The exercise:
Write about: stoking the fire.
Pretty smoky day in Osoyoos. Kat said Oliver wasn't too bad for most of the day, but it reached here late afternoon and decided to settle in for a spell.
At least it kept Town Hall fairly quiet, as most people had enough sense to stay indoors.
3 comments:
Being indoors and away from the smoke sounds very sensible to me, although having only the smoke and none of the fire also sounds good (if you have to have fire and smoke in the first place). Stoking the fire... hmm, seems like I should up the ante in this story a little then ;-)
Stoking the fire
We retired to our ramshackle shack with full bellies, tingling lips and a sense of warmth that wasn't just from the humid night air or the way the food had been cooked. Ben sat down in his stolen rocking chair and patted his stomach and belched, and I was suddenly quite relieved that he was in a room by himself for the night.
I sat down on the couch, a little more carefully than I might otherwise as the climbing and sliding through rock crevices was catching up with me and I was stiffening up. Jimmy remained standing, stretching his legs and rolling his shoulders. I figured he was having the same troubles I was. The balloon basket was stacked outside; the silk was here inside in a corner, piled high against the wall.
"We're planning on not being seen for a couple of days then?" Ben's words were light, but his gaze was heavy on Jimmy.
"If we're going to steal a boat we're going to have to wait for it to arrive, right?" Jimmy tilted his head to one side and tried to stretch out his neck. "We don't have to go right away, but I figured we may as well set the idea in the head of folks."
"It's not a bad idea," I said, slumping. The couch was hard wooden under thin cushions, but it was so much better than rock. "Maybe a bit too soon though; I wasn't thinking of going right back there and hiding out. We've seen one bit of the mystery that's going on here, we haven't really looked around for any more."
"Copper mine?" Ben's voice was drowsy, and the rocker was slowing a little.
"I think we stay away," I said after some thought. "I'm pretty sure that the river goes through there, and that's probably where the took the stuff down that they turned into the wharf that we found. So I'm damn certain that the copper mine will be guarded. Might explain why they need more miners too, if the folks that live here are busy protecting their interests."
Ben snored, and I laughed. "I'm off to bed," I said to Jimmy. "See you in the morning."
We woke late, and I still ached when I hauled my sorry carcass out of the bed. Ben had stayed the night in the rocker and the room smelled slept in, so I threw open the door and let the morning air clean things out. A squall of rain greeted me; cold grey water that poured from a shining bleak sky, the sun hiding behind a layer of grey-white cloud that seemed luminous and ominous at the same time. I hesitated, then went outside and stood there, letting the chill water run over me and clean some of the dirt and sweat from my clothes.
"You'll catch your death, doing that," came a voice from across the way, and I looked over to see Josie under shelter, pushing food around on her stove and stoking the fire beneath it. I waved and wandered over to see what breakfast might have to offer.
Bacon, beans and eggs was the answer, and she produced some bread from somewhere and fried me a piece without me having to even ask.
"Heard a tale yesterday," she said, as she fried the bacon to just the right amount of crisp. "Might be that there's a woman and a professor heading down this way."
"Sounds unusual," I said. "What would a professor want down here?" The beans had molasses in and were mighty tasty.
"All I heard was that he was a professor of ballooning," said Josie. "I figured you might want to ask him about yours."
I swallowed a little too fast and choked on bacon crumbs for a minute, coughing and spitting bacon shards across my plate and the table. Josie looked sympathetic and poured me a coffee.
"That's not a bad idea," I spluttered, drinking the coffee. It was hot and bitter, but it calmed my throat again. "I might just mention that to the boys. Any idea when he'd get here?"
"A week or so," said Josie. "Seems like he's determined to fly here himself, but the winds have to be right, or so he said."
"He's got another balloon?"
Josie gave me a funny look. "Another?"
"I've heard of him before," I said. "There's not that many professors of ballooning in the country, you know? Last I heard he'd flown into a storm and had a bunch of trouble."
"Ah," said Josie. "Yours didn't look in good shape."
"And we weren't in a storm." That was a lie, but I figured it was only a small one, and it wasn't like the folks here weren’t lying right, left and centre to us.
"Ayup, I can see the problems he might have had then. Well, I hope he can help you."
I scraped my plate clean, paid up, and left to tell the boys the bad news: the balloon's owner was heading our way with a woman in tow, and that sounded like fire-stoking of a different kind.
Greg - I was thinking it was going to be a fiery night, actually, after that meal they had...
If this is the impending arrival of Shanghai Suzie... well, I look forward to the event itself :)
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