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Anna asked.
    â€œI’m not sure she was giving it to me. I found it in a package with Joni’s boots.”
    Anna studied the picture. “You know, in sand paintings snakes represent lightning.”
    â€œI know.”
    â€œWhat do you think Joni’s doing with the snakes in her arms? Praying for rain?”
    â€œA firefighter is more likely to pray for lightning than for rain.”
    â€œWhy?”
    â€œThat’s where the jobs come from.”

4
    T HE NEXT DAY I talked to Mike Marshall. He’d been housesitting for a friend in Albuquerque and asked me to meet him there, which was all right with me. It’s easier to know the truth about people when they’re in their own environment surrounded by furniture that has their butt prints all over it. The house was near the university, on a street where the frame stucco houses had all been built at the same time. One ornery owner had turned his dwelling into a stainless-steel tower at the risk of pissing off the rest of the block. The other houses were all the same size and shape, set the same distance back from the curb. Streets where every building is evenly spaced make me feel like a crooked rat in a symmetrical maze. I prefer the randomness of my neighborhood.
    But it didn’t make much difference to Mike Marshall where he lived at this point. He was sheltered and that was about all he noticed. The shades of the house were drawn and the rooms were dark, but when he opened the door to let me in, the sunlight caught him. He was wearing shorts and a T-shirt. Fuzzy blond hair covered his arms and legs and the sunshine turned it golden. His eyes were an intense blue and speckled like a robin’s egg. I guessed him to be twenty-six or -seven, a few years older than Joni.
    â€œCome on in,” he said.
    We went into the living room. I sat down on the sofa, a wooden frame with a futon thrown over the back. Mike sat down on a metal chair at a table. “I talked to Ramona Franklin yesterday,” I began.
    â€œWhat’d she say?”
    â€œNot much.”
    â€œRamona’s quiet.”
    â€œShe has a sense of humor. She told me a day fifteen joke.”
    â€œI could use a day forty-five joke myself,” he said.
    â€œThat’s how long it’s been?” For him it was the beginning of a long sentence with his heart in solitary lockup. Someday he’d be released, but he’d never be the same.
    â€œYeah. Ramona and Joni were good friends. Ramona’s the point woman on the Duke City Hotshots. Some people resented her for that.” A pad of paper and some colored pencils lay on the table. He picked up a green pencil, checked the tip, and began drawing on the paper.
    â€œThe point woman?”
    â€œA crew boss gets points for hiring women and minorities. A woman who also happens to be Native American is worth a lot of points. It’s not hard to find women firefighters, but it can be hard to find Native Americans because so many of the reservations have their own crews. It’s good seasonal work. Some of the guys were bitter about Ramona getting hired, but she proved she can hang.”
    â€œShe was the lookout at Thunder Mountain?”
    â€œRight.”
    â€œShe told me she didn’t see the blaze.”
    â€œShe’s getting flack for that, but I was near the top of the north ridge and I didn’t see it until it blew up either. The fire jumped the canyon and roared up the western slope. It sounded like a jet taking off.” He stopped sketching for a minute and stared at his hands, which had the scabby look of burns healing.
    â€œHow did you escape?”
    â€œI got into some good black and waited it out. Then I went over the ridge and walked out through the drainage on the other side. The black is the area on a fire that has already burned. It’s the safest place to be, but a lot of the black at Thunder Mountain wasn’t good because of the reburn potential of Gambel