Melanie Thon - Meteors in August

Then I saw the man, Elliot Foot himself, standing on the sidewalk, his arms crossed over his thin chest. He didn’t rant or pace or pound the walls; he didn’t rush inside to see what he could save. Elliot Foot stood and smiled like a man who had just laid a royal flush on the table.

In a flash I saw the purpose of all this, knew without a doubt that Elliot Foot had torched his own bar to scald the temptation out of his heart. He wanted the Last Chance to burn to the ground. His hands seared my thigh the night I spoke in tongues. He didn’t need a match; those fingers were on fire. Others would blame Olivia Jeanne; he counted on that, on the simplicity and logic of the deed. If she had any sense left, she was crossing the border into Canada this very minute. Only a fool would stick around long enough to leave the decision to a judge and jury and newspaper in this town.

Maybe Elliot instilled deeper fears in her that night. Perhaps she loved him well enough to smell the fever of repentance and know that her Winnebago would go next. Parked in front of the bar, she would have felt the first wave of hot air in her face.

At last the hose was hooked to the hydrant. Vern and Ralph yanked it off the truck themselves and shoved their runt of a brother out of the way. He looked delirious, too distracted to wipe the sweat from his forehead.

When we saw the arc of water, the single dirty stream, women cheered and men scrambled to help aim the hose. Elliot Foot stopped grinning, wondering if something might still be saved. A second truck arrived and skidded up to a hydrant around the corner. Hope surged through the crowd.

I lost my parents in the mob. Most everyone in Willis who could walk had gathered in the street to gawk at the fire: it was better than the traveling circus that had come through the valley six years ago, better than the woman with four arms or the pinhead fetus in a jar.

Gangs of kids ran wild. Fire released some native urge, turning children into thugs and thieves. A band of ten-year-olds circled a younger child, demanding his belt and then his shoes. They would have stolen his comb and pocketknife too, but the boy’s mother swooped down and dragged her son away by the wrist.

Someone hit me square in the back and I pitched forward. It was Coe Carson and Zachary Holler jabbing at each other’s chest behind me. They argued, but I couldn’t make out the words. They jostled me again without seeing who I was. Zack Holler, the boy who had changed my life, who had thrown me into the arms of Freda Graves and forced me into weeks of lies, Zack Holler could look right through me without a glimmer of recognition.

I heard him say, “Do what you want. I’m going in. It’s free.” The veins of his forearms bulged. He lurched through the crowd, knocking people out of the way. In the months since I’d seen him he’d lost his adolescent leanness, and his strong body had begun to reveal its brutality. Full-blown, Zack Holler would crush other men’s fingers as he shook their hands; he’d slap their backs too hard and knock them forward. I hoped for a small tragedy, a wound to weaken him. I believed in fate but knew it was wrong to yearn for misfortune, so I was careful not to pray for an accident; instead, I reminded God how I trusted His infinite wisdom.

Zack Holler darted through the doorway of the burning bar before anyone got wise to his plan. Skittery sparks shot across the floor. Through the tinted windows I saw flames lapping at the frame of the storeroom door.

Coe Carson faced me. He still didn’t remember who I was, the girl in the gully, the girl on the ground with Zachary’s sister, the girl on the tree house floor with Zachary — but Zack Holler wouldn’t be proud of that; he’d forget to tell Coe. “Dammit,” Coe said, “did you see that? He says it’s a great time to get free booze. No hassle, he says. He’s going into a burning building for a goddamn bottle of tequila. I’d buy him one, you know. I’d buy him one every day from now till Christmas if I had to. You think he cares? ‘What fun is that?’ he says. He gets off on it. He gets off on scaring the shit out of himself. What kind of crazy person lives that way?”

Before I could answer, Coe Carson shouldered and shoved his way to the bar, Coe, who would never be able to grow a beard or get a real job at the mill, according to my father. I hoped he didn’t want to be a hero. His arms were thin as a girl’s, smooth and freckled. Going into the bar after the likes of Zack Holler made less sense to me than going after a bottle of tequila. Bravery is a fool’s damn luck. But Coe Carson knew himself. He stood in the street where he could watch the doorway.

A siren ripped down Main. People jumped to clear a path. As he hit the intersection of Main and Center streets, Sheriff Caleb Wolfe slammed the brakes and spun into a quarter-circle stop. A big Indian climbed out of the passenger side, a real Indian, not a questionable quarter-blood like Caleb Wolfe himself. This man had a broad face and high round cheeks, the smooth hairless chin of a full-blooded Kootenai. His blue shirt could have fit around two ordinary men, but it wouldn’t close over his dark chest. A thin black braid hung halfway down his back.

I didn’t need to be told this was Red Elk, the father of the slim boy who stole Nina that summer night long ago, a night much cooler than this one. I saw Billy Elk take Nina in his arms and make her disappear. But he forgot the second part of his magic trick, the part when the girl reappears, when all her scattered molecules are gathered from the air, a fuzzy image, almost transparent, wavering, a body underwater, and then Nina, Nina whole and laughing.

Now I saw the man my father hated, the red-skinned dog he tried to drive out of town, the heathen he threatened to strangle with his bare hands. No wonder Mother was afraid. Red Elk could crush a man under each foot and keep on walking.

I realized there were no other Indians in the crowd. They bore a history of blame; none dared come close enough to be accused.

The crowd swarmed around the sheriff’s car, and it vanished almost as quickly as it had appeared. Caleb Wolfe strutted in front of the bar, pushing the horde back a step each time he passed. His short bowlegs seemed to snap as his feet hit cement. Someone aimed the high beam of a flashlight into his face. He squinted but didn’t raise his hand to block the light.

“There’s a boy in there,” a woman yelled. “Look, can you see him?”

Caleb Wolfe whirled toward the door. An explosion from the storeroom doubled the size of every flame with a single blast. The fountains of water from the hoses seemed futile now, children pissing on a bonfire. Sparks scattered like milkweed, and each spark became the seed of a new flame.

Red Elk opened the door. Thirty feet away, the heat hit us like a wall and we shrank back. Air had turned to smoke inside the bar. But the big Indian stood his ground, as if to see how much he could bear. Then he threw himself into the fiery pit. I gasped; my lungs burned as I watched him, a shadow in flame.

A sound like thunder rocked the building. Flares climbed, finding the driest wood, the pulpy rafters. The thunder roared again, and we saw a beam tear loose and fall, engulfed in a blaze. The fast, brilliant bodies of flames writhed across the floor.

I was sure the Indian and Zack didn’t have a chance. I imagined the rafter had fallen on their backs or pinned their legs. I heard their cries above the rush of air on fire. The church bell rang and rang. High in the steeple, its insistent, foolish voice beat out a single tone.

But I was wrong. Red Elk dodged collapsing beams. The Indian had been inside less than a minute when the front window burst, splintering onto the sidewalk in a thousand smoky shards.