suave green apple shampoo, the only thing she ever found to conquer that stench. Jade laughed at how it seemed Aretha got the last word in, and how if Aretha could smell herself now, she’d likely be quite pleased.

Jade dug through the layers of dirt in the aspen grove with a stick, not a great tool for the job. Looking out over the valley during breaks she took from digging, she considered how if Aretha was hit near their home, someone had made an effort to bring her here to the highest, most scenic point. Although they dumped her among beer cans, maybe, in their own way, they had tried to seek out a nice resting place.

Jade picked up Aretha and laid her in the hole. She cried while she picked flowers to fill up Aretha’s chest cavity, to fill the place where her heart had been, to attempt to replace the beauty.

“Oh, she still has a beautiful heart, child. She loves you so much,” I told her, hoping she could still hear me on some level.

Jade unbraided her cornrows and combed her kinky hair with her hands. She took handfuls of loose hair and put them in Aretha’s grave.

“Oh, child, you want a part of you to merge with a part of her? Honey, you don’t have to do that. You two are so connected. You’ve already merged.” But my words fell on deaf ears.

Even though it no longer felt soft like velvet, Jade touched the fur on Aretha’s ears one last time, the last time ever, and sobbed while she covered her friend with dirt.

She cried so hard she couldn’t see and stumbled up the hill with the space blanket, filled the space blanket with rocks, and carried it to the grave below. Before leaving, Jade scattered wildflowers over the rock pile, hoping they would drop their seeds and grow through the rocks the following summer.

Forrest on Fire
(July 29)

I know Dad has been coming up here on Wednesdays, so I wait for him on top. I hide back in a grove of aspens in case I change my mind and want to chicken out. I don’t know what I will say, how much or how little. I consider just visiting with him without telling him who I am. Wouldn’t it be interesting to see if he’d recognize me? When I put my hand to my chin and feel the dreadlocks in my beard, I don’t know—it seems like a pretty safe bet he won’t. Of course, if he does, he’ll be horrified. I guess I should have hacked back this beard when I was at Jade’s. Maybe my hair, too. I don’t know. They both keep me warm in winter. In the end, all my anxiety is for nothing; Dad doesn’t show.

I wonder if he is okay, so I begin to make my way down to check in with Jade and get the news.

I alter my course just a little to see how Matt is coming along. As I near, I smell smoke. I walk a little faster through the beautiful grove of pine and aspen. Finally, I see his camp. That idiot has a campfire burning. He sits next to it, cooking something. His girlfriend sits next to him in a long Indian skirt. Her blond hair is in two braids. She makes circles on his lower back with her hand, and from time to time, he leans over to kiss her.

“How funny,” I say. “I was so sure you’d be eaten by a bear next spring, but it appears you’re going to kill yourself and your girlfriend in a fire first. I can’t believe you didn’t listen to my warnings.”

They jump.

I take off my moccasins and begin to walk around the fire in a spiral, taking smaller steps near two aspen trees. Fine, fine, fine, fine, warm, warmer. “Where’s your shovel? ” I ask sharply.

“Are you going to kill us?” the idiot girl asks.

I shake my head and let it drop with disgust.

“I don’t have one,” Matt answers. Matt reached over and held up a garden trowel.

I scratch my beard and look at him. He has no idea what he’s done.

“Where’s your axe?” I ask.

I hear the idiot girl whisper, “What if he kills us with it?”

I look around his woodpile and find it myself. I start chopping at the ground where my feet felt heat. Smoke begins to escape from the hole, and then a little flame. I stand back to let Matt see.

“Take a look at all of this.” I raise my arm toward all the pine on one side of the valley, the golden, grassy hillsides on the other, the valley bottom, and the gold and green mountains behind these mountains. “Take a good look at all of it. Take it in and remember it well, because in about two weeks, maybe less, thanks to you starting a root fire, it will all be black.”

Matt and the idiot girl look scared. They should be.

“If you had listened to me and got a camp stove, there would be no fire. If you had listened to me and got a shovel, you might have had a chance at fighting this. Listen to me now. Pack your stuff. Be sure to take everything that would identify that it was you living here. Use your axe to bury your fire so it looks like you tried. Drive to town, call 911, report the fire, but don’t give your name. Tell them you started it by accident, so that if they do catch you, they’ll know you reported it. Campfires haven’t been allowed for two months. You were incredibly negligent. If this fire blows up, you’ll be serving time. If firefighters or anyone else dies in it, you could be serving life. Report it so hopefully it can be contained before it gets way, way out of control. Then, go south. Get out of the country. Don’t ever talk to a soul about it. Wait to see if it blows over or blows up. If it blows over, you can come back to the States, but not here. If it blows up, stay in Mexico.”

I leave them like that, stunned by their own stupidity, and start out to report this to Lightning Bob.

I walk as fast as I can straight up the hillside, past two abandoned mines, and around a talus slope. At the top of the ridge, I wave my arms toward the tower and point back at Matt’s camp. It’s well into twilight, so I doubt Lightning Bob can see me. I start running along the top of the ridge for several miles, over peaks and saddles. At times I land on a rock wrong, and it hurts my foot. Moccasins don’t offer much protection. Still, I race the diminishing light since the moon is waning and won’t be up for a while. When the light is gone, it’ll be gone for several hours. I won’t be able to see anything and will have to stop and wait, sweaty and cold, as the night drops into the forties. I push myself harder.

I run off the edge of this ridge, down halfway until I catch the saddle that leads up to Lightning Bob’s ridge. I can barely see now and have to slow down to watch my step. Luckily, Lightning Bob has his light on and it guides me toward him even as the last of the light in the sky dwindles. I keep walking and walking toward that light.

Finally, Lightning Bob turns out his light. I’m stuck. I find a pine tree and dig a hole in the needles below. I curl up in it and wait for the moon, willing myself not to fall asleep. Every hour counts.

I wonder if Matt is just starting the journey I’ve taken. Nah, his only crime is negligence. My intention was vindictive. There’s a big difference there.

I see a cloud. Not good. If a storm’s coming, that means wind is coming, too. More clouds blow in as the moon begins to rise, interfering with the little light I have. I’m able to walk for a while, but then I have to wait for a cloud to pass.

When the moon is halfway up in the sky, I reach the tower. Flash hears me and barks. I climb up the tower stairs and wait on the deck. I look off toward Matt’s camp and see orange.

Lightning Bob finally opens the door. “I thought I heard someone climb my stairs,” he says sleepily. I rush past him to his table where the glass covers a topographic map. I find Matt’s camp and point. “A camper started a root fire here around seven p.m. I think it’s grown.” I point out his window toward the glow.

Lightning Bob studies me, confused at first, having never heard me speak before, but looks at the glow and calls it in. Dispatch informs him they’re sending a truck to check it out.

Confident I’ve done my job, I lie on the rug on Lightning Bob’s floor and fall asleep. He puts a green wool blanket over me, and I appreciate the warmth.

Jade on Invisible Dogs
(August 2)

I rollerblade down the Rails to Trails going north out of Mont Soleil. I don’t feel like wearing a superhero cape or blowing bubbles today. It’s my first time out in a long time. Even though I don’t feel strong, I fall into the meditative rhythm. Then I notice Grace rollerblading next to me.

“Where have you been?” I ask her angrily.

“I’ve been here all along,” Grace answers.

“Haven’t seen you.”

“You haven’t seen anything but your low-vibration emotions.”

“What’s your point?”

“Remember when you were little and your folks started worrying about you, you know, having an invisible friend and all? They made you go to that psychiatrist? By the time they were done with you, you thought you were nuts. And you asked me, remember this? You asked me why you could see me and others couldn’t.”

“Yes, I remember.”

“And what’d I tell you?”

“You told me that humans have to stay on the ground because they can’t flap their arms fast enough, and that hummingbirds can fly because they can flap their arms a lot faster,” I answer.

Grace is exasperated. “I said, ‘Child, your spirit is like a hummingbird. Fast like that. And so it can be in the world, but float above it at the same time. That’s what you normally do, float above your world, which is why you can see me.’ But since Aretha crossed over, you haven’t been floating, girl. You’ve slowed down.”

Some people pass me on the trail. I try to look normal, not like I’m talking to someone they can’t see.

Grace takes a good look at me. “You let your hair down. That’s good. There’s nothing cuter than a little white girl in braids, but as you were getting older, well, it wasn’t such a good look for you.”

“Have you been hanging out with my mother?”

“I’m just saying, you’re a good-looking white girl. That’s all.”

“Grace, I want my dog back,” I tell her.

“She hasn’t left you,” Grace says and points to a hologram of Aretha running ahead of us.

“Oh, no, Grace, did I not release her? I don’t want her caught between two worlds or anything.”

“Child, you released her fine. She made it. She just watches you from there and comes around for visits is all,” Grace explains.

“That’s nice and everything, but I really miss her in physical form.”

“Ah, she’ll be back with you in physical form again.”

“You mean in this lifetime?” I ask.

“Yes, I believe so.”

“When?”

“I’m not exactly sure. But I know this. You’ll know her when you see her. You’ll look into her eyes and just know.”

“What if she reincarnates and I somehow mess things up and I’m not where I’m supposed to be at a certain time and we don’t connect?”

“Doesn’t work like that,” Grace assures me. “Don’t worry about it. Pets find you. They’re really good at it.”

“Grace?”

“Yeah.”

“I’m sorry I got mad at you.”

“Apology accepted.”

Forrest on the Way Out
(August 2)

“Forrest, we’ve got a problem. Wake up.” Lightning Bob and I watched the fire gradually grow all day yesterday, but the urgency in his voice and the sound of him throwing a few items into his backpack jolts me out of my sleep. I know it can’t be good.

I step out of his extra sleeping bag on the floor and look out the window. “Jesus Christ . . .” I say, watching the orange filling the valley and hillsides south of us, licking the night sky in flames higher than skyscrapers.

“Firestorm. My guess is it was traveling almost fifty miles per hour. It tripled in size in five minutes. No one has heard from the first fire truck to respond. We don’t know if they got trapped.”

I go to the topo map table. “Which way are you thinking of evacuating?”

“If we can go toward it just a little, we can catch Road 1103. Choppers will be able to see us, trucks will be able to access us, and we’ll have a little buffer from the flames,” Lightning Bob answers.

“What time is it now? Four? In less than an hour and a half, the morning wind shift is going to blow that fire back downhill. I predict it will go right there. You’re gambling on rescuers finding us before we fry. If the fire heads back down, we could go into tonight’s burn area where there’s no fuel left, but the ground will probably still be hot enough to melt your boot soles and do serious damage to Flash’s paws. I don’t know. How long does it take for the ground to cool?”