Yellowstone Memories (35 page)

“I heard you. Thanks.” The words came tenderly. “And I understand. You’ve been through … well, a lot, to say the least.”

“No, you don’t understand.” Alicia’s voice turned cold. “You say you do, but you don’t. Everybody says that. But you haven’t lived my life.”

“And you haven’t lived mine,” Thomas countered, his voice rising a touch. “I never claimed to understand what you went through, Alicia, but I do understand you.”

“What?”

“I’ve been where you are before. Grieving. Hurt. Angry. Wanting to live, but at the same time feeling that I just couldn’t take it anymore. That life was too difficult, and I’d never be able to get out of the mess I’d made of things.”

Alicia stayed silent, sipping her coffee. “So what was the answer for you?” she asked, trying to keep the bile out of her voice. “Jesus?”

“But there’s one area where you’ve gone even beyond me.” Thomas spoke again, seemingly ignoring her question. “I don’t think you even want to live anymore. I see it in your eyes.”

Alicia drew back from the phone, keeping the receiver pressed to her ear. A flock of Canada geese soared overhead, their wings making black lines against the gray sky. Their calls rang loud and throaty, echoing against the distant pines, and a shaft of sunlight suddenly pierced through the gloom with a radiant golden glow.

All around her the forest shined, alive with dewdrops and a sudden stunning, sparkling brilliance. A scatter of gauzy milkweed pods floated by on the breeze like miniature dancers. Spinning in slow, dizzy circles.

“Alicia?”

She turned back to the phone.

“Listen. I’ve got something I’d … well, like to say to you. When you have time to sit down with me and talk.”

Alicia’s heart skipped a beat. She felt light-headed, staring out at the sun-striped pines. All the lime green needles and scaly bark shags stood out in sharp contrast, as if she’d finally figured something out.

What if …?
Alicia pressed a shaking hand to her forehead, wondering how she could’ve been so dense. After all these years, all those pranks and birthday cards and jokes? She’d never thought of Thomas as anything but a friend—and he’d never even broached the subject. But what if …?

Alicia picked at her nails in astonishment as a sudden rush of thoughts poured into her mind. Thomas? Thomas Walks-with-Eagles? She’d figured he wouldn’t want a scarred-up girl like herself. And that Christians only liked and married Christians. But maybe she’d been wrong.

In a weird way, she and Thomas made … sense.

Perfect sense. His clean laughter and bright smile coupled with her pain-dark eyes and acerbic wit. The way he’d held a jacket over her head in the rain. The funny notes she’d tucked in his lunch box.

She could learn the Bible, too, couldn’t she? For his sake?

Alicia traced her reflection in the shiny metal of the phone booth, wondering how she could have missed it all these years.

For a split second Alicia felt like digging into her backpack and making a rudimentary elementary school note on a sheet of notebook paper: “Do you like me? Yes or no. Circle one.”

“Alicia? Did you hear me?”

“I did.” She twirled the phone cord again, suddenly self-conscious about her hollow cheeks and windblown hair. “And I’d like to say something to you, too. If you don’t mind.”

“Of course I don’t mind.”

Alicia closed her eyes and listened to the velvety timbre of his voice, so comforting and so familiar. Like an old pair of socks, well worn into softness. Socks pulled tight on cold feet so that the blood begins to flow again, to heat again.

Thomas hesitated as if he wanted to say more and then finally spoke again. “Would you consider telling me what’s been eating at you these days?” He paused. “Please?”

“I guess so.” Alicia ran her fingers nervously across her ragged nails. “I’m on mop-up all day today and probably tomorrow, too. I hate mop-up,” she muttered. “It’s for wimps and crews with no experience.”

“Maybe, but it’s necessary. This fire isn’t burning out like we’d hoped. If anything, it’s worse.”

“That can’t be true. We’ve been on it for three days now with every crew we can get.”

“I know, but it is.” Thomas sighed, a short, clipped sound. “It’s bad, Alicia. Be careful out there, okay?”

Alicia didn’t answer.

“And listen, I’d be mad, too, if my doctor shared my confidential health information with anybody,” Thomas added in a lighter tone. “My spleen acts up from time to time, you know. It’s embarrassing.”

Alicia gave a shocked laugh then clapped her hand over her mouth. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to laugh if that was … you know. For real.”

“My spleen? Yeah. It’s real. But my knee is artificial. I messed it up skiing.”

“Skiing?” She spoke haltingly, not sure whether or not Thomas was joking—and if it was appropriate to laugh. “I didn’t know you ski. Where do you go, Colorado?”

“Ha. That would mean that I
ski
—present tense. I went once when I was nineteen, fell down the side of the cliff, and tore my knee up something awful. Haven’t hit the slopes since.”

“Like Lane trying to ski the K-12 in
Better Off Dead.”

“Exactly. You got the movies right this time. Except it was that Andie chick, not Lane.”

Alicia clapped a hand over her mouth to stifle her laughter.

An awkward silence fell over the line, and the distant whine of coyotes hovered in the cobalt blue sky just beyond the campground. Yipping and howling, calling out across the morning in tremulous layers as if gathering voices for a ghostly cantata.

She’d heard the coyotes before, lots of times: in the sun-parched deserts of Chihuahua and Jornada del Muerto. Each time she’d stood still, breathless, like an outside listener of secret songs. Joy songs and triumph songs, each alive with frosty morning and brilliant moon, with silver-beige fur and bright eyes.

But this morning the coyote wails chilled her. Alicia turned, phone still to her ear, and tried to follow the sound, but she saw nothing past the lights of camp but smoke and forest, all buried in layers of gray.

Alicia pulled her vest tighter and jingled the change in her pocket nervously. “Well, they’ll be packing up soon. I guess I’ll see you around, chief.”
Chief. Native American
. She smacked her forehead. “I didn’t mean that as a joke. Like I was making fun of you.”

Wait, was Thomas
laughing
? Alicia glared into the phone.

“That’s pretty good,” he chuckled. “But since my family lineage is mostly drunks and delinquents, being chief is probably out of the question. I’ll tell the leaders of the Yavapai-Apache Nation that you put in a good word for me though.”

“Very funny.” Alicia put her bandaged hand on her hip. “So where does the Walks-with-Eagles come in, since we’re on the topic? Is that really your last name?”

Thomas’s laughter died.

“Sorry.” She put her hand up. “I didn’t mean to pry.”

“Oh no. It’s actually a great story. And you’re right—it is my last name. But it was given to me. Chosen.”

“You mean given only to you?” Alicia’s mind reeled through the multiple family names bequeathed on Mexican children. For her, Sanchez was only one of three. But it wasn’t chosen, and it wasn’t unique to herself. Probably one out of every three Mexicans had a similar last name.

“Yes. It’s my name, and mine only.” Thomas fell strangely silent.

“Okay.” Alicia twisted her head around to check her watch. “Well, I’ve got to head out.” She scuffed a fingernail on a scratch on the phone booth. “And let’s talk. But I’m warning you. My confessions won’t be pretty.”

Warning
. Someone stepped on a pine branch in the shadows behind her, making a sharp snap in the morning calm. Alicia whirled around. Coyotes howled again in the distance, making goose bumps bristle on her arms.

A man stepped through the pines on the other side of the pay phone, his black eyes narrowing into spiteful slits.

“It doesn’t need to be pretty, Alicia.” Thomas spoke soberly into the phone. “It needs to be real. We all have problems, and God helps us get through them.” He paused. “He loves you, you know that?”

But Alicia stood motionless, her mouth still partially open.

“Alicia?” Thomas’s voice rang into the phone again.

“I saw him again,” she whispered, her breath curling up in a puff of mist.

“Saw … who?”

Alicia whirled around, but the man disappeared. “I saw him. I could swear it.” She stood on tiptoe. “Where’d he go? I’m not crazy.”

“Alicia? Talk to me.” Thomas’s voice turned sharp. “And I never said you were crazy.”

“It’s Miguel. My old boyfriend.” Alicia spoke in a whisper. “He was standing right over there.”

“That hot-tempered jerk you told me about last time?”

“That’s him.” Alicia’s hands shook as she stretched as far as the cord reached, trying to see. “Carlita said he can’t be here, but … I saw him, Thomas. I know I did.”

“I’ll be over in five minutes.” And Thomas hung up, leaving a harsh dial tone ringing in her ear.

I
must be losing my mind.” Alicia heaved her shovel up and rained a pile of dry soil on a flaming stump, watching the orange flickers die.

“I saw him again this morning, Carlita. I’m sure of it.”

“Who, Miguel?” Carlita grunted. She raised her ax and hacked at a patch of burning roots.

“I know, I know. It’s impossible.” Alicia scooped up another shovelful as the rest of the Mexican American crew hosed down still-burning limbs and stumps. Most of the swelling had gone down in her wrist, and she could still lean on the strength of her right arm.

“But either I saw him, or my eyes are playing tricks on me. Thomas came over to the camp with a couple of guys, but nobody could find him.” Alicia shook her bangs out of her eyes. “I don’t know what to think.”

“I think you’re stressed.” Carlita leveled her eyes at Alicia. “I don’t know what’s been going on with you, but when you get back to Santa Fe, you need a rest. Come with us to Taos. I’m serious. I’ll pay.” She banged the shovel on its side to knock off the dirt. “Simón will understand.”

“Carlita.” Alicia reached out and squeezed her arm through the thick Nomex sleeve. “I can’t go to Taos. But you’re sweet.”

“Why not? You can. It’ll knock you out of this funk you’re in.”

All around Alicia the lush forest had been gutted: blackened, singed. An open canopy of leafless trees where shade used to fall thick over wildflowers. Ruined trunks and spindly branches splayed at hideous angles like skeleton fingers.

On initial attack she’d stood on the “green side,” hugging the fire line and walking through unburned timber. But now she stood on the other side, covered with ash, trying desperately to keep the fire that had roared through from flaring back up.

Alicia wiped her sweaty face, feeling as if she’d stepped into a sickly cathedral of broken, lifeless branches. All reaching vainly for the smoke-scarred heavens.

Just down the ridge the Apache crew worked tirelessly in the blazing August sun, shouting in words Alicia couldn’t understand without the accompanying translations. She had watched them as they filed past her on the dirt road to the spike camp, most of them dark like Thomas, with the same black hair and almond-shaped eyes. But Thomas was right about Apache mixed ancestry. Two of the guys sported blond ponytails, and one woman had the clearest hazel-green eyes Alicia had ever seen.

Thomas was out with the fire truck, certainly, but being close to people he called his own made her feel comforted somehow. Safe, even. As if she could somehow catch his heart from their elegant cheekbones and lilting, guttural speech, mingled with English.

“You’ll have to hold my place a minute,
compadre
.” Alicia leaned her shovel against a blackened tree. “Nature calls.” She nodded her head toward the line of distant green Porta-Potties.

“Gross.” Carlita made a face. “I just hold it. You’re gonna use one of those?”

“What choice do I have? I’ll be back in a second.”

Alicia mucked her way past fellow hosers and shovelers through the ash, which sank nearly up to her ankles in scattered drifts. All along the way the trees had been scorched to velvet black. Smoke curled up from still-hot limbs.

The Porta-Potties stood in a stalwart line, shoulder to shoulder. As soon as she swung open the creaking door, holding her nose, she heard the rumble of a familiar fire truck in the distance. She turned, hand still clamped over her face, and glimpsed Methuselah’s scratched and battered side glinting in faint sunlight.

Thomas blinked his light at her—light, singular, as the right headlight had been bashed out—and Alicia stuck out her thumb like a hitchhiker.

“Well, well, well. Just in time.” Thomas eased to a stop beside her.

“Just in time for what?” Alicia shielded her eyes, one hand on her hip.

“I got you something.” Thomas dug on the seat and shook a brown paper package. “It just came in.”

“For me?” Alicia called out in surprise over the rattling engine as Thomas downshifted into neutral.

“Yep. I think you’ll like it.” He waved his hand. “C’mon. I’m off duty.”

Alicia ran a finger over Methuselah’s dusty side, which sported several nasty dents and scratches. Someone had slapped a new coat of poorly matched primer over one side, smoothing out the worst of the damage. “Hey, she doesn’t look so bad for practically sailing over a cliff,” she said, wiping the dust off her hand. “A little beat up, but she’ll make it.”

“Too bad you didn’t let her go.” Thomas rolled the squeaky window down with hard hand cranks. “Then I wouldn’t be bringing her in for the fourth time this morning.”

“What is it this time?” Alicia stuck her hands in her pockets and looked up at him in his battered John Deere baseball cap. “And you look like a redneck in that hat.”

“What are you talking about? I
am
a redneck. I farm, remember? Doesn’t that qualify me?” Thomas held up a clipboard. “And about the truck—I’ve got a list of her new problems. Don’t even get me started.”

He tipped his head toward the row of Porta-Potties. “On the other hand, it means I get to save you from a fate worse than death. You weren’t actually going to go in there, were you? I’ve heard horror stories about people who never came out.” He tipped his head. “You ever seen a wolf spider? I hear the one they got in the
Guinness Book of World Records
came from inside a Porta-Potty. No joke.”