Something to Hold (17 page)

In the museum at the back of McKenzie's store, I've seen photos of the men fishing with long poles and nets. They stood on wooden platforms that stuck out over the river but were anchored to the rocks. The water rumbled under their feet. A skinny rope tied around the fisherman's waist was his only safety harness. It must have been scary, but Indian people had fished at Celilo forever.

"Even though we now live at Warm Springs," Mrs. Wesley says, "we've never left the river."

The road is now almost completely shadowed. We walk a little bit farther, to the turnoff that disappears down the far side of the hill and ends up at Jewel's camp.

"I wish I was from somewhere powerful like that," I say quietly.

Mrs. Wesley smiles. "The Creator has also placed you where you need to be." Then she turns, and we make our way back up the hill. I wonder what she means exactly.

I feel better at bedtime, but I don't want to sleep outside. Instead, Mrs. Wesley lays out my sleeping bag on the floor right in front of the door, the only open spot in the cabin. Pinky curls up on the bed with her mom. We say good night, and Mrs. Wesley turns out the propane light.

My sleeping bag is a soft cocoon, even on the hard floor. The red light on the battery-powered radio blinks above my head. The faint hiss of static sounds like water. As I drift toward sleep, I listen for Celilo Falls tumbling over boulders far away.

***

I'm thrust awake in what feels like an instant. Bright light flashes at the window.

I scrunch down in the bag, flatten my hands over my ears, and count.
One, one thousand. Two, one thousand.
In seconds, thunder kabooms over the cabin and rumbles off over the crest of the hill.

A second searing bolt flashes through the sleeping bag and my closed eyelids, followed instantly by an explosion that rocks the cabin. I curl up into a ball, as far down in the bag as I can get.

Above me, the bedsprings creak. Mrs. Wesley must be pulling on her jeans, scooting her boots out from under the bed. The wind sprays dust and pine needles against the window.

"Mom?" Pinky's sleepy voice.

"Just a bad storm," Mrs. Wesley says. "I gotta go up." The lightning shreds the dark, and thunder comes in waves. She's going up in the tower in
this?

Mrs. Wesley is out of the cabin in seconds. As she steps over me, I feel her lean down and put her hand on my bag. She touches the top of my head. "It's OK to be scared," she says firmly. And then she bangs out the door.

I hear Pinky get out of bed and strike a match under the propane lamp by the wall. In a moment, static erupts into the cabin. Pinky has turned up the radio. She stands by the desk, her foot bumping into my backside.

Soon I hear Mrs. Wesley sign on, her voice punctuated by screeching static. Each lightning strike chops through the transmission with a shriek.

"Station One, this is Sidwalter. Come in," she says.

Her voice is even, no different from the hundred times I've heard it at home. But I'm startled to recognize the voice that responds from the hallway outside my bedroom in Warm Springs. Clear and deep and strong. "This is Station One. Go ahead, Sidwalter." My dad, awake and ready.

"Station One. We've got a storm right on top of us. Over," Mrs. Wesley says.

"Roger, Sidwalter," my dad replies. "Keep your eye on it." The radio hums and pulses with the lightning. Thunder batters us from above.

Suddenly, Mrs. Suppah breaks in from Eagle Butte. I can barely recognize her voice. She must be shouting into the microphone. "
Sidwalter, come in!
"

Mrs. Wesley responds, "Go ahead, Eagle."

"First—Station One, you've gotta get a crew to Sidwalter
right now,
" Mrs. Suppah says. "And Sidwalter..." She takes a breath, then says strongly, "You need to get those kids up top!"

"Come again, Eagle?" Mrs. Wesley asks. I hear the first hint of worry in her voice. A flash of lightning, another instant crack of thunder, and the radio goes dead.

I pull my head out of the sleeping bag and just make out Pinky's silhouette at the window. "
Ohmy God,
"she says, choking.

Underneath the storm's fury I hear a different kind of thunder, out of sight below the hill. Like the roar of a freight train coming up fast.

I throw off the sleeping bag and lurch to the window. Before my eyes can adjust to the dark, Pinky pushes past me. "Come on!" she yells. I turn and see her now at the door, pulling on her shoes, hopping on one foot.

Come on - where?
More thunder crashes down on our heads. I want to crawl back into my sleeping bag, but Pinky grips my arm and pushes my shoes into my hands. "Put these on!" Automatically, I do as she says.

She flings open the door. I can't believe she wants me to go out there! She grabs my hand and drags me into the wind and around the side of the cabin, both of us still in our pajamas. She plucks two towels off the nails above the wash basin and dunks them quickly into the rain barrel.

"Here!" she shouts, thrusting a dripping towel into my hands. "You're gonna need this."

The noise in my head blots out everything else. I can't begin to grasp what's coming next. The roar grows around the sides of the cabin. When we step out into the open, I feel heat for the first time. Pinky is pulling me toward the base of the tower when it finally registers.

Fire.

I stop and look back down the road. Along both sides, flames now ravage the underbrush. Sparks leap high into the air, swallowing the road where we walked earlier this evening.

The only way out.

I'
VE
never heard anything so loud. I stand stunned, unable to move. Pinky reaches back and yanks hard on my arm. "Kitty!" she shouts. "We gotta
go!
"

She pulls me over the ground. She is strong for such a scrawny kid. I focus on the tower steps before us. This time, I leap for them as she does, taking two at a time.

We sprint upward as the smoke chases us and snags around our heads. Pinky holds a wet towel up to her face and signals to me to do the same. I wrap the towel around my nose and mouth, stumbling behind her.

We scramble toward the top, faster and faster. No time to catch our breath at the landings. The smoke rises faster than we can climb, but we battle upward through it. Pinky trips and goes down hard on a step, the metal grating biting into her knee. I help her up, and we keep going. Blood drips onto each step as we pass.

I don't have time to be afraid. We just climb as fast as we can through the suffocating fog. We keep going, breathing hard, not talking. Thunder booms down on us, lightning photographs the mountains around us.

I've lost track of how far we've gone. When I reach up for the next railing, my hand meets strong arms. Mrs. Wesley bends down to pull me up to the last landing. She reaches out, grasps Pinky under her arms, and hefts her up onto her hip. Mrs. Wesley reaches back and clasps me around the wrist. I don't know how she does it, but she hauls us to safety and bangs the trapdoor shut.

Mrs. Wesley yanks the wet towels from our faces and tucks them quickly into the cracks around the trap door. Sealing out the smoke. Then she points to the wooden bucket under the fire table, where I find new cloths, already wet. "Tie a mask around your nose and mouth!" she yells.

I hold the cloth to my face while Mrs. Wesley tends to Pinky. She is a mess—her leg bleeding furiously now and her face pale.

"Is she OK?" My voice is muffled through the towel.

Mrs. Wesley nods quickly, wrapping a wet towel around Pinky's leg. Pinky starts to cry, holding tight to her mother's arm.

Mrs. Wesley speaks to her quickly, softly. "I need you to be strong now. You gotta stay focused. Sit here while I call in." I hear the worry in her voice.

I sit with Pinky on the wood floor, in the corner of the tower. I tie the mask securely to my face, and I help Pinky tie hers, too. I put my arm around her as she holds the towel to her knee.

Mrs. Wesley stands up and reaches for the radio next to the fire table. She clicks the microphone. "Station One—Sidwalter ... Station One—Sidwalter ... Come in, Station One," she repeats.

This time there is no static.

"We can't raise them," she says quietly as her hands scramble over the radio, checking wires, pushing buttons. Trying to get it to work. "
Come on,
" she says.

Suddenly, we catch the tail end of Dad's transmission. "...you there?"
Oh, I wish I'd let him come for me yesterday.

"Station One—trouble with the radio," Mrs. Wesley responds, and it goes out again.

I hear something underneath the storm—the frenzied honking of a horn. Mrs. Wesley looks down through the window, her face reflected in the strange orange glow.

"Oh, no," she says. "They didn't get out!"

I'm scared to look, but I go to the window.
Káthla's
truck hurtles up the road, right through the tunnel of flames, and skids to a stop at the cabin. My whole body starts to shake as Raymond jumps out from behind the wheel and pounds on the cabin door. Jewel helps her grandmother out of the pickup.
Káthla
leans heavily on her.

Mrs. Wesley turns to me. "Kitty," she says, "you've got to go down and help them get up here."

My heart catches. "
Me?
"

She takes both of my shoulders in her hands and leans down to face me head-on. "I have to stay here, get the radio to work so they know what's going on."

My shoulders shake under her hands. I know Pinky can't be the one to go. But I'm not sure I can, either. Mrs. Wesley holds me firmly, looks right in my eyes. "You have to help them. And you have to do it right now."

She grabs two more wet cloths, ties one around my nose and mouth and the other over my head. She thrusts the bucket into my hands. "Take all of these. Make them cover up. Then get them up here as fast as you can."

Mrs. Wesley scrapes the towels from around the trap door and lifts it. "You can do this," she says firmly.

Smoke boils into the tower. I'm shaking so hard, I can barely grip the bucket handle, but I take a deep breath, clamp my mouth shut, and start the long climb down. Above me, the trapdoor bangs shut. I hear Mrs. Wesley slide open a window. She leans out, yelling, "
Up here! Up here!
"

Smoke and sparks swirl around the tower steps, and I can't see anything down below.

I cling to the railing with one hand, feel for each stair with my foot. Concentrate on one step at a time, counting the turns I remember from yesterday. Six steps down to a landing, turn, six steps to the next landing. Take short breaths. Ignore the heat that blasts in my face. Don't drop the bucket. Don't think about anything else.

I don't see any more lightning, and the thunder has moved off to the east. What's left is the howl of the fire.

Through the smoke, I finally hear a voice not far below me. "One more,
Káthla.
That's it." Strong, no hint of urgency.
Raymond?
"Now another. Keep going."

Then Jewel. "It's OK. Hang on to me."

I can't see them, but I grip the bucket tighter, slide my hand more quickly down the railing, and call out, "
Jewel!
Keep coming up!"

I find the next landing and hang there, breathing hard. The smoke is so thick, I feel it seep into my lungs even through the mask. It's all I can do to keep my balance.

A hand reaches up and seizes my wrist. Raymond pulls himself and his
káthla
up to the landing. I reach out to grasp her arm and help him ease her down onto a step.

I grab wet cloths out of the bucket and thrust them at Raymond. "Quick! Tie this around
Káthla'
s face!" I order. "And these are for you and Jewel!"

He carefully covers his grandmother's face. Jewel coughs as she pulls herself up to the landing, breathing hard, and hugs her grandmother.

"Jewel!" I say sharply. "You've got to get this on your face!"

She just slumps down at
Káthla
's side.

The flames below have grown, and the roar builds and spreads up toward us. It's oven hot here on this landing, and the sparks and embers fly around our heads.

I tug on Jewel's arm. "
Move!
" I scream.

Raymond looks at me, lifts his grandmother off the landing, and starts to carry her up the stairs. I grab Jewel's sleeve, and she reacts with the strength I know she has in her. Together, we stumble up the long steps, grasping the rails one after another.

Smoke and sparks lick at our feet. We work our way upward, pulling each other, until at last we reach the open trapdoor. Mrs. Wesley has helped Raymond boost his grandmother inside. Jewel and I scramble up until we're on the solid floor of the tower and Mrs. Wesley can slam the door shut against the fire.

Mrs. Wesley helps
Káthla
settle down onto the floor. Raymond and Jewel gather her between them. I stuff the towels back into the cracks around the trapdoor, then sneak a peek at the window to catch the pulsing reflection of fire in the trees below.

Mrs. Wesley sits down and lifts Pinky into her lap. Pinky hunkers down in her mother's arms. I go sit against the wall beside them, and Mrs. Wesley curls her arm tight around my shoulders. "It's going to be OK," she says. She rubs her palm around the top of my arm. "They will get help to us."

Smoke seeps into the tower, even through the towels stuffed around the door. I can feel the heat through the floorboards and see sparks flying past the window.
How did they get so high?

I can't help it now—my whole body shakes hard, even under Mrs. Wesley's soothing hand. Pinky must be feeling the fear too. Buried in her mother's arms, she lets out little whimpers. But there's no shame in being afraid. Without Pinky, I would never have been able to get up into the tower or help Jewel and Raymond and
Káthla.

"It will get warm in here," Mrs. Wesley says through the cloth. "The smoke will rise up, and some of it will get in. But we'll have enough air to breathe. This tower's mostly metal. It's not going to burn. We just need to stay put."