It’s our only chance, because there’s absolutely no way we can outrun a fire moving uphill.Even this is going to be very,veryclose, and it’s going to depend on moving as fast as we can, in the howling wind and rain, wearing heavy packs.
We’re five feet down the scramble when my foot slips on a wet rock and I go down on one knee,hard.Pain flashes through my leg and I gasp, stars in front of my eyes.Porter stops and turns, just staring at me, waiting.
After a few seconds, I force myself to stand.I put my weight on it, and it hurts like hell, but the leg holds.I bend it, and same thing: painful as hell, still functional.I nod at Porter, and he nods back.
“Careful,” he says.
“Thanks,” I say, and we start moving again, each glancing back at the fire every few moments.
“We might have to deploy,” Porter says, panting for breath, his voice ragged.
He means deploy our fire shelters, the silicon-and-aluminum bags that resist heat.
They’re an absolute last resort, and a bolt of terror shoots through me at the thought: trapped, face-down on the ground, nothing but a thin layer between me and unimaginable heat.
Earlier this year, a dozen men in Arizona died after deploying in the Kaibab fire.They lost sight of it, only to find it below them on a slope, and they were left with no choice.
Kind of like we might be right now.I lower myself, knee a throb of pain, and hope that we get a choice.
This is fucking unfair, I think, even though I know thatfairdoesn’t matter.It was across the river.There was a one in a thousand chance...
“There’s a gravel fan at the bottom of the scramble that would be the best place to do it,” he goes on.“No flammable materials, up against a rock wall where?—”
Mid-sentence, he slips.I hear rocks clatter down the slope and turn just in time to see Porter go over sideways, his heavy pack making him go off-balance.
Just before he hits the ground, I hear a dullcrack.
Porter’s leg bends the wrong way.
For a moment, there’s total silence.I stand perfectly still, praying that it’s some kind of optical illusion, that Porter’s ankle is just sprained or something.That he can still get down.
Then hescreams, a horrifying, gut-wrenching noise, coming from one of the toughest men I’ve ever met.Porter was in the Army before spending ten years in the hotshots, and I’ve never heard himscreambefore.
It jolts me back into action, and I cross the jagged granite toward him as fast as I can, careful not to fall myself.Porter’s just lying on his back, his face almost gray, his breathing shallow.He’s dripping with sweat, and I grab the bottom of his pants and pull the leg up.
I have to close my eyes for a moment and collect myself, because no matter how much ugly, gory shit I’ve seen, a bone poking through the skin will always make my stomach turn.
“It’s bad,” Porter whispers, his breathing still fast and shallow.
“Breathe,” I tell him.He keeps panting.“Deep breaths,” I command.
He takes one, long and shaky.His hands are still splayed out to the sides, and I can see them shaking.I can’t even imagine how much this must hurt.
I sling my pack off my back, unzip a pocket, and pull out my field first aid kit, unrolling the gauze.There’s not that much of it, but it’s gonna have to do.
“Casden, don’t,” Porter says, his voice thick and dull.“Go.”
“This is gonna hurt,” I say, and stretch the gauze over his shin.
“Just fucking —”
He screams again, and I grit my teeth together, wrapping his lower leg as tight and fast as I can.It’s a pretty shitty job, but given the circumstances, I just want to keep him from damaging it more if I can.He’s panting for breath again, but as I finish wrapping his leg he catches himself and I hear another long, deep breath.
Good.
Something about emergencies always snaps my mind into perfect, crystal clear focus, and I know exactly what I’m going to do, like it’s already been written down for me.I put my gear on my back again, strap it on, and glance at the fire.
It’s coming, fast, The heat and smoke buffeting my face.Sparks and embers float up toward the sky, conveyed on a river of gray-yellow wood smoke.
