Page 13 of Bronx

Layla ignored him. She leaned toward me. Her perfume drifted over me making my light head fill with bubbles. She bit her lip as she checked my pupils. As she sat back, looking both annoyed and concerned, she noticed that I had an arm wrapped around my ribs. "Two ice packs, please."

The employee handed her two. "For your cheek and your ribs," Layla said curtly. She pushed to her feet, looked at me and then her husband. "Idiots." She spun around and left the lobby.

9

Present

There was a warm breeze flowing over the hills surrounding the cemetery. Headstones lay in perfect arrays along the green grass. A funeral was in session several hundred yards away from the memorial. A black Hearst sat patiently, silently, like a horse waiting for its rider to dismount, as a group of men pulled a mahogany casket from the back. The mourners waited quietly, shoulders slumped and faces turned as the casket was marched solemnly to the gravesite.

"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.

---