Every summer, Reno, Nevada and the High Eastern Sierra foothills it’s nestled within are a tinderbox. The fires are measured by the number of structures they threaten and acres they burn; they’re named for the places they incinerate. Each year is the hottest year on record until the bleak honor is stolen by the year that follows.

That’s why Teddy Wilson, the youngest of the three Wilson boys, should have known better than to go shooting when it was nearly one hundred degrees out. And he certainly should have known better than to shoot at an explosive canister of Tannerite. After all, he’d gotten the idea from a news story about a gender reveal party that had ignited the 47,000-acre Sawmill Fire. Unlike those idiots, he knew what he was doing. He’d grown up doing this stuff, and his family wasn’t a bunch of redneck yokels. They were claims adjusters and teachers, Eagle Scouts and PTA members who donated to the church that they didn’t attend.

It seemed the fires were caused by people and lightning strikes in equal measure. No one took the drills at school seriously, even though it wasn’t unusual for over a million acres to burn. Fire drills provided an opportunity for Teddy, his two brothers Jasper and Ben, and their friends to ditch school and go cool off on the banks of the Truckee River, its water choked to a creek’s trickle by drought. Fires were so common that they didn’t flinch when news spread about the burned-up valley, embers blown in chaotic patterns that duck, duck, goosed their way through neighborhoods, leaving one house untouched next to a house that was burned to the studs. The houses would be rebuilt using the same building plans, and sagebrush would bud, the soil more fertile in the fire’s wake. May was Nevada Wildfire Awareness Month, and last year Jasper had left one of the school-sponsored presentations by a wildfire ecologist from the university knowing the degree and career he’d pursue after graduating.

#

Jasper will eventually be the first Wilson boy to leave Reno, taking his girlfriend and their four children to create a homestead about an hour outside of Seattle. Ben will come out after going away to college in Northern California, and though he’ll know his parents will say they still love and accept him, he’ll never bring the men he dates home for Christmas until he meets and marries Daniel, a sweet-hearted, clumsy Midwesterner who says ope when he bumps into furniture. Teddy will stick around Reno for longer than he’d hoped after he gets the young woman he meets at the bowling alley pregnant on their third date. He’ll stay until the first night he’s entrusted to watch the boy by himself. While he tries to prepare a bottle, the boy will roll off the couch and look dazed instead of crying. So, he’ll take him to the ER, and Teddy will realize that the boy and his mother will be better served by a different, more responsible man taking his place. Then, he will be off on a soul-searching mission in the humid Southeast and rainy Pacific Northwest—anywhere by water. Finally, he’ll settle down in a remote corner of Brookings, Oregon. In the last birthday card he’ll send to his son—two months after his tenth birthday—he’ll urge him to come to the old-growth forest where he lives. He’ll explain that the desert wasn’t made for people to thrive in (or even survive, really) and that where he is, he can almost live off the land. He’s learning how to desalinate ocean water and is building a small cabin in the branches of a redwood. He says he’ll become one with nature instead of exploiting it. He will leave out the part about how Brookings is named after John E. Brookings, president of the Brookings Lumber and Box Company. In the glorified treehouse, there will be much better views than any second-story apartment in Reno’s Midtown. Teddy will sign off with “Love you always.” When he dies in an accident while scaling a rockface on Oregon’s northern coast, his son will memorialize him by taking this postcard to the tattoo shop and directing the artist to etch that phrase, written in his father’s hand, into the skin stretched over his rib cage.

#

The Wilson boys’ father had taken their mother shooting countless times when the two were dating. Your mom, Annie Oakley, he’d joke every time she tossed a piece of garbage into the can and inevitably missed by at least a foot. Dangerously, her aim was much worse when she was shooting a pistol instead of throwing an apple core into the garbage. That didn’t stop them from going into the hills to shoot and taking their boys along with them when they were old enough to hold the weight of a .22 in a steady hand. The boys’ shooting abilities aligned with their birth order: Jasper was a sharpshooter, Ben could usually hit the target despite having little interest in it, and Teddy wasn’t much good at all. It was hard for him to forget that if a person were standing in front of the barrel, the bullet would hit them instead of the bottles lined up atop a row of lopsided fence posts.

The day of the fire was the first day back at school following summer break, and Teddy was on a date with a girl named Rose. They will be together for nearly two years—an eternity in high school romance terms—and right before they begin their junior year, she’ll gently pull her hand from his during a slow skate at Roller Kingdom, leaving him as unsteady on his rollerblades as a foal just born. She’ll break up with him as K-Ci & JoJo’s “All My Life” plays from the speakers, and he’ll stumble-roll off the rink faster than he thought possible. The melancholic melody won’t be loud enough to conceal his guttural sobs that echo off of the bathroom’s tiled walls.

Rose lived in a house one gated community over, both of their neighborhoods surrounded by saplings kept alive by steady drips of water from elaborate irrigation systems. Neither of their families would be able to afford the houses they lived in, had they bought them now instead of in 2009 when many of the foreclosed homes had been stripped of their copper pipes.

Rose had two sisters about Teddy’s brothers’ ages: fifteen and seventeen. He and Rose had both just started at the high school they’d gotten a variance to attend, instead of going to the school nearest them. Their mothers, who were jogging partners, had aired concerns about their children going to an underfunded school, neither of them saying that “underfunded” was a different way to say “less white.”

At school, Teddy scanned each class for Rose, though he didn’t know what he’d do if he saw her. When he did see her in his geography class, he imagined her in the yellow bathing suit and board shorts she’d worn at the pool that summer. It was open seating in their seventh-period geography class, the announcement of which sent an electric jolt through the classroom. Rose sat next to him. The teacher was a young guy named Mr. Jennings, a self-proclaimed prankster (he will later be put on administrative leave when several parents report that he’d given their daughters wet willies when they fell asleep in class) who started the period by saying that this would be a fun class, and that fun would begin with a debate about state flags. The lyrics to the state song, “Home Means Nevada,” spanned across several sheets of paper that had been laminated and posted above the whiteboard. The classroom was hot, and the few stoners in the back had already put their hoods over their heads in preparation for a nap.

“Do you agree with that, Ted?” Mr. Jennings asked.

“Yes,” he said, prompting laughter from the class, Rose included. He didn’t know what he was agreeing with, but knowing Mr. Jennings, he’d probably asked if Teddy was dumb. He couldn’t think about state flags, though, because he was studying the three perfectly spaced-out piercings in Rose’s right ear. After class, she asked him for Jasper’s number, and he gave her his own instead. He’d seen this request coming. She’d often asked whether Jasper would be dropping by the pool and watched as the boys played pickup basketball in their driveway, commenting on Jasper’s height; he hardly jumped to make his layups. But the request still stung. One confusing text message exchange and some lighthearted persuasion later, Teddy and Rose agreed to a date. She had her heart set on a date with Jasper and his thick beard, but settled for Teddy and his peach fuzz, an empty promise of a beard like his brother’s.

After asking for his father’s permission, he got the .22 Ruger Bearcat, his father’s favorite kit gun, from the safe and a handful of 40-grain bullets. He waited for Ben to leave their shared bedroom to pack the eighth of vodka Ben had stolen from the last house party they’d gone to. In the kitchen, he packed two sandwiches, which drew his brothers’ and his mother’s attention all the way from the adjoining living room.

“Who are you going with?” his mother asked. She pulled her hair in front of her right shoulder.

“Nobody,” he said. “Did you cut your hair?”

She transferred half of her hair from the right to the left shoulder.

“At least somebody noticed.” She glared at their father, but the boys knew it was a joking kind of glare. Their father didn’t look up from the glossy pages of a National Geographic issue, a rhinoceros on the cover. Their parents never got angry with each other. When his friends’ parents started to get divorces, Teddy couldn’t understand how such a thing was possible, having been raised by a couple whose marriage appeared to have been crafted by someone who wanted to sell people on the concept of marriage: an equal partnership with half of the bills and none of the loneliness. “That Odysseus routine isn’t going to work on me.”

“Rose, from down the street,” he conceded. “It’s not a big deal. She’s never gone shooting before and wanted to try it out.” His father closed the magazine.

“Make sure her parents know what you’re up to. I don’t want any angry calls. And be back before it starts to get dark,” he said.

Teddy knew that he wouldn’t do either of those things, but out of respect, he relayed his father’s message to Rose when he met up with her in front of her house. She was wearing a halter top and sandals—though he was flattered that she’d changed clothes after school with him in mind, he worried that her footwear would make it hard to walk on the trail. They journeyed to the trailhead only two blocks from Rose’s driveway and then made their way up the path. As soon as they transitioned from asphalt to dirt, each of their steps sent grasshoppers jumping away from their footfall. Teddy let Rose lead the way and set their pace. He watched her calves flex as she ascended. Her steps seemed light, while his were heavy, leaving deep imprints in the dirt where she’d hardly left a trace. She stopped and turned to face him, which took him by surprise.

“Did you already do the packet for geography?” she asked.

“Not yet. That class sucks.”

“I like it. It’s probably going to be my easiest class. And I can tell that Mr. Jennings likes me.”

They’d already been walking for at least a half hour, and Teddy realized that he had nothing to say. Why had he come out here? Why had he gone to the trouble of persuading Rose to go out with him when he was so obviously her second or maybe third choice? And why had she agreed to go along with this whole thing when she was clearly out of his league?

Instead of letting the questions linger, he allowed himself to observe and admire Rose’s beauty. She was the kind of beautiful where each blemish only enhanced her appearance. The freckles across the bridge of her nose framed her eyes, and her hair’s dark roots and light tips looked like they’d come from the hand of an expert stylist. Instead, both were merely evidence of the sun drawing out color through UV radiation.

“I brought food,” he said, pulling out the sandwiches that had been squished by the bottle of vodka.

“I’m not hungry. Thanks, though.” He wasn’t hungry either, and the thought of eating peanut butter in the heat couldn’t be less appealing. “I’d have some of that, though.” She pointed to the bottle. His stomach twisted. Why had he brought it? He hadn’t even brought water. This whole plan was unraveling.

“For sure. But I don’t have any cups.” They found a sole pinyon pine tree and drank from the bottle under its shade. The liquor burned, and Teddy used the PB&J as a chaser.

“Good idea,” she said, laughing. Her cheeks were turning pink, and Teddy wondered if it was from the booze or the heat. “I should’ve worn better shoes.” A thin layer of dust coated her toes. She rubbed the dust from her toenails, making the layer of shimmery purple polish brighter. The sun was starting to set. Teddy and Rose mocked two hikers who were using hiking sticks to get down the mountain’s subtle slope; they were nowhere near the summit. A weak breeze rustled the brush. A lizard the size of Teddy’s pinky sunned itself on a boulder but ran away before he had a chance to point it out. Clouds’ shadows passed quickly over the ground, which made it seem like it was undulating. He picked up a twig and snapped it, picked up another one and used it to draw a circle in the dirt.

“Do you want to work on that homework together tonight?” he asked, happy to have thought of something relevant to say. This was a way to keep her around, extend their time together long enough for him to get his head right and compliment her freckles in a way that didn’t sound as dumb as it did in his mind.

“No thanks. I have a study hall, so I’ll probably do it then.” Her voice was gentle. She wrapped her arms around her knees. “Maybe we can work together for that group project, though.”

“Here, you’ll love this.” Teddy pulled out the Bearcat and plastic container of Tannerite. He set it up on a teal floral couch someone had dumped in the ravine nearby. Couches, washing machines, and bags of trash from home renovations littered this part of the mountain, where people could dump what they wanted to without having to pay a nickel to Waste Management. More than once, he’d seen people dump their furniture from trucks that often had a bumper sticker warning, “Don’t Tread on Me” in letters being crushed between a rattler’s unhinged jaws. He could feel himself sweating and wished he’d asked the hikers for some water. The peanut butter stuck to his gums, making it hard to wrap his lips around his teeth. And the vodka made it even harder to wrap his lips around any words. He looked back at her to make sure she was watching from her spot several yards back.

“Do you want to do it?” Teddy called out, a slight echo bouncing back to him.

“No, do you want to?” Rose asked. “You’re going to shoot it? What are you doing?” Teddy couldn’t tell if he was understanding her questions in the opposite order that she was asking them, or if she was really asking them in that order.

“I’ll shoot it. Watch.” Teddy stood closer to the target than he normally would if he weren’t so off balance. If his parents were here, they would be disappointed. They trusted him enough to give him the keys to the safe, and he’d broken that trust. And for what?

He shut one eye knowing that it wouldn’t improve his aim and shot three times before a bullet connected with the Tannerite. The explosion was louder and bigger than he expected, blanketing at least a ten-foot radius of sagebrush in pink. There was a faint hum in his ears, and he knocked his palm against his temple as if doing so would knock the sound out of his head.

Rose clapped from her spot under the tree. Teddy carefully emptied the chamber and put the safety on, as if to un-disappoint his parents in his imagined scenario of them watching him from behind the brush.

Teddy sat down next to Rose, and she looked like she might kiss him, but instead she wrapped her arm around his shoulder and requested he carry her back home.

“It’s just my shoes,” she said. She pointed at them by way of explanation. As soon as he picked her up, he saw that black-gray smoke was filling the air that had been a pink haze just moments before.

And then there was fire. Everywhere. Teddy put Rose down. He texted Jasper, begging him to pick them up, and his brothers were there within a few minutes. In the truck, they watched the fire advance across the hillside, the line of flames and embers marching in a blood orange line. Jasper drove their pickup down the hill faster than the two-wheel-drive Toyota could handle. The dust was nearly settled by the time they’d finished winding down the dirt path pocked with holes from smaller, kicked-up boulders. They bounced in unison, packed tight into the truck’s extended cab. A garden shovel, a bottle of weedkiller, and some loose soil rolled within the truck bed’s grooves, taunting the boys for not completing the gardening project they were supposed to be working on as a gift for their mother’s birthday—yellow poppies planted in the shape of a heart in their side yard. They’ll later finish the project just in time, but like all non-native flowers planted in the Orovada soil, these will crumple before dying of thirst.

The fire moved so quickly and effortlessly that for a moment Teddy thought it a cleansing force, and imagined the flames incinerating the Styrofoam cups and the floral couch. Through the roar and distant sirens, he thought he heard the pop of glass from the eighth of vodka he’d left behind.

“What were you thinking?” Ben asked in between a distant fire engine’s wails.

“I don’t know.” This was an honest answer. He scanned his memory for the thoughts that immediately preceded the shot and realized that he might have been thinking about Rose’s freckles. He looked at her now, and she was shivering despite the heat. “It was an accident.”

“You smell like booze,” Jasper said, downshifting as they turned out from the trailhead. Rose’s eyes were on Jasper. Teddy maneuvered closer to her.

“No, I don’t,” he kept his mouth closed.

“Dad’s going to flip his shit,” Ben said in an even tone. He was stating the facts, something that he did often, usually highlighting facts that leaned toward the nihilistic. Everyone dies, there is no God, Dad’s going to flip his shit.

They dropped off Rose. She bent over to clean whatever dust she could by patting and wiping her clothes and legs. They could all see the smoke from her driveway. More wails from the firetrucks.

“You okay?” Jasper asked as Teddy crawled out of the narrow cab to permit her exit.

“I’m fine,” she said. “I’ll see you tomorrow?” She walked inside before hearing a response. She was shaken, but the steadiness of her voice made Teddy forget what he’d done for one moment; it felt like the one bright star in an otherwise inky night sky.

At home, Teddy reported what happened quickly, leaving out many key details and relying heavily on passive voice. A fire was started. 911 was called. Ben and Jasper stood next to Teddy with their arms crossed as if standing guard, bouncers who would intervene if needed. But their parents didn’t yell. It was worse than that. Their father said he was disappointed, looked to be on the brink of tears. Their mother didn’t say anything. Teddy felt like his words had stopped short of her, like they were still hanging in the air and she hadn’t chosen to gather them. She hugged Teddy then, and gently rocked him. He sobbed and his body shook. The more it shook, the harder she squeezed.

#

Like that summer, the early fall will also suffer record-breaking temperatures, and the Wilsons will shake their heads as they watch the news when the weatherman notes the historic highs. They’ll say that, personally, they’re thankful that at least it’s not fire season anymore, no school closures due to poor air quality and falling ash. And when Teddy is eventually charged for instigating the fire, his mother will be defiant. She will accuse them of using a teenager as a scapegoat for a natural disaster. And Teddy will hear the conviction in his mother’s voice, a warming reassurance that he will eventually believe is true. Since he is a minor and it truly was an accident, he will get off with a very stern warning, a big fine, and a lot of community service. Rose’s name will never be mentioned. Her parents will threaten to make her go to the school she’s zoned for the following year, arguing that there are too many bad influences at her high school. Though they won’t follow through, the threat of separation will feel Montague and Capulet romantic, and it will actually bring Teddy and Rose together again to seal their fate as high school sweethearts. 

Teddy will feel guilty for what he’s done and will think it’s unfair that the evidence of his mistake is so visible. Eventually, though, during a sloshy, bar-hopping period of his thirties, the story will serve as currency, which he’ll expertly trade for the rapt attention of other patrons. The story will take on new elements, the truth stretched to its limits, right up until he can see skepticism furrow his audience’s brows and the story snaps back to its original shape.

His son will grow up hearing this story, as told by his mother. It will take on a fairytale quality. The boy who burned down a mountain just to impress a girl. It will take years for anything to grow enough to cover the layers of ash on Peavine Mountain. And by the time that it returns to a version of its pre-fire self, Teddy’s son, now twenty-six, will be hiking up that same mountain, nervous as he prepares to propose to his girlfriend of two years. He will unfold a blanket when they reach the peak and sweep away any brush and pebbles that would be uncomfortable to sit on. After he sets up the picnic of a prepackaged charcuterie board and sparkling wine, he’ll pause before standing up. She’ll turn around to see him on one knee and put her hands over her mouth, behind which she’ll whisper, Oh my god. They’ll embrace before she says yes, and they’ll look over the city. The ring on her finger, a fire opal from the Royal Peacock Opal Mine in Denio set in a thick gold band, will take a while to get used to. Eventually, though, she won’t be able to imagine her finger without it, and during her two pregnancies, the flesh of her finger will grow wider, trapping the ring in place. When she is put in the Sierra Assisted Living Facility at eighty-two, she’ll still stare into the ring, an entire galaxy contained in the electric blue and orange speckles on the stone’s face.

The newly engaged couple will see the cluster of casinos downtown and the vast stretch of uninhabited land to the west and talk about carving out their own place in the desert, somewhere close to the water that cuts through it.