“I need a chainsaw and a helicopter!”
Murphy lifts the radio to his lips and presses the call button. “Iron Summit to Copter 105, we’ve got a downfirefighter in need of medical care. Our location is five miles northeast of Appaloosa Ranch.”
“This is Copter 105. We need to get rid of the water on board. Estimated thirty minutes.”
“We don’t have that kind of time!” I shout at Murphy.
“They’ll get here as fast as they can,” Murphy reminds me.
Between the fallen tree, the sudden fire, the gush of rain, and the lack of a helicopter, it all feels so out of my control. Doesn’t anyone get how long he’s already been waiting? But Icancontrol one thing. I’m getting this tree off my friend.
Ramirez slips a sawyer pack off his back without question and gives it to me. My knees nearly buckle when the weight transfers from his arms to my upper body.“We’ll be right behind you,” Ramirez says, and I nod, not even sure he can see it.
It takes longer to terrain the slope uphill than it did going down it. But I keep my focus on the path ahead and the cadence of the footfalls matching my own behind me. I’m not alone in this, I remind myself.
There is a collective gasp when we reach the black. Even I had a hard time telling until now how far the burnt ground stretched.
“I could use some more light,” I call out, and a couple of guys circle around the trunk that’s trapping Dean’s leg. I slide on protective eyewear and start up the saw. The second the metal grinds an inch into the wood, somebody screams.
CHAPTER FORTY
HAILEY
Dean’s eyes fly open, and his shrill wail pierces the air.
“It’s okay, it’s okay.” I hover over him, pinning his upper body down with the weight of my hands.
Is his skin clammy? I can’t tell with this rain. But the coloring of that leg… One look and I knew this wasn’t going to be good. We’re running out of time.
“Get it off!” His face contorts in agony as Reed rakes the blade back and forth, bark chips flying in all directions.
“Dean, look at me.” I stroke my fingers down his cheeks. I’d give anything to have superhuman strength, to hurl this log off of him and take away his pain. But even that wouldn’t give him the instant relief he’s looking for.
“We’re going to get you out of here, okay?” I tell him. “You just need to hang on a little longer.”
He thrashes his head, moaning, “I can’t. It hurts!”
Reed stops the saw.
Dean claws at my skin like he’ll never know a moment that isn’t bound by pain, and it’s tearing me up inside seeing him like this. I grip his cheek to get him to face me again.
“I know it hurts.” My voice quivers. I’ve been calm up untilthis point, puking incident aside. Acted the way a professional EMT would, not the scared girl who couldn’t forgive her best friend and wasted what could be her last summer with him just to watch him die right before her eyes. But I’m desperate to help him. How do I make him forget?
I look to the one person who has been that for me, the comfort and calm in my turbulent summer. Reed’s patiently waiting for the command to continue. He offers me a subtle gesture that saysYou already know what to do. I know because he’s shown me how. And then, as ridiculous as I sound, I start to sing.
“Electric boobs, below her shoes.” Dean doesn’t freeze like I did on that plane. But his shaking relaxes as he focuses on my face.
“You know I read it in a wagon seat, oh, oh,” I continue.
It’s my dad’s voice who belts out the next line of “Bennie and the Jets.” It would seem I got more from him than I originally thought—pitchy lungs to be specific.
“Isn’t itboots?” Daniels asks.
Reed laughs, and Dean is…smiling at him. It’s a soft, weak smile, but it’s there.
One by one, new voices join in until the whole crew is singing Elton John in the backcountry of the Payette National Forest like it’s an anthem to the trees.
When Dean’s distracted enough, I nod for Reed to continue, and we keep singing through his cries. The chainsaw makes a clean break, and then Reed does the same thing on the section above Dean’s hip.
