Well, relatively speaking.By wildlands firefighting standards.
“We should head back down before this storm blows us off the ridge,” Porter says, facing the fire to the northwest.“You said you’ve hiked into the Spires?”
“Two years ago,” I confirm, and I tell him the story about how my mom thought it might help me re-integrate into society.
He almost cracks a smile.
“What’s the terrain over there?Rough, rocky?”
“And steep,” I say.“Especially those ridges where the fire’s heading now.If they burn and then get rain, it’ll be rockslide central with all the plant matter gone.”
Porter just shakes his head.
“Too risky to send anyone,” he says, then points at another long, low valley.“What about that way in?”
He’s already thinking about next steps, about where to contain the fire on the other sides, and together, we start planning a strategy.We talk for a good ten minutes, checking the wind and the weather and the maps every so often.It starts to rain, big, fat drops, and I thinkwe should leave before the rocks get too slippery.
We’re wrapping it up when the radio crackles.
“Captain,come in,” says a staticky voice, and even those three words are shot through with panic.
Porter frowns and takes the radio off his belt.
“Porter,” he says.
“It’s jumped the river,” the voice says.“Just east of the camp by about a quarter mile, when the winds picked up.”
We both turn around in silent horror and look to the southeast.As we do, a hot, dry, smoky wind blows up the slope and into our faces, stinging my eyes.
Down below there’s a bright orange spot, muted by the smoke pouring off of it.It’s crawling along the river bank, on this side of the river, toward our camp.
It’s also starting up the slope, and even from here, I can see the base of each tree smoke, then catch, and then the fastwhooshof flame as it consumes the whole trunk, leaving the whole tree a hundred-foot torch.
“Go,” Porter says, and points at the boulder scramble.
ChapterThirty-One
Clementine
People are pouringinto the high school now.Not just from Eaglevale, but anyone who didn’t have somewhere else to go in Coldwater or the other small, surrounding towns.They’re sitting in small groups in the gymnasium, in the cafeteria, collecting in the high school auditorium.
For the most part, people are calm and orderly.They mostly know each other, which isn’t surprising, and for much of the day, Ashlake High operates like a commercial for the best of humanity.
Outside, it gets darker.Trees are shaking in the wind, and when I glance out the windows that face west, I can see that the sky over there is nearly black.
He’s fine, I tell myself.The rain will help.He’s with two dozen other guys, all of whom will be perfectly fine.
I still wish I could hear from him, but the radios are for official business only.
I walk into the classroom where they’ve stored piles of blankets and grab an armful.There’s a woman with a week-old baby who had to evacuate, and while I don’t have most of what she needs, I can at least make myself useful somehow.
Outside the thick-paned school window, the wind starts tohowl, and despite everything, the sound raises goosebumps on the back of my neck.
If something happened to the fire crew, they’d tell you, I remind myself, then head to deliver blankets.
The new momlooks tired and stressed, but she smiles and thanks me for the blankets and her husband takes them from me, even as the baby cries.
“If it helps, you’re taking this better than plenty of people who don’t have newborns,” I tell them.
