Hotshots Read Free Page A

pit bull, was nipping at Roland’s heels about the urban/wildland interface and the difficulty of protecting homes in remote areas.
    â€œIt’s the government’s responsibility to protect private landowners from public land fires,” Roland said while the diamond earring sparkled in the sunshine. “I’m very grateful to the firefighters for saving my home. It’s a terrible tragedy that those young people lost their lives in the fire.”
    The report continued as Kyle interviewed a hotshot who had escaped the fire. Until the hotshot spoke it was impossible to tell if the face beneath the hard hat belonged to a man or a woman. It was an old face on a young body, a face that had been to the mountain and back, way weary and black with soot. “Nine of my buddies died up there,” the hotshot said. “Nobody’s house is worth risking a firefighter’s life for. Nobody’s.”
    â€œChiquita, please,” the Kid grumbled, pulling the pillow over his head. I zapped the TV off, lay back, watched the shadow of a branch skate across my skylight, and listened to the sounds a house makes when it thinks no one’s listening. Someone tossed ice into a bucket in the freezer. Something scurried above the vigas in the ceiling. A valve in the toilet went whoosh, and I fell asleep.
    I know a property manager in Santa Fe who sleeps with her lover in all her new listings. The properties she handles are luxury vacation homes with mind-bending views and absentee owners. They have bathrooms as big as bedrooms and bedrooms as big as a house. She doesn’t do it for the movie-star-sized beds, for the skylights with a view of the moon, or even to warm up in the Jacuzzi. She does it for the adventure. She does it because it’s forbidden.
    I woke up in my own house in my own bed where nothing was forbidden to me, but everything was new. “You awake?” I whispered to the Kid. He wasn’t, but I put my arm around his skinny body and woke him up. When we were finished the house had been christened.
    I got up to make coffee. Once the bed had been set up last night and the TV plugged in, I’d thought I was moved, but in morning’s light I saw how much farther there was to go. It would take a backhoe to clean out the dining area. There were boxes all over the kitchen. How could someone who cooks so little have accumulated so much? I wondered. I found the kettle, boiled some water, and poured it over the instant. I opened the refrigerator, a reflex action. What had I been expecting to find in there but white walls and metal shelves? Nothing that had been in my old refrigerator had been worth moving. Most of it had been unrecognizable. The brat who resided in the ice maker had a tantrum and heaved some ice. “Shut up.” I said.
    There was a brown box from Pastiàn’s bakery on the top shelf of the fridge. I opened it and found six pineapple empanadas. “Thanks, Kid,” I said.
    â€œDe nada,” he replied. He was dressed in work clothes. As soon as he finished his coffee and empanadas, he headed for the door.
    â€œWhere are you going?” I asked him.
    â€œTo work.”
    â€œOn Sunday?”
    â€œSí ’Ta luego.”
    â€œBye,” I said. Men don’t mind helping you move the furniture, but when it comes to unpacking the boxes they’re gone. I didn’t blame him. I was the one who knew where the stuff ought to go, but I didn’t want to put it away either.
    I took my coffee, went back to the bedroom, dressed in the jeans and T-shirt I’d worn yesterday (my other clothes were still packed somewhere), and clicked on the VCR.
    The next interviewee on the Thunder Mountain Fire report was a Forest Service official who looked bone weary. “It’s been a gnarly season, the worst season we’ve ever had,” he said. “We lost nine firefighters here, two in Wyoming, three in California. Three million acres