Burning Bright

THE ASCENT

Jared had never been this far before, over Sawmill Ridge and across a creek glazed with ice, then past the triangular metal sign that said SMOKY MOUNTAINS NATIONAL PARK. If it had still been snowing and his tracks were being covered up, he’d have turned back. People had gotten lost in this park. Children wandered off from family picnics, hikers strayed off trails. Sometimes it took days to find them. But today the sun was out, the sky deep and blue. No more snow would fall, so it would be easy to retrace his tracks. Jared heard a helicopter hovering somewhere to the west, which meant they still hadn’t found the airplane. They’d been searching all the way from Bryson City to the Tennessee line, or so he’d heard at school.
The land slanted downward and the sound of the helicopter disappeared. In the steepest places, Jared leaned sideways and held on to trees to keep from slipping. As he made his way into the denser woods, he wasn’t thinking of the lost airplane or if he would get the mountain bike he’d asked for as his Christmas present. Not thinking about his parents either, though they were the main reason he was spending his first day of Christmas vacation out here—better to be outside on a cold day than in the house where everything, the rickety chairs and sagging couch, the gaps where the TV and microwave had been, felt sad.
He thought instead of Lyndee Starnes, the girl who sat in front of him in fifth grade homeroom. Jared made believe that she was walking beside him and he was showing her the tracks in the snow, telling her which markings were squirrel and which rabbit and which deer. Imagining a bear track too, and telling Lyndee that he wasn’t afraid of bears and Lyndee telling him she was so he’d have to protect her.
Jared stopped walking. He hadn’t seen any human tracks, but he looked behind him to be sure no one was around. He took out the pocketknife and raised it, making believe that the pocketknife was a hunting knife and that Lyndee was beside him. If a bear comes, I’ll take care of you, he said out loud. Jared imagined Lyndee reaching out and taking his free arm. He kept the knife out as he walked up another ridge, one whose name he didn’t know. He imagined Lyndee still grasping his arm, and as they walked up the ridge Lyndee saying how sorry she was that at school she’d told him he and his clothes smelled bad.
At the ridgetop, Jared pretended a bear suddenly raised up, baring its teeth and growling. He slashed at the bear with the knife and the bear ran away. Jared held the knife before him as he descended the ridge. Sometimes they’ll come back, he said aloud.
He was halfway down the ridge when the knife blade caught the midday sun and the steel flashed. Another flash came from below, as if it was answering. At first Jared saw only a glimmer of metal in the dull green of rhododendron, but as he came nearer he saw more, a crumpled silver propeller and white tailfin and part of a shattered wing.
For a few moments Jared thought about turning around, but then told himself that an eleven-year-old who’d just fought a bear shouldn’t be afraid to get close to a crashed airplane. He made his way down the ridge, snapping rhododendron branches to clear a path. When he finally made it to the plane, he couldn’t see much because snow and ice covered the windows. He turned the passenger side’s outside handle, but the door didn’t budge until Jared wedged in the pocketknife’s blade. The door made a sucking sound as it opened.
A woman was in the passenger seat, her body bent forward like a horseshoe. Long brown hair fell over her face. The hair had frozen and looked as if it would snap off like icicles. She wore blue jeans and a yellow sweater. Her left arm was flung out before her and on one finger was a ring. The man across from her leaned toward the pilot window, his head cocked against the glass. Blood stains reddened the window and his face was not covered like the woman’s. There was a seat in the back, empty. Jared placed the knife in his pocket and climbed into the backseat and closed the passenger door. Because it’s so cold, that’s why they don’t smell much, he thought.
For a while he sat and listened to how quiet and still the world was. He couldn’t hear the helicopter or even the chatter of a gray squirrel or caw of a crow. Here between the ridges not even the sound of the wind. Jared tried not to move or breathe hard to make it even quieter, quiet as the man and woman up front. The plane was snug and cozy. After a while he heard something, just the slightest sound, coming from the man’s side. Jared listened harder, then knew what it was. He leaned forward between the front seats. The man’s right forearm rested against a knee. Jared pulled back the man’s shirt sleeve and saw the watch. He checked the time, almost four o’clock. He’d been sitting in the backseat two hours, though it seemed only a few minutes. The light that would let him follow the tracks back home would be gone soon.
As he got out of the backseat, Jared saw the woman’s ring. Even in the cabin’s muted light it shone. He took the ring off the woman’s finger and placed it in his jean pocket. He closed the passenger door and followed his boot prints back the way he came. Jared tried to step into his earlier tracks, pretending that he needed to confuse a wolf following him.
It took longer than he’d thought, the sun almost down when he crossed the park boundary. As he came down the last ridge, Jared saw that the pickup was parked in the yard, the lights on in the front room. He remembered it was Saturday and his father had gotten his paycheck. When Jared opened the door, the small red glass pipe was on the coffee table, an empty baggie beside it. His father kneeled before the fireplace, meticulously arranging and rearranging kindling around an oak log. A dozen crushed beer cans lay amid the kindling, balanced on the log itself three red-and-white fishing bobbers. His mother sat on the couch, her eyes glazed as she told Jared’s father how to arrange the cans. In her lap lay a roll of tinfoil she was cutting into foot-long strips.
“Look what we’re making,” she said, smiling at Jared. “It’s going to be our Christmas tree.”
When he didn’t speak, his mother’s smile quivered.
“Don’t you like it, honey?”
His mother got up, strips of tinfoil in her left hand. She kneeled beside the hearth and carefully draped them on the oak log and kindling.
Jared walked into the kitchen and took the milk from the refrigerator. He washed a bowl and spoon left in the sink and poured some cereal. After he ate Jared went into his bedroom and closed the door. He sat on his bed and took the ring from his pocket and set it in his palm. He placed the ring under the lamp’s bulb and swayed his hand slowly back and forth so the stone’s different colors flashed and merged. He’d give it to Lyndee when they were on the playground, on the first sunny day after Christmas vacation so she could see how pretty the ring’s colors were. Once he gave it to her, Lyndee would finally like him, and it would be for real.
Jared didn’t hear his father until the door swung open.
“Your mother wants you to help light the tree.”
The ring fell onto the wooden floor. Jared picked it up and closed his hand.
“What’s that?” his father asked.
“Nothing,” Jared said. “Just something I found in the woods.”
“Let me see.”
Jared opened his hand. His father stepped closer and took the ring. He pressed the ring with his thumb and finger.
“That’s surely a fake diamond, but the ring looks to be real gold.”
His father tapped it against the bedpost as if the sound could confirm its authenticity. His father called his mother and she came into the room.
“Look what Jared found,” he said, and handed her the ring. “It’s gold.”
His mother set the ring in her palm, held it out before her so they all three could see it.
“Where’d you find it, honey?”
“In the woods,” Jared said.
“I didn’t know you could find rings in the woods,” his mother said dreamily. “But isn’t it wonderful that you can.”
“That diamond can’t be real, can it?” his father asked.
His mother stepped close to the lamp. She cupped her hand and slowly rocked it back and forth, watching the different colors flash inside the stone.
“It might be,” his mother said.
“Can I have it back?” Jared asked.
“Not until we find out if it’s real, son,” his father said.
His father took the ring from his mother’s palm and placed it in his pants pocket. Then he went into the other bedroom and got his coat.
“I’m going down to Bryson City and find out if it’s real or not.”
“But you’re not going to sell it,” Jared said.
“I’m just going to have a jeweler look at it,” his father said, already putting on his coat. “We need to know what it’s worth, don’t we? We might have to insure it. You and your momma go ahead and light our Christmas tree. I’ll be back in just a few minutes.”
“It’s not a Christmas tree,” Jared said.
“Sure it is, son,” his father replied. “It’s just one that’s chopped up, is all.”


He wanted to stay awake until his father returned, so he helped his mother spread the last strips of tinfoil on the wood. His mother struck a match and told him it was time to light the tree. The kindling caught and the foil and cans withered and blackened, the fishing bobbers melting. His mother kept adding kindling to the fire, telling Jared if he watched closely he’d see angel wings folding and unfolding inside the flames. Angels come down the chimney sometimes, just like Santa Claus, she told him. Midnight came and his father still wasn’t back. Jared went to his room. I’ll lay down just for a few minutes, he told himself, but when he opened his eyes it was light outside.
He smelled the methamphetamine as soon as he opened his bedroom door, thicker than he could ever remember. His parents had not gone to bed. He could tell that as soon as he came into the front room. The fire was still going, kindling piled around the hearth. His mother sat where she’d been last night, wearing the same clothes. She was tearing pages out of a magazine one at a time, using scissors to make ragged stars she stuck on the walls with Scotch tape. His father sat beside her, watching intently.
The glass pipe lay on the coffee table, beside it four baggies, two with powder still in them. There’d never been more than one before.
His father grinned at him.
“I got you some of that cereal you like,” he said, and pointed to a box with a green leprechaun on its front.
“Where’s the ring?” Jared asked.
“The sheriff took it,” his father said. “When I showed it to the jeweler, he said the sheriff had been in there just yesterday. A woman had reported it missing. I knew you’d be disappointed, that’s why I bought you that cereal. Got something else for you too.”
His father nodded toward the front door where a mountain bike was propped against the wall. Jared walked over to it. He could tell it wasn’t new, some of the blue paint chipped away, one of the rubber handle grips missing, but the tires didn’t sag and the handlebars were straight.
“It didn’t seem right for you to have to wait till Christmas to have it,” his father said. “Too bad there’s snow on the ground, but it’ll soon enough melt and you’ll be able to ride it.”
Jared’s mother looked up.
“Wasn’t that nice of your daddy,” she said, her eyes bright and gleaming. “Go ahead and eat your cereal, son. A growing boy needs his breakfast.”
“What about you and Daddy?” Jared asked.
“We’ll eat later.”
Jared ate as his parents sat in the front room, passing the pipe back and forth. He looked out the window and saw the sky held nothing but blue, not even a few white clouds. He thought about going back to the plane, but as soon as he laid his bowl in the sink his father announced that the three of them were going to go find a real Christmas tree.
“The best Christmas tree ever,” his mother told Jared.
They put on their coats and walked up the ridge, his father carrying a rusty saw. Near the ridgetop, they found Fraser firs and white pines.
“Which one do you like best, son?” his father asked.
Jared looked over the trees, then picked a Fraser fir no taller than himself.
“You don’t want a bigger one?” his father asked.
When Jared shook his head no, his father kneeled before the tree. The saw’s teeth were dull but his father finally broke the bark and worked the saw through. They dragged the tree down the ridge and propped it in the corner by the fireplace. His parents smoked the pipe again and then his father went out to the shed and got a hammer and nails and two boards. While his father built the makeshift tree stand, Jared’s mother cut more stars from the newspaper.
“I think I’ll go outside a while,” Jared said.
“But you can’t,” his mother replied. “You’ve got to help me tape the stars to the tree.”
By the time they’d finished, the sun was falling behind Sawmill Ridge. I’ll go tomorrow, he told himself.


On Sunday morning the baggies were empty and his parents were sick. His mother sat on the couch wrapped in a quilt, shivering. She hadn’t bathed since Friday and her hair was stringy and greasy. His father looked little better, his blue eyes receding deep into his skull, his lips chapped and bleeding.
“Your momma, she’s sick,” his father said, “and your old daddy ain’t doing too well himself.”
“The doctor can’t help her, can he?” Jared asked.
“No,” his father said. “I don’t think he can.”
Jared watched his mother all morning. She’d never been this bad before. After a while she lit the pipe and sucked deeply for what residue might remain. His father crossed his arms, rubbing his biceps as he looked around the room, as if expecting to see something he’d not seen moments earlier. The fire had gone out, the cold causing his mother to shake more violently.
“You got to go see Brady,” she told Jared’s father.
“We got no money left,” he answered.
Jared watched them, waiting for the sweep of his father’s eyes to stop beside the front door where the mountain bike was. But his father’s eyes went past it without the slightest pause. The kerosene heater in the kitchen was on, but its heat hardly radiated into the front room.
His mother looked up at Jared.
“Can you fix us a fire, honey?”
He went out to the back porch and gathered an armload of kindling, then placed a thick log on the andirons as well. Beneath it he wedged newspaper left over from the star cutting. He lit the newspaper and watched the fire slowly take hold, then watched the flames a while longer before turning to his parents.
“You can take the bike down to Bryson City and sell it,” he said.
“No, son,” his mother said. “That’s your Christmas present.”
“We’ll be all right,” his father said. “Your momma and me just did too much partying yesterday is all.”
But as the morning passed, they got no better. At noon Jared went to his room and got his coat.
“Where you going, honey?” his mother asked as he walked toward the door.
“To get more firewood.”
Jared walked into the shed but did not gather wood. Instead, he took a length of dusty rope off the shed’s back wall and wrapped it around his waist and then knotted it. He left the shed and followed his own tracks west into the park. The snow had become harder, and it crunched beneath his boots. The sky was gray, darker clouds farther west. More snow would soon come, maybe by afternoon. Jared made believe he was on a rescue mission. He was in Alaska, the rope tied around him dragging a sled filled with food and medicine. The footprints weren’t his but those of the people he’d been sent to find.
When he got to the airplane, Jared pretended to unpack the supplies and give the man and woman something to eat and drink. He told them they were too hurt to walk back with him and he’d have to go and get more help. Jared took the watch off the man’s wrist. He set it in his palm, face upward. I’ve got to take your compass, he told the man. A blizzard’s coming, and I may need it.
Jared slipped the watch into his pocket. He got out of the plane and walked back up the ridge. The clouds were hard and granite-looking now, and the first flurries were falling. Jared pulled out the watch every few minutes, pointed the hour hand east as he followed his tracks back to the house.
The truck was still out front, and through the window Jared saw the mountain bike. He could see his parents as well, huddled together on the couch. For a few moments Jared simply stared through the window at them.
When he went inside, the fire was out and the room was cold enough to see his breath. His mother looked up anxiously from the couch.
“You shouldn’t go off that long without telling us where you’re going, honey.”
Jared lifted the watch from his pocket.
“Here,” he said, and gave it to his father.
His father studied it a few moments, then broke into a wide grin.
“This watch is a Rolex,” his father said.
“Thank you, Jared,” his mother said, looking as if she might cry. “You’re the best son anybody could have, ain’t he, Daddy?”
“The very best,” his father said.
“How much can we get for it?” his mother asked
“I bet a couple of hundred at least,” his father answered.
His father clamped the watch onto his wrist and got up. Jared’s mother rose as well.
“I’m going with you. I need something quick as I can get it.” She turned to Jared. “You stay here, honey. We’ll be back in just a little while. We’ll bring you back a hamburger and a Co-Cola, some more of that cereal too.”
Jared watched as they drove down the road. When the truck had vanished, he sat down on the couch and rested a few minutes. He hadn’t taken his coat off. He checked to make sure the fire was out and then went to his room and emptied his backpack of school books. He went out to the shed and picked up a wrench and a hammer and placed them in the backpack. The flurries were thicker now, already beginning to fill in his tracks. He crossed over Sawmill Ridge, the tools clanking in his backpack. More weight to carry, he thought, but at least he wouldn’t have to carry them back.
When he got to the plane, he didn’t open the door, not at first. Instead, he took the tools from the backpack and laid them before him. He studied the plane’s crushed nose and propeller, the broken right wing. The wrench was best to tighten the propeller, he decided. He’d straighten out the wing with the hammer.
As he switched tools and moved around the plane, the snow fell harder. Jared looked behind him and on up the ridge and saw his footprints were growing fainter. He chipped the snow and ice off the windshields with the hammer’s claw. Finished, he said, and dropped the hammer on the ground. He opened the passenger door and got in.
“I fixed it so it’ll fly now,” he told the man.
He sat in the backseat and waited. The work and walk had warmed him but he quickly grew cold. He watched the snow cover the plane’s front window with a darkening whiteness. After a while he began to shiver but after a longer while he was no longer cold. Jared looked out the side window and saw the whiteness was not only in front of him but below. He knew then that they had taken off and risen so high that they were enveloped inside a cloud, but still he looked down, waiting for the clouds to clear so he might look for the pickup as it followed the winding road toward Bryson City.