Yeah. I knew ‘em both.
Put that log on the fire. We might need it.
Sam was a troubled kid. He had a reputation to be a fighter, but I never saw anybody fight him. He carried a leash around everywhere he went—a dog leash, of all things. Nobody ever said a word about that leash so far as I can recall. There was a taboo tied to that leash. Mention it and a kid could end up in the hospital; and he wouldn’t likely know what hit him. Schoolyard talk.
One thing I do know: Sam was quick. He could jump into a sprint as quickly as he could lose his temper. Best defensive back around, but not quite big enough for college. Not that Sam had any need for college, so long as he had work at the dairy. The harder he worked, the happier he was. That’s all he wanted—well, nearly.
Cindy, she had her peculiarities as well. Steady hand, steady head. Ace archer. Dead shot, but scared to death of fire—until she got burned, but I’ll get to that.
Looking back, maybe it’s not such a big surprise that Sam fell for her like he did, Slough City being such an ordinary town so full of ordinary folk. I guess football players are supposed to date cheerleaders, but that wasn’t Sam.
I didn’t know it at the time, but he’d lived another life. Turned out he hadn’t always lived at the dairy, and his name hadn’t always been Sam. The Dorahs took him in after he showed up with a dog at their door. He’d been on the run. It seemed he’d got into some trouble with fire down in oil country.
And Cindy, she wasn’t quite your typical Armenian girl from the Valley. It turned out she wasn’t Armenian at all, except for her upbringing. She’d been adopted. Her parents found her in an orphanage in Istanbul, of all places. Word had it she was Greek, born on some godforsaken island off the coast of Anatolia.
Sam met Cindy through her brother Armen. Sam and Armen were both loners. Maybe that’s why they got along so well. Outside of that, Sam and Armen weren’t alike at all. Armen was a map-head. He was either dreaming up a fantasyland in the library over some map or riding his bike out across the Sink with a county map in his pocket. He didn’t do any better in school then Sam did. He was into maps, not books, and when was the last time you saw anybody study a map at school?
Where was I? Armen got Sam into fishing and before you know it they were riding their bikes up onto the Range. Picture it: A gridiron assassin and a map-head wandering around those mountains, looking for a fish.
After a while, Cindy joined in, and trouble soon followed, but not the kind of trouble you might expect. Cindy was a world-class tomboy and a natural on and off the trail. She was better at finding her way around the mountains than the boys were. But like I said, Cindy didn’t like fire. She didn’t like stoves, clothes driers, cars, fireplaces, or anything else that burned gas or wood. More than a little inconvenient.
She certainly didn’t like forest fires. She made that clear one hot and windy day on the Range when she and the boys spotted a column of smoke. It was too close for Cindy, and she retreated down the trail. Her retreat was too hasty. She left the boys behind and strayed off the main trail. She followed an old trail to a ridge, and that’s where she met the fire. A lightning bolt brought it to her, and that’s where the trouble really started.
Cindy wandered down off that ridge late that night, burned and dazed. But that’s not the trouble I was referring to. The trouble was that Cindy had seen something. Or maybe she’d thought of something. She descended that ridge unperturbed, and even refreshed, free of the fear that got her burned in the first place. Somehow Cindy got the lesson of the stovetop turned around. She couldn’t get enough of fire after that night, and this new religion of hers got her into no end of trouble with the authorities. And Sam, he followed her as best he could.
The Range (map)
Epilogue
I. Sam and the Dragon
The Occupation — The Heir — Isle of the Griffins — Into the Sink — HC SVNT DRACONES — Waking the Dragon — The Stranger — The Sink Bottoms — The Ferryman — Girl in the Mirror — Land O’Lakes — The Dairyman’s Apprentice — Harvest and Renewal — Reunions — Ditching — The Leash
II. The Prodigy
Barren Island — Home — Ignition — The Water Project — Harvest Ball — Wild Kingdom — In the Heat of the Kitchen — A Night at the Hacienda — Extracurricular Education
III. The Water Lantern
Clockwise — Hidden Valley — Catch and Release — Alternate Routes — FISH IN IRRIGATING DITCHES — The Fisherman — Conspiracy — Dragnet — Koi, Inc. — Pineapple Express — First Love — Pruning
IV. Bow and Wheel
Cootie Catching — Hawks — The Wheel — Milk
V. World Peace
Predator — A Following — The Hunted — Slough Fishers — Due Diligence — Lake Fishing
VI. The Range
The Old Man of the Mountains — The Hockett Trail — The Trail — The High Road — Smoke — Whale Watching — Birth by Burial — Terminus — Upriver — South Fork — Giants — Thief Spring — Singing Cowboys — The Tickler — The Return
VII. Phoenicia
Diplomacy — Maiden Voyage — The Tracker — The Star Tent — Phoenix — Wanderers
VIII. Metamorphosis
Stuck Tomato — Christening — Fire Flight — Dragon’s Lair — Night Journey — Birth — Close Encounter — Archery Lessons — Letting Go — Riding the Range — Ice on Fire — Occupations — The Purpose Driven Fire — The Undertaker — Séance
IX. Fire Thief
Wheels — Summertime Blues — Smokespotting — The Ditch — The Visitor — In the Belly of the Whale — Public Servant — Departure — The Exchange — The Paddock — Horse Sense — A Night Out — Closure — The Hunt — Ring of Fire — The Cage
X. City Limits
Midnight in Eden — Temple — Greenhouse Effects — Waterworks — Old Armenia — Table Talk — Tracking Water — Whiteout — The Dam — Up in the Valley
XI. Igneous Range
Underground — Domesticity — Cat and Mouse — Over the Wall — The Watch — Rifle Creek — Demon, Dragon, Undertaker
XII. Afterlife
Around Camp — Fireside — Going Coastal — Interoffice Memoranda — Music of the Spheres — Abbas and Sons — Holy Land — On Campus — Spelunking — Homecoming — Back to School — Walking the Rim — Void Where Prohibited — A-Rock — Reports — Exit
Prologue
The Orphanage — The Orchard — In the Yard — Husbandry
Soundtrack