The Wildfire Season Read online

  Chapter 8

  That evening, Miles walks into the Welcome Inn Lounge through the same door Alex and Rachel had only a day before, and immediately feels that he should have stayed at home.

  The entire fire team are there. Taking them in at once, Miles is reminded of how different the four of them look. Their ages (from King’s twentysomething to Mungo’s who-knows?-something), their headwear (Crookedhead James favouring an undersized Philadelphia Flyers ballcap, Jerry a skulland—crossbones bandana), their teeth (King’s full set on the one hand, Jerry’s half-dozen can openers on the other). The shades of their skin, from sunburned pink to nutty brown. Aside from Miles, King is the only white guy on the crew, with Mungo a locally born Kaska, Jerry the mixed product of a long-gone prospector and his long-dead Tlingit wife, and Crookedhead a self-described ‘Indian combo platter,’ a descendant of Yukon Tutchone, Alaskan Haida, and ‘a shot of Irish, way back.’ While they couldn’t look less alike in all of these respects, it doesn’t prevent them from raising their heads in perfect unison when Miles opens the door. Each of them with the same wide-eyed look, one that makes it clear they had been talking about him up until the second he walked in.

  Behind the crew’s table, Bonnie waits for him to assume his position on the stool directly in front of her. Jackson Bader is here too, sitting alone. Although Miles finds it impossible that, even in Ross River, news of Alex and Rachel’s arrival would have reached the Baders, the old man nevertheless glances at Miles with an indifference so perfect as to be taken for hostility. And worst of all, Wade is half in the bag. Playing pool by himself, bent to take a shot but weaving on his feet so badly he can’t focus, let alone aim. At the sight of Miles in the doorway, the big man’s arms launch forward and the cue cuts under the nine ball, sending it flying off the table to roll onto the dance floor.

  ‘Hey there, Miles,’ Mungo says, leaning back to pull an empty chair up to the fire team’s table. ‘How about joining us for one?’

  The invitation stops Miles. He has become so used to proceeding directly to his stool that the mere idea of doing anything else embarrasses him.

  ‘Who’s turn is it to buy?’ he manages to ask.

  ‘Jerry’s. But seeing as getting twenty bucks out of him is like asking a stone to donate blood, I’ll get it.’

  All of them know that Mungo is speaking of Jerry McCormack’s truck. The two-year-old Ford he saw advertised in the Yukon News and has been aching for ever since. It’s this month’s justification for the lame excuses he comes up with to get out of paying for rounds. It’s also why he’s been asking every day about a fire.

  ‘I left my wallet back at the trailer,’ Jerry says.

  ‘The sooner you buy your Dodge, the sooner you find your wallet. Is that it?’ Mungo says.

  ‘It’s a Ford,’ Jerry says.

  Miles lets the door swing closed and falls into the chair next to Mungo. It’s a whole new view of the room from down here. He scans the men sitting around him and returns their slight, almost imperceptible nods.

  Bonnie unloads a tray of longnecks at their table, along with a Shirley Temple for Crookedhead James. People make fun of Crookedhead for a lot of things, but his refusal to drink since the day his girlfriend took off with their son is too proud a statement to be mocked by anyone. The arrival of cranberry juice or unspiked margarita mix is the one moment in a day he achieves something like nobility.

  Miles knows that he’s waiting for them both to come back. Crookedhead does little else but dream of the moment his runaway family walks in and finds him shaved, sipping orange juice instead of Jack Daniel’s, a composed smile on his face. In the meantime, he sends them cheques. Half of what Crookedhead makes goes straight down to Chilliwack where his ex, his son and ‘some new fuckwad’ have set up house. Everyone but Crookedhead knows they’re never stepping through the Welcome Inn’s door again. But instead of getting used to being alone, he keeps upping the amounts he sends south, an enticement for a second chance to come his way. It’s Crookedhead’s unspoken reason for needing a fire worse than any of them.

  ‘Terry been in tonight?’ Miles asks.

  ‘Not so far,’ Crookedhead says. ‘He must be out at the lock-up, polishing his handcuffs.’

  ‘What do you want him for?’ Mungo says, glancing over his shoulder at Wade, who continues to smash the balls around, muttering. ‘There’s not going to be any trouble tonight.’

  Miles knocks down half his beer in a go.

  None of the fire crew can summon a harmless, natural-sounding inquiry to their minds, so they remain silent, working to discern the words that Wade is, moment by moment, making more clear. Miles thinks of leaving, but knows there’s nowhere to go. Whatever is about to happen will face him tomorrow if he refuses to face it today. He’s found that malice cannot be escaped in a place like this. Better to sit where you are, finish your beer, and let it come at you. But as you wait, it’s also wise to locate a little malice of your own.

  ‘Hey, Miles!’ Wade shouts.

  ‘I have some real good advice for you,’ Mungo offers. ‘Go home.’

  ‘Why? I don’t have any kids there to look after. Not like you. Or some other people in here.’

  Wade throws his pool cue onto the table and sidles over to where the fire team sit, his fists resting on his hips.

  ‘Guess who I talked to today?’

  Miles ignores him and takes another long drink that leaves his bottle empty.

  ‘That little white girl playing with her little Indian friends. Sweet thing. I swear to God, she grows up half as pretty as her momma and she’ll be a real treat in a few years.’

  ‘Sit down,’ Miles says, but it comes out as an inaudible squeak. Inside of him, he can hear a door opening. From behind it, a black oil spills and floods into an empty room.

  ‘That’s another funny thing about today,’ Wade goes on. ‘I walked up to have a word with that little girl and when she looked at me, damn if she didn’t have her daddy’s eyes.’

  ‘He’s not worth the shit he’s talking,’ Mungo says, but when he grips Miles’s elbow, his hand jumps back, as though the skin he had touched was an open flame.

  ‘Come to think of it,’ Wade announces, stepping closer, ‘I haven’t yet met a dog who’d walk away from his bitch and pup. So what does that make you?’

  Miles brings the empty bottle to his lips again and lets the last suds roll over his tongue. He notices Jackson Bader watching him, sucking a cigarette down to its filter. The old man wasn’t smoking the other night. A secret habit, enjoyed only when the wife is tucked away. Miles can see that he’s someone used to pursuing whatever pleasures strike his fancy, but that he has to hide them from at least one person in the world, otherwise they wouldn’t be as pleasurable. Still, Miles thinks, it’s taken a toll. The man has see-through skin, grey as a flake of ash.

  ‘Where’s Margot?’ Miles asks, turning at last to Wade.

  ‘What’s she got to do with anything?’

  ‘It’s just that she’s usually able to keep your head out of your ass.’

  Wade spits on the floor. He looks down to watch it evaporate, leaving only a faint white stain.

  ‘The truth has a way of coming out, don’t it, Miles?’

  ‘You don’t know a thing about me.’

  ‘I’ve seen liars before. And yellow bastards who put on airs. Goddamn if I don’t know you inside out.’

  Miles can feel the electricity of his rage about to blossom, but before it can, he pushes his chair back and strides toward the door. On any other day, such provocations wouldn’t have gone half as far as he’s let Wade’s go. Miles realizes that it’s his summoning of the girl’s face to his mind that calms him enough to walk away.

  But Wade won’t let him. With a feline howl, the giant throws himself on Miles’s back as he crosses the door’s threshold. Miles chokes against the fingers locked around his throat. He needs room. The railings on either side of the steps lock him in, and he bounces between them, the handles a
t the top tearing gashes through his jeans.

  Since he can’t haul himself forward, Miles decides to throw both of them over the railing and into the parking lot below. It’s easy. With a lunge to the right they roll over, the grip released from Miles’s neck.

  They fall for what seems a longer time than possible. Both of them blink, once, at the sky. With black spots swooping into his vision, somewhere in Miles a voice notes how bright it is for this late in the day.

  Then he hears something crunch and thinks it may be him. A rib, maybe. He hopes it’s not his spine. The spine would be bad. The interruption of Wade’s fists pummelling his face moves Miles’s speculations to how he might flip over and engage his boots in the matter.

  Wade is big, and his punches are not without force. But he’s also drunk. This puts his aim off enough that he can’t connect directly with Miles’s nose, the magical knockout target. It also grants Miles the time between blows to roll out from under his attacker and keep going until he makes it into the middle of the road.

  When he gets to his feet and sees Wade lumbering toward him, his arms already starting to swing at the air a full ten feet short of their destination, Miles has another of his visions of what is to happen next. And what he foresees is his beating Wade Fuerst into a weeping bag of pulp. It will be cruel, no matter that Miles took no part in starting it. It will, later on, make even Miles sick.

  But for now, Miles allows the aperture for his anger to open wide within him, a dark current running out from his chest, down his arms. Somewhere behind him, Mungo is shouting—Take it easy, there!—but Miles can no longer hear anything but the rollicking blood in his ears.

  With the first punch to his stomach, Wade doubles over and spews a six-pack onto the road. After a few seconds, the stream is cut off as abruptly as it was released. He coughs. A delicate ahem, swiping the back of his hand over his lips.

  Then, so gently it might be mistaken as tenderness, Miles places an arm around the back of Wade’s neck. But once he’s held in place, all those who have rushed out of the Welcome Inn Lounge to witness the event can tell that Miles is only keeping Wade up so that, when the big man’s legs go, he’ll still be there to take what Miles intends to give him.

  With his free arm, Miles starts a series of pumps to the gut. A half-dozen thuds in an evenly spaced sequence, all to the same location. When he’s done, Miles takes a single step back.

  Wade sinks, deboned.

  Miles measures a step from where Wade has now lifted himself to his knees. His head wobbles until it sits almost straight atop his neck. Then, in a charge, Miles comes at him. Swings his boot into Wade’s face. Before any other sound, there’s the papery rip of skin where the lace clasps split his cheek.

  Miles is aware of how easy it would be to kill this man. A little more time is all it would take. More of the same cracks to the sides of his head. Steel-toed kicks to rupture the tender parts inside. It wouldn’t even make Miles tired.

  It is only when Wade covers his bloodied face with his hands, whimpering, that the black door inside Miles is closed again.

  He turns around and sees the mixture of horror and admiration on the faces of those who watch him. Only Jackson Bader keeps his eyes on Wade. Not out of sympathy but interest, a vague curiosity. It’s the same expression he might have looking up at the sky and wondering if it will rain.

  Miles bends to whisper in the fallen man’s ear. ‘I know it was you.’

  ‘Yeah?’

  ‘What they found out back of Mungo’s trailer a few weeks back.’

  ‘That was practice.’

  ‘I saw you this morning, too. And if you go near her again, I’ll make you choke on whatever teeth you got left.’

  Wade spits into his palm and squints, searching for bone. When he’s satisfied that there is nothing there worth saving, he lifts his head and surveys about him at the circle of onlookers, one by one. Miles might have expected to find some evidence of shame in his eyes, but there’s nothing there, not even pain.

  Wade turns his attention to the wet gravel beneath him. His nosebleed has stained the white stones with rust.

  ‘This’ll be your blood next time, gorgeous,’ he says, low enough that only Miles can hear.

  ‘I don’t think so.’

  ‘I do. Because I’m going to kill you.’

  Wade looks around him, his neck a raised periscope, his unswollen eye its glassy lens. A quarter of Ross River stands watching him. They wait for him to get up, but come no closer to help.

  ‘While I’m at it, I think I’ll kill all of you,’ Wade says, then turns to face Miles alone. ‘Your woman and little girl first. So you can see what they’ll look like when I’m done.’

  Miles tries to tell himself that this is only a loser’s empty threat. But something about Wade’s tone sends a shiver of real fear through him. The big man digs his fingers into the stones, steadying himself, and when he mutters his words a second time—fucking kill all you cunts—Miles hears the hollow fury of a man who doesn’t care anymore. About himself, about winning or losing, about any goddamn thing at all. No matter how many times Miles might beat him, humiliate him, better him in front of Margot and whatever audience might be on hand, Wade will keep coming back because he has arrived at the point of believing he has nothing left to have taken from him. As Miles has learned of himself as well as others, it isn’t pride that makes a fighter truly dangerous, but the total lack of it.

  Margot breaks through the circle. At the sight of Wade lying in the road, her shoulders drop.

  ‘Jesus H.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Miles says, and she blinks at him for a second before looking straight down on Wade.

  ‘Let’s go home,’ she tells him, slipping her hands under his arms. Wade resists her help, but her grip is too strong for him to get out of, and he ends up wriggling against her like an overtired child.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Miles says again. ‘I didn’t go looking—’

  ‘I know it.’

  ‘Do you need somebody to check him over? I could run up to the nurses’ station and see if—’

  ‘Just leave us alone, Miles.’

  All at once Wade goes limp, his chin collapsed on Margot’s shoulder. He whispers something in her ear and throws his arms around her, trying to find the right angle so that his feet might keep him up. With a grunt, Margot launches the two of them on their way. As they go, Wade strokes at her ponytailed hair.

  Before they’re out of sight, Jackson Bader steps forward and cups his hands around his mouth.

  ‘I hope all this won’t delay our departure in the morning,’ he calls out. ‘I paid for a week, and it’s what I expect.’

  ‘You be here at eight, and so will we,’ Margot answers. ‘Both of us.’

  ‘Hell of a place,’ Bader says to himself, but loud enough for the others to hear.

  Though he says nothing, Miles can only agree.

  Wade Fuerst would agree, too. He felt he was in hell, anyway. Not an overheated cavern of sinners as he’d imagined, but a painful solitude he’s found himself walking around in. It offered certain powers, though. A kind of magic that enabled him to actually do things that would have been no more than spiteful daydreams before.

  Take that night just over a month ago, for instance. He’d watched Margot gun the truck out of the drive and knew where she was going. All he could see of her through the windshield was her hands on the wheel. Hands that he’d kissed, tried to put a ring on. Now they were locked tight, and he would never get them open again.

  After she was gone, he walked over to the Welcome Inn and managed to get down seven bourbons before Bonnie asked him to leave, came back to the trailer to pick up his twelve-gauge and headed over to Miles McEwan’s cabin with the idea of blowing a hole through his chest. It was the beginning of not caring, and even Wade couldn’t have guessed how quickly he’d take to it. No rules, no deliberations. Overnight, he had been unleashed by the black liberties of worthlessness, and he figured he might as well t
ry them out for size.

  It was the middle of June. Late enough for true darkness to have settled over town, so that he felt he could stride along the edge of ditches and cut across yard corners with easy stealth. He made no effort to conceal his weapon or himself.

  He padded over the uncut lawn in front of Miles’s cabin and peered into the crack between the drawn curtains. The lights were on. He slid the pump-action of the shotgun and felt the satisfying catch of the cartridge into the chamber. Without humour, he thought: I’m really loaded now. He had never much liked guns before, or at least he saw that he didn’t have the gift for firing them, not in the way that born hunters like Margot did. Yet now, the weight of the Mossberg felt like a part of him, an outgrowth of his newfound destructive will.

  He clicked the safety off and walked around the side of the cabin. The night air stirred and quieted, as though it had noticed his movements and waited to see what he would do next. A square of lamplight from the living room’s window fell over the tufted grass. At the risk of being seen, Wade stepped into it and looked inside.

  He was almost surprised to see Miles sitting at the table, peering down at a chess board. Wade had never played the game, but could tell it was in its final stages, the dead bishops and pawns lined up along the side. Who was he playing? Wade stood and waited for Miles’s opponent to return from the bathroom or with a bowl of pretzels from the kitchen. After five minutes, he realized the guy was alone.

  It would be messy, but he could fire a slug through the glass right now and, without having to aim, cut his target in half. Wade paused, if only to wonder at the ease of the task before him. He’d assumed there would be more steps involved. Breaking and entering. A stakeout. But, as it turned out, it could be as simple a thing as this. Shooting a man in his living room as he played chess against himself.

  Now, so close to carrying out the act, Wade began to consider the context in which it would be performed, and deemed it lacking. A showdown was needed. The final exchange between rivals, a closing articulation of motives. But what were his motives? His hate was unfocused, generalized. It flowed by the easiest routes, indifferent to its direction, like rainwater after a storm.