Journey By Fire Read online

  Kara said they were going to Sierra Vista. He thought of snows years ago in their backyard and pushing Kara down a hill on a sled they called the Swiss Bob, and of Kara laughing her sweet giggle as she tipped over in the powder. How distant the memory seemed in this charred, broken-down restaurant and parking lot. They hadn't heard anything else after the postcard.

  ###

  They walked around into the back of the good part of the Southwest Grille. Javi pulled back a screen door that hung loosely on its hinges, then he took out a key, unlocked an inner door, and they came through a back way into a kitchen. The stainless steel gleamed, Wade noticed, as he thought Carmen had tidied up the damaged kitchen, aiming for a sense of normalcy. Javi took some eggs out of a fridge and removed two frying pans from a shelf and they had some butter and they began to cook the eggs on the top of an old wood stove. Wiley and Wade went back to the truck with two wooden crates, and they opened the truck rear door and filled the crates with potatoes that still had crumbly flakes of soil on them, and Wade liked the loamy smell the piles of potatoes had. It made him think of sticking his head out of the train window when they crossed Kansas and Nebraska. Some of the potatoes on the very bottom of the piles had gone bad, but they filled the crates with good ones and carried them back to the kitchen.

  Carmen was already making a second batch of eggs, and they cut up the potatoes with two kitchen knives and threw them in with the eggs and butter, then she began to scoop the piles of eggs and potatoes, nicely fired in the butter, onto plates.

  Wade was beyond starved and it seemed so delicious.

  "Wait," Carmen said, as he picked up his plate and fork. "Don't you want some sauce?"

  "Yes."

  She squirted some Mexican hot sauce from a plastic container onto his eggs and potato pile. "That's fine."

  They were all standing in a circle eating, as if they'd never eaten before.

  "Just like home!" Phoebe chirped out.

  With his mouth full, Wade asked, "Where'd you get the eggs?"

  Javi put a skillet down. "Farm down on 50."

  "They still have a farm? A working farm here?"

  "It's off the road," Javi said. "You'd have to know where to find it. They have chickens, and dairy. They milk the cows by hand now. They've had to butcher some of the cows for meat, but the last time we were there we came back with some milk."

  "Amazing."

  Javi went back over to the fridge, which had no electricity but provided some insulation. He opened the door and pulled out a clear two-liter jar of milk.

  "We have to finish it in a few days or it goes bad."

  "We will make yogurt from it," Carmen said.

  "We will."

  Wade looked over at Phoebe and Wiley, as if seeking their approval. "Can I have some?"

  Carmen pulled a small glass off a shelf and poured the creamy milk into it and handed it to Wade. He put his plate down and accepted the glass, then brought it up to his mouth and drank; it tasted thick and sweet and like a milk shake. It was warm but still delicious. He put the glass down on a stainless steel shelf and watched as the creamy residue clung to and slowly drooped down the side of the glass.

  "Can we go back to this farm?"

  "Yes, I think so," Javi said. Wade thought they could load up on eggs, some milk, at least temporarily, and maybe meat, in return for potatoes and whatever else the farmers would take. Maybe they could work for it; the vision of a farm in a field back in the woods, and working on the farm, had made Wade think that there could be texture in a day again, not only thinking one hour ahead. To spend a day beyond survival mode.

  Pepe sat cross-legged on the cement floor spooning eggs into his mouth. When he was finished he put the plate on the floor, and said "We chased the chickens. The barn was full of yellow hay and baby chicks, and we jumped in the hay. Then they cut the chicken's head off…"

  "Okay Pepe, help your father collect the plates, if the people are finished," Carmen said.

  "If you don't mind…" Wiley brought his plate over to the skillet, which still had leftover, hash-browned potatoes in it; with black-crusted sides where it had griddled in the melted butter.

  "Please," Javi said. Wiley shoveled the rest of it on to his plate with a spatula.

  Then Javi said, "Can we go with you on the truck?"

  "Where?"

  "To the west. Grand Junction."

  "Why sure you can. Do you have any leftover oven grease?" There was a bit of it in the iron skillet from the butter, eggs, and potatoes.

  "We have a lot of leftover grease," Javi said matter-of-factly. He walked into a side room of the kitchen, and came out with a gallon-sized or so bucket that had a brown, rheumy grease floating in it with small pieces of debris.

  "That's the ticket," Wiley said, giving the bucket a studious but sluggish inspection. "I'm down to a quarter tank. It's worth a try, isn't it? Never tried it before with the truck." He scratched the whiskers on his chin. "How much more of it do you have?"

  "Twenty gallons, thereabouts."

  "Do you have tops for the containers, so we can transport them?"

  "Yes."

  "We'll load them into the back of the truck."

  "Good."

  Then everyone was quiet, sated and fatigued by the food.

  "Let's move the truck to behind the building," Wade said. "It's too visible, and we can load it up from here."

  Wiley nodded, distracted. He turned to Javi. "Why do you want to move from here?"

  "We want to go home. There's no future here."

  "Guess not. Where's home?"

  "Nicaragua, near Managua, on the coast."

  "No kidding?" Wiley's eyes lit up. "I drove down there about thirty years ago with some pals and ended up on the beach, camping out and surfing. Best weed I've ever had…"

  "You can go back sometime." Javi smiled.

  "I just might, I just might. That's a long way from here."

  "Everywhere is a long way."

  "True."

  Phoebe yawned strenuously and tossed her hair behind her shoulders. "Many many thanks for the food, and I have to grab some zees."

  "De nada," Carmen said.

  "Do you still have the booths out in the restaurant?"

  "It's wet and moldy and exposed to the elements," Carmen said. "But you can try. Do you want to lie down?"

  "Si," Phoebe said, and stood up. She stretched and ground both her eyes with her fists, in a way that made Wade tired too. They couldn't get too complacent and comfortable at the Southwest Grill, he thought, or they'll be snuck up upon.

  Wiley went to move the truck and Phoebe left for the evacuated part of the restaurant.

  "When you get the truck back here, we'll load up the grease," Wade said.

  "When do you want to leave?" Javi asked. Carmen wiped the dishes with a towel, and Wade wandered over to help her.

  "Don't go far!" she yelled out to Pepe, who followed Phoebe out of the kitchen. "He's usually not allowed to be alone."

  "Pepe's my pal, right compadre?" She put her arm around him. "I'll keep a close eye on him. We're just going to have a nap…"

  "If you hear me yell in there that we have to go, you two are going to have to move fast," Wade said. "Do you hear me, Pepe?"

  "Yeah." Then Wade turned to Carmen. "We might as well stay the night…load up the truck with food, grease, and what you want to bring."

  "I think that will be okay."

  They could hear the guttural cough of the truck starting up and the loud engine and springy suspension as the truck angled over the dirt and gravel behind the restaurant.

  CHAPTER 8

  They lit a small fire behind the restaurant at night and Javi came out with a jug of Chianti. Carmen brought glasses and gave each of them one. They were cooking the last of some slices of beef and bacon that the Santiagos kept in the old fridge, and they ate them with potatoes and cheddar cheese. Javi walked behind each person and filled their glass. They planned to leave first thing in the morning.
The truck was already packed. The night was silent and comforting by the fire, with an evening breeze that blew through the leaves of the trees they huddled beneath, and the sound of crickets. They could see anyone who was coming close, due to the lights of the vehicles from far away.

  Wade watched the distant flickering in the sky over the ridges, like a faraway fireworks display.

  The food was delicious, freshly grilled in butter and olive oil, and the wine was better. It loosened their tongues; everyone began telling stories. The Santiagos talked about how they rode on the roof of a train from Nicaragua and entered the U.S. by crossing a desert at night in Baja. Then they ended up in Colorado working long hours at the Southwest Grill, and had the baby Pepe and the original owner died and left the restaurant to them, as they had full citizenship. They wanted to go back home and the fabric of society fell apart before they had a chance to sell. They wanted to get to the southwest and the border almost as bad as Wade did.

  Phoebe worked as a waitress in the Grill and she also sold desert jewels with "special powers." She scoured the desert outside of Santa Fe, New Mexico and in Utah for special rocks and made artwork out of them and sold them to tourists off the road and at a Taos gallery. She became adept at journeying through the desert. She read the poetry of Pablo Neruda from Chile and she tried peyote in the arid parts of the Sangre de Cristo. She's been going through boyfriends; she finds them easily and tires of them quickly, about one every six months.

  She had no particular destination when Wade and Wiley met her, but now she was seriously considering going to Nicaragua with the Santiagos. Wade just wanted to get to Grand Junction in one piece, then head south after his daughter.

  Wiley told the story, as if it was his favorite one, about the surf-bum trip to Latin America, where the food was mostly fruit and marijuana. Then everyone got their wine glasses filled again and the Chianti was gone and Wiley talked about how he went to North Dakota about ten years ago as a roughneck in the oil fields for the good money they paid.

  Phoebe quoted from Neruda:

  Now they have the ocean

  The cold and burning emptiness

  The solitude full of flames.

  Wade liked the sound of it and he asked her what the name of the poem was and she said it was The Old Women Of The Ocean. She said both of her parents were dead and used to live on the coast in Northern California. She asked Wade for a picture of Kara and he got up and found one inside his backpack. He handed it to her. Pepe was asleep in his mother's lap.

  "What a gorgeous chick," Phoebe said, and she passed the picture around. "I want to meet this soul sister."

  "Maybe you'll get a chance to."

  "Where did you come from again?"

  "Vermont." Wade took a small stick and began poking around in the fire absentmindedly. He thought it was just a little weird that they'd lit one on purpose, given that vast territories were already aflame. The little campfire still imparted warmth and helped bring them together. Somehow it eased his mind. They'd put it out soon.

  "Then you took a train?"

  "Yeah, I made it to Denver, where I met a priest." He hadn't even looked at the Bible, so he reached into the backpack and removed it. "He left me with this Bible."

  He handed it to Javi, who had sat down next to him on a log.

  "Did he try to convert you?"

  "No, we had a little dust-up in Denver, with some men, and he thought he should give me something."

  Javi began leafing through the pages until he came to a part of the book that had been hollowed out into a compartment. Things were firmly packed into it.

  "I'll be darned," Wade said. "I hadn't noticed. The priest acted like he really wanted to give it to me. What's in there?" Javi removed the objects delicately, like an archeologist.

  "Medicine," he said. He took out a plastic bottle and shook it lightly; some pills knocked around inside. He handed it to Wade, who got out his glasses and read the tiny print on the label.

  "Doxycycline, two rounds. That will come in handy. So he gives me a Bible, and it contains antibiotics…"

  "A bottle of virtue," Phoebe said. "What else?"

  Javi next took out a zip-locked bag that had a white powder inside; it was labeled "For Pain" in black ink.

  "Enough said, I guess," Wade said. "Keep it with the pills." He'd put them both in his first-aid kit.

  Then Javi brought out a gold-colored medallion. The compartment only contained one more thing after that. He held the medallion out and it dangled at the end of a red cloth band. The medallion glinted in the firelight.

  "Let me see," Phoebe said, excited. She reached across the fire and he handed it to her. She examined it closely, then she said, "That's a Saint Michael medal, and an old one, too. It will protect the wearer from evil. It's powerful magic, that one."

  "Put it on, let's see how it looks on you," Wiley said. She put it over her head and the medal slipped into the space left by an unbuttoned denim shirt. She rearranged the cloth so that the medal lay near her clavicle, then looked around and smiled. The fire crackled and the breeze lifted some embers up, which swirled into the dark trees.

  "It becomes you," Wade said.

  Finally, Javi removed a small cloth bag from the Bible, and it too contained something of value. A string of pearls. A tiny crinkled line of paper, like you'd find in a fortune cookie, came out of the bag with the pearls. Javi gave the paper to Wade, who handed the pearls to Carmen.

  "They're so beautiful," she purred. She ran them through her fingers; she put them on.

  Wade read from the paper, "Genuine pearl jewelry made by the Maori in New Zealand…Okay…"

  "They are priceless," Carmen said.

  "You can keep them."

  "Oh no."

  "Yes."

  "Muy bonito."

  Wade felt the darkness closing in around them and their fire, a homy yet fearful impulse. He got up because he wanted to look at the road again out in front of the restaurant. Once he left the sanctuary of the fire it was incredibly dark; he thought he might walk straight into a tree. He couldn't see the road itself, yet its evident emptiness and inactivity was reassuring. He listened to his boots crunch on the gravel of the parking lot and sensed the unlit restaurant as a barely discernible, crumbled hulk beside the road. Clouds covered the stars and the distant fire flickered lightly over the ridges. He felt they were well-enough hidden for now, yet someone high up could still notice the campfire inside the black night.

  He was ready to leave the next day, and he thought he would sleep outside on a pad he would unroll beneath a tree and a cotton blanket.

  He walked back to the fire and all the wine-glasses were empty and everyone seemed to lean into the weak flame and embers. He could only see their faces well. Javi was translating Spanish phrases and Wiley asked him what A mal tiempo, buena cara meant, and Javi said, "To have courage, and hold your head and chest high, when times are bad."

  Wiley just nodded, then he looked at Wade, who took the seat on the log where he had eaten and drank.

  "Will you come back here again with Kara?"

  "No, I haven't figured out the return route yet."

  "I figured you two could get on that Denver train and head east, back to Chicago." It was nice of him to discuss that scenario; him and Kara coming home. As if assured that it would definitely take place.

  "Best not go to Chicago."

  "It was that bad, huh?"

  "Yeah."

  "What happened? I thought the regime owned that city, not the crazies?"

  Wade picked up the same charred stick and dug it into the fire and stirred it around, not taking his eye off the glowing embers. "I don't need to go into that here."

  He was a different man before Chicago; not a killer.

  After a while, Wiley got up and went back to the truck and returned with an old folk guitar. He tuned the guitar and strummed it for a moment as they all stared into the fire and listened. It was sleepy and calm. "You know Harvest Moon? Neil Young?"
he said.

  "Yeah, I do," Phoebe said. "That song is like a great kiss." They sang it together, a delightful duet. Phoebe had a pretty, high voice. Carmen rocked Pepe to the rhythm. They all just wanted to continue doing that, and not have the sun come up the next morning on the world they now lived in.

  CHAPTER 9

  Wade woke up with the first light. He pulled the blanket off and refolded it and put it back into the backpack with the bedroll, then he found the tin pot of coffee they'd made the night before still sitting by the fire. He used some warm coals to heat it up so that it was at least lukewarm, then he sat on the stoop of the restaurant and drank it and watched the sun come up. None of the fires were flaming in that direction and had effected the sunrise's color.

  The others began to stir. Then he heard Pepe's plaintive voice from inside the restaurant where the Santiagos slept. They'd all decided to go to the farm on their way west. They needed to pack away more food. Javi would show them where it was. Wiley wandered out in a few minutes from where he'd slept in the truck, looking disheveled.

  "Did you sleep?" he called out, when he saw Wade.

  "I did. I got some unbroken hours. You?"

  "Yeah. That wine, it had more kick than you'd think. It made me forget. That and the music."

  "Forget what?"

  "Darn near everything."

  "Do you want to put more fuel in the truck?" They had plastic buckets of the unrefined grease packed away in the back of the vehicle.

  "Let's start it up first."

  The truck had started up fine when they'd poured the first gallon in the night before. They'd be walking if the truck doesn't start, he thought, but the engine turned over with a familiar and reassuring metallic shudder. The elongated pipe spit out a clod of black exhaust, then the engine settled into a steady noise. The air smelled of strong sulfur. The Santiagos came out of the shell of a restaurant with a duffel bag and Carmen carried a small suitcase. The Santiagos would all have to cram into Wiley's sleeping space behind the cab's front seats with Phoebe.