Yellowstone Memories (33 page)

“You don’t fool me.” Carlita shot her a severe look. “I don’t know where that empty look in your eyes came from, but I don’t like it.” She glared. “And if it takes God to fix your problems, so be it. I should have brought you to Mass a long time ago.”

“Right. In Latin,” Alicia mumbled.

“So get a Bible in English or Spanish,” Carlita snapped back. “Simón used to be a sorry druggie, you know that? I divorced him ten years ago. But since he’s got all this religion, he’s changed.” Her eyes softened as she traced her wooden ring with her gloved hand. “I wouldn’t trade him for anybody now. He’s not perfect, but he’s trying. He’s a good man. Maybe some religion would do you good, too.”

“Maybe it wouldn’t.” Alicia lifted her chin.

“Well, what you’re doing now sure isn’t helping. You got a better idea?”

Alicia turned her fire-scorched face away, not sure what to say.

W
ell, wonders never cease. I think I’ve fixed something for a change.” Alicia dropped the hood down on the ancient Forest Service fire truck, its engine chugging weakly. Chris and Duncan, two firefighters from one of the Wyoming crews, recoiled the hoses on the other side of the truck after yet another breakdown. The reason this time? A radiator leak, compounded by a devilishly stubborn hood prop and too slippery gears. “Methuselah,” they called the fire truck—after years of breakdowns, repairs, and long-distance runs that had racked up more than two hundred thousand miles in ugly wear and tear.

In fact, Methuselah had been headed for the scrap bin when the head engine captain got an urgent call from Yellowstone begging for trucks.

Alicia tossed the toolbox behind the truck seat and shut the door, her mind an exhausted muddle of flames, shouts, acrid smoke, and cold showers before a few hours of shallow sleep. Then up again at dawn, and the whole thing all over again. Those beautiful fields blackened, trees splintered and fallen like brittle Pick Up Sticks. Dead deer and elk stranded in Yellowstone River.

“So you believe in Jesus, huh?” Alicia wiped her grease-stained palms on her grimy, ash-blackened pants. Even her nails, clipped short as they were, had taken on a grayish sheen under her bubblegum-pink nail polish.

Thomas, who was squatting on the ground over an empty radiator fluid canister, looked up at her with a wrinkled brow. If he grew his hair out longer and maybe stuck a feather in it, Alicia could picture him sitting next to a fire in buckskins, roasting a deer over a spit.

“Me? Of course I believe in Jesus.” Thomas raised his voice over the rattling drone of the engine, and the image fled. “You know I do.” He cocked his head. “But where in the world did that come from?”

Alicia didn’t answer, scrubbing a clump of charred soil from the bottom of her boot. Smoke rose up from the distant hillside like spilled ink, boiling into the already hazy sky.

“Why do you ask?” Thomas dumped the empty canister in the back of the truck.

“No reason.” Alicia crossed her arms stiffly. “I just wonder sometimes … why. You seem to be a rational guy. Why do you let religion hold you back?”

Thomas froze there in mid-bend, reaching down to tie his bootlace. He blinked then stood up slowly, coming up to face her with a tender look in his eyes.

“What?” She put her hands on her hips in irritation.

“Nothing.” Thomas looked away meekly. “You just seem so … angry.”

“Angry?” Alicia waved a hand in front of her face as the rickety engine belched exhaust. “Why wouldn’t I be angry? God’s never been there for me, if He does exist.” She kicked the side of Methuselah’s back tire, which was appropriately leaking air.

“Of course He exists. He’s always been with you.” Thomas bit his lips. “You might not have seen it, but He was. I don’t know all you’ve been through, but I just wish …” He broke off with a sigh.

“Wish what?”

Thomas studied her a moment, holding her gaze. “I just wish I could show you somehow—in a way you could understand.”

“Ha.” Alicia spat out a bitter laugh. “Good luck with that. I don’t buy any religious sob stories about a God who loves me.” She shook a finger at him. “And you of all people. Shouldn’t you be following whatever your ancestors worshipped rather than some imported white man’s god?”

“Whoa, Nelly.” Thomas took a step back and raised his palms as if afraid she’d belt him. “Don’t call out the firing squad just yet.”

“Sorry.” Alicia managed a smile. “But you know I’m right. Why won’t you just admit it?”

“Right?” Thomas chuckled, and his eyes glinted like black water. “I’m afraid that depends on who you ask. For starters, almost nobody’s pure-blooded Apache anymore. My grandmother was white. My mom had blue eyes.” He shrugged. “So whose ancestors am I supposed to follow? My white grandmother’s or my Apache grandfather’s? Or my French-Seminole stepfather’s?” He scratched his fingers through thick hair. “It’s not as easy as you think, Alicia.”

“At any rate, I’d choose one of those fire-breathing gods rather than hear people harp about how much the God of the Bible loves me.” Alicia turned quickly. “No offense, Thomas. I just don’t believe it.”

“But He does.” Thomas touched her arm lightly. “He died for you. The Bible compares Him to a shepherd who left ninety-nine so-called righteous people to seek the one lost sheep—and then He gave His life for you. Can’t you even try to picture it?”

Alicia slapped a mosquito on her shirtsleeve and rubbed her arm in disgust. “Gave up His life for me?” She looked up with a scowl. “Please. I know several people who’d like to see me dead. But there isn’t a soul alive who’d give their life for me.” She held a finger up to his face in defiance. “Not one. When push comes to shove, everybody looks out for number one. Every single time.”

Thomas shook his head sorrowfully and opened his mouth as if to speak, but the sudden and unexpected backward lurch of the truck startled them both.

As if in slow motion, Alicia watched Methuselah roll right over the triangular chock against the back tire and reverse toward a cliff of thick Ponderosa pines, the engine bleating pitifully like a sick goat.

“Get out of the way!” Alicia screamed, lunging for the truck door. “She popped out of gear again!”

Thomas nearly tackled Duncan, shoving him to the side as Methuselah sped past in a cloud of gray dust.

“Oh my word.” Chris jumped out of the truck’s path. “That thing’s gonna go over the cliff!”

“Watch out!” Thomas sprinted after the truck with Alicia on his heels, cupping his hands around his mouth. “Get everybody out of the way!”

Duncan and Chris fanned out over the hillside, stumbling over pine limbs and shouting out warnings while Thomas tried unsuccessfully to grab the door handle. The truck picked up speed on the decline, bumping over a boulder and shooting between two pines on a downhill slant toward the cliff.

Down below the steep drop-off lay a rolling green valley of deserted hills, the thick patches of pine forest interspersed with smooth green meadow.

“It’s too late.” Thomas grabbed Alicia’s arm as she dove for the side of the truck—Methuselah careening toward the ravine, kicking up stones and soil.

“Oh no it’s not.” Alicia pulled herself free and snatched at the door handle, jerked it open. One of her boots dragged along the ground, banging against roots and boulders as she tried twice to pull herself up into the cab.

As the truck roared through a patch of clearing, Alicia gave a final hefty push against the door frame and shoved her head inside then hauled herself up and into the cab. Ducking just as a cottonwood limb raked across the window, snapping off the side-view mirror like a pesky fly.

Alicia’s cheek banged against the door glass, knocking her teeth together as the truck bumped over a boulder and cracked her forehead against the windshield. The rearview mirror flap fell open and whacked her in the face as she fumbled for the gearshift. Windshield wipers scraped the glass, swishing against thick pine boughs.

She heard Duncan shout, saw Chris through a spot of clearing cupping his hands around his mouth.

Alicia found the wobbly gearshift and tried to shove it into D
RIVE
—just as she felt the back tire give. Dropping down with a sickening thunk. She let go of the steering wheel and smashed the jammed gearshift with both hands, shouting as it popped into gear, and poked her heavy boot around on the floorboard in search of the gas pedal. The engine revved, and she heard the wheels spin—screaming against the crumbly forest soil and the weight of a truck already on its downhill slide over the cliff.

The landscape lurched upward with a bump as the rear right tire gave way, slamming her against the door and giving her an eerie glimpse of tufted tree tops against smoke-gray clouds.

“C’mon, Methuselah, you old horse! Drive!” Alicia punched the gas pedal to the floor, pinning it with all her weight and spinning the wheel.

Out of the corner of her eye, Alicia saw a blurred Thomas racing toward her at an unnatural angle, his face ashen—screaming. His black hair disheveled. “Are you crazy?” he was shouting before the scrape of boulders and limbs under the truck roared in her ears.

Alicia felt the truck turn, saw tree branches pass across the windshield. Spaces of sky glimmered through the pine needles like sparkling gray stars, oddly still and silent amid the crunch of grinding earth against the undercarriage.

A bang, and the truck seemed to settle. She felt her hand reaching for the gearshift.

Something warm trickled down her forehead. Alicia blinked, letting her foot off the gas as her vision seemed to cloud over. Hazy and smokelike, until she could no longer see the steering wheel.

A
licia Sanchez. For goodness’ sake.” Thomas’s voice came out somewhere between a growl and a whisper of relief. “You sprained your wrist, you know that? And you’re all banged up. A badly bruised rib and two stitches on that cut on your cheek.”

“Thomas?” Alicia opened one eye, but the other one felt stuck together. She reached up to touch it, but her wrist had been wrapped in something stiff. An IV bag dripped into a tube taped to the crook of her elbow.

Her eyelid fluttered as she tried to see, taking in the tiny hospital room and small window. A fly buzzed against the dull fluorescent light, and Alicia tried to follow it with her gaze. Everything looked grainy, weak.

“And that eye.” Thomas looked furious as he crossed his arms, his expression darker than Alicia had ever seen him. Jaw clenching. “That thing’s gonna swell up royally.”

“Is the truck okay?” Alicia patted gingerly at a patch over her eye. Her cheekbone throbbed, and her rib cage hurt when she breathed.

“The truck? Yeah, sure. Methuselah’s fine—the old rattler.” The corner of his mouth tipped up as if trying to smile, but his face looked too pale and stiff for mirth. “I don’t know how you did it, Alicia, but you hung on to that cliff like a mountain goat.” His mouth wobbled, dry-lipped. “Another inch or two and …”

Thomas rubbed his forehead as if in bewilderment. A smear of engine grease still blackened the side of his stubbly chin.

Alicia pushed herself up on one elbow. “But I saved her, right?”

“Saved her?” Thomas’s eyes popped open, and he began to pace angrily. “You could have killed yourself! I told you to let it go. It’s Methuselah, Alicia! A rusty old bolt box on her last legs. So long as nobody was in the way, she wasn’t worth risking your life over.”

“But I saved the truck. Right?”

“Yes, but …” Thomas sputtered, stretching his arms out. “Why? What on earth got into you?”

Alicia felt her mouth twist into a sour frown. “What do you mean? The truck was about to go over the cliff, and I stopped it.”

Thomas stuck his face closer to hers, his voice harsh. “You could have killed yourself. Did you think of that?”

“I did what needed to be done.” Alicia attempted a shrug, but it hurt too badly.

Two angry lines creased between his eyes. “Why? Why would you risk your life for … for Methuselah?” He banged a fist into his palm. “There was nobody in the way. She was headed for the scrap heap. Why?”

“Why not?” Alicia stuck her chin out.

Thomas looked at her a moment, speechless. His mouth partially open. “Doesn’t your life mean anything to you?”

“Not much. Why should it?” She wiped a bit of blood from the corner of her mouth, swallowing the metallic taste. “And what’s it to you anyway? I was just doing my job.”

“Why should it matter? Because … because … it just does!” Thomas sputtered again, waving his arms. “God made you, Alicia! He loves you. I … well, I admire you a lot, you know that? You’re an amazing firefighter and an amazing friend. Your life is priceless.”

He paced the room in silence for a minute, his shoes squeaking on the tile floor. “I don’t know why you gamble with your life as if it means nothing to you, but no broken-up old truck is worth dying over. Don’t you understand?”

Alicia stiffened at his tone, her eyebrows coolly arched. “No,” she finally said, turning away from him and fixing her gaze out the window. “I don’t.”

Thomas stared at her. “What?”

“I just don’t get it. Your whole ‘life is priceless’ speech.” Alicia’s eyes were icy. “You’re making a big deal out of nothing.”

“Nothing?” Thomas poked his head down to her level. “You think throwing your life away is nothing?”

“So what? That’s my business. What’s it to you anyway?” She drew her knees up and wrapped her arm stiffly around them.

Thomas stared at her as if in disbelief, shaking his head. “You really mean that,” he finally whispered, his eyebrows peaking in a hollow sort of sadness.

“Of course I do.”

“What if you’d died out there?” Tears glistened in Thomas’s eyes as he stabbed a finger toward the window.

“What if I did?” Alicia spoke through clenched teeth. “You’d have one less person to drive the fire truck. You’d find another one—and another friend—in no time. I’m not as irreplaceable as you think. I’ve had twenty-nine years to figure that out.” She nodded stiffly toward the door, feeling inexplicably cold. “Now give me a rest, will you?”

She sank back on the pillow and fingered her bandages. “When am I back on the fire line? And don’t tell me to take a day off or something equally stupid.”