| Chapter 5 - Chris |
| We went back to the house to see if Greta had come home. Nothing had changed except that the sun was lower in the sky. The propane tank still lay on its side. The old stone chimney still lay on the ground, as did the water heater. Broken glass was everywhere. Bloodstains made a trail across the floor, leading to the doorway from the window where Josh had been standing. And no sign of Greta. I said, �If we split up and spread out, we have a better chance of finding her.� Jon�s face looked troubled. So, as a matter of fact, did Josh�s. �Let�s like � stick together,� he said. �Okay?� Actually, I didn�t like the idea of splitting up, either. �Where shall we look?� Josh asked. I�d last seen her heading toward the road. I could think of nothing better than to go that way. Which way? We�d already gone to the firehouse without seeing her, though we hadn�t made a thorough search. So now I figured we should go the opposite way. We wandered down the narrow country road. It was the same route I used to take with Greta every day, which seemed ever so long ago � before today. I�d always loved the walk. The roadside was a riot of wildflowers: orange poppy, yellow mustard, purple vetch, daisies, yarrow, wild rose. A goldfinch darted in and out among blackberry branches. Beyond a split-rail fence lay a rolling field of dry oat grass that would whisper and crackle in the wind. Here and there among the golden oats stood a spot of dark green: a live-oak tree, solitary, craggy, and cool. We called Greta�s name. I whistled with my fingers against my teeth � something I learned from my father. Jon couldn�t whistle like that, and it had always made him jealous. Jon tried, but all that came out was drool. �What if she�s buried?� Jon asked. �How will we know she�s there?� �She isn�t buried,� I said. �How do you know?� �If she�s smart enough to run out of the house before there�s an earthquake, she�s smart enough to find a safe place to stay.� �How do you know?� �Instink,� I said. But I wasn�t as sure as I sounded. I had visions of Greta trapped under a fallen tree or squashed by a boulder or incinerated by an exploding propane tank � and so, I knew, did Jon. Jon, who loved violence. Jon, who in spite of the occasionally joke, was obviously scared to death. It was for his sake that I was trying to appear calm and confident. Meanwhile another part of my mind was telling me that I was a phony. A fake. If I was honest, if I was true to my feeling, I�d cry and scream and generally lose control. But what would that accomplish? I asked Josh, �What do you hear?� �Gridlock on the freeways,� he said. �If they�re coming, it�ll take hours.� �The road�s closed, Josh.� �I know.� �It can take days to clear a landslide. Weeks, even.� �I know.� Josh walked right beside me, shoulder to shoulder. On the other side Jon held one finger through a belt loop on my Levi�s. I felt as close to Josh � not just physically, but in terms of friendship, of trust, of sharing, maybe even love � as in the good ole days when we were friends. Which we still were, I now saw. At the same time I felt a new bond with Jon. The earthquake had shaken more than just earth and houses and roads. More than just things. We came to a house where several cars had parked carelessly, blocking the entire road, and a commotion of people had gathered in the front yard. The man from the firehouse � the bald man with the full mustache and beard � was kneeling over a body on the ground, surrounded by stones. A man beside him was cutting strips of gauze, and a woman was readying a stretcher. Watching from a few feet away was Mrs. Gunderson, whose house it was, holding her little daughter Katie in her arms, wrapped tight. Katie, like any wiggly four-year-old, looked as if she wanted to get away. Mrs. Gunderson seemed upset. She looked as if she wasn�t going to let go of Katie for a long, long time. �Can we help?� Josh asked. �Is he dead?� Jon asked. �He�s alive,� Mrs. Gunderson said. �And he�s in good hands. Thank you, though.� Now I recognized that body on the ground. �It�s Billy!� Billy was a stonemason. He wasn�t the brightest guy in the world, but he was friendly, and he sure knew how to lay stones. He had long scraggly hair, a beard that hung to his chest, and looked like the old man of the mountain � though he wasn�t that old. His trademark was a swirling, circular pattern that he somehow managed to build into every wall and chimney and barbecue that he worked on. He�d built the chimney on our cabin, which was now a heap of rubble just like what was on the ground here. �He was building a wall,� Mrs. Gunderson said. �It was beautiful. Nearly done. Katie was asking questions. You know how she is. Pestering him, but of course Billy didn�t mind. She was standing right against the wall when it started to shake. Billy grabbed her � in an instant � never hesitated � and fell down on top of her. He shielded her with his body. He save her life. The whole wall fell on top of them. I was freaked out. When we dug them out, Katie didn�t have a scratch.� Billy had more than a scratch. He was unconscious. They were moving him to the stretcher. Mrs. Gunderson look at Billy, then back at us, and said, �How do you thank somebody for doing something like that?� We couldn�t answer. If Jon and I were in a similar situation, if there was not time for thinking and I was acting purely on instinct, would I fall on Jon and shield him with my body? I asked Mrs. Gunderson if she�d seen Greta. �No. But I�ve been kind of distracted.� They put Billy in the back of a Volvo station wagon with its seats folded down. Jon stared at the bandages wrapped round Billy�s head. He didn�t say a word. He held tight to my belt loop. I asked, �Where will you take him?� �To the school.� The bald man with the mustache and heard looked us over. �Are you guys all right?� We must have been a sight. We were smudged all over with dirt from scrambling up and down Mr. Wright�s hillside. I�d gotten some white powder in my hair from the fire extinguisher. Jon had brushed against some scorched rock, too, giving him a black arm. And Josh had a bandage around his neck and dried blood all over his shirt. �We�re fine,� I said. We walked on. Soon we came to Chris� house. Even from a distance I could see cracks and jagged gray holes in the stucco siding. The chimney had broken off at the top. Most of the windows were broken. An old concrete gatepost had gnarfled into the driveway. Just as if nothing unusual had occurred today, the front door opened and Chris �just happened� to come out as I was walking by. �Oh. Hi, Justin,� Chris called across the yard. �I was just coming out to see if the newspaper had been delivered.� I stopped walking. Josh and Jon stopped beside me. Chris walked toward us up the driveway. He stepped over the fallen gatepost without a second glance and said what he always said: �What�s new?� Suddenly I laughed. It surprised me, but it felt wonderful. �Oh, nothing much,� I said. �What�s new with you?� �Oh, you know.� He shrugged. �Nothing ever happens around here.� �Chris, this is Jon. And this is my old friend, Josh.� �Hey, Jon. I�ve heard a lot about you. Hey, Josh.� Jon didn�t say anything. Which didn�t surprise me. Normally he would stick out his tongue � or worse � in a situation like this. But Josh didn�t say anything, either. Which did surprise me. He looked annoyed. Maybe even jealous? �So what�ve you been doing?� I asked. �Nothing special. I was just shoveling out the bathroom.� �Shoveling?� �All the tile fell out of the shower.� I asked Chris where he had been when it happened. He said he�d just sat down to watch the pregame show for the World Series when the screen went blank. Suddenly books were flying at him and bricks were thundering down outside the window. For a moment he�d thought it must be raining bricks � like you hear people say it�s raining cats and dogs � and then he realized that the chimney was falling down. Josh was looking more annoyed. I started to tell Chris what happened at our house. �Justin�� Josh said impatiently. �All right,� I said. Maybe it was rude of me to hold a private conversation � but he could of joined in. �Have you seen Greta?� I asked. �Sure. About a half an hour ago. I was just happening to come out to � I don�t know � to take out some garbage. But Greta was by herself. Just trotting along. What�s up, Justin? Are you and your dog taking separate walks now? Did you have a quarrel?� Josh was looking annoyed again. �Greta�s lost,� I said. �Actually,� Chris said, �I think Greta probably knows exactly where she is. She�s not lost. It�s just that you guys can�t find her.� Josh was not amused. �Which way did she go?� Chris pointed down the road in the direction we had been heading. �Let�s go,� Josh said. �Can I help you look?� Chris asked. �Sure,� I said. �No,� Josh said. Now he looked uncomfortable, as if he knew he was acting strangely. �I mean, don�t come with us. Look somewhere else. And if you see her� � Josh fished in his pocket and pulled out some M&M�s � �give her these.� �I can�t do that,� Chris said. �I wouldn�t want to hurt her.� �I didn�t say to kick her,� Josh said. �I said to give her an M&M.� Chris frowned. �Don�t you know chocolate is bad for dogs?� �Uh � what?� Josh looked as if he were the one who�d been kicked. �It makes them sick,� Chris said. �There�s something in the cocoa bean. It�s poison to them.� Josh looked stricken. The only other time I�d seen that look on his face was after he�d accidentally dropped a hamster and broken its leg. In a very small voice he asked, �How do you know?� �A friend of mine,� Chris said. �His mother had a little Pekingese that ripped into some See�s candy. Ate half the box. It died. The vet said it was too much chocolate for such a little dog. They�d always given her candy. She loved the stuff. But half a box was too much. At least, my friend figured, the dog died happy.� Josh�s voice was strained: �Come on, Justin.� He started walking. I nodded a goodbye to Chris and followed Josh down the road. Jon tugged on my belt loop. �Is Greta alive?� �She had to be,� I said. �Chris saw her, and she didn�t have time to run all the way to his house before the quake, so she must have made it through okay.� �Why didn�t she come home?� �She must be spooked.� �Or poisoned,� Josh said. �Oh, come on, Josh. One peanut butter cup isn�t going to kill her. You used to give her lots more chocolate than that when she was only a little puppy.� �How could I?� �You didn�t know.� �How could I not know? How could I be so � so ignorant? So stupid?� �You aren�t stupid. I bet lots of people don�t know that chocolate is bad for dogs. I didn�t know.� �Of all the people to learn it from. That little� jerk!� �He�s not a jerk, Josh.� �Of course you�d say that.� Josh stared straight ahead. He wouldn�t look at me. �How could you Justin?� �How could I what?� �Oh, come on.� �What?� �Cut the crap.� �What are you talking about?� �Anybody can see that he�s crazy about you.� �I wouldn�t say that. Not exactly.� �And you�re crazy about him.� �I am not. �Okay I admit it, I like guys. Eventually Josh seemed to already know this. How embarrassing. Man, how long has he known?� Well. You know. I like him. But I hardly know him. The only time I ever see him is when I happen to walk the dog by his�� �Cut the crap.� �Josh, stop saying that. What�s bothering you?� �Nothing.� �Don�t you want to talk about it?� Josh didn�t answer. Suddenly, it seemed, his headphones didn�t allow him to hear my voice. This, I reflected, was the old Josh, too. Josh the dramatic. Josh the volcano. And when he was mad at me � sometimes with good reason, sometimes not � he wouldn�t talk about it for days. We had been walking through a section of forest where the road dipped down and crossed a creek on a bridge of wooden planks. The water, I saw, was running fuller and faster than it had the day before even though there had been no rain in that time. Had water shaken out of the earth? Greta always stopped for a drink here. I paused, whistled, called her name. The gurgle of water was the only reply. Up a short hill and around a bend we came out of the trees to where � until now � a white barn in a pasture overlooked a vista of the mountainside. The barn had collapsed. The walls had splayed out, and the triangle of roof and hayloft had crashed straight down. Josh looked frantic. �Do you think there�re animals in there?� No other people were in sight. Where was the farmer? Before I could say anything, Josh had let himself through the barbed wire fence and was running to the barn. I glanced around the pasture. Sometimes a bull grazed there. Today there were only cows, udders bulging. I wondered if the farmer had gone to town and couldn�t get back because the road was closed. Or had his house fallen in on him? No, it stood. Or the barn? �Follow me, Jon.� We let ourselves through the fence and ran after Josh. He was on his hands and knees, peering under the bottom of the hayloft, which stood about two feet above the floor of the barn, held up by the debris of the fallen walls. You could see through the darkness clear to the daylight on the other end. �The cows were all out in the pasture,� I said. Then we heard a mournful, blatting sound. Josh ran around to the side of the barn. Jon and I followed. Josh was cooing soothing words and rubbing his hands over the side of a goat that had soulful eyes and an orange tag attached to its ear. It was standing on three legs. The fourth was broken, dangling at a sickening angle. The sight made me gag. I�d never make a good doctor. Or vet. �Careful, Josh,� I said. �If he�s hurt, he might do anything. He might bite you.� �Poor, poor, little goat,� Josh was cooing. �You need to lie down. I�ll get you some straw.� With a ferocious look in his eye, Josh grabbed a bale of straw that the barn had crushed, and he ripped it open with his bare hands. He spread out a bed and then gently pulled the goat, cooing, and actually got it to drop awkwardly onto the straw. From his pocket Josh produced a couple of dirty M&M�s, stared at them a moment, then offered them to the grateful animal. �Goats can eat anything, right?� He turned away, a tear on his cheek. I didn�t say anything. I didn�t have high hopes for that beast. What�s a farmer going to do to a goat with a broken leg? As we crossed the pasture and returned to the road, I wondered what would happen to the cows if the farmer couldn�t get home to milk them. Could I help? I�d never milked a cow. Stop, Justin, I told myself. You can�t help everything. But I worried about them. I knew without asking what Jon was thinking as he walked along attached to my belt loop. He had visions of Greta with a broken leg. So did I. |