“Help me get this pump into the water,” Grady said to Mark. “Then stay back here with thedogs.”
“If my little girl’s in there, I’m not staying back,” Marksaid.
“We don’t know if she’s there, we just know there’s a fire and Linx is there,” Grady shouted as he opened the tailgate and uncovered his portablepump.
“Tell me what to do,” Mark said, helping him drag the pump intoposition.
“Okay,” Grady said. “Stay here and man the pump. Make sure the intake hose is covered withwater.”
Grady attached the discharge hose and unrolled it as far as it couldgo.
“Fire her up!” he shouted, and the pastor pulled the line to turn on the gasoline-powered waterpump.
The fuel around his cabin site had burned itself out—all the logs he’d gathered and the building materials had fed the flames, but now, the fire raged in the vicinity of histrailer.
He couldn’t see clearly through the smoke, as he charged up the hill from the creek, stretching the hose to themax.
The pine tree above the trailer snapped with fire, and a shower of flames fell onto the trailer, engulfing it. Grady aimed the water at the trailer as fire hissed andpopped.
He tried to douse the trailer, but couldn’t keep a steady stream. The creek wasn’t deep enough and Mark wasn’t able to hold the intake hose low to grab enoughwater.
Grady swept what water he had on the trailer, but the fire was too strong and his hose ran dry, sputtering little more than a garden hose. The fire had burned through the hose, and since he didn’t have a team to cover the hose line with sand, he was out ofluck.
The fire-fueled wind whipped over the trailer and consumed bushes and trees around it, throwing embers and sparks. Flashes of light blinded Grady, and he lost sight of the trailer as the pine tree explodedoverhead.
Through the eerie light and thick smoke, his eyes burned. He couldn’t stop staring as the metal on his trailer twisted and crumpled. The fire found new fuel as it consumed the trees and bushes surrounding the trailer. With a wicked roar, it sprang up to the night sky as it overran the entire trailer and headed down the hill toward thedriveway.
* * *
Blinded by thick smoke,Linx scrambled for the thin aluminum-covered fire shelter every wildland firefighter had for emergency situations. They were one-man cocoons that lay low on the forest floor and provided last ditchprotection.
Grady had one, and fortunately, she had pulled it clear of the trailer when she found histools.
The ground underneath the pine tree was littered with flammable needles and would bake them alive. But they had no time to find the perfectarea.
Stumbling blindly away from the fire, she crashed through a row of dry bushes toward the driveway. The flames were gaining on her and Jessie was in a panicked state, hyperventilating in thesmoke.
She stumbled down an embankment into a sandy area and set Jessie, who was mewing and crying, onto the ground with Ginger. “Hold the puppy. Head down and don’t look up,” she snapped sternly as she pulled off the protective covering and grabbed the twotabs.
Coughing from the smoke, she shook out the shelter to its full-length tube shape and covered Jessie with her body, tucking all three of them in before looping her arms around the hold downstraps.
“Breathe into the dirt and don’t look up. No matter what.” She knew she was squishing Jessie, but it didn’t matter. The closer to the ground the better. Even inside a shelter, she could still get smoke inhalation. She had to get down as low as possible, especially if the fire burned through the protectivelayer.
Jessie snuffled and cried, “I want my mommy. I want mymommy.”
The roar of the flames crashed over them, and heat rose inside the shelter. Linx’s hands blistered as she held onto the straps, fighting the wind that ripped at theshelter.
Please God. Please God.Linx prayed, not knowing what to say. The shelter was supposed to be good for an hour, but at the same time, nothing was truly invulnerable to the fire. Tears rolled down her eyes as she thought about the members of her crew who’d died when a fire overtookthem.
She sucked in dirt from the ground, keeping herself frozen as the fire surged over them. She was going to die. She was going to die with her precious daughter. How long should she stay in here? Slowly shaking and baking to acrisp.
Pressing Jessie down, she could be suffocating her, but she couldn’t let her take a breath of the hot air that would immediately sear her lungs. As for the puppy, she was probably smothered, as there was not a sound or asqueak.
Flame front after flame front hit them, gusting and ripping at the shelter. The noise was deafening, whooshing over and around them. Pinecones popped and trees snapped as debris tumbled over the shelter, thrown and tossed by the fierce and unrelentingfirestorm.
She buried her face into the sandy dirt until she thought she’d pass out. Her sweat ran dry as heat baked and fried around them, and the fire roared over them like a steamrolling freight train. She lost track of time, her arms and hands frozen in place, tight to hold down what was left of the swelteringshelter.
“I love you, Jessie,” she muttered into the dirt. “I love you like a mother. Like a real mother. I loveyou.”
The little girl sniffled. “Mommy, Daddy, Mommy, Daddy,Betsy.”
“Grady, Jessie, Grady, Jessie, Grady,” Linx whispered, losing hold of her mind. Pain covered her entire being, and she couldn’t tell where the fire ended and where she began. All she knew was she had to protect Jessie. Had to cover her. Couldn’t let her go. “Jessie, Jessie, live, Jessie, live. Live. Live. Live for your mommy and daddy andBetsy.”
