Dave Eggers - Heroes of the Frontier

“You want us to look inside?” another man, the tallest of them all, said. “My uncle used to have something like this.” He nodded at the vehicle the way he might have pointed out a tick infestation.

Josie’s bones told her not to allow ten men to tramp through the Chateau, opening every cabinet, especially given the velvet bag of money hidden under the sink. But a few of them had already seemed to be losing interest in the operation, and were standing a few yards down the road, as if moving on already, so to keep them interested she said sure, they could look through the Chateau, that maybe the tall man in orange had some insight, via his uncle, that she couldn’t access. As the stocky one opened the side door and stepped in, she met Paul’s eyes.

This is an example of making a bad situation worse, his eyes said.

But it was too late. Six of them were inside the Chateau, and Josie stood on the roadside, her children next to her, thinking that there was something unusual about this group of men, but unable to put her finger on it. Aside from the stocky one, they were smaller and thinner than the average firefighters, younger as a whole, all of them in their twenties, their arms grey with tattoos. She stepped closer to the Chateau to peek in, but the interior was a blur of orange. She turned around to find one of the men on his knees, obscuring Ana. He seemed to be talking to her.

“Ana, come over here,” Josie said, her unease growing. Ana reluctantly shuffled to her, hands behind her back.

Josie scanned the hands of every one of the firefighters, looking for the velvet bag. The tallest man jumped from the Chateau door, a twisted piece of iron over his head, his other hand holding a mechanical device, this one rusted. “Got it,” he said to everyone, and quickly there were orange men under the Chateau, and one was on the back ladder, removing the spare, and soon the vehicle was tilting high and they had removed and replaced the flat.

Just as they were lowering the jack, a new man, in chartreuse, was among them. “What’s happening here?” he asked. He was an older man wearing goggles over deep-set eyes, canopied with heavy brows. He had a presence at once authoritative and gentle, a small-town judge wanting and expecting civility from all.

“Just helping this motorist change her tire, sir,” the tall orange man said.

The men in orange had backed away from Josie and the Chateau, suddenly shy. A few of them had hustled to the roadside to pick up their shovels.

“Ma’am,” the bearded man said to Josie. His eyes were alarmed. “Have these men harmed or bothered you in any way?”

“No,” Josie said, confused, but adopting the tone of giving a traffic-accident deposition. “They’ve been very helpful.”

The gentle-eyed man relaxed, and looked around at the orange men, his eyes registering that he was both disappointed and impressed. “You guys get your gear and keep walking, okay?” he said, and those of the orange men who hadn’t done so already re-formed their single-file line and were tromping down the road. They passed the Chateau, none of them looking at Josie or Paul or Ana. The man in chartreuse watched their progress, his hands on his hips. When they were out of earshot, he turned to Josie.

“Did those men identify themselves as inmates?” he asked.

Josie’s stomach seemed to evaporate. She shook her head.

“You know how we use prisoners in some fires, to cut line and such?” the man said.

Josie had no idea what that meant.

“They’re low-level offenders. And happy for the work, it being outside and all,” the man said, chuckling. “Anyway, we’re short-handed, as you can see. Otherwise there’s usually an escort with these guys. And I didn’t know we were letting civilians through here. So a perfect storm, right?”

Josie was trying to follow. Prisoners are sent to fight fires, and the ten men who had flowed around and through the Chateau were all prisoners, and they had happily fixed her flat, and couldn’t have been more polite, and now they were gone.

“Wait,” she whispered, and climbed into the Chateau, rushed to the sink, opened the cabinet and found the velvet bag untouched.

“What was it? Anything gone?” the man asked.

“No, nothing,” she said. She looked up the road. The line of men had taken an upward path into the charred hills.

“One of them give you that?” the man asked Ana.

Josie looked down to find that her daughter was holding a tiny yellow flower.

—

She could drive all night, she decided. She could pull over anywhere. It didn’t matter. She was free and her children were safe. She felt powerful, capable, again heroic as she had when they’d left the bed and breakfast. She wanted a drink.

And here, up ahead, was what she’d been looking for in Alaska, an all-night diner with a neon beer sign in the window. She pulled into the parking lot, and saw that the place was oddly bustling for 9:23 p.m. She pulled over. The kids were asleep, but she needed to be around people, under strips of fluorescent light. She saw a pair of empty booths by the side window, and parked the Chateau so she could see it from one of the booths. She intended to sit and drink whatever they had, keep an eye on the RV that held her sleeping children, get some food for them to eat whenever they woke up. She had the feeling she would be talking to some stranger inside, the waitress at the very least. She was in one of those moods, she knew — once a month an ebullience came over her and she found herself small-talking someone at the checkout counter, people walking their dogs, nurses pushing the elderly down the sidewalk. What a day, right?

Seat yourself, the sign inside said, and Josie thought her heart might burst. She took one of the empty booths and opened the menu, to find not just the beer advertised in neon but two different wines, red and white. The waitress approached, and as she loomed close enough to appraise, Josie saw that she was a stunning woman in her forties, possibly the most beautiful woman she’d seen in Alaska. Her blond hair was streaked with white, which might have been age or might have been a style choice, it didn’t matter. Her eyes were dark, and she had dimples, which announced themselves just after she’d asked Josie how she was and what would she have.

“White wine,” Josie said.

Dimples. “Just a glass?” the woman asked, her eyes shining like those of a beloved childhood dog. “We have carafes.”

“Yes,” Josie said. “The carafe. Thank you. That’s mine,” she added, indicating the Chateau just outside. There was no reason to announce this just after ordering a carafe of white wine — as if she wanted the waitress to know what she’d be driving when she was finished drinking.

“You parking overnight?” the waitress asked. Dimples.

“Can I?” Josie asked.

Now the waitress was confused. Finally Josie put it together: the waitress had assumed that was why she’d pointed to the Chateau.

“Yes,” Josie said, more assuredly now. “Do I pay here or…”

Dimples. “I can add it to the bill. I’ll bring the registry over.”

And now Josie was in a new kind of bliss, and felt sure she would get a little drunk.

The carafe arrived, and she finished her first glass greedily. She was thirsty, and followed the wine with water, and was still thirsty. She couldn’t remember if she’d eaten since breakfast. She settled on the fact that she’d eaten half of a sandwich sometime in the afternoon, so she should eat now, should have a feast soaked in wine, and ran her eyes down the menu, ordered a chicken salad and started on the bread.

The diner was in full swing. Josie was in her flannel shirt, so she was invisible and enjoying a second glass of chardonnay. She looked around. There were two women who had come there, Josie was sure, to get laid; they were dressed like rock groupies. There were pairs of tired truckers, and a group of college-age kids who seemed to have spent the day rafting. One was still wearing a life vest. And then there was a man in front of her. Sitting in the next booth, facing her, as if the two of them had come with invisible companions and were stuck looking at each other.