Gravity Box and Other Spaces Read online

  “It’s burning,” she gasped.

  Egan and Bert exchanged a puzzled glance, and then they heard the sirens far off in the distance.

  Bert and Egan rushed to the window. The smoke reminded Egan of the news footage from Kuwait, when the Iraqis had set all the oil wells afire. It poured up as if trying to shove the sky away. Egan knew without question that the center of the blaze was the A-frame. From the span of horizon that gushed black, churning clouds, the fire was out of control and eating up one wall of the valley.

  They crowded into Bert’s truck and drove up to the main road. Bert squealed to a halt in front of the sheriff’s office across from The Pumphandle.

  They entered to find Edmunds leaning over a desk strewn with paper and phones, his face dirty and sweat-smeared. He glanced up once when Egan, Bert, and Esther came into his office, then looked a second time, harder.

  “I’ll call you back,” he said and hung up. He strode toward Egan, his face unreadable under the grime. “What in hell you done, you stupid shit?!”

  “Carl!” Bert shouted.

  People shuffled. Bert tried to block Sheriff Edmunds while Egan tried to push Esther back from harm’s way, Edmunds ducked around Bert and inside Egan’s guard more deftly than Egan would have thought possible for a man of his bulk. Egan did not even see the fist, only felt a sharp pain beneath his right eye and the frenzied groping for a handhold as he fell back through the door.

  “You’re goin’ back right now, do you fuckin’ hear me? This’s gotta stop!”

  Egan opened his eyes to see Edmunds towering over Esther, her back against the doorjamb, shouting at her. Bert had a grip on his shirt collar and was trying to pull him back.

  “This ain’t fun no more, Esther! You’re fuckin’ with our lives now!”

  “Carl!” Bert screamed again. “Brice set the fire!”

  Edmunds shrugged her off. “Wouldn’t be no fire ’less she hadn’t run off like some dope-headed adolescent!”

  Egan got to his feet, surprised at how steady he seemed to be.

  “Have you got help coming?” he asked.

  Edmunds glared at him. “Don’t press me.”

  “You’re going to need professionals to fight this.”

  “All we need is her,” he stabbed Esther’s shoulder with a middle finger, “back where she belongs, and you,” he jammed the same finger into Egan’s chest, “to get the hell outta Saletcroix before it gets worse than it is!”

  “Carl, not even Esther can damp this down,” Bert said. “Egan’s right; we need help.”

  Edmunds continued staring hard at Egan, as if the pressure of his anger could somehow cause hurt. Finally, he shook his head.

  “I already called in. They’re musterin’ planes over in Fairfield. County seat knows. They’re pullin’ together fire departments and volunteers.” He snorted and turned away. “Just hope it’s enough.”

  Esther stared at him, wordless, her face puzzled. “I didn’t set the fire,” she said quietly. “Why am I to blame?”

  Edmunds glared at her. “You ain’t where you belong.”

  After a silent span of time Esther went outside. Egan watched her go, felt himself drawn to follow, but he stayed inside the sheriff’s office. I need to leave, he thought, as usual—

  He cleared his throat. “How can I help?”

  The small Saletcroix fire department had put out the A-frame within two hours of it going up, but cinders had drifted up the slope behind it, into the trees, out of sight. Most of the embers guttered long before touching anything dry, but a few found beds of leaves and twigs where they sparked into new life, and by mid-afternoon the slope was on fire. The blaze spread fast through drought-parched scrub, spores of new sparks travelling the breezes now whipped into frenzied gusts by the building heat storm. Now, close to twilight, the fire was hectares-wide and monstrous.

  Egan helped Bert load up her truck with coolers of sandwiches and sodas and three big steel water cans and Styrofoam cups. Esther sat against the wall by the door of The Pumphandle, staring up at the smoke. He wanted to talk to her, but everything about her made him feel unwelcome, unnecessary. She was concerned with the fire, not him; she seemed to be drawing herself in tight, as if preparing for confrontation. She acknowledged nothing outside the blaze especially not the angry glares of the locals who spotted her. None of them spoke to her and Egan was not sure what he would do if any of them approached her, but he felt protective and frustrated.

  “Bert,” Sheriff Edmunds came up to her. “We’re setting up operations on Cavanaugh’s place, so take this up there. It’s closer to the leading edge of the fire. They think they can dig a break and stop it from there.”

  “Cavanaugh,” she nodded. “Right. You coming, Esther?” Bert shouted through the driver’s window of her truck.

  In acknowledgement, Esther shuffled across the yard to Bert’s truck. Egan followed her and opened the passenger door and squeezed in beside her. He felt a shameful exhilaration rush through him to be so near to her. Knowing it was wrong had no effect on his racing heart or his wild yearning.

  There was no conversation as Bert drove south and turned onto a gravel road heading west. It climbed the ridge that formed the south wall of the valley until it entered a broad shelf of farmland. Bert stopped and looked over at Esther.

  “This is Mrs. McCutcheon’s place,” Esther said. She sounded afraid.

  “Cavanaugh’s on the other side, Esther,” Bert said. “You know that. I want you to head over to her house and wait there. You’ll be safe there.” Egan wanted to protest. He almost tried to protest, but he instead he let Esther out and continued on with Bert to Cavanaugh’s.

  The Cavanaugh house sat atop a rise that overlooked acres of soy. The far side of the field was bordered by forest. Beyond that untouched border, rose a column of smoke and somewhere beneath that column a fire raged drawing in air and exhaling a pervasive furnace glow of heat.

  Egan had to force himself out of the truck. People stared at him as he helped set up a long portable aluminum table and lay out the food and drinks. He chose to ignore them.

  Lights were being set up from one of the larger vehicles and hooked to a portable generator. The eastern sky was already the flat cobalt blue of dusk.

  Mrs. McCutcheon separated herself from the crowd. Egan smiled at her, noticing for the first time the multitude of delicate lines that criss-crossed her face which spoke of a hardscrabble life.

  “Mrs. McCutcheon?” he said.

  “Mr. Ginter,” she replied in New England tones clear and sharp. “Where’s Esther?”

  “She—”

  “Where is she?” a different voice cut the air.

  Egan looked around. Bert was moving away from the table, through the small throng of men gathered for sandwiches and drinks.

  “Where’s Esther?”

  Egan felt a chill run from his scalp to the small of his back as he recognized Brice Miller’s voice.

  “Speak up! Where’s my wife?”

  He heard others talking, low and terse, too low to make out the words. He looked around and Mrs. McCutcheon was gone. He found her moving firmly through the crowd.

  “Damn it!”

  People moved aside too fast for Egan to react. Brice pounded the aluminum table. Cups fell, spilling water. Egan jerked back two steps.

  “Where is she?” Brice demanded. His face was a ruin of torment. There were tears in his deep-set eyes and for all his anger and fear he looked lost and nearly innocent.

  “Brice.”

  He turned. Mrs. McCutcheon stood a few feet away.

  “No!” Brice shouted. “Where’s Esther? Esther!” He whirled around and aimed the shotgun at Egan’s face. For an instant Egan’s entire consciousness was comprised wholly of the black hole before his eyes. He did not think of death—that possibility occurred to him later—but of the overwhelming rage, instantly evoked: a binding anger passed through the length of the shotgun holding them together, and for a few moments he knew
what it meant to hate.

  “Brice.”

  Egan counted his heartbeats, one by one, until the barrel wavered, then dropped.

  A breeze gusted over his face and he could hear the faint sound of crackling. Egan looked around. No one moved. No one spoke. Everyone watched Brice.

  The big man looked confused and a little frightened. He looked at the old woman as if she had just betrayed him. Beyond, the forest spilled black tar into the sky.

  “I did my best,” Brice said. “She changed.”

  “It happens,” Mrs. McCutcheon said. “It’s natural. But we have to accept it and move on. You ain’t the one anymore, Brice.”

  “I could be. I need learnin’, but I could be.”

  “No. It’s too late. Everything’s distorted. The fire’s come early. We need new blood now.”

  Brice looked on the verge of weeping. The shotgun hung loose in his right hand. Egan let out a long breath and started to turn away.

  Brice bellowed, “You!”

  Egan threw himself to one side at the moment of the blast and felt something sear across his left shoulder. He slammed face down to the grass and tried to roll away from the shouting and screaming around him. Someone caught him and held him. When he looked up he saw Bert, eyes wide and staring. Egan got to his feet, and she wrapped an arm around his shoulder; it hurt but he ignored it.

  Esther lay on the ground a few feet away, most of her right shoulder pulped and ragged flesh. She blinked skyward in fits. Her body writhed weakly and her breath came in short gulps. Egan tried to go to her, but Bert held him with surprising strength.

  Someone brought a gurney, someone else a medkit. Egan searched for Brice and found him held immobile by four men. His face was bright red and wet with tears.

  “Don’t let her die,” Egan hissed and felt Bert’s grip tighten. “Don’t let her die —”

  Egan sat just beyond the shore of light pooling around the command center set up in front of Cavanaugh’s house and stared into the flame-torn darkness. High overhead he could hear the planes coming in to make night drops of retardant. A dangerous exercise, but necessary if they wanted to stop the fire before it consumed the whole valley.

  In spite of the hot wind from the conflagration, he felt cold and hugged a blanket around his shoulders. He sensed her presence before he heard her. Mrs. McCutcheon stood beside him. Egan was too tired to be surprised, too drained to question her presence. She extended her hand. He reached out to accept the cup of coffee she offered.

  “Some places,” she said, “people give rituals to. Other places give rituals to people. Some places are older than others.”

  “Is that supposed to mean something to me?”

  “It might. Give it a chance.”

  “Who are you?”

  “I’m Maude McCutcheon. We met.”

  “I know that. I meant—Bert told me about you. You believe Esther was the spirit of the valley or something like that.”

  “Was? She’s not dead yet. Is that really what Bert said?”

  “Not exactly. She said you explained to her what the fuss was about Esther and Brice. That’s what people here believe.”

  “Well. That’s what the valley gave them.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “I came here almost fifty years ago. I was going to be a scholar. Anthropology. Margaret Mead was my hero. I wanted to work with her. Instead I came here to these hills. Here, in Saletcroix, I found these people. They’d been here two and a half, nearly three centuries, isolated, insulated, alone, but surprisingly alive. I stayed. I married. I studied. I learned.”

  “Isn’t there some prohibition about getting too involved with your subjects?”

  “Is that your excuse?” She smiled. “It’s not hard to spot a severed soul. You have the look of someone who hasn’t found something to belong to.”

  “Right. Did you divine that in a mess of chicken bones?”

  “Don’t mix your metaphysics so indiscriminately. A lot of it’s hogwash, but some of it’s old and true.”

  He looked off into the rising smoke. “What’s the truth in that?”

  “Regeneration, rebirth. Cycles. Some seeds need the intense heat of a forest fire to make them germinate.”

  Egan looked at her, his heart hammering.

  “Once,” she said, gesturing, “not too long ago, this all belonged to the Osage. Before them, who knows? The Mississippians? Where did they come from? Who came before them? Someone did. Go back far enough, they all came over the Bering land bridge. At least, that’s the modern view.”

  “You have a different view?”

  “No. I’m just saying that there’s been someone here for longer than we’ve got calendars and dates to name.”

  “I see. Very interesting, Mrs. McCutcheon. Very helpful.”

  “Every place lives and dies, Mr. Ginter. Every place goes through the same cycle. Birth, growth, death, rebirth. Might sound like a cliché to someone as sophisticated as yourself, but even you abide by the cycle. Even you yield to necessity when the time comes.”

  “Just because something goes on the same way for decades or centuries doesn’t mean it should keep on.”

  “Maybe not, but there’s a lot of momentum behind such things.”

  “If you’ve got a point to make—”

  “Every living thing needs a lover and a protector and a teacher. That’s the only way it can love and protect and teach, if it’s got that to give back. When it loses one or all, it dies, and we have to wait for another to be born so we can try again. It’s the way of it all. Being a bit pompous, humans try to make it more important with ritual and rules, but they only muddy it all up and lose sight of what it means. When that happens, you get hurt. You give hurt. You forget that the way you love and protect and teach isn’t as important as that you do.”

  She got to her feet. “Who do you love, Mr. Ginter? Who do you protect and teach?”

  Egan had a smart-ass reply instantly at hand, but when he opened his mouth it caught in his throat, as though he had sucked in dust or had gotten a popcorn kernel stuck just past his tongue. He coughed sharply and felt tears well up. When the spasm passed, Mrs. McCutcheon was gone, and he was alone with her question.

  “No one,” he said to the fire.

  Egan opened his eyes to a morning fog. The smell of smoke was still in the air. Blinking, he sat up. The tree line at the edge of the soy field was blazing.

  It got so close—

  A shadow far to the left caught his attention. He squinted through the pall, but he could not be sure if what he saw was a person or just the fey shapes of fire and shadow. A moment later it vanished leaving him convinced that it had been a combination of the remnants of sleep and a trick of the light.

  He got to his feet and kicked an empty coffee cup. He scooped it up and walked back to the trucks and tables.

  Bert’s truck was gone. A couple of EMS techs dozed against the side of their ambulance. The radio operator listened intently to her earphones. The place was still.

  Brice Miller sat tied to the porch of Cavanaugh’s house. Egan stared at him until he looked up, resentment in his eyes. Egan stepped past him and entered the house. He was greeted by the savory smell of bacon and coffee. Bert told him they had carried Esther into the house and up the stairs, to a spare bedroom. He walked quietly to find Esther’s room. The bed was empty. Blood stained the sheets and pillows brown.

  For a moment Egan thought perhaps she had gone to the bathroom, but then he wondered how she had managed it without help. He was never sure how he knew where she went, only that he ran down the stairs and outside screaming toward the soy field, screaming, to the fire, knowing that the dream-shadow he had seen was Esther.

  He could not get close to the fire, much less go into it, but he paced back and forth before it like an animal whose mate has gone where he cannot follow. He had never known such helplessness. He watched others go in, come back, planes fly over to dump retardant. The effort was continuous. He had a
lways wondered at the desolation he had caused in others, never quite believing in it. Now he knew it for himself.

  By evening the fire guttered. The planes circled, the firemen worked, but all the remained for them to do were small mopping-up jobs, a lone stand of burning trees here and there. Rainclouds gathered through the day and by dusk the storm was imminent.

  Egan sat at the edge of the field all through the night, watching and waiting. Bert brought him a poncho and food and asked him to come back inside, out of the rain, but he refused.

  “She’s not dead,” he said. “She’ll come back.”

  Bert finally brought her own poncho out and sat beside him.

  The sound of men gathering roused him from his thoughts. He heard someone—perhaps Sheriff Edmunds—intoning something in a droning monotone that reminded him of church services to the semi-circle of people gathered around Brice. One of the men handed Brice a thick-bladed knife. After a long silence, he nodded and walked away from them, toward the smoldering forest. His feet made sucking noises in the soggy loam.

  “Judgment,” Bert said.

  Sheriff Edmunds broke away from the group and came towards Egan.

  “She’ll need a new caretaker,” he said. “We thought you might want to—I mean, you were the last to be with her—she might not accept you, but—anyway, you’d be welcome if you choose to.”

  He seemed embarrassed. Egan only nodded and presently Edmunds walked away.

  “You should leave,” Bert said. “You could be stuck here the rest of your life.”

  Egan gazed off into the desolation. “It’s not like I have anything waiting for me anywhere else.” He shrugged. “I don’t know.”

  Bert yawned and stretched. “Lemme know what you decide.”

  Saletcroix helped Egan rebuild the A-frame. Curt Albright gave him a lease, which the town paid, and he worked at The Pumphandle for Bert. Insurance replaced his RV lost in the fire, and he was able to start doing odd jobs for many of the farmers in the valley.

  By winter, Bert moved in with him. It felt natural and for the first time in his life he did not experience the anxiety such a commitment had always brought him. He did not examine his feelings too closely, only enough to know that he would no longer feel compelled to run from someone who loved him.