Never a good sleeper but this was the first time smell was the reason. Scent of wildfire mashed into Nova’s nose, her dreams, her lungs, her brain. Acrid, chemical, full of things recently alive, full of spores, full of ash, full of dead animals, full of loss. It was bad and it was unescapable. The smell kept her on the move during her first night home: first in bed, then on couch, then back in bed, thrashing, twitching, finding itches.
Playing with Wildfire is a literary landscape that is an experiment in form: an astrology report; a grant application-turned-love-story; a phone call from Mother Earth; an obituary for a wildfire; a burned mountain’s conversation with a lone woman and an injured bear. Every story captures how fire affects the human psyche and life, and how destruction can lead to renewal.
It had been a month dead, that fire, and Nova had missed the entire chaotic mess by taking her first trip overseas. Clearly, though, she would not be absent for the consequences—she’d been told the smell would last a year or more. Surely it wouldn’t be this strong? Head still on pillow, she opened her stinging eyes to Sleeping Bear Mountain, now lit with the first dull light of morning sun. She’d not been able to see when she’d finally arrived home last night, but now, oh now, there was the view that signaled home, the same view she’d had for four decades. But it was not the same at all.
“Ah, Bear, oh, Bear oh Bear,” she murmured. “Oh, poor Bear. What did someone’s campfire do to you?”
You’re back again. Sleeping Bear’s voice was not a low and rumbly voice—how cliché that would be!—but rather a sprightly whisper which only some creatures could hear and the rest mistook as breeze or mysterious mountain background noise. Check out the aspen along the riverbed. Wooeee. Spared. You missed those golden leaves lit with the buttery morning light. Bonkers, right? Mmmm-mmmm. I see your eyes resting there on their bare branches, white against the blue of morning. This stand made it, they sang and sang their way to safety. I feel the sun lighting me up. Mmmm again, never fails to delight me. Anyhootles, welcome back. Missed you, I suppose.
Sleeping Bear Mountain was burned, completely changed, but not burned as Nova had expected. Not at all. Her eyes felt confused. The pine trees were not disappeared, they were not fallen down. No. Most stood valiantly, red-brown and burnt and dead. Other pockets consisted of gray trunks with all the needles gone, so they looked like telephone poles, or blackened huge spears plunked down by a giant. And oddly, there were a few pockets of green—small areas of refugia—and she could figure out no rhyme nor reason to their survival, perhaps shifting winds, perhaps surrounded by just enough granite.
“Missed you, Bear,” she whispered to the mountain, which had now fully separated itself from night and stood stately and defined in the pale blue of morning sky.
She could have returned home sooner. The mandatory evacuation had been lifted weeks ago, though the electricity was not yet back on. But she’d been in Italy. In a moment of insanity—the wildfire certainly engendered those—she’d bought a ticket to Rome and caught a bus to Urbino and walked the cobbled streets of the walled city. Sometimes went to the beach and stared at ocean. Once went to San Merino, which was its own country inside of Italy, which she hadn’t known about and thought was crazy. But the travel made sense. After all, her Fire-Go-Bag had her passport and medicines and clothes, so when she evacuated, she figured she might as well keep going rather than staying in a smoke-filled and stress-filled America. She didn’t even email her neighbors and friends. She just disappeared, poof, like a puff of smoke, so that she could enter into an entirely different story. She’d had interesting coffees and an interesting affair with a man and silently fallen in love with a woman. She was surprised by the small things of travel, like gelato being a different and better creation all together. Or, most surprising of all, the air being muggy, moisture not something she’d remembered. She’d used up every last cent of retirement and now, at age 66, she’d have to… well, go back to work, or go to the foodbank, or who knew. She’d figure that out tomorrow when the jet lag cleared. One story at a time, she figured.
Well, you look happy, the mountain chirped. Halle damn looya. I’m doing pretty good too, actually. What an adventure! It’s been a long time since I burned. Hundreds of years. Thousands, maybe. I lose track of time. Though I remember the wowzer transitions. When I was shallow ocean and beach. Uplift. Tectonic plates crashing. I’ve felt too dry for too long. I kinda needed to burn, though maybe not this way, it did feel like a kablamo firestorm. Too hot, too fast, too out of control. Not easy, even for me. Not easy for creatures in my care. But here we are.
Head on pillow, Nova’s eyes sought out some pattern on the old Sleeping Bear. Before the fire, her eyes had understood the mountain—green expanses of lodgepole and ponderosa with some fir and spruce and aspen thrown in and some willows down low. Now, she saw four categories: 1) the orange needles on partially burned pines, 2) the black sticks of more-burned pines, 3) small areas of surviving green, and 4) the granite rock faces and tumbles. Orange, black, green, gray. The colors were new, but so was the entire layout. Since trees no longer obstructed her view, there was far more rock, and since bits of hard snow were falling and sticking in the crevices, the drainages within that granite were visible. One little crevice led to another. Funny what you could see when the outer layer of something was taken off. This was the earth’s skin and resembled the older woman she was becoming herself—hair thinning, crevices of face, fractals of a different pattern.
She reached for her backscratcher, little fingers on a stick, so she could scratch the one itch on her left shoulder she could never reach herself. The relief was immense. “Huh,” she said, scratching hard and still facing the mountain. “You look different. Bear has bare rock. Bear has bare. Bear is bare. Bare bear.”
Rise and shine for the maritime. Time for coffee! The mountain had watched so many patterns, of course, and this creature’s was pretty predictable. Coffee, stretching, walk, food, work inside or out. Slowing down a bit, over the years. Aging. Shoulders and soul bent. The mountain felt an itch, a very bad itch, and thus did a small shake.
Rock had probably saved this cluster of homes. Sleeping Bear Mountain was steep and forested, but near the bottom, where mountain met river, was a run of pure scree. Some of the boulders were the size of cars, but most of it was smaller, lichen-covered granite hunks. The wildfire had burned up to the edge of it. Had the flames leapt over it, and to the trees along the riverbed, the houses in this small meadow would have all burned. But it was as if nature had put out a stop sign. Nova was surprised that the rocks were not blackened or dark—no, they sat unchanged, a green-grey tumble. A few smaller ones tumbled down at this very moment, surely falling into the river below, though she couldn’t see their landing from where she was at, the river being blocked by trees and a few other houses. The scree reminded her of all the stone in Italy, stacked and lined and used for some purpose. Stone streets, stone walls, stone buildings. She whispered Thanks to the stone, then sat up, put her feet on floor.
What’s next for me? The mountain had wondered for a long time. Sure, there were familiar expected regular changes: the chill of heavy snow, the feeling of water sliding over skin as springmelt came, the tickle of new growth as pasque flowers emerged, the heat-beat of summer sun. And the mycelial chitchat, oh, now that was joy! And the kablamies, too: being pushed up 80 million years ago or so, eroded by glaciers, collisions between plates, volcanoes and ash. Frontrangia. Ancestral Rockies. Magma silica, metal oxides, feldspar, quartz. Too much carbon, now. The air was different. The heat was different. So, what next? That was the question! Maybe that great mountain far to the frontside of her would finally erupt, or a meteor would crash, or an earthquake would tear. But likely, the change was going to be in the air. Her next adventure would not a violent kablamy, it would be a quiet, insidious, secretive one.
In all her humanness, Nova had to get up to pee. No more Sleeping Woman for her. Time to rise. And as she did, she thought, Surely, I’ll laugh and feel light again here, as in Urbino. What a seismic shift that trip had been for her. How glad she was that she’d just gone! Surely soon she’d have good times here, too—sit around a campfire with her hippie friends on the mountain, someone with a guitar, all smoking weed—although, no, there would likely not be any campfires in her future. No more fires after this. No one would associate fire with anything fun and light anymore, ever. She’d find something else to signal joy and community. She did love these people, after all—such a mishmash of ages and politics and levels of education and sanity. But how, she wondered, would they come together? By doing trail work and restoration volunteering? Homebuilding? Mourning ceremonies? She needed to reach out and connect with her peeps once again.
If I could choose, the mountain mused, I suppose I’d like to be under the sea again. Watch fish and octopi and listen to the whales. But then felt immediately bad, since Mama Home Bear heard. The limping bear scowled and hung her head even lower. I’m just kidding, Mama Home Bear. I prefer you to starfish.
Mama Home Bear looked up, eyes dark, and stood on her haunches and scratched an aspen with just one paw, leaving small claw marks on tender bark. It’s alright, said Mama Home Bear. I’d like to get off of you and see the ocean too.
Mountain laughed, which sent a few more rocks tumbling.
Mama Home Bear huffed with laughter too, but said, I’m tired. I need to sleep. I need a den for winter and it’s late and now they’re all—
—I know, said Mountain. I’m sorry. But tell ya what, see. If you circle around to my other side, go down the drainage, and over to the Mouse-Ears Mountain, there’s a rock outcrop that might suit you, unburned forest all around with a corridor to more. It’s new territory for you, I know, but it’s still serviceable. There’s a small meadow below that survived and in spring there will be aspen catkins and later your elderberry and serviceberry and rosehips.
The bear fell to all fours, nodding her thanks, and started the journey, looking back at the community she was used to roaming, the one where she’d sought out the occasional birdfeeder or trashcan. Then she lumbered on, stopping once in a while to lick her paw.
Nova couldn’t wash her hands. She stared at the soap she’d just pumped onto her palms, the sink faucet on but running no water. No duh. The well needed electricity, so she’d packed her car with three-gallon containers filled with water from town. She got her water bottle and poured enough water to get to the soap off, then went and lugged the larger container into the bathroom to flush the toilet. Something about dumping water in the back of a toilet in order to flush made her realize all she’d taken for granted. Made her realize just how much water toilets used. Made her realize just how much humans needed. Of everything. And there were eight billion people like her.
And speaking of water: When the well worked, would the water now be contaminated because of the fire retardant? She’d heard that orange stuff was safe but didn’t believe that for a second. Solving one problem by creating another problem seemed to be the way of humankind.
She went to make coffee with her camp stove, as if camping in her own home, which felt vaguely confusing. As she waited for the water boil, she ran her eyes across her backyard. “Heya, Sweet Home,” she said, which is what she’d named the double-wide. Though snow was spitting, none was sticking down low here, and so her view was dried grass, cut low by herself before evacuating. It had been green then, as were the cottonwood and aspen, and there had been hummingbirds, who had, of course, now left. The seasons had changed and the mountain had burned, but there was the old silver propane tank, for instance—thank god it hadn’t exploded. A magpie flew between her and the mountain. Then a chipmunk ran by. Then a Steller’s jay.
She opened her back door and was smacked by an even stronger smell of fire that whooshed in with a blast of cold. A blue sticky note was on her back door. She peeled it off and held it at a far distance to read. YOUR HARD WORK PAID OFF. Tears flushed her eyes. She and the neighbors had worked so hard during that first week, when the fire was only two acres and had just been reported. All that brush clearing, tree cutting, defensible space. Though the scree had protected her on the river side, the fire had also moved down valley, and the fire line had held, she’d heard, because of lack of fuel. Plus a bit of luck.
She bundled up in a blanket and went outside to drink the coffee. Everything in her fridge had gone bad, and she’d deal with that in a moment, but she still had some oat milk in a cupboard to add because coffee was best when creamy. She missed the little Italian coffees, she missed the smell of Urbino. But while there, she had started to miss here. Now that she was here, she’d miss there. Such was the ways of humans.
She was struck by a memory of climbing in the sulphur spring caves of her childhood in Steamboat Springs. Holding her breath against the stench of rotten eggs. Dark and dank and slimy with a blue-green shellacked layer of bubbling something. Adults had told her not to go in, which was fine, because gut instinct told her it was dangerous too, so she always kept sunlight visible and never knew how deep the caves ran. It was the smell which eventually drove her out because she knew, even as a child, that that was what hell was—being trapped forever in burning stench.
If you look closely now, you’ll see Mama Home Bear, who can smell like 2,000 times better than you and is therefore suffering even more because pew-whee, that’s rank, isn’t it?! Say your goodbyes, mmkay? The mountain hoped the creature’s eyes would seek out the black bear, so the two living beings could have a moment of connection. There were things to notice in geologic time and there were things to notice in immediate time, and Mama Home Bear, who was impregnated and leaving the mountain for good, was something worth witnessing. On the other hand, these creatures eyes seemed to be so bad; it was pitiful, really. Whether seeing a literal bear walking across a mountainside or seeing into the future, their skills seemed to be whoo-eee yikes unhoned.
There was a huge pile of bear poop in her yard, Nova saw now. Fresh, too. That made her smile. She’d been told that Home Bear was still around, though now limping, and was renamed Lefty Bear. Everyone wondered: Perhaps the bear had burned one foot? Perhaps she’d twisted it while galloping away from flames? And how had she survived, anyway? Just been lucky? Run to safety in the aspen? Gone into the river while the fire flamed around?
She wondered now: Did Bear’s nose ache from the smell, too?
Then she realized: Oh, the bear had no familiar place to go, either!
She and the Home Bear and the Sleeping Bear Mountain were all stuck.
Well, so be it. They’d wait out their lives, watch the patterns. It was because nothing mattered that everything mattered, and it did matter that the snow had started to pick up. The world covered in white was a wonderous thing indeed. By the end of the hour, the snow would define the lines that creased Sleeping Bear Mountain, defining her haunch as she rested. Nova was tired herself. Jet lag and all. Aging and all. Trauma and all. Seeing what she’d just seen and all. Maybe she’d head back to bed, despite the coffee.
The mountain watched the bear wander in search of a new den, watched the woman in her den bundled in a blanket. How shivering-beautiful that we all watch one another in this blink of time, the mountain mumbled. How simple and true: that we watch and witness fires rage and die, that we look up and notice the moon crossing our viewshed in various ways of being lit, that we sleep in order to wake, that we rest so we can heal, and that we scramble for survival until our blink is done. What a good blink I’m having! Yessssireeee, I do appreciate boinking out of the crust of this blue spinning ball, whoo-eee, it’s a miracle indeed.
Laura Pritchett is the author of seven novels, two nonfiction books, and editor of three environmental-based anthologies. Her work has been the recipient of the PEN USA Award, the Milkweed National Fiction Prize, the WILLA, the High Plains Book Award, and several Colorado Book Awards. Known for championing the complex and contemporary West, giving voice to the working class, and “re-writing the traditional Western,” her books are always explorations of the very-serious business of living a full and honest life. Pritchett developed and directs the MFA in Nature Writing at Western Colorado University. When not writing or teaching, she’s generally found exploring the mountains of her home state of Colorado.
Read Laura Pritchett’s micro essay “Ten Seconds” also appearing in Terrain.org.
Header photo by Kurt M, courtesy Shutterstock. Photo of Laura Pritchett by Leslie Reeves.
