Read Online The Mountain Can Wait by Sarah Leipciger - Free Book Online Page B

for close to a month. The dust hung heavy those long weeks and everyone’s throats and noses were full of it, and the land was as dry and brittle as the fur of a long-dead animal. The company was working fire hours, from two in the morning until nine, to avoid the hottest, most hazardous part of the day. One morning, as everyone was packing up to go back to camp, Tom got a call on the radio about a brush fire on Sweet’s land. No one knew or was willing to admit knowing how it started—it could have been a cigarette butt flicked to the ground or it could have been a spark from a shovel hitting rock—but by the time Tom reached the site of the fire, there was nothing more than a sky full of smoke and a carpet of wet, black brush. Sweet had been quick with the fire box, pumping water from a nearby creek and arming each of his crew with a shovel big enough to dig a trench. If there had been any wind that day, the story would have been different.
    “I saved the chief’s ass,” Sweet said now. “Isn’t that right, boss?” he called across to Tom. “Everything you see here would have gone up in flames if I weren’t the fastest-acting motherfucker this side of the Rockies.”
    Though they had put out the fire, they still had to call in the ministry guys to make sure there was nothing smoldering deep in the brush. Fires in the bush could last for months underground if they weren’t extinguished right, living off dry roots and buried stumps. The sleeping, subterranean burn could one day creep up the inside of a hollow tree and rage into the forest.
    Now the smoke from the fire shifted direction and settled over Tom, in his eyes. He squeezed them shut against the sting, dug his knuckles into his eye sockets, and waited for the smoke to shift again.
    “‘I hate white rabbits,’ chief! Say it!” This came from either Amy or Penny.
    “Folklore,” said Tom. “Does nothing.” He waved the smoke from his face and coughed, his eyes still shut.
    “You’ve got to have a little faith.” This came from a voice closer to him, almost in his ear. He opened his eyes and there was Nix, sitting next to him, just clear of the smoke. He was about to get up to move but the smoke shifted again, rising up the center of the circle, and he could breathe.
    “See?” she said. “The magic words work.”
    “But I didn’t say them.” He wiped his wet eyes.
    She swayed into him, pressing her shoulder against his. “I said them for you.”
      
    Guitars came out, and drums. Somebody produced a flute. Tom got up from the fire and walked across the cold clearing, drawn to the punk music coming from an old ambulance painted midnight blue. The ambulance belonged to Luis, who was skinny and long-limbed, wore thick glasses, and was never without a wool toque. Tom didn’t know a lot about him—only that he was a fast planter and hoarded a supply of Coca-Cola, which he shared with no one, in the depths of his ambulance.
    Luis sat at the back of the ambulance, dangling his legs over the tailgate. The two swinging doors were open, and inside was a dark nest of blankets and clothes. He held up the oily joint he’d been smoking in a half wave, offering it to Tom.
    “I grew it myself,” he said, his eyelids waxy. His face was red and swollen, as if he’d been punched. “I’ve got a whole closet full of mother plants, a water table. You can smoke this without any repercussions.” He chuckled, held out his pinched fingers: “Here.”
    “What happened to your face?” Tom asked, refusing the joint.
    “Fucking allergic to blackflies.” Luis twisted back into his ambulance and shuffled through a pile of clothes. He sat back up holding a paper bag, soft with wrinkles. Pulled out a string of black licorice and dangled it.
    “I’ll take one of those, though,” said Tom.
    “You mind if I give you a red one? Black is my favorite.”
    Tom took the candy and chewed on the end as if it were a piece of grass, and looked out toward the lake. A