‘Cool place, huh?’ said Byron.
Skye nodded but said nothing. She knew it was beautiful and knew that if she weren’t such a freak she should be moved by it, as Byron was. But she felt nothing. It was as if the processes of knowing and feeling had uncoupled within her and a skin grown between them. She was aware that Julia had come to stand beside her.
‘Is this where we camp?’ Byron asked.
‘That’s right,’ Julia said.
‘Cool.’
‘Pretty enough for you, Skye?’
Skye shrugged and fiddled with the strap of her pack though it didn’t need fixing. ‘Why should I care?’
They sat in a circle around the fire warming their bare or stocking feet against the flames that rose tall and untroubled into the windless night. The firelight set their faces aglow and flashed in their eyes as they talked and laughed. Across the lake a horned moon slowly hoisted itself above the trees.
This was Lester’s fire, started with his own bow and drill without help. And the pride he felt was plain for all to see. He sat straight, with his head held high and a permanent lopsided smile. Julia watched him across the fire and the sight of him made her feel warm inside. It was what she had always loved most about this job, seeing the self-confidence of these damaged young souls being built brick by brick with such modest acts of achievement.
Lester was fifteen years old and, with both parents shuttling in and out of jail, most of those years had been spent in institutions of one kind or another. Julia had read his case notes. How he’d stolen and wrecked his first car at the age of ten, how he’d started doing drugs then tumbled rapidly and predictably into a spiral of theft and fraud to fund his habit. Two years ago he had overdosed and spent three days in a coma that had left him permanently damaged. He slurred a little when he spoke and sometimes his mind seemed to crash like a computer while he was doing some simple task, like tying a shoelace, and he would stay frozen until someone came to help. There was a naive sweetness to him, though when roused, his temper could be wild and both these traits made him a target for teasing. Mitch, predictably, was the expert. He did it so subtly that Julia sometimes wasn’t aware of it until Lester exploded. But tonight you would never have guessed any of this. Lester Whaley had made fire using just a few bits of wood, and he sat basking in his own reflected glory, beaming at the world, the undisputed King of the Bow Drill.
He was sitting between Mitch and Katie, a bouncy and slightly irritating P.E. student from Billings. She was the least experienced of all the staff but talked more than any of them. She was telling everyone about the night last summer in Yellowstone Park when a group she was with hadn’t hung the bear bags high enough in the trees.
‘One of the kids on this group was really big, you know, two twenty pounds, more maybe. His name was Brett and he was always hungry and forever moaning on about how there was never enough to eat. Anyway, in the middle of the night, I wake up and see there’s someone over by the bear bags, so I think, uh-huh, it’s Brett having a midnight feast. So I get up real quietly and tiptoe over and I’m, like, just a few yards away and about to say ‘Okay, buddy, you’re busted,’ when he makes this grunting noise and turns around and it’s this ginormous grizzly bear, like three times Brett’s size.’
‘So what did you do?’ Byron asked.
‘Well, I just got him in an armlock, wrestled him to the ground and gave him a good talking-to.’
‘You did not!’ Lester said.
Mitch gave a mocking laugh and was about to make some smart remark until he caught the look Julia shot at him.
‘No, I’m just kidding. I yelled. The bear was more scared than I was and took off. He’d trashed the whole bag but it was weird, all he ate was a tube of toothpaste.’
All of them laughed. All except Skye. She was sitting between Byron and Scott and was staring into the fire as if she wished it would consume her. Scott was a philosophy major from Denver and had done three seasons with WAY in Colorado. He had a wise and gentle manner that the kids related to. During supper he had been quietly trying to engage Skye in the conversation. But she was having none of it. In the glow she looked so sad and beautiful that Julia had to fight an urge to get up and go over and hug her. Normally she wore her long black hair in a ponytail but tonight it hung loose and shone in the firelight as did her big black eyes. Since Lester succeeded in making his fire she hadn’t spoken. When it happened, amid the whooping and cheering, Julia had looked around and seen on Skye’s face the realization that she was on her own now: the only obstacle between the group and a hot meal every night.
Tonight’s meal had now been cleared away and it was time for ‘group,’ the nightly huddle around the campfire. Sometimes they went straight into discussing the day or an issue that was bugging someone. And sometimes one of them, student or staff, would get things going with a story. Tonight Julia told one about two friends called Joe and Mo who went into a diner and ordered steaks.
‘And so the waitress goes into the kitchen and after a while out she comes with the steaks and she gives them each an empty plate and then puts the dish with the steaks on it between them, in the middle of the table and off she goes. So Joe and Mo, who are both really, really hungry, sit there looking at the steaks and they see that one of the steaks is big and the other is small. So, Joe thinks, ah-ha, I know what to do. And he picks up the dish with the steaks on it and offers it to Mo to help himself, assuming Mo will be too polite to take the big one. But that’s exactly what Mo does. He takes the big one and says thanks a lot and proceeds to eat it all up.’
Lester laughed.
‘Yeah, well. Joe didn’t think it was funny at all. He’s absolutely furious and he eats the little steak without saying a word. You know, there’s smoke coming out of his ears, he’s so mad. And so when Mo’s finished he looks up and sees Joe’s face and he says, hey, what’s the matter with you? And Joe says, well, if you must know, I’m mad at you. And Mo says why? And Joe says because I offered you the two steaks and you took the big one. And Mo says, oh, so what would you have done if I’d given you the choice? And Joe says, well, because I’m polite and well brought up, I would have taken the small one. And Mo says, well, what’s your problem, you had the small one!’
Everyone laughed except Skye.
Julia asked what the moral of the story was and they spent the next half hour talking about selfishness and generosity and about whether people are good to each other only because they want others to be good to them in return. The discussion was a success. Skye was the only one not to speak. Then Julia asked if anyone had another issue he or she wanted to raise with the group. As usual, it was Mitch who first held up his finger.
‘Okay, Mitch,’ Julia said. ‘Off you go.’
‘I’d like to make an affirmation.’
‘Okay. Go ahead.’
‘I’d like to congratulate Lester for getting this fire going.’
From all around the fire came voices of support.
‘So, good for you, dude. We know how tough it was and how hard you’ve worked at it.’
The phony sincerity and patronizing tone made Julia itch to intervene. She’d taken an almost instant dislike to Mitch. He was vain, devious, manipulative and malicious and those were only his better points. Sometimes it took a lot of effort to be professional and to keep her personal feelings in check. His ‘affirmation’ was almost certainly a prelude to something else and she had a good idea what it was.
‘And I’d like to say thanks, dude,’ he went on, ‘for making all that effort for the group. And maybe one day soon, when someone else makes an effort, we’ll get a hot meal every night.’
There were calls of ‘support’ from two of his followers, Paul and Wayne.
‘That sounds more like a criticism than an affirmation,’ Julia said.
‘You take it how you like, man.’
‘Well, if you have an issue to raise with someone, Mitch - and I’m not a “man” - I think it’s only fair that you should mak
e it clear.’
‘I think it’s pretty goddamn clear already.’
‘Not to me it isn’t. And later on, please, we’ll have twenty alternatives for that word.’
Mitch laughed in contempt and looked around at Paul and Wayne. They were both grinning, their eyes darting between Mitch, Julia and Skye, who was still staring steadfastly at the fire. Julia was clenched inside with anger and it was hard not to show it.
‘So, Mitch, spell it out, please.’
He lifted his eyes to the stars and sighed. ‘Okay. It’s an issue we all have—’
‘Everyone speaks for him- or herself here, thank you, Mitch.’
He paused a moment, clearly containing some sharper response.
‘It’s an issue I have, then. With Skye. Everybody else has gone along with this bow-drill thing except her and we’re all - I’m getting pretty sick of it.’
There were many calls of support. Mitch gave Julia a triumphant nod. For a while no one spoke. The tension seemed to find voice in the crackling of the fire.
‘Skye?’ Julia said gently. ‘Do you want to respond to that?’
Skye shook her head without taking her eyes off the fire. She looked like a lost orphan and all Julia’s instincts cried out again to comfort and protect her. But it was important not to. One of the main aims of the program was to socialize these kids, to make them aware of the effect their actions had on others. The stand Skye had taken over refusing to make a bow-drill fire may have begun as an act of attention-seeking bravado. But now it had grown into a fully-fledged point of honor. And although the pressure on her to back down was now immense, so would be her loss of face if she did.
‘Would anyone else like to say something about this issue?’ Julia asked.
Byron held out a finger. Julia nodded for him to go ahead.
‘I’d just like to make a—’ He stopped. It was rare for Byron to speak in group and he was clearly nervous. He swallowed.
‘An affirmation?’ Julia prompted.
‘Yeah. An affirmation. Skye, you’re, like, the only girl out here and like you said earlier today, you know, when you had to go to the bathroom and all—’
Mitch sniggered. Julia was about to pounce but Scott beat her to it.
‘Mitch, I think you should show more respect when someone’s speaking. Go on, Byron, we’re listening.’
‘Well, sometimes, I think maybe we don’t all realize how hard that is for you, Skye. And maybe this whole thing with the bow drill and you not wanting to do it, is like, because we’re all guys or something and it’s your way of kind of getting back at us. Hell, I don’t know what I’m talking about.’
He frowned at the ground as if the words he was trying to find might be down there. His cheeks had turned red.
‘Anyhow. I just wanted to give you this affirmation for putting up with us all. And tell the truth, I don’t care if I can’t have hot food when it’s your turn to make the fire, because I think you have a right to your opinion and all. And I think you’re a good person. And, well, that’s all I got to say.’
‘Thank you, Byron,’ Julia said.
Then there was a long pause. They were all looking at Skye. She was biting her bottom lip so violently that Julia was worried she might make it bleed. There were tears welling in her eyes. Then quickly, without looking at any of them, she stood up and walked away into the darkness.
6
Across the red sand of the arena Connor could see in the viewfinder his mother’s head and shoulders above the wooden rails of the chute. She was wearing a bright pink shirt with white trim and the battered black hat she said always brought her luck. It had a band of small silver steer heads which his father had given her for their first wedding anniversary. She was looking down at the seething horse beneath her and concentrating hard on getting into the right position.
The afternoon light was mellow with dust and barbecue smoke and the shadows were lengthening and but for the possibility that he was about to record the demise of his only living parent, Connor might have been more excited about how good it all looked. Then the sun flashed on her hat band and the old, curiously detached instinct for a good picture took over. He fired off a few frames, zoomed wider and clicked the switch on the Nikon’s motor drive to be ready for when the chute opened.
‘I can’t believe your mother’s nearly fifty,’ Julia said.
‘Neither can she,’ Connor said. ‘That’s the problem.’
They were sitting in the front row of the bleachers, Julia between him and Ed, and for a two-bit rodeo like this there was quite a crowd behind them, a couple of hundred people, Connor figured, maybe more. His mother had been talked into this madness by an old friend who was on the organizing committee. He said it would be the big draw of the afternoon: a ‘Seniors’ Bareback’ event for charity. Connor’s mother wasn’t much taken with the ‘Seniors’ bit, but when he called again to say her old arch rival from Livingstone, Madeline ‘Queenie’ MacFall, was going to do it, that did the trick.
‘If that talentless, horny-assed old Jezebel can do it at forty-seven years of age, I’ll be damned if I can’t,’ she said.
And despite the fact that she hadn’t been on a bucking horse for five years and was starting to get arthritis from all the bones she’d broken over the years, there was nothing Connor could say to stop her.
‘Honey, it’s real sweet of you to worry,’ she said. ‘But it’ll all be over in six seconds.’
‘One way or the other.’
‘Well, it’s as good a way to go as any.’
Secretly, Connor was proud of her. The only condition she insisted on was that they change the name of the event from ‘Senior’ to ‘Celebrity.’ A little while ago, before running back to the bleachers, Connor had helped her get ready. She was still a fine-looking woman though her face bore the lines of too much sun and she stooped a little from an old neck injury. Seeing her all dressed up in her riding gear, the pink shirt and white bandanna, reminded him of when he was a boy and he and his father would travel with her on the circuit. He’d noticed even then how men used to look at her in a certain way. She, on the other hand, never had eyes for any other man but his father, either before his death or since.
When she was ready, they stood together leaning on the rails to watch Queenie MacFall last all of two seconds before being catapulted onto the sand. Incredibly, she stood up waving and smiling with nothing worse than a raw backside and a bruised ego. His mother had grinned wickedly and shaken her head.
‘Well, as we used to say, fall by name, fall by nature.’
Now it was her turn. The P.A. system clicked and boomed.
‘Well, folks, our next rider needs no introduction, but I’ll do it anyhow. We’re mightily honored and privileged to have with us this afternoon one of Montana’s all-time-great rodeo stars. From Augusta, number five, the sensational, the incomparable, Maggie Ford!’
‘At such moments in the theater, they say “Break a leg,”’ Ed whispered.
‘Ed!’ Julia slapped his knee.
He held up his hands. ‘I’m not saying it!’
‘Let’s hope that’s all she breaks,’ Connor said. ‘Okay, here we go.’
The chute opened and the horse exploded into the arena. His mother marked him out perfectly, keeping her boots above the break of the horse’s shoulders as his front feet hit the ground. She held the rigging with her left hand, her right arm caressing the air like a ballet dancer’s while she lowered her legs to the horse’s withers, her toes pointing daintily outward. Connor’s motor drive whirred at six frames a second. There were some good pictures here. The dust was up, the shadows black and the horse, a stocky little gray, was wild-eyed and giving the performance of his life. But there was no way he was going to throw her. She was spurring now, expertly, keeping in time with each leap he made, riding the bucks as if they were nothing.
Ed and Julia were on their feet hollering beside him and everyone else seemed to be cheering too and it was all Connor could do
not to join in, but he kept shooting for the whole six seconds and didn’t stop until the pickup men rode up alongside and delivered her safely to the ground. Connor put down the camera and stood up to applaud with everyone else. Julia was bouncing up and down like a kid. She threw her arms around Ed and then did the same to Connor.
‘That was amazing!’ she yelled.
‘Connor, it’s unnatural,’ Ed said. ‘Mothers aren’t supposed to be like that.’
‘Yeah, I know. I gotta get her locked up somewhere. Come on, let’s go see her.’
Three hours later they were sitting in the back room of Elmer’s in Choteau, with the trophy in pride of place on the table among the steaks and beers. Connor’s mother had walked it with a score of eighty-five and declared it should have been ninety if one of the judges hadn’t been so dumb. He didn’t know his fanny from his fetlock, she said, and had marked the bronc down for being too easy a ride.
She was telling Julia about the old days now, stories Connor had heard many times before and some of which he’d even witnessed, so he knew precisely where truth ended and embroidery began. The one she was telling now was yet another Queenie MacFall story, the one in which the poor woman got attacked by a swarm of bees in the middle of being interviewed on TV. Even though Ed must have heard it before too, he looked as enthralled as Julia. The guy seemed to have an endless appetite for anything Connor’s mother ever said. The steaks were enormous and nobody had managed to finish them except Ed, who was now tucking into Julia’s. Connor pushed his chair back and stretched out his legs.
The women were sitting on the other side of the table, Julia opposite him. He was finding it hard to take his eyes off her. He’d found it hard since the moment they’d met. There was something about her that just hauled you in. Her laugh, her dark brown eyes and how they creased up when she smiled - Connor stopped himself, ashamed that he should even notice such things. This was his best friend’s girlfriend, for heaven’s sake.