by K. C. Crowne
“I know,” he said. “But three different blogs – all of them independent and unconnected to each other – all described the same guy.”
“Huh,” I said. “Couldn't it just be one parroting what they read on the others?”
He shrugged. “It's possible,” he said. “But, at this point, I don't think we should turn our noses up at any bit of information. To me, it's looking more and more like these fires are being set intentionally.”
I gave him a grim expression. I didn't disagree with him at all. The more I looked into the situation, and studied it, the more I thought he was right. Luke had more of a mechanically inclined mind. He was able to see things, take them apart and diagnose the problem, than I did. He could always see the different moving parts in any problem and come up with the most logical – and more times than not, correct – solution to it.
Knowing how his mind worked, if he was convinced this was a serial arsonist running around, then I was as well. He saw a situation for what it was, free of any outside noise.
“According to these blogs,” he went on, “a tall guy with dark hair walking with a slight limp, was spotted near the scene of not just a couple of wildfires, but a few structure fires as well.”
“Huh,” I said. “Kind of vague. Walking with a limp though – was he in a cast or anything?”
He shook his head. “They didn't say for sure, but nobody mentioned a cast or anything,” he said. “Could be an old injury.”
We got to our little section of the base camp, and I heard Wes snoring away in his tent. Other than that, everything else was perfectly silent. The calm before the storm.
“Could be,” I said. “Either way, I think we need to get you in with the arson investigators. They still won't say for sure that it's a serial firebug running around, but I don't know that they're connecting all the dots either. I think you might be able to help them do that.”
He nodded. “Once we get this beast knocked down, I'll get with them and give them what I have.”
“Sounds like a plan,” I said. “You better get some rest. Big day tomorrow.”
I turned to crawl into my tent, and then paused. Something was missing, and it didn't hit me until just that moment.
“What is it?” Luke asked.
“You hear that?”
Luke cocked his head. “All I hear is Wes snoring his ass off.”
“Exactly,” I replied. “Why aren't we hearing Owen?”
Owen was a loud sleeper. He'd crashed in the house more than a few times between calls, so I knew that he not only snored, but he tended to talk in his sleep as well. He should have been sawing logs, and I should have been able to hear him.
A wave of anger passed through me, thinking that he'd disobeyed my orders – again – and was out somewhere fucking off, instead of getting some rest. I needed him to bring his A-game tomorrow, and he wasn't going to be able to do that if he was dragging ass because he hadn't gotten any sleep.
I walked over to Owen's tent and pulled back the flap – empty.
“Son of a bitch,” I growled. “I am so fucking done with this kid. When we get back to the house –”
“Hey, boss?”
Something in Luke's tone made me pause and turn to him. He was standing beside Sarah's tent, and had the flap pulled back. Like Owen's, her bunk was also empty.
“What the fuck is going on?” I asked.
He shook his head. “No idea,” he said. “This can't be coincidental though.”
A dark look flashed across his face, but I couldn't decipher it. I couldn't get a handle what was going on in that head of his before the expression was gone. Luke had always been a pretty self-contained guy and was very firmly in control of his feelings. He preferred logic to emotion any day of the week and could always be counted on for a firm, cold assessment of any situation.
I pulled the phone out of my pocket and hit the button for Sarah's number. Holding the phone to my ear, I paced our little campsite, my gut churning and roiling. Where in the hell could she be? Was she with Owen? If she was with Owen – why? It's not like they were best friends or anything. At most, she seemed to tolerate him.
Yet, they were both gone. No, it didn't seem like a coincidence at all to me.
“Shit,” I growled when the call went to voicemail.
“I can't reach Owen either,” Luke said, holding up his own cell phone.
“Son of a bitch,” I seethed. “They've got to be here somewhere.”
We spent the next hour searching the entire base camp, looking for any sign of them and finding nothing. All the while, a million nightmare scenarios played through my mind, each one worse than the last. Somehow, in my mind, I'd convinced myself that Owen had dragged her out into that hellscape of fire and smoke and had killed her or something. Maybe not fair, but I'd never felt like the kid was exactly balanced. If he'd tried to come on to her, and she'd rebuffed him, there was a small part of me that thought him doing something like that wasn't outside the realm of possibility.
We finished searching the base camp and were standing back in our section of it and had come up totally empty. It was like they disappeared. Gone. Like a puff of smoke on the wind. They'd somehow, just vanished. The churning in my gut was ratcheting up into a full-blown boil, and I tasted the bile in the back of my throat. I was well beyond worried about Sarah at that point.
My cellphone buzzed in my pocket, and I took it out quickly. When I looked at the caller ID, a wave of relief as powerful as it was profound swept over me. Sarah. Luke looked at me hopefully. I nodded and saw the same wave of relief wash over him. I stabbed the button to take the call with my finger and pressed the phone to my ear.
“Sarah, where the hell –”
I was met with a blast of static. I heard Sarah's voice, but it was only in snippets. I snuck a look at my screen and saw that I had full reception. The smoke and debris in the air must have been interfering with the signal.
“Sarah, you're breaking up,” I said. “Say again.”
“... trouble,” I heard her say. “We're in big trouble... winds shifted... surrounded.”
Hearing her say that, along with the fear in her voice, sent a flood of ice water racing through me. Luke looked at me, his eyes wide, an expression of stark terror on his face I was sure matched my own.
“Where are you, Sarah?” I asked. “Is Owen with you?”
There was another burst of static, and a high-pitched whine in my ear. The smoke and other crap in the air was playing hell with my reception, and I had to really strain my ears to listen. I pressed the phone against my head so hard, I was afraid it would snap. Her voice was faint, but I could finally hear her.
“... Owen's with me... sister... help... Bucknell Ranch...”
The call dropped, and the line went dead in my hand after that. I growled in frustration and had to physically fight the urge to hurl my phone into the darkness.
“What's going on, boss?”
“I couldn't make everything out,” I said. “All I know is that Owen is with Sarah. They're at a ranch – I think it's the ranch her sister works at, and the fire's closing in on them.”
“Shit,” Luke muttered.
“What's going on?” Wes asked, as he staggered out of his tent, his voice thick with sleep. “Aren't you guys supposed to be resting up for tomorrow?”
“Sarah is in trouble,” Luke said.
At the mention of Sara being in trouble, Wes woke up entirely. He was quickly alert, and all traces of sleepiness fell away in the blink of an eye. He was ready for action.
“Did you know?” I asked Wes, feeling a surge of anger within me. “Did you know she an Owen were heading off to her sister's ranch? Or why in the hell they went in the first place?”
“Dude, I was sleeping,” he said. “I had no idea.”
“The Bucknell is a horse ranch about five miles from here,” Luke said, his eyes glued to his phone.
I looked up to the sky and saw the direction the smoke was headed – sti
ll straight down the valley, but it was blowing a little bit harder. That increase probably sent some burning ashes ahead and ignited some hot spots along the way, which was probably how the ranch was being surrounded by flame.
Luke and Wes looked at me, obviously waiting for my orders. We shouldn't be leaving the base camp; not with the fact that we're on duty at sunrise. Protocol would have us stay here and send one of the overnight crews to bring them back. Protocol would have me inform the captain on duty and let him deploy the personnel.
This wasn't a difficult decision for me to make – fuck protocol. Those were our people, and as far as I was concerned, it was up to us to get them back.
“Okay, we have to move,” I said. “We may not have much time.”
“I'm driving,” Wes said.
I nodded. “Yeah, good. That's good,” I say. “Okay guys, get dressed. Let's get our asses moving. The lives of our friends are on the line.”
Wes had driven up on his own, in his own personal truck. It would attract a lot less attention than rolling out in one of the rigs, which was good. The last thing I wanted to do was attract attention to us when we were breaking the rules like we were.
A couple of minutes later, we were all dressed and piling into Wes' truck.
“Let's go,” I said.
“The main roads are cut off,” Luke said.
“Shit,” I muttered.
Wes was driving, I was in the passenger seat, and Luke was in the back, his face glued to the tablet, watching the drone footage. With the pickup in the winds, hot ashes had indeed been blown ahead, and ignited dry brush around the ranch and some other structures. Crews were already on the scene, but they wouldn't have a handle on it before it overwhelmed the ranch.
I'd hoped we'd have at least until tomorrow afternoon before any homes or buildings were threatened, but I'd been too optimistic, apparently. The bulk of the structures in the path of the fire still lay well beyond – the ranch was out there on the fringes – which meant, it was lower on the priority scale. The crews would sacrifice the ranch if it meant saving the ten other homes that lay beyond that.
It was all about getting ahead of the fire. We saved what we could when we could, but we also had to make some hard decisions – and those decisions included which structures couldn't be saved and which had to be let go.
The trouble here was that nobody knew Sarah and Owen – and whoever else – was out at that ranch. The mandatory evacuation order was in effect, so the crews fighting the blaze figured the place was empty. They didn't know anybody was there. That fact increased my stress over not telling anybody, but I knew if I did, Sarah and Owen were going to be in deep shit by my higher-ups over breaking the evacuation order. We couldn't do much about the ranch owners, but our people could – and would – be disciplined harshly.
“We need another route in, Luke,” I said.
“Working on it,” he replied.
His head was bent down over his tablet, his face a hardened mask of concentration as his fingers flew over the screen. If anybody could find us a way in, it was Luke. I had every faith in the man.
“Got it,” Luke said. “The fire's moving quick though, so our window is going to be tight. Really fucking tight. I'm sending the route to your GPS, Wes.”
“Got it,” he said.
The truck rumbled down a rutted dirt road, bouncing us around inside the cab. We weren't too far from the ranch, but all around us was a hellish landscape. It looked like something straight out of a dystopian movie. The sky was black, though there was an orange glow in the air all around us. Every now and then, you could see fingers of flame shooting up over the trees, licking at the sky. In a way, it was beautiful, but it was also eerie as hell.
“Fire's getting close,” Luke said.
“Too close,” I replied.
“We're here,” Wes said. “Sort of.”
He turned off the dirt service road, and past a sign that read “Bucknell Ranch.” We still had a ways to go yet. The service roads we were on were long, winding, and not nearly as direct as the main roads. But, with flaming debris littering the main roads, downed power lines, and fire all around, our options were pretty damn limited.
The service road we were on was a back way onto the ranch, and ran parallel to several large, enclosed fields. The fields all stood empty. Barren. Desolate. Ash rained down heavily, and Wes had to use his high beams, the bright lights lancing through the darkness and smoke that enveloped the world around us. Even though the windows and vents were all closed, the smell of the fire was still thick inside the cab.
Progress was slow and halting as Wes crept along the dirt track, not wanting to run us into something, or worse, roll us into a ditch. We wouldn't be any use to Sarah if we were dead or out of commission. I was keenly aware of each second that passed though. Every single grain of sand through that hourglass brought that hungry beast of a fire closer to our door. If the monster somehow got around behind us and sealed off the service roads we'd taken in, we were absolutely fucked.
“I can't see shit,” Wes said.
I strained my eyes, trying to peer through the dark of the night and the smoke. I thought I saw lights in the distance, but I couldn't be sure. It was hoping we were closing in on the house because I felt like we were fast running out of time.
“There,” Luke said, as he leaned forward and pointed at something beyond the windshield. “Somebody's waving a flashlight.”
I strained my eyes to see, and sure enough, somebody was standing amid the smoke and falling ash waving us down with a pair of flashlights. The figure was small, and I knew it was Sarah. Relief flooded my body, and I let out a long breath.
She came into view fully as we entered a lot. She had a cloth tied around her face, so that only her eye showed, but I would know that tight little body anywhere. I jumped out of the truck before Wes had even come to a full stop, and ran to her, sweeping her up in my arms, and held her tight. I wasn't thinking about the reaction of anybody else, or any potential fallout from doing it. I was just so happy and relieved to see her alive and unharmed that my emotions got the better of me.
She clung to me tightly, and after a long, awkward moment when Wes and Luke joined us, I set her back down. Wes and Luke both stepped up and hugged her as well, though with a lot less emotion than I had, which only intensified my feelings of awkwardness. I cleared my throat and looked around.
“Where is everybody?” I asked. “Where is Owen?”
“He's helping them load the last of the horses into the trailers,” she said. “My sister refused to leave without them.”
I nodded. “Stubborn. Must be in the genes.”
The smoke in the air was getting thicker, and the red and orange glow in the sky was getting more vivid as the fire drew closer. The ranch itself was doomed, but I had to admire her sister's spirit and compassion in not wanting to let the animals die. Unfortunately, it put us all in a bad spot.
I turned my eyes to Sarah. “Coming out here was stupid, Sarah,” I said. “You could have gotten yourself killed. You and Owen are in some deep shit when we get out of here.”
She lifted her chin a bit, defiance flashing through her eyes. “I wasn't about to let my sister die out here,” she said.
“I understand that, but –”
“As far as Owen goes,” she cut me off. “This isn't his fault. I dragged him out here because he had a truck. I take the responsibility for this. All of it.”
She clenched her jaw and looked at me, daring me to argue with her. There were a thousand things I wanted to say. As relieved as I was to see she was okay, I was pissed that she put herself – and us – in this position. I'd just torn Owen a new one for doing something similar, and there she was, putting us in an even worse position than he had.
“We need to do this later,” Luke said. “The wind is gusting harder. Those flames are going to be here in a hurry.”
Wes retrieved a box from the truck and started handing out breathing masks. With as much a
sh and smoke in the air as there was, I was glad he'd thought about it. My head had been so caught up in the danger Sarah was in, I hadn't thought about the situation clearly enough.
We strapped on our masks, and I looked at Sarah again. “We'll talk about this later.”
“Great,” she said. “Now, let's get my sister and the horses out of here.”
She led us to a stable, where Owen and a tall guy with dark hair were just shutting the door on a trailer. The horses inside were stamping their feet nervously, snorting and making all kinds of noises. They knew the fire was upon us and were getting antsy.
Sarah's sister was smaller, but almost a spitting image of her. And when she walked up to me, I could see she had the same spunk and attitude as her big sister.
“This isn't Sarah or Owen's fault,” she said. “It's mine. I'll accept whatever legal punishment –”
I held up my hand. “Later,” I said. “We'll deal with all of this shit later. Right now, we need to get everybody out of here and to safety.”
Wes handed the smaller woman a breathing mask, then tossed one to Owen. The newbie caught it and strapped it on quickly, not meeting our eyes. He knew he was in trouble with me. Again. The man who'd been with him at the trailer walked over to grab a mask from Wes.
“Hey, you okay?” I asked, pointing to his leg. “Are you hurt?”
The man was tall and had dark hair. His skin was a tawny, like he worked in the sun all day. He looked fit, but wasn't too strong, looking made up of lean muscle. I took him to be one of the ranch hands who'd stayed behind to help trailer up the horses.
“No, I'm good,” he said, and chuckled. “Old war wound.”
I nodded as Sarah's little sister – Jacklyn, I thought her name was – sidled up beside him. The way she looked at him told me that she was absolutely taken with him. I could see why. He was a good-looking guy. Rugged. He seemed like somebody you'd cast if you needed a cowboy in your movie.
“Okay, well you better get that mask on,” I said. “And we need to get out of here. That fire is coming and it's not going to stop.”