Hotshots Read online

  “That’s right. I did.”

  “Mrs. Franklin told Sheila that Ramona called the trading post and left a message that she’d come back for her daughter in a few days. Mrs. Franklin said she thought Ramona was in Albuquerque. Ramona didn’t take her car to Thunder Mountain, did she?”

  “No. She went with me in the Subaru.”

  “If she’s not on the reservation, do you have any idea where she is? Where could she have gone without a car?”

  “She and Joni had a friend, Jackie, somewhere near Oro, I think. You could try calling there. Let me see if I still have the number.” There was a pause, then he came back on the line. “Oh, yeah. Here it is: 970-555-1240.”

  I thanked him, hung up, and dialed the number, wondering if that was Jacki with an “i” like Joni. I also wondered if the friend was another female hotshot.

  “Hello,” Ramona answered in her soft, even voice. There was a buzz on the line coming from either the radio station down my street or a cell phone on the other end.

  “This is Neil. Are you all right?” I asked.

  “I’m okay. I’ve been staying up here with my friend.”

  “You saved my life, Ramona. I don’t know how to thank you for that.”

  “I’m glad I could do it.”

  “The fire was caused by arson, you know.”

  There was a pause while she drew in her breath. “Oh, no.”

  “Sheila McGraw, the arson investigator for the Forest Service, has been looking for you.”

  Ramona’s sigh had wings as it flew from Colorado to the North Valley.

  “I’m not your lawyer, but if I were, my advice would be to come back to town immediately. The longer you stay away, the worse it looks.”

  “All right,” she said. “I will be back.”

  “Where are you anyway?”

  “Cloud.”

  “Could you get here in time to meet me for lunch tomorrow?”

  “Yes.”

  “How ’bout Garcia’s on Fourth Street at one o’clock?”

  “Okay,” she said.

  ******

  The Fourth Street Garcia’s is the Kid’s favorite Albuquerque restaurant. Garcia’s is all over town now, but this one’s the original and he likes the family photos on the walls, the rattlesnake skin from the Valley of Fires that hangs above the door, the red booths, the Formica tabletops, the Mexican food. The waitresses wear dresses with ruffled tops and peasant skirts and they are not little women. On a smaller woman the frills might be too cute, but the waitresses in Garcia’s have the dignity to pull it off. No one ever told them they had to be anorexic to be attractive.

  Ramona was waiting for me in a booth looking subdued in her faded jeans and work shirt. She stood up and extended her hand, which felt cool and smooth inside mine. Today’s special was chiles rellenos and we both ordered it.

  While we waited for the food I told her the story of the Garcias’ son. “He was killed in a traffic accident when he was about eleven or twelve,” I said. “I think he was riding his bike. His organs were donated and a woman in California got his heart. After the transplant she developed a craving for Mexican food, which she’d never liked before. She tracked down the Garcias and came to the restaurant to have a Mexican meal and to thank them.”

  Ramona nodded. “The heart carries a person’s feelings,” she said.

  There were a bundle of feelings in my heart, but gratitude was at the top of the heap. “When I was a child my father used to roll me tight in my blanket when he put me to bed. He called it wrapping me up Indian-style. I remembered that when you put the fire shelter around me.”

  “We know how to take care of people. You were in good black. I knew you would be safe as long as you stayed inside the shelter.”

  “When I passed out I saw my father waiting for me at the bottom of a mountain.”

  “I think he loved you very much. My father loved me but he didn’t always show it.”

  “Mike told me you went to the mountain to leave a tribute to Joni.”

  “We always leave something at a fire; sometimes it’s only a pile of stones. I went back to do that.”

  “It must have been hard to go back.”

  “It was.”

  “You were carrying a fully equipped pack?”

  “Yes. It was a tribute to them.” I didn’t ask Ramona what tribute she’d left on the mountain that day; that seemed more private than relevant.

  “I thought I could hear voices when I was in the South Canyon,” I said.

  “I heard them, too.”

  “When the trees were burning on the east side I heard them snap and hiss.” The survivor part of me needed to share what I’d experienced with Ramona. We were different in many ways, but we were women. We had survived the loss of our fathers. We had survived fire. Ramona’s calmness went deep; it made me want to confide in her.

  “They do that,” she said.

  The food arrived and we stopped talking and concentrated on the chiles rellenos, which were hot enough to keep my attention focused. When we finished eating I resumed my questions, which might have been rude but I had to do it. Gratitude wasn’t the only feeling in my heart. If nothing else, there’s always curiosity pumping.

  “Mike Marshall told me he didn’t see or talk to you again after you went to leave your tribute.”

  “No, he didn’t,” she said. If they were covering for each other, they were sticking to their story.

  “Did you see the Barkers or anybody else on the mountain before or during the fire?”

  She looked down at her fork, pushing cheese and chile around her plate with a slow circular motion. “No,” she mumbled into the plate.

  Ramona’s pain was so acute that questioning her felt like touching a burned tree and coming away with char all over my hand. “She saved your life,” said one of the voices in my heart. “Tom Hogue died. Someone put your life in danger and your clients at risk,” said a couple of the others. “Where were you when the fire started?” I asked.

  “I was near the top of the mountain. I made my way into the black and came down through it. I was afraid you and Mike were still up there.”

  “Did you hear the helicopter when it came back?”

  “Yes, but I didn’t see it land.”

  “Did Mike tell you that Hogue threatened to fire you?” I asked.

  Ramona looked away from the plate and toward the wall, where she studied the fiestas, weddings, and graduations of the Garcia family. “Yes,” she said. “I called him last night after I talked to you.”

  “Can you tell me why you saved me and not Tom Hogue?”

  “I heard your voice. I heard you coughing. I didn’t hear him. I only had one shelter,” she said. “Even if I had heard him I would have saved you. You work for her family. You are connected to her.”

  I wondered again if saving me could compensate in any way for losing Joni. “I don’t know how to tell you how grateful I am,” I said. “I can’t be your lawyer because I am already representing the Barkers, but if there’s anything else I can do for you or your daughter…?”

  “We’re okay.”

  “Being a hotshot must mean a lot to you.”

  “It does. Everyone says it’s a big deal to be a point woman, but all I wanted was to be a firefighter. The crew boss hired me because I could do the work.”

  “Was the crew boss in the South Canyon, too?”

  She shook her head. “He quit the Forest Service,” she said.

  “What about you?” I asked. “Are you still planning to continue? Mike feels he’s ruined as a firefighter.”

  “I have to,” she said.

  “I can recommend a lawyer.”

  “I don’t need one.”

  It wasn’t much, but she did let me pay for the lunch. I didn’t see her vehicle. It was parked in the lot behind the building. Mine was on the street. “Promise me you’ll call Sheila McGraw,” I said.

  “Sure,” she said.

  “And you’ll keep in
touch?”

  She nodded, but I suspected that if I ever saw Ramona Franklin again I’d be the one to track her down.

  Anna was out when I returned to the office. The telephone message light was blinking, but I ignored it, went into my office, and took out the picture of Joni with the snakes wrapped round her arms. In Navajo sand paintings snakes represent lightning, a power that zigzags from the gods to the ground. Lightning strikes suddenly and without warning. Snakes coil before they strike, but it can come without warning if you don’t know they’re there. It’s the nature of fire to get out of control, but all fires go out eventually with or without intervention, I thought. There’s more power in starting a fire than there is in putting it out.

  15

  ON SUNDAY MORNING I woke with a craving that only menudo could fill. The Kid, who was in my bed again, woke up with a craving that only I could fill. It was something else to be grateful to Ramona for—that there were still desires that could be filled. The Kid drifted off to sleep again. I punched his shoulder. “You awake?” I asked.

  “I am now.”

  “Let’s go out for menudo.”

  “Why?”

  “I like menudo.” For me it’s comfort food, the Mexican version of chicken soup.

  He made a face. “You know what menudo is?”

  “Sure. Cow’s stomach.” AKA tripe. I was no stranger to tripe. I’d eaten pepper pot soup when I was a kid. Maybe that’s when I started making the connection between comfort and spice. It took awhile for science to catch up, but now scientists agree and have their own theory. People in hot climates don’t eat chiles simply to hide the taste of rancid meat. Hot peppers contain capsaicin, which stimulates the release of endorphins into the brain to produce a natural high. You have to do something to disguise tripe. On its own it’s slimy as a snail, but add some posole and red chile and it’ll start your engine.

  “Why you want to eat that?” the Kid asked.

  “Why not? You eat chicharrones.” AKA fried pork fat, also high on the unappealing scale.

  “That’s different.”

  The only difference I could see was that chicharrones were crunchy and menudo was not. “Let’s go to PJ’s,” I said. “You can get a chicharrones burrito there.”

  “Okay,” he said, getting out of bed and looking around for something to wear. “Where’s my shirt, Chiquita?”

  “Which one?”

  “The red one.”

  “In the closet.”

  He opened the closet door and said, “Híjole,” when he saw how much space his clothes were taking up. “I have a lot of stuff here.” He took the red shirt from the hanger and put it on. “This is a nice house, Chiquita. I like it here.”

  “Let’s go to breakfast,” I said.

  The only place in New Mexico I’d eat the menudo more than once is PJ’s. In most places it’s more rubber than flavor. PJ’s is a small café with a big parking lot that even on Sunday morning is never full. The Kid chomped his burrito while I slurped my menudo. I finished with three cups of coffee and had enough of a caffeine and capsaicin buzz to get me where I wanted to go, which was not back to my unorganized house. The Kid didn’t have any plans for the afternoon, I knew, but tomorrow was another story.

  “Do you have a busy day tomorrow?” I asked him.

  He shrugged. “Mas o menos. Why?”

  “I was thinking it might be interesting to go up to Colorado.”

  “Where in Colorado?”

  “Thunder Mountain.”

  “Why do you want to do that?” The Kid had cleaned his plate and put down his knife and fork.

  “The Forest Service has finished their investigation and they’re opening the area up again today. I’d like to see if I can find anything they missed. I’d like to see who goes back.”

  “That’s it?”

  “I’d kind of like to see it again myself.” I also wanted to show him the place where I’d nearly burned to death, but I didn’t say that. “Do you have anything to do tomorrow that Rafael couldn’t handle?”

  “Not really,” he said. “What about your office?”

  “Nothing major.”

  “Okay,” he said. “Vamos.”

  ******

  We took the Hispanic road this time and made it to Thunder Mountain in four hours. Across from the road into the campground was a large wooden sign that read “Mountain View Estates—Ten-Acre Lots for Sale.” A hawk had been carved into the sign and was winging it above the letters. Several houses inhabited a grassy meadow, but there was room for several more. The houses were variations on a theme: view-oriented, rustic, with roofs made out of cedar shakes. It was a planned development—too planned for me. The houses looked up the East Canyon toward the peak of Thunder Mountain. Until recently the view must have been spectacular, but now the burn mark was a black snake slithering across the mountain with charred tree trunks standing watch on the ridge top. There was new black among the old black, but from here there was no way of telling where one ended and the other began. I asked the Kid to pull over.

  “See the burn up there? That’s where I was.” I said.

  “You are very lucky you survived that, Chiquita.”

  “I know.” And I had the cough to prove it.

  The top of the mountain was a stark reminder of the awesome power of fire, but much of the drainage area was still green. I directed the Kid toward the campground. Thick arms of cottonwoods shaded the road. Squirrels raced up the trunks and darted across the branches.

  “From here it looks like nothing happened,” the Kid said.

  But near here was where it had all started. “It’s deceptive,” I replied.

  We parked in the parking lot, got out, and walked to the cottonwood where the Barkers had waited. Either they’d left nothing behind or the area had been thoroughly scoured by investigators. There was no sign they’d been here, no sign this area had ever been an encampment, no fusees or other firefighting equipment lying on the ground. Trails wandered behind the parking lot and the Kid and I took the one that headed north. At first it was so quiet you could hear the leaves fall. Then I heard the sound of chattering birds that, as they got closer, turned out to be hikers, two women around sixty wearing floppy hats, shorts, and hiking boots. Binoculars dangled from their necks. Birders. I’dd know them anywhere. Wisps of gray hair slipped out from under their hats. One had long, skinny legs and the hunched shoulders of a woman who’d always felt she was too tall. The other was shorter with a round butt.

  “Hello,” one called.

  “Good morning,” said the other.

  “Hi,” I replied, stopping to chat. “Seen any birds?”

  “A few,” the taller woman said.

  “This is the first time they let us back after the fire,” added her companion. “We haven’t seen anybody else hiking yet.”

  “We’re not exactly hiking,” I replied.

  “No?” The shorter woman had the bright eyes and musical voice of a wren. It trilled up the scale and pinged back down. Every word had a couple of notes and every sentence a melody.

  “I survived the blaze,” I said.

  They were suitably impressed. “Wow,” the wren chirped.

  “You did?” The taller woman looked down as she talked and her head bobbed like a crane searching for fish. “I watched that fire through my picture window. It was fierce.”

  “Do you live in Mountain View Estates?” It would be a convenient place for bird-watching, and, lately, fire watching.

  “Yes, I do.”

  “Did you glass the fire?” I asked. I’d picked up birder talk from my Aunt Joan.

  “I did, but all I could see was smoke and flames. I never saw any people, but I heard a Forest Service employee died up there.”

  “That’s right.”

  “What were you doing on Thunder Mountain that day?” asked the wren.

  “I’m a lawyer representing the family of one of the hotshots who was killed in the South Canyon. We flew in to look at the s
ite. A Forest Service official and I got caught in the fire on the way down. I made it out; he didn’t.”

  “We were birding in the drainage that day and we heard the helicopter taking off and landing,” the crane said. “It sounded like a war zone.”

  “It’s hard to ignore a helicopter,” I agreed.

  “You were lucky you survived. Very lucky,” said the wren.

  “I know.” The Kid had heard all this before and was poking at the ground with his running shoe. If he was wondering how much mileage I intended to get out of my part in the fire, the answer was as much as would help me uncover the cause.

  “If it hadn’t been for us they’d have let the South Canyon fire burn,” the crane said.

  “Really?” I asked.

  “Really. When I heard about it I got on the phone and called my senator and my representative. And Emily”—she nodded at her friend—“called the head of the Colorado office of the BLM.”

  “You know those people?” I asked.

  “Every one of ’em,” she said. “We’re on the board of the Colorado Audubon Society. We vote. We contribute to political campaigns. I’m not going to sit by and wait for my house to go up in smoke.”

  “Who would?” I wondered. Few people—no matter how environmentally aware—would let their own house burn, unless, of course, there was an ulterior motive.

  Emily trilled, “The slurry bombers roared through the valley right above Margaret’s house. We were standing outside. If they’d known we were the ones who called, they might have dropped the slurry on top of us!” She laughed.

  “That fire would have burned itself out eventually,” I said. Some houses might have been lost, but lives would have been saved.

  “We wanted to be sure,” Emily said.

  “You said you were in the drainage the afternoon of the second fire?”

  “We were birding, but when we smelled the smoke we drove to Margaret’s house and got on the phone again.”

  “Did you see anybody else here that day?” I asked. Birders, after all, are known for their sharp eyes.