Something to Hold (12 page)

Jewel takes a sip of her pop. It is still and hot, even here in the shade. Her hand glistens with condensation from the cold bottle. "He's gone right now."

"Your stepfather?"

Jewel nods.

"Well, that's a good thing, huh?" I ask.

She shrugs. "He takes off ... and then he shows up again. We never know when or where."

"What about your mom?" I ask her. Mothers are supposed to protect their children.

Jewel doesn't speak for a second. Then she looks at me with that hard face I haven't seen in ages.

"She gave up a long time ago.
Káthla
is all we've got."

I hate that she's so helpless. "Can't your grandma tell somebody?"

"Like who?" she says, shaking her head. "The tribal cops can't touch him. And"—Jewel looks away—"the sheriff's office ... they're all white. They won't do a thing."

S
UDDENLY,
the siren on the concrete roof of Fire Control winds up. Men race for their cars and pickups.

Bill waves his arms at me from the other side of the field. Sweat glistens on his bare forehead. The fire call must have come in right when the boys hopped off the equipment at the parade's end.

"I have to go," I tell Jewel. "Something's up."

Bill has taken off running, Joe right behind him. I follow them to the shortcut up the hill behind the jail. I scoot around the side of the house as the boys bang through the screen door.

Mom is already making sandwiches. She has the lunch meat on the counter and the waxed paper in her hand. Every time Dad goes out on a fire, she sends food. Sometimes he is gone a couple of hours, sometimes a couple of days. We just never know.

"Would you find some fruit?" Mom shouts over the siren noise that invades the kitchen. "Dad has to get going."

I scoop apples out of the refrigerator. "Where's the fire?"

The siren winds down and then builds back up. "Somewhere up in the mountains. Lightning," Mom says. She works around me, filling Dad's canteen at the tap, bagging cookies, folding a paper towel for a napkin.

By the time we're done, Dad is ready to go. Now he's wearing a woods shirt with his work pants and boots.

"Stay by the radio," he tells Mom, holding the screen open with his boot. "I may need you to relay messages."

Dad runs to the truck and is gone. Then a pickup just like his speeds down the street. A couple of seconds later, a tribal police car with its lights flashing. All headed down to Fire Control below the hill.

***

All afternoon and into the evening, the radio in the hall is alive with voices. Mrs. Quempts checks in from the Shitike Butte lookout tower, then Mrs. Wesley on Sidwalter where Pinky is, and Mrs. Suppah on Eagle. The gravelly voice of Mr. Wirt down in the dispatch center threads the reports together, and slowly I learn the details. Lightning from a big storm by Mount Jefferson sparked the first plumes of smoke that quickly raged into a thick column boiling up over the foothills, visible from all three lookout towers. In a matter of hours, the fire grew into the largest of the season. And the fire crews have not yet reached it on the ground.

Dad checks in on the radio in his pickup, way out on Tenino Road, and then Mom makes us come to the table. She turns up the volume so that we can still listen. We eat supper beneath the babble of the airwaves.

"Let's go watch the fireworks later," Mom says. "We can see them from right behind the jail. We won't be far away in case—"

Screeching static erupts out of the radio, loud even in the kitchen. Lightning breaks up the transmission. "Mobile One. This is Sidwalter. Come in." Mrs. Wesley is calling Dad in his pickup.

"This is Mobile One—go ahead, Sidwalter," he says, steady and calm, though he must be hurtling down that gravel road as fast as he can get the truck to go.

"We've got dozens of strikes flaming up." Even through the airwaves, we can hear the chaos that enfolds Mrs. Wesley way out in the tower. Thunder booms and sets the static ablaze.

"Ten-four, Sidwalter," my dad replies. "A crew's on the way."

I glance over at Mom. She has stopped in midbite, listening hard, her face still. "Mom?"

"They'll be OK, honey," she says, and hurries out of the kitchen.

We follow her, crowding around the radio. I settle onto the floor, leaning up against the wall. We're still there in the hall when dusk fades to darkness outside. Fireworks start rattling the bathroom window, and sparkles of light from down at the ball fields reflect off the mirror.

"We'll see them next year," Bill says.

***

"Hey there, sleepyhead," Mom greets me as I walk into the kitchen in the morning. She is making a shopping list, and recipes are spread all over the kitchen table.

"Where's Dad?" I ask.

"Out in Seekseequa Canyon. He called in about an hour ago and said they were having a tough time getting a line around the fire."

"It's that big?"

"They'll get it under control," she says.

I can tell Mom knows I'm worried, because she changes the subject. "I've got to go to town this morning—groceries and the fabric store. You want to come?"

I can't think of anything more boring, but my options are limited. "OK. Can we stop by the library?" That will make it bearable.

Mom finds what she needs right away, so we're done in no time and ready to head for home after a quick stop at the library. She drops me off outside the building.

"Grab your books," she says, then points to the gas pumps across the street. "I'll meet you over at the Standard station. The tank's about empty."

When I pull open the heavy wooden door, I see Cathy Watson leaning on the broad counter while the librarian checks out her stack of books. Once that new girl, Linda, showed up at church last fall, Cathy and the other girls ignored me. Not that I wanted to go to their birthday parties or join Campfire Girls, but it still hurts that in Sunday school every week they act like I'm not even there.

I slide behind Cathy, hoping she won't notice. But she's gathering up her books when I come back to the counter with my own pile.

"You have your card?" the librarian asks me.

That makes Cathy look up. She gives me a polite smile, but there's no friendship in it. She turns, says thank you to the librarian, and pushes open the door.

On the way back home, by my own breezy window in the front seat, I replay what I wish Cathy had said. "Kitty, it's really great to see you!" Or "Let's get our moms to take us to the movies." I'm never going to hear anything like that.

The highway stretches up the hill away from Madras toward one of my favorite views, a long flat plain of mint fields and alfalfa reaching far out toward the mountains. When we crest the hill, I see that off in the distance, storm clouds tower over Mount Jefferson, their flat undersides black. But they aren't what scares me. It's the monster column of yellow-gray smoke boiling over the rugged slopes above Seekseequa Canyon. No wonder the firefighters are having trouble getting a line around the fire.

"Uh-oh," Mom says. "That's not good."

I can't look at all that smoke. I slap my hands over my eyes and put my head down.

"It's OK, honey," she says.

I keep my chin pressed to my chest. "Dad's out there. "

Mom pats my leg, then puts her hand back on the wheel.

It is now a long ride home. I don't look up until the road dips down below the rimrock. I count the curves down the long canyon until the pavement turns west, crosses the Deschutes River, and runs safely straight again toward Warm Springs.

When I get out of the car in our driveway, a stiff breeze fans dust over the flowers at the border of the yard. Bill sticks his head out the back door. "Mom!" he yells. "It's Dad—phone!"

Mom hurries in, pointing at the station wagon as she goes. Bill scowls barefoot out to the car, throws open the tailgate, and hefts a loaded grocery bag in each arm. "Shut it," he commands, turning back to the house.

I have to reach up on tiptoe to grab the handle and practically swing with my feet off the ground to pull down the heavy car door. The wind has picked up—dust and gravel now swirl around my legs. I heave the tailgate shut and sprint for the house.

Joe sits at the kitchen table, the carcass of a peanut butter sandwich on his plate. "Somebody died," he says.

"
What?
"

"Out at the fire. A bulldozer rolled over, and a guy got squished."

"Joe! Cut it out!" I don't want to imagine that stuff.

"Busted his head wide open," he says.

I slug him on the arm and rush out of the kitchen. Mom is still at the phone in the hall, saying, "Oh, Bud, that's horrible."

I slip out to the sun porch and close the door so I don't have to hear any more. I slump down on the padded bench built into the wall and hug the pillow covered with Grandma's old curtains. Through the bank of windows, I can see the wind slashing at the tall poplars down the street. The sky is clouded over, and it feels heavy and dark.

The door from the living room opens. "You OK?" asks Bill. He comes and sits down next to me, leans back against the wall, and pulls up his knees. "Joe's a big dope. Nobody's dead."

"Yeah?"

"Course not. A guy got hurt, but his head isn't busted."

"Will he be OK?" I ask into the pillow.

"Yeah. They took him to the hospital in Prineville. Dad called from there."

It must have been bad if Dad left the fire to go with him.

A low rumble, quiet and far away at first, keeps coming and rolls over the house. The first drops of rain clatter against the porch as Mom calls for Bill to help her close windows. In seconds, every pane of glass is dripping.

W
HEN
the storm passes off to the east, I open the back door. Cool air blows in through the screen, clearing out the moist heat trapped in the house. Maybe the rain will help with the fire, I think hopefully.

A couple of hours later, I'm sitting on the back step reading when I hear Bill and Joe on their way home from baseball practice. The sound of their arguing reaches me even before I can see them. The sun is fully back and hot, the dust dried and puffing up under their feet as they scuff through the gravel in the driveway.

"Goofus here couldn't catch a grounder if it was handed to him." Bill pounds the dust out of his glove on the side of the house, storms inside, and slams the screen door behind him.

Joe sits down beside me. Both knees are scraped raw below the fringe of his cutoffs. He must have been playing the far outfield, which is cluttered with rocks and thorny cheatgrass.

"What's up?" I ask.

"Bill's mad 'cause he's not pitching tonight."

"How come?"

"Sherf put him on third base," Joe says. "Raymond showed up today."

"He
did?
" Raymond hasn't played all summer, and I've been wondering where he was.

Joe wipes a drip of blood off his knee with his finger. "Yep."

Mom calls us in to supper. There's still no word from Dad, so she covers a plate in waxed paper and puts it back in the refrigerator.

***

The game is way out in Metolius, a long drive into the heart of Madras, then out the back road along the west side of the valley. The neat lawns in town thin out to a scattering of junkyards and feedlots, then there's nothing but a few straight miles of sagebrush until we get to the next water tower. Metolius is smaller than Madras, about the size of Warm Springs. The ball field spreads out behind the grade school on the far side of town.

As soon as Mom stops, Joe dashes out of the car and onto the field. She leaves the engine running.

"Kitty," she says, "I've got to go into Madras for a quick meeting at the church. I'll be back before the game's over."

Bill waits for me as she drives away. I know just from looking at him that he has something to tell me but isn't sure how to say it.

"What?" I ask.

He glances around quickly. "I wouldn't say anything if Mom was still here. But keep your eyes open tonight."

"How come?"

"There's this guy who shows up at games when we play off the reservation. Sometimes he says stuff." He walks me over to the bleachers.

"Like what?" I ask.

Bill sighs. "Look, just things that can be really ... ugly. I want you to be ready." And he trots over to the bench to join his team.

I take my book and find a spot at the edge of the bleachers right behind the backstop. Out of the way of batting practice and foul balls and any crazy, mean people. From here, I have a clear view of the Metolius crowd. They look pretty normal—and harmless.

Sherf parks his battered pickup beside the bleachers and pulls a canvas bag of balls and bats out of the truck bed. Then Raymond, with his glove, slides out on the passenger side.

He follows the coach up to the backstop and hesitates. There's a big man in a John Deere cap leaning against the fence. The man starts to say something, but Raymond pushes past him. The man curls his fingers into the chainlink fence and watches Raymond jog onto the field.

***

There's still no score in the bottom of the fifth. When Metolius comes up to bat, the crowd gets quiet. The big red-haired guy who plays left field hefts a bat across his shoulder and then pounds it on the plate.

The umpire signals to Raymond, who nods once at the batter and throws. The kid doesn't even twitch until the ball thunks into Jimmy's glove. And then he glances down at Jimmy like,
Where'd that come from?

"Strike one!"

Jimmy tosses the ball back to Raymond. The red-haired kid takes a couple of swings and waits, bat poised.

Another shot. Another
thwack!
"Strike two!"

A buzz sweeps through the crowd on the Metolius side, like a hive of angry bees.

"Hey, ump!" the man behind the backstop yells, right in the umpire's ear. "Get your eyes checked!" He turns to the side and plunks a long stream of brown tobacco spit into the dirt.

Raymond hides the ball in his glove, chin to his chest, and stands still on the mound.

"Throw that thing!" hollers the man, dropping his arms from the fence. "C'mon, Chief!"