Rush (8 page)

“Why
did
you show up at school?” she asks.

“Hard to explain.” I blink hard. “You know the jittery thing. Your voice calms it down, is all.” I peek toward her. “Right answer?”

She nods slowly, and we walk in silence.

“Are you there?” I ask.

“I heard from the School of Journalism at Mid Cal. Orientation is June 2. I start June 10.”

Lungs burn, and that ripping sensation works right down my middle, neck to gut.

“And you're still thinking four years?”

“It's a four-year program. I can't believe it's coming true. It's what I do well.” She squeezes my hand.

It's quiet for a long time.

“It'll suck here.” I slow. “You talked about leaving, but it was just out there, ya know? Now it's . . .”

Salome tugs. My turn to fall off the rail. She joins me in the middle, and we face each other square. “Do you suddenly not want me to go?”

“Space. Too much of it between you and me.”

We stand a foot apart. Her lips curl up on the left, like they always do before she smiles. But she does not smile. Her lips remain, and her eyes widen into a face I've not seen and can't resist long, not from this close.

My gaze travels her face, drops to her shoulder, and follows the curve of her elbow down to her waist. My fingertips tingle. They want to surround that waist, draw her in.

But the world would stop spinning and I'd lose the best piece of me and she'd end up in pieces. I know that like I know my name.

I exhale. “I mean, shouldn't best friends stay together?”

Her curl vanishes, and she steps back. “Nothing changes for you. If you had it your way, we'd be neighbors until we're ninety-nine!”

I puff out more air and stare at a beautiful girl who couldn't be more wrong.

“You know, you're right. I think it's an awesome deal, and absolutely you should go.” I turn and walk forward. She doesn't come with me.

I peek back at her. Salome hangs her head.

“Come on.” I reach out my hand. She stares at it and takes it.

But she's thinking. Still thinking hard. Probably a God comment fighting to get out, but I don't want it, and she knows it.

I breathe deep. Dad's got it right. Suckin' air is all I'm doing. No diploma. No nothing. Salome's got a chance. She swings my arm. Even when sad, her face shines light and free. She's breathing in a different kind of oxygen.

Salome stops and steps across the rails. “Scottie's with your mom.”

Whoosh
. Brain cloud gone. Completely. I blink, tingle, blink again.

“When he left, he said he might go see her, but he hates her. Didn't think he'd actually go. He never returns her letters, deletes her e-mails.” I reach down for a rock, stand, and whip it down the tracks. “How long is he staying with her?”

“He wouldn't say.”

Inky black returns. Scottie with Mom. Monkey Boy with Dad. Unbelievable.

We leave the tracks we're supposed to follow, finish our walk in silence, and turn up our street. From behind, tires squeal, and a beat-up station wagon chirps to a stop beside us. The window rolls down. Salome grabs my forearm and squeezes.

“Where's your brother, Jake?” Mox stares at me. “Where's your snake of a brother?”

Moxie Stone is twice my age, and his voice rumbles deep and hypnotic. When he talks, people do. He's the nearest thing to a firefighting legend there is, and his appearance in Brockton normally marks the beginning of wildfire season. But he's early. Way early. Men revere him. If half the stories of his heli-rappelling heroism are true, I should get on my knees. But he ripped my brother, and only I get to do that.

I lean into his window and whisper, “I don't know where he is. Find him yourself.”

He grabs my shirt, his face emotionless. He looks at me; I stare back. Not at him. His jacket. The brown one with the
I
across the shoulders.

“Let go of him, you jerk!” Salome says.

Mox glances at her, an ugly up-and-down glance, and releases me. “Drew's sister is all grown up.” He shoves my head out of the car and accelerates toward my home. Salome and I run. Dad's a mess and Mox is hot, and we better get there before he does.

We cut through yards. I boost Salome over Harry's privacy fence, then pull myself up to the top. We bolt across two cross streets, wind breathless up the hill, and pull up on my driveway.

Mox and Dad already talk on the step. Both glance at me and go back to their conversation.

“So he's done, then,” Mox says.

Dad hangs his head and nods. “I don't understand. It was going so well, then all this nonsense about you and some doomsday club—”

Mox's fingers flex and fist. He reaches up and gives his forehead a good rub.

“You can only do so much with kids. They have their own minds, right?” Mox peeks at me over his shoulder. “They'll get an idea, make up a story.”

“Scottie wasn't like that.” Dad shakes his head. “He never made up anything. Different than—” He gestures toward me with his head.

“Well.” Mox gives Dad a firm pat to the shoulder. “He was a great son, and would have been a great asset to Brockton. We'll all miss him.”

Dad looks up. He straightens for the first time in weeks.

“Who knows, in a few years, maybe the other one will pick up the ax,” Mox says.

“Maybe sooner . . . listen, you'll never find Jake's equal in strength, and I'm telling you he's fearless.” He leans forward. “Fearless.”

Dad lowers his voice to a level I'm still meant to hear. “I took the liberty of making a few calls—”

Mox stiffens. “Tell me right now this isn't going where I think it is.”

“Kyle's tragedy leaves you a man short. Now, I know Jake hasn't trained, but I spoke with Richie, and that will not be a problem. He is short on experience. But he should be dead given all the crazy stunts he's pulled.”

“I choose my men.”

“And he
will
be dead if he doesn't come under some discipline.”

“
I
choose my men!”

“And so the chief is considering a temporary arrangement—”

Mox turns and glares at me. Salome grabs my sleeve.

Dad places his hand on Mox's shoulder. “Jake's a tough, strong kid. Maybe he'll make me proud yet.”

“Ignore them, Jake. Remember what happened to Kyle, to Drew? A few weeks on Mox's crew, and they were gone.” Salome yanks me toward her house. “This has nothing to do with you.”

She's wrong. She doesn't know what falling down a line into a blaze would do. Surrounded by flames. It'd be like Hades. Then to be pulled out? That's flippin' biblical-like intensity. A resurrection.

But Mox doesn't want me. And Dad is the one who dangled this carrot, which means I can't take it.

I kick at the ground, salivate, and let my body fall away with Salome.

We reach her front door.

“What are you thinking, Jake?”

I turn back toward my place and watch Mox's wagon speed off.

“That I came that close to getting a jacket.”

Dad's words carry me to Hanking's and push me into a truck. They press my foot against the accelerator and speed me toward my dump. They push me through the woods, into the salvage yard, and onto my dirt bike.

I rev the engine.

I crank the accelerator, kick up a plume of dust.

More dust surrounds me.

The engine fires.

“Yah!” I squeal forward, pull a tight circle around the cars, and line up in front of my takeoff ramp. Someday I might have signed on if Dad'd kept his fat hands out of it.

I rev and chirp forward. Faster and faster over the dirt. Wheels hit wood, my body lifts, and I'm weightless. I squeeze the grips, lift the front end, and the bottom falls out of the jump.

I'm going down.

Crash
. My rear tire catches on the water heater, and I fly over the handlebars. I ball up and land hard on wood; my body flops and rolls over and skids to a stop in the dirt.

My ears ring and I fight for air, but I can think. Clear as clear. I'm alive.

In time, the ringing lessens, and somewhere a bird chirps. Then another. Slowly, the sounds of the forest return. I lie motionless and stare at my toes. They move, they feel. The legs and hips as well. I reach my head. Unbelievable. Everything hurts, but nothing's broken.

It takes minutes to stand. More still to hobble toward what was my bike. I look at it twisted in the dirt.

I shake my head and lug it toward the road. The bike will need serious surgery in my garage. I fight it onto the truck bed, and ease into the cab.

It's a slow drive down to Brockton. I park the Ford beside the fleet in Hanking's lot. I push out of the cab, grimace, and work my way toward the truck bed.

“Heard from your weasel brother?”

I squint toward the street.

Dale and Will, fresh up from Albuquerque, talk over a parked car in the street. “Well?” Dale calls.

“Uh—”

Dad leans out of the office door and motions me up. “I need you up here, Jake.”

I peek back toward the street, and Will starts a rhythmic kick of his tire.

“I'm comin' right up! I just have something down here to finish.”

I turn toward Dale. “Why did you call him a weasel?”

“I'll tell you why.” He starts across the street. Will grabs his forearm from behind.

“Jake's clueless. Let it go.”

Dale stops, stretches his neck from side to side. He exhales hard. “You wouldn't understand anyway.”

“Jake. Now!”

Dad is hot, and I'm sick of being caught in between. I backpedal toward the stairs and grab the rail. Climbing is miserable on my legs, but I reach the top and follow him inside. He looks me up and down but says nothing.

He leads me out his office door, and we stand shoulder to shoulder, looking down over his pack rats. It's Dad's term, but it seems to fit. They scurry around the mill, pause to peek at me and purse their lips, before lowering hard hats and hauling lumber into the yard. Today, the mill is bigger than I remember and less a place I recognize.

“You're eighteen now, nearing nineteen,” Dad says.

“You're fifty-six.”

“There's a lot of life left for you. Lots of time to make things right.”

Hairs on my neck bristle, and I inch away. “Maybe. But maybe not in Brockton. Scottie left. Salome's leaving. I'm thinking I should, too.”

Dad's fists clench the rail.

I tap my foot and think hard of something to say. “How's Mr. Ramirez holdin' up?”

Dad doesn't answer. He just stares across the mill, his face expressionless.

“Mr. King?” Julia, one of Dad's most underdressed employees, places her hand on Dad's neck and rubs.

So that's where Brooke got that. Like mother, like daughter.

“Could I get a signature?” she asks.

Dad doesn't look at the clipboard—he just scribbles.

“Well, what's the town nut been up to? You look terrible.” She cocks her head and gives a saccharin smile.

Dad shakes—a whole body tremble—and Julia steps back. He grabs the clipboard from her hand, cracks it in half over his leg, and throws it down behind him. Julia freezes. I do, too.

“Pack up your things and leave.” Dad stares at Julia and points toward her office. “You're done here.”

She steps forward, eyebrows raised, makeup cracking all over her face. Her voice is quiet. “But the way you've been talking, I thought—”

“This is my son,” he says quietly. “And you're my ex-employee.”

I don't get it. I don't understand him—how in the same breath he can destroy and defend me.

I enter his office and plop into a chair. Behind me, the door quietly shuts. Dad takes his seat.

I exhale hard. “Julia didn't say anything that terrible.”

“You're all I've got left.” He rubs his face hard. “You asked about Kyle's dad. He's still taking it tough. A man losing two sons to stupidity is more than any man can bear. He's never gotten over Carter.”

It's my turn to rub my face. You don't forget people jumping trains with four-wheelers or floating facedown in caves.

Dad whispers, “Like they're playing video games. These stupid kids.”

I look at Dad. His eyes glisten.

“Why do you do it? What makes a boy like Carter do that?”

“Plenty of people think it's Mox. They think those jackets are the kiss of death.” My eyes grow big. “Since Drew, that's what Salome thinks.”

“Not her, too. Scottie and Salome—will you please tell me what Mox did to deserve all these rumors?”

“Hey, I said nothing about the man.” I lean forward. “What did Scottie tell you about him?”

Dad shakes his head. Conversation over.

I check my watch.
“
Are we done? I've had a tough day, and I have a sick dirt bike that needs me.”

He sniffs and looks at me. “What do
you
think about the Forest Service . . . specifically Mox's team?”