Free The Smoke Jumper by Nicholas Evans Page A

charge.
    They all had to make their own little bow-drill set after combing the forest for the right bits of dead wood and in the five days that had since passed, all but two of the group had learned how to use them. The only two who hadn’t were Skye and a kid from Billings called Lester whose head was so cooked from all the crack he’d done, he’d probably have had trouble lighting a pool of gasoline with a blowtorch. Skye figured she could make a bow-drill fire easily enough, but she was damned if she was going to try. Last night it had been her turn and everyone had to eat cold food. She wasn’t popular, but who gave a shit?
    The hiking since that first forced march had been easier. They’d done maybe ten miles a day but with lots of stops to form circles whenever anyone cussed or did something wrong. No one told them where they were or where they were headed and whenever anyone asked, Julia just smiled that annoying, cute little smile of hers and said it was the journey that mattered, not the destination. Which was about as dumb a remark as Skye had ever heard, because who in their right mind doesn’t care where they’re going?
    Skye was one of Julia’s ‘primaries,’ which meant they were supposed to have, like, this special relationship. Skye was supposed to go to her for help, cry on her shoulder and confide her innermost secrets. Yeah, right. Julia was walking behind her now as they made their way up the canyon. In front was Byron, a boy from Great Falls who’d stabbed someone in a robbery.
    He had straggly red hair and a tattoo of a tiger on his left shoulder which was supposed to look scary but somehow only looked sad. Skye couldn’t stop staring at it. Beneath the layer of smeared dirt, Byron’s skin was as pale as an albino’s. There was a ring of pink at the back of his neck where the sunblock had been rubbed off by his pack. Skye liked him. He tried to act tough like the others but, just as you could see his pale baby skin under the grime, you sometimes got a glimpse of the sweet kid he really was. He was the only boy in the group who was at all friendly toward her. The others spoke to her only when they had to, except Mitch, who never missed a chance to taunt her, mostly when the staff couldn’t hear.
    The light in the canyon was fading, as if it were being siphoned out by the pale salmon sky. For half a mile the trail grew steep and treacherous with rocks that slipped beneath their boots to roll and clatter through the dry brush below. Then, as they rounded a ridge, the land fell away before them and opened into a meadow with a lake at its center. Far beyond it, the mountains they had glimpsed throughout the day were still catching the last rays of the sun and their reflection shone pink and unruffled on the surface of the lake. As if on some tacit command, the group stopped and stood in silence, gathering their breath and taking in the view. Skye was beside Byron.
    ‘Cool place, huh?’ said Byron.
    Skye nodded but said nothing. She knew it was beautiful and knew that if she weren’t such a freak she should be moved by it, as Byron was. But she felt nothing. It was as if the processes of knowing and feeling had uncoupled within her and a skin grown between them. She was aware that Julia had come to stand beside her.
    ‘Is this where we camp?’ Byron asked.
    ‘That’s right,’ Julia said.
    ‘Cool.’
    ‘Pretty enough for you, Skye?’
    Skye shrugged and fiddled with the strap of her pack though it didn’t need fixing. ‘Why should I care?’
     
    They sat in a circle around the fire warming their bare or stocking feet against the flames that rose tall and untroubled into the windless night. The firelight set their faces aglow and flashed in their eyes as they talked and laughed. Across the lake a horned moon slowly hoisted itself above the trees.
    This was Lester’s fire, started with his own bow and drill without help. And the pride he felt was plain for all to see. He sat straight,