Bronx Read online

  "Looks like there's already people gathering," King noted unnecessarily.

  "Yep." A group of thirty plus people, looking somber as if it was funeral day, stood huddled around Bulldozer's headstone. I'd visited the plot more than once in the past year, letting him know on each visit that the bad blood between us made no sense. I even confessed to him, while he rested in peace, that I thought the world of his wife and considered him the luckiest bastard on the planet, but I also assured him, I never would have betrayed him. Unfortunately, it was all too late for Bulldozer to hear my words of contrition. The visits to the graveyard were a form of therapy for me, a way to better deal with my feelings and his unexpected loss.

  "Guess it's time." King double checked his tie, then tried to straighten mine.

  I slapped his hand away. "Next you'll be licking your thumb and cleaning dirt off my face."

  He chuckled quietly as he opened the door and climbed out. I was far less anxious to join the group. I'd had so many people question my presence at Bulldozer's memorial that I'd begun to question it too. King strolled toward the group and glanced back once to wave me along.

  I climbed out. In the first few seconds outside the jeep, I spotted her face in the crowd. Her brown gaze flickered my direction, just enough to brush over me, and I felt every stroke. Helix had been right. I should not have come.

  A copse of young trees, mulberries, stood on one corner of the graveyard. It was a good distance away from the memorial. I headed that way, deciding I wasn't quite ready to join the group. I temporarily considered staying in my shady hiding spot, but after weeks of defending my attendance at the service, I'd end up looking like a fucking dick by not actually attending. Helix and a few others were going to say some words, then everyone was going back to the base camp for food, drinks and reminiscing. Since everyone seemed to think my only interaction with Bulldozer had been a fist fight at the bottom of a snowy mountainside, I'd also considered skipping the food and reminiscing. It was bullshit of course. Bulldozer and I had been teamed up plenty of times on a fire. We worked together, went through some treacherous moments and some comical moments on the job. The bad blood was there, hard to get rid of completely once fists had been thrown, but that shitty fight was hardly a sliver of the time we'd spent together.

  I rested against the trunk of a tree, watching the scene in front of me. There were too many people standing around Layla. I wanted them to disappear. She was the only person I needed to see. The weather, the people, the location took me right back to the day of the funeral. We were all so fucking stunned and sad none of us could speak. Mostly, I remembered Layla. She looked incredibly frail and lost standing at the site, greeting the mourners who came to show their respect. At least a hundred people, firefighters from the area and other base camps, had come to see us lay to rest one of our crew. And through it all, Layla looked as if all she wanted to do was crumple into a ball next to the grave. She put on a strong face for everyone, beneath the lacy black veil, but it seemed any second she would break into a million pieces. We'd spoken that day, after most everyone had started off to their cars. All I could say was how sorry I was and how badly I wished things on the mountain that day had turned out differently. She smiled weakly, her lips trembling and squeezed my hand. She had given me so much comfort that day, on the island. She'd given me some straight talk and a good dose of hope at a time when I really needed it, but I couldn't conjure up more than professing how sorry I was about Bulldozer. That was the last time I saw her. Not long after, she put their house up for sale and moved to the east coast. She still occasionally sent me a link or an email asking about Vick, but that was all.

  A car door slammed behind me. Angus lumbered toward me. The guy had had tragedies of his own in his twenty-eight years. Like me, he grew up with a single mother who doted on him and who, in his words, made sure he never felt poor. He had a younger sister, Willow, who he looked after when his mom worked. They were a small, close family who weathered all kinds of problems with evictions and having to move towns more than once. But the real challenge came when his mom was diagnosed with a brain tumor. She died just a year later. Angus was only twenty and willow sixteen. He went from big brother to parent, but he was one of those guys who never considered himself down on his luck. Maybe it was because he was blessed with good looks, athletic talent and an incredible singing voice. It would be enough to overcome a lot of life's problems.

  "Hey, Devlin, why are you standing back here?" He pulled out a pack of breath mints. "Had some tacos on the way over. I don't want to offend anyone with my breath."

  I took a mint.

  Angus didn't seem in any big hurry to get to the memorial either. He leaned against the tree and sucked on the mint. "Hard to believe it's been a year. I can still remember that day like it was yesterday." He chuckled. "I sound like some old grandpa. Still remember that day Aunt Sarah fell in the well, clear as a bell," he said in an old man's gruff voice. His moment of mirth ended. "Still, that sure was a fucked up day."

  I stared down at the group gathered at Bulldozer's headstone. Layla's dark gold hair looked sleek and shiny in the sunlight. I could hardly see her face behind the others, and that was probably for the best.

  "It sure was, Angus. Worst day ever."

  10

  A year earlier

  The chainsaw vibrated my tired arms, causing the sweat between my shoulder blades to roll down my back. Kaos came over the next hill, his shirt tied around his head to catch the sweat before it dripped into his eyes. His ax was resting casually on his shoulder as he took a swig of water from his canteen. I shut off the chainsaw to hear him.

  "Angus and King are starting to check the underbrush for embers," Kaos said. "Where's Bulldozer and Helix?"

  "I'm not sure about Bulldozer, but Helix took off along the north face to make sure nothing got past us there."

  I stomped down the branches that were still perfect fuel for any runaway embers. I wiped the sweat off my forehead with the back of my arm and squinted up the hill. Smoke smoldered in various spots all over the charred hillside. It was a location that had burned just a few years earlier making it an easy fire to contain. The wind was working with us, a rarity, but it kept the flames from lapping toward the higher brush area and a thicket of trees that were somehow missed in the last fire.

  Kaos took another drink. "Fucking hotter than Hades out here today. Seems like the wind is dying down too."

  "I'm going to hike around this ridge and start checking the soil and underbrush for embers," I said. I put down the chainsaw and grabbed up a shovel.

  "Yeah, I'll go see if Helix needs help. Looks like he's still battling some tall grass."

  Kaos stomped off and I circled around the ridge we'd dug for a temporary fire break. I came around to the south facing side of the hill and was hit with an unexpected gust of wind coming from the north. It was a good one too, twenty or so miles per hour. Hollers and yells echoed off the hillside from my team. Everyone had been caught off guard by the gust. I climbed a boulder to get a better view of the terrain. The sudden wind had set off a few more sizzling flames right above King and Angus. They got right on them with their shovels, dousing the heat with dark loamy soil, so it didn't have a chance to get going.

  Bulldozer was below me in a shallow ravine in the shade of a sprawling oak. He hacked away at some tangled brambles surrounding the tree making sure the ground fuel was cleared away.

  I was tired, my throat was dry and burning. We were nearing the end of our job and visions of steak and potatoes danced through my head. I was thinking about just that when someone yelled. "Heads up!"

  I looked up from the soil I'd been overturning with my shovel. A fast moving wall of flames was cutting across the low brush just above us. Another freak blast of air pushed it faster. It swept over the dry fuel like a hot glowing tsunami.

  My gaze shot to Bulldozer down in the ravine. He hadn't heard the warning.

  "Bulldozer!" I yelled as loud as I could.


  He glanced up just as another gust blew the fast moving flames down the side of the ravine and through the massive oak. Dry from the hot summer and drought, the tree's sprawling branches ignited instantly.

  Bulldozer took a step back and fell over some of the brush he'd cleared.

  "Man down!" I yelled and raced toward the ravine. Flames started to lap at my arms. I took a hard left, trying to stay out of the path and still get to Bulldozer. He pushed to his feet just as I looked his direction. The next gust was long, intense. I covered my face to keep the debris from my eyes. I heard more voices and footsteps pounding the ground behind me, then someone yelled.

  I opened my eyes, grit assaulting my eyeballs. The flames had flowed down into the ravine like an uncontrolled waterfall. Smoke and flames made it hard to see. The whole ravine was filled with fire.

  "Bulldozer!" I yelled just as Helix and Angus reached the ridge I was standing on. We yelled for him, but there was no answer. All we could do was hope that he had crawled out the other side of the flames. That's what we all told ourselves as we chopped brush and dug soil to douse the flames that poured into the ravine. The parched landscape was so combustible, the fire quickly ran out of fuel, climbing and clawing its way out of the ravine.

  "Go south," Angus called to King and Kaos. "Get ahead of it." They were reluctant to leave, worried as the rest of us that Bulldozer was still down in that ravine.

  He'll be sitting on the other side, chugging water and ready to laugh at us for getting so freaked out, I told myself. The smoke was dense and my eyes burned with chalky ash. My pulse pounded louder than my feet as I hiked down into the charred gully.

  Helix and Angus flanked me on each side, then Helix picked up his pace. He flew down toward the smoke and ash. The flames reached the ridge on the opposite side and tumbled over. King and Kaos would have to hurry to get in front of them.

  Another gust of wind cleared some of the smoke and ash, giving us a clearer view of the scene at the bottom of the ravine. It wasn't a scene any of us wanted to see.

  "Fuck, fuck, fuck!" Helix yelled as he raced toward Bulldozer. "Bull, buddy, we're coming. Hang on! We're gonna get you."

  Angus and I were right behind Helix. We reached Bulldozer just seconds later. Helix was already dropped to his knees next to his friend. Excessive heat had pushed us all to strip down to our last layer of clothes. The flames were out. We'd considered the danger over, but with nature, anything was possible. Today it had gotten us good, it had gotten Bulldozer good. His burns were massive and bad. Blisters were already forming on his arms and face. He groaned in pain. He was still alive.

  "We've got you, buddy." Helix yanked off his shirt, rolled it up and tucked it gently under Bulldozer's head. He pulled the canteen off his belt and pressed it to Bulldozer's mouth. It was blistered and raw. Bulldozer coughed and sputtered and flailed his charred arm to push it away.

  Angus pulled out the satellite phone on his belt and punched in the message for man injured, send helicopter. He sent off our coordinates.

  "I'll run back and grab a sleeping bag. We can carry him to the pick-up location in the bag." There was no reason to bring a first aid kit. Bulldozer's injuries were far past that.

  I had to push out of my head just how badly he was hurt. It wasn't a time to lose focus. Mixx had just reached the top of the ridge. He looked down into the ravine and saw me running toward him.

  "What do you need? I'll toss it down to you," he called.

  "Get me a sleeping bag." I kept moving up the sheer hillside and seconds later Mixx appeared. He tossed a sleeping bag down and I caught it.

  "Do we have coordinates for the pick up yet?" Mixx called.

  "Angus is getting them."

  "Can you guys get him out of the ravine on your own?" Mixx asked. "I'm going to catch up to Kaos and King."

  "Yeah, we've got it. Go on ahead." We were all in strategic plan mode, acting almost as if this was just a drill. It was easier than thinking about the reality of what had just happened.

  The next hour was pure adrenaline. Each one of us could have recalled every detail like the fucking hole I twisted my ankle in, causing me to nearly drop my end of the sleeping bag, the mumbles from Bulldozer, complaining we were a bunch of clumsy dumbfucks, every rattler and lizard we scared off the rugged path on our trek down the rocky mountainside, our shortest cut to the helicopter clearing. My heart hadn't stopped pounding even long after we'd arrived at the site.

  A wave of relief fell over us when the helicopter appeared over the peaks. And none of us mentioned that halfway down the mountainside, Bulldozer had stopped making any sounds.

  Helix, Angus and I had gotten Bulldozer to the helicopter clearing as fast as our feet could carry us, but with injuries as devastating as his, every second counted. With our line of work, seconds were hard to shave off. We were in the middle of unchartered wilderness. There were only coordinates and satellite phones to connect us to the world. That only got us so far.

  We turned our faces from the debris kicked up by the helicopter blades and stood in horrified silence as they carried Bulldozer off to the trauma center. We took a second for brief hugs. No one spoke of his chances. No one spoke of Bulldozer's silence. No one spoke of the dreadful possibility that we'd just lost one of our own. It was still too surreal to process. Every person experienced times in their lives when they wanted badly to believe they were just having a terrible dream, that soon they'd wake up to sun streaming in through the curtains. We were experiencing our moment right then on that weed covered clearing. We all just wanted to be jostled awake, to erase the horrid nightmare. But no one was going to wake us. This was reality, the reality of the job we chose.

  11

  Present

  Helix had brought an ice chest full of Bulldozer's favorite beer to the gravesite. After a lot of words, some producing tears and some laughter, everyone took a beer.

  Layla and I got caught in each other's gazes several times during the service. Sometimes, her eyes would be glassy with tears and other times, sparkling with fond memories. I'd stayed on the opposite side of the circle, deciding it was easiest and best.

  Helix stepped forward. "Hey, Bull, my bro, brought your favorite brewskies out for everyone to drink over your grave. I still remember when you and I were talking about death and you told me 'I hope everyone fucking parties on my grave. That's the only way to go out of this world, with a party.' You were always the life of the party, man. Base camp, the locker room, the mountainside, nothing has been the same without you." Helix lifted his beer, and we all took a drink.

  Layla stepped forward next. Just seeing her sent a rush of emotion through me. I hated that we couldn't save Bulldozer, that that fateful day had ripped apart her life and there was nothing I could do. She looked far less frail and lost than the day of the funeral, but it seemed standing out at his gravesite had taken its toll on her. Her usual vibrancy was dimmed by the stark reality once again sitting right in front of her, his name carved in the big stone with the nickname "Bulldozer" carved right below Adam Rafferty.

  "Your friends called you Bulldozer." Her voice, so familiar still, had a profound effect on me. My heart was slipping into third gear just hearing her. Fuck, I'd missed her. "But to me, you were Bear. And I was your Tiger. You were that guy who made me laugh at the most inopportune times, like Grandma Suzie's funeral." Everyone chuckled. "You were the guy who could clear out the refrigerator just eight hours after I'd filled it." More chuckles. She smiled briefly, then it faded. "Most of all, you were that guy who was always meant to be a part of my life. You were the guy who always made me feel safe, secure, loved when I was on unsteady feet or ground. You were the guy who I couldn't wait to see after you'd been on a mountain for days or at training camp for a week. I'm still waiting to see you walk through my door. Wish you would walk through my door again, Bear." Her voice trailed off, and she took a long swig of beer. Once we'd cleared the lumps in our throats, the rest of us followed.

  We lingered a few
minutes longer, in silence mostly, everyone playing through their own memories with Bulldozer.

  Jane cleared her throat politely. "Everyone, there's food and drinks back at base camp. Please join us if you can."

  12

  A five mile run and hot shower had done me a world of good. The day was over, the memorial, seeing Layla again for the first time in a year. Now, Helix could put to rest his asshole attitude. Layla would be on her way to New York soon, and I could spend the next six months clearing my head of her. I'd managed to get through the day without doing more than nodding hello to her across a field of Bulldozer's friends and family. I'd stood by my decision to avoid the after memorial food and drinks. I knew it was the right choice. No sense in rekindling so many of the feelings I'd worked hard to douse. Not that they'd ever been fully extinguished. Since Bulldozer's death, I'd managed to push them aside to a more appropriate place, somewhere deep in my heart, a place only I had access to.

  The small house I rented five miles from base camp was hot and stuffy from the day's heat. I turned on some music, grabbed a cold soda and headed out to the front stoop. It was a quiet street with only three other houses set far enough apart that I rarely saw my neighbors, a young couple with a toddler on one side and a retired couple on the other.

  The sun was low enough in the sky to throw long shadows from the surrounding trees. My west facing yard was also getting the brunt of that setting sun. I leaned forward to pop open the cola and heard car tires crunching the grit on the road. I shaded my eyes to see who might have turned the corner. It was a small blue Toyota, a car I didn't recognize. It stopped in front of my house, and the driver's door opened.