Rush (14 page)
Authors: Jonathan Friesen
I let it go on ahead and follow twenty paces back. By the time I reach the bottom of the ravine I'm relaxed. Like I am with Salomeâwell, like I was.
I pause and circle in what once was a stream. Now it's deadârocky and lifeless and cool in the night. I rub my arms as she had done, close my eyes, and see her sitting on my bed and wonder what makes this job so hard to leave.
Laughter. Lots of it. I light-foot forward through the darkness and wind through the ravine. I round a rocky outcropping and stop. A hundred feet ahead, a bonfire burns, and fiery tongues lick the sky. The flame sets near twenty faces glowing. I know them all.
I live with three.
They all wear their jackets, the one I have on my back. I slip behind my rocky shield and peek over the top.
“Well, gentlemen, we once again have an opening. We are nineteen. According to the rules, we must be twenty.” Mox places his arm around Troy's shoulder. My buddy Troy. My left-him-laughing-in-front-of-Brooke's Troy.
My brown-jacketed Troy.
“Our new member has been appointed, and now only one item remains undone.” He smiles. Fatty and Fez shuffle behind the fire, and I can't see a thing. They reappear, lugging a wooden disc ten feet in diameter. They lower it onto a stake and step back. The wood wobbles, steadies, and the men circle.
My breath catches, and I close my eyes. In my memory the images are clearâKoss scratches a clocklike drawing in the dirt, Mox wipes his finger in red spray paint. The wooden disc lifts, turns over in my mind, and both eyes shoot open.
They were never drawing a clock. It was this wheel.
“While you're in the spin, you will speak to nobody about your task. We won't speak to you.” Mox sounds triumphant.
Troy looks at Mox. My buddy is scared. I see it one hundred feet away. “I do this, and I'm in?”
Mox says nothing.
“And then no more spins ever?” Troy looks around. Nobody answers. He's staring down at this disc. I can't see all his face, but half is enough. Half says whatever's on the disc is more than he bargained for.
“Spin, spin.” The chant starts slowly, quietly. It gathers steam. Eyes blaze, and the group bends down like they're worshipping this thing, like it holds the script of their lives. Only Troy still stands.
I want to call to him. I want to remind him he has a family and he doesn't have to do whatever this crackpot tells him. I want him to take off running my way. We'd outrun them. I know we could. I step out from behind the rock. Troy falls to his knees, grabs the disc, and gives it a whirl.
The chanting stops as the wheel turns and tilts and wobbles. It comes to a lazy rest, and everyone slowly stands.
Troy jogs over to Mox, grabs his sleeve. Troy tries to catch Mox's gaze but cannot. In the firelight, I see my friend's face blanch.
Mox rips his arm away and straightens his jacket.
“Welcome to the Rush Club.”
CHAPTER 19
MY HEART RACES.
It rarely races.
It rarely races.
But an hour after the wheel was whisked away, after nineteen men snaked silently back toward the path that leads up to the villa, my heart pounds harder than ever. Because Troy still sits, head buried in his hands, in front of the embers of a fire.
I approach him quietly, and again feel the heavy press down on me. But this is a different heavy, a bad heavy, a weight that excites and sickens at the same time.
“Troy,” I whisper. He doesn't move. “Troy?” He jerks around and stares at me with wide eyes. His gaze shifts to where the wheel was, where the stake still is, and crawls back to me.
“Just get here?”
“No.”
My word acts like an electric jolt. He's on his feet. “What'd you see?”
I walk toward him, slap his back, and plop to the ground. “Not sure. I was hoping you could fill me in.”
Troy eases down to the earth, and together we stare at flickering embers.
I lean into his shoulder. “Here's what I know. Nineteen guys, you'll make twenty. Guys from the dozer crew, the hand crews, and, of course, my sorry bunch minus Koss. Mox was in charge, as always. A big wheel came out. You spun, you freaked. âWelcome to the Rush Club.'” I peek at Troy.
He nods. “You know, I always thought
you
were the freak. Even though we hung out, I'd go home and tell my folks you were crazy.”
you
were the freak. Even though we hung out, I'd go home and tell my folks you were crazy.”
I dig in the dirt with my heel. “That's not so far off the truth.”
“I mean, when I started seeing Cheyenne, she'd ask me why I'd want to hang with a guy who had a death wish. Remember your waterfall dive? What was that?”
I squeeze my forehead between thumb and forefinger. “People do strange things to feel normal.”
His voice softens. “But at least you do your
own
thing. You don't let Mox or anybody get to you.”
own
thing. You don't let Mox or anybody get to you.”
“Can't say that.”
It's quiet for a long time.
Troy sighs. “I've done a lot of dumb things, especially when you're around.”
I wave him off. “True.”
A weighty silence falls. It's too big to lift. And in that silence a feeling births, a closeness with my friend that I've never felt. I know that whatever this club is, we're in it together. Fifteen minutes pass and we say nothing. In the distance, there's a howl, but we don't flinch. Because Troy is a friend. I'm not going anywhere.
We rise slowly and stomp out embers. It's dark, and I know Troy's dodging, so I grab him beneath the arm. “I need to know what I saw, and why you want something you think is cursed.”
He sighs. “Can you see my face?”
“No,” I say.
“I'm in the spin. The Rush Club has an opening, and I just need to get through initiation.”
“Do what's on the wheel.”
“Yeah,” he whispers.
“Why'd they pick you?”
“They didn't. Immortals name their successor in case they don't . . .”
“Make it,” I say.
Troy's fingers flex and loosen. “Carter named me.”
“This club, you don't have to do this. Nobody can make you.” I put my hand on his shoulder. “Think about this. You have a beautiful girl, and you don't
need
any of this. You're not like me.”
need
any of this. You're not like me.”
“No”âhis voice grows fainterâ“but Mox can take away the circus. He trashes my reputation, and no rappel crew in the country will pull my cert again. And Cheyenne begged me to apply here. Close to family. It's the perfect place for us.”
I nod, then frown. “But . . . you're not on a rappel crew.”
He smiles weakly. “Mox said he was going to pick me up real soon. He said there'll be an opening, and this time he's going to be the one to fill it. That means we'll be on the same crew. Except I don't know how he's going to fit six rappellers in one copter.”
He won't.
I lean over and rub my legs hard. “So does everyone join? Everyone just listens to Mox and half die?”
“No. There was this guy picked up by the hand crew earlier this year. Kyle's successor. He blew off Mox's offer of immortality.”
My eyes widen.
“Yeah,” he continues. “Rumor has it you know him pretty well.”
CHAPTER 20
THE PATIO BEHIND OUR
villa is quiet. Unusual for our crew. But I don't mind. Fatty tans on a burdened lounge chair and Fez chain-smokes over a crossword puzzle. That leaves Koss and me to work the grill.
villa is quiet. Unusual for our crew. But I don't mind. Fatty tans on a burdened lounge chair and Fez chain-smokes over a crossword puzzle. That leaves Koss and me to work the grill.
“Good news.” Mox saunters up to the barbecue, grabs a hot dog bare-fingered, and smokes it like a cigar. “We're back on rotation. Put the coals out. There's a fire up in Anderson.”
Koss nods. Fez and Fatty whoop. And I take care of the coals.
Ten minutes later we get our orders, and we jog, geared up, onto the tarmac. We swing into the helicopter beneath the thumping of rotors. In the distance, a finger of black spirals into the sky.
This moment answers all the questions. The “why” Salome doesn't understand and the reason I'll never comply with Dad's request. Inside, I burn a joyful burn, and darkness flees. I hate fire. I want to kill it. But I love it. It dances in my mind.
We hover over the smoke. Radio scratches in the distance.
“Abort, guys. Wind shifts in the canyon.” The copter pilot looks back and smiles. “It's turning ugly. Not your war today.”
Nobody pays attention. We stare at Moxie's shadow. A red light flashes across his face.
We're near it. He smells it like I smell it. The mindless hate of an out-of-control burn. Only he smells it more. His hands slowly open, close. He gently rocks, trying to feel, starting to feel. Moxie's eyes gleam.
He reaches into a chest pocket, pulls out a picture, presses it against his chest, then quickly stuffs it back.
“Hover!” Mox steps out onto the helicopter's skids. “The IC has the call, and this IC says, yeehaw!” Mox tucks into the pike position, pats his belly bag, and disappears down his rappelling rope.
“Stupid bastard!” Harv, our spotter, reaches for the radio. “Dispatch, Helicopter Five Hotel X-ray. Have visual of Incident One-Three-One with four souls left on board . . . make that three souls. Two. I take that back, one. Two sticks are planted. Only the short end still remains in the copter. Yes, they were told! Over.”
The pilot muscles his body around, jams his finger into the pine-tree logo on my jacket. “You stay put.” He grabs the radio, and I step out onto the skids.
I have no authority to leave this copter. I have to stay. Mox will get a hand slap when he returns. But maybe not me. I could get the superintendent's boot.
“Jake!” Koss's voice is thin and distant.
“Guess it is our war,” I say to Harv. “Later.”
Finding our safety zone. Securing the eighty-pound K-bag filled with saws and food, axes and survival equipment. There will be time for all that. But not now. I stand on the skid and stare out over the sea of green. Smoke rises from beneath the canopy of trees and sends spindly fingers up to grab me. It's down there, waiting to destroy or be destroyed.
I glance at the tail rotor. No use waiting for Harv's signal. It won't come. My heartbeat races, and a smile so big I feel it spreads across my face. The smoke, it comforts me, and I remember camping trips with Dad.
“Jake!”
I zip down the line into the suffocating cloud. My feet hit Koss's hands, and I hear curses and laughter. I slow. We descend together. The thicker the smoke, the clearer I think. The cloud that fogs my mind blows away, and I'm all here. Right now. Let there be light.
We drop into the furnace and this hell's hazy glow. Feet hit the logging road at the canyon's bottom.
“Glad you joined us, kid.” Mox smiles.
My eyes scan for safety zonesâalternative spots to flee into, and I see none.
There's only the road. This is off to a great start!
There's only the road. This is off to a great start!
“Gentlemen.” Mox points toward a wall of fire that stretches up one side of the canyon. “That is not our fire. Our fire is two miles over that ridge. Ten minutes ago, this fire didn't exist. But Immortals are always in the right place at the right time.”
I turn from the blaze and bombs and falling trees.
Behind me, an untouched forest, dark and beautiful, stretches up toward the opposite peak.
“If this fire makes here, we'll lose her. She'll jump the road.” Moxie races twenty feet toward the blaze. “Here! This old fire line. She stops here. Widen it!”
I grab my cutter and rip the cord. The wind blows steady from the west, smacks the fire in the face. Chainsaws roar and eat up anything the fire might find tasty. We whack brush in the black, on the tarry patch of earth consumed before the wind forced her back.
The heat is unbelievable.
“Whew,” I say. “She's hot.”
Koss turns his sooty face. His eyes dance. “And dirty. Kick.”
I kick at the ground brush and overturn fresh tinder. “We're too close.”
A breeze, gentle and scorching, licks my lips. A northern breeze. Koss freezes. He knows it, too. Wind shift. Dirty burn. It's not done with this charred ground.
“Hey, Koss,” I yell. “That breeze is circlingâ”
“Moxie!” Koss hollers. “What do you think about Chinese for dinner tonight?”
“Ask Fatty!”
“Mexican.” Fatty's voice sounds thin, far away.
“Would you consider Chinese made by Mexicans?” Koss checks the wind, peeks back at me. “Stay close!” He moves forward.
“How come Chinese food is the only thing not made in China?” Mox hollers.
Koss laughs, wild and free. “You're in the great state of California, my friend.”
I can't see anyone but Koss through the smoke, but I don't need to. Moxie's, Fez's, and Fatty's chainsaws snarl in the distance. Hanging branches, fire food to the treetops, lie in piles on the ground. Fez's handiwork. Fatty and Koss clear brush and saw anything that still stands.
We wind through Snake Valley. Another north wind blasts; heat singes my eyebrows. We're too close.
Moxie is playing again.
“Fall back, Mox!” I rasp, and gulp water from my canteen.
Twenty paces ahead a charred ponderosa pops and explodes with a shower of embers. A second more, and another blows. Trees creak, fall. Koss turns and grimaces. A nightmare has begun.
“Make the road, Jake, dump your gear, and tent up like a turtle. This will be close!” Koss ditches his saw and claws at his survival tent. I drop my pack and run. Ahead, across the trail, embers ignite into fireballs and creep up fuel ladders toward the sky. She's jumped the road.
Cut off from Moxie, Fez, and Fatty, I fall to my knees.
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