The Higher Power of Lucky

“Our dugout was perfect because there was no rent to pay and people left us alone. We had our own burro named Chesterfield that I rode to my job at the mine, and HMS Beagle got to jump on and ride too.”

Miles broke off tinier and tinier pieces of Fig Newton, as if he could make the story last as long as he still had some cookie left. “Was Chesterfield a boy or a girl burro?”

“Girl. I once saved her life when she was a filly, so she lived with us in the cave and never tried to run away. She had sweet breath from eating tamarisk blossoms and locust tree flowers, and she politely went away from the cave to go to the bathroom.”

Lucky looked up at the arched wooden ceiling of the kitchen trailer and narrowed her eyes, like someone remembering something from long ago. “While I was at work dynamiting for silver in the mine, Chesterfield went to be with the other burros, but she was always waiting for me at five o’clock on the dot when my shift ended.

“But one day a big timber fell on me and I was trapped. I told HMS Beagle, ‘Go get Chesterfield, quick, before this fuse blows me to smithereens!’ and she ran.

“Well, turns out Chesterfield was way, way out in the desert looking for a special yellow-flowered plant she loves. HMS Beagle had to look everywhere. I lay there squished under the timber, and the other miners were saying prayers because they thought I was a goner for sure. Finally I heard Chesterfield galloping up to the mine. The fuse had this far to go”—Lucky held up her little finger—“before it would get to the end and explode.

“HMS Beagle gave one end of a rope to Chesterfield and ran into my hole with the other end. She was still small enough to fit, being a puppy. I held my end tight and Chesterfield pulled with her teeth. She pulled and pulled with all her might. Finally I slid out and the Beag and I jumped on Chesterfield’s back and we made it safely back to the dugouts. After that I quit my job at the mine even though the big boss owner begged me to come back. Then we lived very happily in our dugout for a long time, until we used up everything in the survival kit and decided to come home.”

“Then what happened? Did Chesterfield die?”

“Of course not,” said Lucky. “She decided to have a baby burro. So HMS Beagle and I told her it was better to return to the wild and live among her own kind. She’s still there, with her husband and child. Sometimes if there is a person in trouble out in the desert, she’ll suddenly appear, and if she likes them she’ll give them a ride to safety.”

Miles held a crumb of Fig Newton in two fingers. He gazed just beyond Lucky. Finally he whispered, “Would she let me ride her?”

“She might,” said Lucky.

Miles blinked, looked at the last crumb, and slowly licked it from his fingers. He wiped his hands on the sides of his pants. “Could you read me Are You My Mother? now?”

“No! The deal was one Olden Days story, plus you got a cookie. Time to go.” Lucky clomped to the screen door and opened it.

Miles put his head down on the table. “I traded you for the cookie,” he said in a tragic, muffled voice.

“Out, Miles.”

Very slowly, as if his head were made of heavy metal, Miles looked up. There was a little oval of sweat on the Formica where his head had been. He gave Lucky the same exact look as HMS Beagle when she wanted a piece of bacon. “Could you just read the part about the Snort?”

Lucky had a little place in her heart where there was a meanness gland. The meanness gland got active sometimes when Miles was around. She knew that he knew he had to do what Lucky wanted, because if he didn’t, she’d never be nice to him. Sometimes, with that meanness gland working, Lucky liked being mean to Miles.

“No,” she said. Miles’s head fell back onto the table.

“Chuck-karr, chuck-karr, chuck-karr,” he warbled, a lost wild baby bird. Lucky noticed how small the thumb-sized hollow was at the back of his neck. “Please, please, please,” he moaned, “tell me the story of how Brigitte came to Hard Pan.”

As Brigitte’s Jeep pulled up outside, Lucky said, “Oh, get Brigitte to tell you.” When he looked up with his whole face filled with gladness, Lucky’s meanness gland felt better, like a heavy timber had rolled off it.

6. How Brigitte Came

Brigitte swung up the steps to the kitchen trailer carrying two plastic sacks full of Government Surplus commodities. “Even though it is only eight o’clock, I do not want to see the temperature in centigrade,” she said. “If I see it only in Fahrenheit I am not so shocked—I do not let myself know what it really means. Miles, do you want to wash your hands?”

“No, thank you,” said Miles. Lucky watched as Brigitte pulled Government food out of the sacks: canned pork, canned apricots, butter, and a chunk of something orange.