A wall of fire about twelve feet tall advanced through the grass with the implacable, rolling motion of a wave.The heat hit her first, a physical force, like opening an oven door and hot air slamming into her face.The sound intensified.The crackling roar she’d been hearing became a full, sustained bellow, the voice of an enormous and mindless and all-destroying monster.
The fire hit the road and bare earth.
And faltered.
Not stopped.Faltered.The gusting chinook winds picked up embers and flung them at the fire break.Most died on its bare dirt.But a few reached the grass on the other side.Small spot fires bloomed, yellow and orange flowers opening in the brown stubble.
Shouts went up along the line.People ran toward the spot fires with shovels and wet blankets.A rancher Bonnie didn’t know beat out a flame with his jacket.
Gray’s voice came over the CB: “South end, I’m almost there with water.”
The fire engine rolled into view down the dirt road, red and enormous, raising a plume of dust.Gray parked it where the spot fires were worst and had the hose unwound off the truck and running in under thirty seconds.The spray from his hose hit the flames with a hiss that sent steam boiling into the air.
The spot fires died.
All along the road the same scene played out in variations.The fire reached the break and found bare earth instead of fuel.Embers flew.Spot fires started.People ran and shoveled and threw water and beat flames with whatever they had.Harlan’s water tank handled the north end, directed by Willard in his lawn chair who was providing remarkably accurate information over his walkie-talkie.
Molly treated a man from town who burned his hand.She treated woman who twisted her ankle in a gopher hole.And Molly marched over to Walter Meeks, who’d inhaled too much smoke and was coughing badly but refusing to stop shoveling.
“Walter, sit down,” Molly ordered.
“I will not sit down.I’ve been fighting grass fires since ’78.”
“You’ve been breathing smoke for an hour.Sit down or I’ll have Cooper arrest you.”
“He can’t arrest me.He’s not a cop.”
“He’s deputized for emergency situations.Sit down, Walter.”
Walter sat down.But he didn’t stop providing opinions from his seated position.
And then she spotted Noah.
Her heart leaped into her throat.What is he doing out here?How did he get here?Where’s Cassidy?Where are my parents?The questions flashed through her head in a panicked heartbeat.
He was standing beside the ambulance when Bonnie drove back to the staging area for more water.He had his question notebook in one hand and a granola bar in the other and was watching the fire with an expression of pure, electrified fascination.
“Noah Andrew Watson.Where did you come from?”she demanded, striding toward him.
“Grandma’s car.We all came.Grandma and Grandpa and me and Cassidy.”
Bonnie looked wildly toward the line of parked vehicles and spotted her mother’s sedan.Her father was already heading for the fire break with a shovel.Her mother was handing out water bottles from a cooler in the trunk of her car.
“I want to help, too,” Noah declared.
“You’re seven.”
“I know a lot about fire.Gray taught me?—.”
She didn’t have time to argue with him right now.“Stay with Molly, do whatever she says without backtalk or questions, and stay out of everybody’s way.Do not leave the ambulance under any circumstances.If Molly or Tucker tells you to get into the ambulance, you get in it and stay in it.Understood?”
He nodded, wide-eyed.“Understood.Can I take notes?”
“Yes, you can take notes.”
As she turned away to look for the next crisis to deal with, he opened his notebook, sat on the ambulance’s rear bumper, and began writing with the industrious focus of a war correspondent.
Cassidy was not visible at the staging area, which meant she must still be in the car with Bonnie’s mother, which meant at least one of her children had demonstrated impulse control today.
