Falls Like Lightning Read online

  ———

  Elle exhaled. She honestly didn’t know what she was doing. She was a single mom, not a single girl in her early twenties. Sounds of Maddie singing a redundant refrain—“I’m bored, I’m bored, I’m bored”—to the tune of “We’re Off to See the Wizard” came from the crew compartment. The fuel truck arrived and connected to Jumper 41.

  Her mind trailed off to a little over seven years ago. Claiming it was on a whim, Silas had invited her to ride with him and a couple friends on a nine-plus-hour trip from McCall, Idaho, to Seaside, Oregon. They weren’t an item yet. It had just worked out that they both were on three days’ leave. It’d be a lot of driving, but he really wanted to camp by the Pacific. She didn’t know him very well, but it was the kind of decision a single girl with no ties could make.

  She’d stood out on the front walkway of her house before dawn that Friday with a backpack slung over one shoulder and a sleeping bag under her other arm. She heard the sound of his VW bus approaching before she saw it. A long surfboard lay strapped to the top.

  Inside, Silas sat behind the wheel. No other passengers. She hopped up in the front seat, said “Morning,” and inquired who they were going to pick up next. Silas looked sheepish and admitted that his buddies had bowed out last minute. He totally understood if she decided not to go. She eyed him, searching for any sign of deceit or trickery. Satisfied that none existed, she set her backpack and sleeping bag behind the seat and kicked a foot up on the dash. “Well, I for one,” she said, “am glad to have someone else do the flying.”

  He flashed his ineffable grin, dropped the column shift in gear, and they were off.

  Late afternoon in Seaside they bought fresh fruit and a bunch of mint at a farmer’s market. She reclined against a warm sand dune by the empty beach parking lot. She peeled an orange, the scent of citrus covering her fingertips, the cool taste of leafy herbs on her tongue. Silas stood in his wetsuit on the frame borders of the bus, dancing to Donovan on the AM radio with the sun behind him, giant and amber and sinking beneath the horizon.

  He sang along, “ ‘Superman or Green Lantern ain’t got nothin’ on me.’ ”

  She grinned and shook her head.

  He pointed to her and started in on the next verse when she heard the sound of wet rubber squeaking over metal. His eyes flashed big and he tumbled over the side.

  Elle held her breath and sat forward.

  Silas popped up, sand on his face and shoulder. He boogied into the parking lot like nothing had happened.

  She burst into laughter.

  He darted forward, a playful look in his eyes. She yelped and twisted to scramble up the dune, her orange dropping and rolling in the sand. He snatched her by the waist, and before she knew it, the earth turned upside down, with her pounding fists on his back like a cavewoman swept off the ground.

  “Let me down, you.”

  “Time to get wet.”

  “No!” Her voice came out as a scream. She already felt water from his wetsuit soaking through her clothing. She was so not in the mood to be dunked into a fifty-five-degree ocean.

  Silas just laughed and spanked her. Elle gritted her teeth. How humiliating. She knew that the more she screamed and kicked the funnier he would think it was. Maybe if she just played like it was no big deal . . . He wouldn’t really dunk her in the water. Right?

  Elle feigned going unconscious.

  “Hey,” Silas said. “You still awake back there?”

  She opened her eyes lazily. “Hmm? Oh yes. Just relaxing.” Maybe her strategy would work.

  Silas stopped walking. The sound of the waves crashed louder. He slid her body forward until her toes touched wet sand. She faced him, hands on his arms, his own tight around the small of her back. Frigid seawater rushed over her heels. She stifled a yelp at the icy cold.

  “There,” he said. “Told you you’d get wet.”

  She ran her hand along his biceps. His wet, sand-colored hair lay swept across his forehead, long enough to be a bit shaggy but short enough to be irresistibly cute. And those eyes . . . She swallowed and bit her lip. She was smitten. How had this happened? She was a U.S. Forest Service pilot. Could there be anything more old hat than a smokejumper? So why did she quiver like a cup of Jell-O? She traced her fingers over his chest. In the neoprene wetsuit he actually did resemble a lean, chiseled superhero. Just for her.

  He glanced at the sunset and then looked into her eyes. “I agree with the song, you know.”

  “About Green Lantern?”

  “About when you’ve made your mind up, forever to be . . .” He held her gaze for a moment longer, then searched the sand near them. “Here.” He knelt and broke off a thin strand of dried kelp.

  Elle tented her eyebrows. “Ew.”

  He smiled. “What do you mean, ‘Ew?’ Look.” He threaded it between his fingers, brushing off the sand. “Fashioned by the sea and purified by the sun.”

  The water washed around her ankles, the sand burying her toes. The cold was no longer so shocking.

  “Let me see your hand.”

  Elle reached out her right hand.

  “Not that one. The left one.”

  Something fluttered in Elle’s breast. She hesitated and lifted her hand. He took the ring finger.

  She shook her head. “Uh-uh. That one is reserved.”

  He raised an eyebrow. “Is it now? For whom?”

  “Don’t know yet.”

  “Okay. How about the right, then.”

  She nodded and offered it.

  “This is what I mean.” He took the seaweed and tied it around her right ring finger. She looked up from it.

  He shuffled backward, dancing. “ ‘Superman or Green Lantern ain’t got nothing on me.’ ”

  ———

  Silas returned, cleaned up and wearing a fresh navy blue Redding Smokejumpers T-shirt and a pair of multi-pocketed Forest Service–issue dark green pants. She watched as he greeted Madison at the crew compartment door. Maddie perked up from her doldrums and put on her best ladylike manners. Funny, she never did that with the jumpers back in Oregon.

  “Madison, this is Mr. Kent. He’s going to be joining us on our flight to Oakland.”

  Maddie nodded to Silas. “Good to meet you. You can sit in the back.”

  “Maddie—”

  “It’s all right.” Silas slightly raised a hand and addressed Madison. “You know, I feel right at home in the back.”

  “That’s good. ’Cause my mom needs to fly in front, and I need to read the maps. But if you want, I can bring you stuff.”

  “Bring me stuff?”

  “Yeah. Like when you’re on a plane and a lady brings you stuff like soda and cookies.”

  Silas scratched his chin. “Well, I guess that would make riding in the back less lonely.”

  Maddie’s eyebrows angled and she nodded. “Yeah. I don’t want you to be lonely. It’ll be fun. Let me ask my mom if you can sit in the front, too. Mom—”

  “Yes, dear. That’d be fine.” She put a hand on her arm. “Can you do me a favor and show Mr. Kent the copilot seat in the cockpit?”

  “Sure. C’mon, Mr. Kent.” Maddie cupped a hand by her mouth and leaned toward him. “But don’t flip any switches. My mom gets mad when you touch stuff.” They disappeared into the plane.

  Elle bit her cheek. What was she doing? She started her walk around the plane, running a hand along the hull. She clasped the diagonal wing support with one hand and stepped around the tire. From the cockpit-door window Madison waved to her, Silas smiling behind her.

  She was already regretting saying yes to bringing him along. Like all jumpers, he was a proven risk. A big one. He thrived on the unpredictable, on being unfettered. She had to be honest with herself. What could have really changed with him? The man jumped into fires for a living.

  She’d already been burned by him once.

  Elle reeled in her emotions. She felt better with a sense of control over the situation. Guard against the charm. She could r
ead stormy skies. And she knew how to navigate unpredictable weather.

  This would be a ride along. Little more. They’d perhaps reminisce on old times, smooth over some hurts, but that was that.

  Some relationships were beyond redemption.

  ———

  Elle’s voice entered Silas’s ears through the headset speakers. “Did you see that lightning flash, Maddie? . . . Maddie? Baby, you’re missing it.” She let out a quick, humored breath. “She’s conked out already.”

  “Everything is a miracle at this age, unless you’re too tired to stay up for it.” He gritted his teeth as soon as he said it. Who was he to say something like that? As though he understood what it was like to be a parent. What did he know about things looking like miracles at Maddie’s age? Elle must think him such a joke.

  Silas looked back at the crew cabin, at the swaying netted webbing, at the chrome D-rings and the bold-typed warning instructions beside the door latch.

  Actually, he did know. He remembered. Despite everything.

  Elle sighed—soft, relaxed—somehow asking the perfect question, “Do you remember much about being five?”

  The San Mateo Home for Boys. The foster homes. He wasn’t sure how much of his memories were from being five. But they lingered vividly in his head. “I guess I remember always being me.” A subtle hum of static filled the space after his words.

  “Is this still a miracle to you?”

  “What? The weather?”

  “Life. Creation. All of it.”

  “Absolutely. Maybe that’s why it doesn’t seem so different. For as long as I can remember, I’ve always known that there was something more in all this. That the sun and the trees and the wind, the smell and feel of it all, were . . .” He shook his head, searching for words. “I don’t know. Evidence of God, I guess. Of His Spirit. That He loved me.”

  “Loved?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Not loves?”

  Perceptive, that woman. “That’s what it says in the Bible, doesn’t it? That ‘God so loved the world . . . ’ ”

  The plane leaned to the right. “There’s the children’s hospital.”

  “Where?”

  “At our two o’clock.”

  “I see it.”

  “I’ll radio the tower and get us in the pattern to land.”

  CHAPTER

  09

  It was only a cab ride, and Maddie sat beside Elle just the way she had so many other times, lap belted so she didn’t need her car seat. Why should one variable make Elle feel so awkward? Silas sat staring out the window, his arm stretched over the top of the backseat, behind Maddie and her. Elle forced herself to keep her face forward, though her eyes couldn’t help wandering to the black sparkled shoes on Madison’s dangling feet and then to Silas’s shirt that accented the subtle angles of his torso.

  Green light. They rolled a block. Red light. Shadowed beneath the Tribune building and its giant clock tower in downtown Oakland. The thought she’d been suppressing crept in, like a stray cat slinking through an open door.

  This had the feeling of a family.

  The corners of his eyes bore the beginnings of wrinkles, a mark of maturity but not yet age. Outwardly he was the image of adult youthfulness. Inwardly . . . What did she see going on? Turbulence, perhaps? She knew a few things about that.

  Why did she feel so old?

  She was doing all right. Wasn’t she? Providing for Madison, doing what single moms do. Making it work.

  It had been two years now, and the doctors weren’t any closer to finding a solution to Maddie’s seizures. They’d eliminated the obvious causes but couldn’t figure out why her little girl had suddenly and increasingly fallen victim to flash bolts of electricity firing off in her brain, sending her body into convulsions and drugging her mind into a postictal state until she woke wondering why her tongue was bleeding again.

  This was Elle’s life now. Flying over fires and driving to doctors.

  It was good for Silas to see this, to see the reality of a mother’s love and commitment. She didn’t want him to have any illusions. She wasn’t twenty-two and unfettered. Undoubtedly, he was already squirming in his seat, ready to bail and find something that better suited his capricious fancies.

  ———

  She looked like a five-year-old version of her mother, bouncing on Elle’s shoulder with the rhythm of her stride.

  How did that woman walk so fast with a sleeping five-year-old in arm? Silas had to skip-jog to keep up with her in the hospital corridor.

  Elle flashed an irritated glance at him. “You really don’t have to follow us. The cafeteria here is actually pretty good.”

  “Why don’t you let me carry her? She’s got to be lighter than my fireline pack.”

  She let out a quick sigh. “I’m fine, thank you.” She turned down an adjoining hallway. Madison’s arm dangled like a pendulum.

  They approached an intersecting corridor. Silas caught a glimpse of the numbering. Elle hooked left. Silas paused. “Two-eighteen, right?”

  Elle turned, and Madison stirred.

  “Here,” Silas brought out his hands. “Why don’t you let me take her?”

  Elle stared at him. “It’s just down the hall.”

  “How do you know?”

  “I’ve been here lots of times, Silas. Plenty without any help.”

  “I thought this was your first visit to this specialist.”

  She exhaled and readjusted her daughter in her arms. Madison lifted her head. “Mommy. Where are we?”

  Winded, she said, “We’re going to see a new—”

  “A new what, Mommy?”

  “Doctor, baby. New doctor.”

  Elle lowered Madison to the floor. “Here, Maddie. I need you to walk.”

  “But I’m tired.”

  “No. This is your job right now.”

  “I don’t want to walk.”

  Elle strode ahead. Madison planted her feet together in the middle of the hallway. Elle turned, simmering with impatience.

  Silas squatted next to Madison. “Hey, Maddie.”

  She stared at her mom a moment longer, then turned to Silas and smiled. “Can you carry me, Silas?”

  He angled his jaw and glanced at Elle. He reached into his pocket. “How about this, Maddie. I’ll make you a bet.”

  “What’s a bet?”

  “See this quarter?” He held it up.

  “Ooh. Can I have it?”

  Silas palmed it and shook his head. “Nope.”

  “Why?”

  “You haven’t heard the bet yet.”

  “What is it?”

  “I bet that I can make this quarter come out from behind your ear.”

  She giggled. “No.”

  “Really.”

  “Uh-uh.”

  “Yeah, watch.” He motioned with the hand holding the quarter, appearing to transfer it into his opposite fist, which he held up in the air.

  Maddie reached for the fist.

  “Wait,” Silas said. “First our bet. If I can make this quarter appear behind your ear, then you walk the rest of the way.”

  She pulled at his fingers, trying to pry open his fist. “Let me see it.”

  “Nope. You have to bet.”

  “What if I get this quarter out of here?”

  “And it doesn’t appear behind your ear?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Then, you not only get to keep the quarter, but your mom will carry you the rest of the way to the doctor’s office.”

  At that, Madison smiled in realization and looked up at Elle, who stood with hands on hips.

  “So—” Silas held up his fist—“do you bet that I can’t make this quarter appear behind your ear?”

  “Yes.”

  “Okay.” He let her pry loose his fingers. His palm lay empty.

  “Hey!”

  “Hey, what?”

  “Where is it?”

  With the quarter still palmed in his opposite hand, Sil
as reached behind her ear and produced it in his fingers.

  Madison gasped.

  Silas took her little hand, turned it palm upward, and dropped the coin into it. He stood, took her other hand, and coaxed her on.

  She stepped forward. “How did you do that? Can I keep it?”

  Silas nodded.

  She gripped two of his fingers and, with her other hand, played pulling the coin from behind her ear—feigning surprise every time she held it in front of her face. They strolled up to Elle, who looked on with an expression at the same time dumbfounded, grateful, and irritated.

  Silas grinned. “Quarter for your thoughts?”

  Elle huffed and led the way to a nearby office door. It led to a waiting room, where he sat one vacant seat away from Elle and thumbed through a copy of Newsweek. Madison sat opposite a plastic baby on a play rug, telling the doll to watch her fist in the air while pulling the quarter out from behind its ear. Elle sat with back straight and hands pressed between her knees, eyes moving from Madison to the reception desk window. She pulled her cell phone from her purse to check the time. Someone flipped the water cooler tap and filled a paper cup.

  A nurse appeared at the exam-room door and called Madison’s name. Silas smiled respectfully and watched Elle follow her daughter in.

  CHAPTER

  10

  Bo Mansfield moved as molasses under a southern sun. He liked it that way. When others tuckered out, he kept on grubbing, helmet set low on his brow, riding on the perch of his shoulders that moved with the perspiring rhythm of his Pulaski axe through the duff.

  He could contentedly work for hours without speaking. Dialogue aplenty, but little of it aloud. He worked as the cleanup caboose on the crew. He couldn’t leave anything living along the line. Just bare mineral soil. Bare mineral soil.

  The guys in front could afford to let a root or a patch of grass pass along to the next. But it all stopped with him. And Pendleton had assigned Bo to the back, knowing that he would make sure it ended there.

  This time, Spotter Pendleton had them cutting a distinctly indirect path to stop the fire. Bo knew the maps. They were sacrificing a lot of forest land by cutting this far from the main fire. Maybe it was just Pendleton being his overly cautious self. Pendleton was calculating, textbook precise. He checked and rechecked and agonizingly evaluated situations, but he wasn’t cowardly. Bo had cut hot line with him many times, choking on woodsmoke thicker than that of a pig roast to save little more than a jackpot of endangered flora. They’d been through enough that he trusted Pendleton.