by Cadle, Lou
She smiled at her silent sick joke. Then she set her teeth, and climbed out of the passenger side and looked at her pitiful car. It had scorch marks from the flames. And the explosion? That had been a tire. So they didn’t melt, not at this heat. And they weren’t burning, not yet. But they exploded if they got hot enough. That was news to her.
About the last bit of new knowledge she’d ever gain...except for the knowledge we all have at the end, about what it feels like to die. And maybe she’d learn about if there’s anything after that.
Not knowing what else to do, she got her briefcase loaded with water and walked up to the other cars. The fire was marginally cooler here, smoldering, but not as hot as it had been around her car. For whatever reason, it had punched through the road at this point well ahead of other points in the leading edge of the fire. Maybe it had been burning hard an hour ago, maybe even longer, and what easy fuels there were had burned through. She looked at the trees around her, saw some had blackened trunks, but only on the side the fire had come from.
She touched one dark tree trunk with her forefinger and snatched her hand back, sucking on the finger, feeling the blister rise immediately. Very hot. It could burst into flame. She imagined falling trees, lit like candles, crashing down onto her.
But there was nowhere safe for her to go. The river, at least a mile ahead, may as well be on the moon, for all she could get to it. She wondered if she and her friend in the truck would be the only two fatalities. She wondered if there might be hundreds more.
In the newspaper articles, she might not be alone but accompanied by lists of neighbors. Strangers and friends. Faces she’d seen in the café, or people who had waved to her when she jogged along the loop road. People she’d never spoken with. Daisey. Pasquale, who she had not spoken with in a few weeks. She regretted not being more interested in her neighbors. She regretted not promising she’d definitely go camping with James and Pasquale and Lindsey that weekend. What was life, if not people?
Funny time to realize it, but James had been right. She’d somehow turned into a workaholic the past few years, and because of it, she’d turned away from what was important in life. Wishing didn’t solve anything, but she wished anyway, wished that she had been a different person. Funny, too, that she wished that even more right now, than she’d wished she had stayed down on the loop road. Wished that she’d lived her life differently.
She walked up to the lead car in this pack, the one with the open doors, and closed all the doors but one, and then climbed in and closed the final one. She shut the fire out, and the worst of the distant sound of it, and any falling embers and pine cone rockets. The car was as smoky as the world outside the car. But it was a meager form of protection from some dangers, like burning pine cone projectiles and falling embers. The smoke worried her most. She thought it was what might kill her. As if her lungs agreed with her mind, another round of coughing took her.
When it had passed, she took out her phone. No signal. But she texted anyway between coughing fits. To her mom. To her aunt. To James’s parents, on his mom’s line. To her best friends in the city. She said goodbye and that she loved them. And she texted James. She texted him two dozen texts, some with a memory, “Remember that time…” There were memories of beautiful views they’d shared, and fun evenings out, and a few of terrific sex. Texts with apologies for not listening better that morning, or for the past few several months. An apology for making the wrong decision today and ending up trapped by the fire. An apology for dying and leaving him to grieve. Her heart ached for him, and for her mom. Her release from the fear and pain would be painful yet brief, and their grief would go on and on.
The fire roared loader. Though she could see no flames, the car seemed hotter now. Would she cook before she succumbed to the smoke? She coughed steadily, and she began to feel dizzy. A death by smoke inhalation—suffocation, she supposed—would be preferable to watching her skin light on fire, better than feeling herself being consumed by flames. A sense of peace overtook her fear. Her fate seemed already written, and there was no reason to fight it.
Though she knew her phone might be burned up, that her final texts might never go through, she sent them anyway. She kept texting to James for as long as she could. She was down to the only words that mattered now. I love you. Send. I love you. Send. I love you.
And then the smoke was too much, and her consciousness faded. Her hearing went first. And the last thing she knew was the sight of the rain of burning pine needles all around her. Beautiful, really. A beautiful storm of red snow, blowing around the stranger’s car. Beautiful in its own way. Like regret and grief, precious and beautiful too, somehow, here at the end.
The cellphone fell from her fingers.
Chapter 14
The incident commander was exhausted, beyond exhausted. His body hurt everywhere, and his patience was wearing thin. He had no spare energy to snap at anyone, which was all that saved people from being snapped at. It was near sundown, but he hadn’t seen daylight in many hours. The smoke had been too thick.
The firebreak between the fire road and the highway hadn’t slowed down the fire for long, and he had barely gotten his team out before the fire jumped the fire road, the new break they’d cleared, and then the highway.
After that, he’d given the team a half-hour rest while he tried to better assess the wider situation as it stood. Via satellite maps, a conversation with the OV-10A pilot, and conversations with two people at CalFire, they’d tried to formulate a strategy.
What they came up with was a two-pronged attack. Try to save the hundred or so homes of Pinedrops, even though they’d need a lot of luck to accomplish that, and cut a wide firebreak before the South Yuba River at Hoyt’s Crossing to keep the fire from turning into more populated areas. A fleet of bulldozers was sent to the second site. They’d mow down brush and trees and leave bare dirt in their wake, on both sides of the river, moving both directions, working through the night. The fire would not be allowed into Nevada City. That was their primary goal.
Even at the maximum rate of spread they could expect during the night, it wouldn’t get that far before dawn. This was good. It meant water and flame retardant could be dropped starting at dawn, to bolster the efforts of the bulldozers and ground crews. They debated a backfire at the river and discarded the idea. Not because it wasn’t a sound strategy, but because if it got out of their control and burned down even one house, they’d be sued to kingdom come.
Yes, it rankled to have to make decisions based on the litigious nature of the American public, but they lived in the world they’d inherited, not in some ideal one.
His own crew and two more crews dispatched to be under his command would fight the fire around Pinedrops and try to save the little town. And that would be his last job for the day, before he handed over the incident command to a night commander.
“Just remember it’s a dead end in there,” his supervisor told him. “You need to get out, you get the hell out. Right? And you can’t work past eleven tonight. Not you, and not your crew.”
“Roger that,” he said. Regulations said that twelve hours on duty was the maximum a team could fight a fire. Beyond that, fatigue meant poor decisions. It meant a higher risk of accidental death. He’d be handing over incident command to someone else before midnight. It was going to be the hardest part of the day. You sunk your teeth into these fires. By this point, it was personal. He wanted to hang in and slug it out with the wildfire…but he knew he wouldn’t be allowed to, and he knew that he shouldn’t.
He took only enough of a break himself to grab a bottle of water and an energy bar. Then it was on to Pinedrops. He let the rookie drive the rig and he took the seat next to him. On the way, he called in again. “We have a team of volunteer sheriff’s deputies or something like that to go door to door in town? Make sure everyone is out?”
“I’ll check on that with the Sheriff.”
“Over and out,” he said.
Damned fire. He felt
like it was winning.
Chapter 15
James was on the phone all that evening. In his Grass Valley motel room, he leapt up every time his cellphone rang, hoping it was Sylvia.
It never was.
He’d talked with his mother three times, and his father once. His mother had talked of being worried about Sylvia and about him. His father had talked about how insurance companies will cheat you every chance they get.
James didn’t doubt that, but right now it was the farthest thing from his mind.
He fielded calls from friends, from his boss, from old coworkers back in San Francisco who he hadn’t heard from in a year or more. The most painful conversation was with Sylvia’s mom, Francine.
“I don’t know,” was what he kept saying. Is Sylvia okay? Is your house still there? Where could Sylvia have gone? Did she get out? Is it possible she’s still there? Is it possible she’s with a friend somewhere? When can you go back to your house?
I don’t know, I don’t know, I don’t know.
“Can’t you do something?” Francine said.
“I’ve been racking my brain, trying to figure out what,” he said. “Francine, if you have a good idea, I want to hear it. I do. I’m at wit’s end.”
“I know, I know. It’s just—she’s my baby!”
“I’m sure she’s fine.” He wasn’t at all sure, but he knew it was what Francine needed to hear.
“Should I fly out there?”
“No, I can’t imagine why you should. And if the house is badly damaged—well, we won’t be able to put you up. If it stinks of smoke, you wouldn’t want to stay there.”
“That doesn’t matter to me. I’d stay in a hotel.”
“Hotels are going to be booked. If people lose their homes, hotels will be booked full. That and maybe press booking up rooms.” If the fire got much bigger, the national press would likely descend, if they hadn’t already. He was focused only on local news and hadn’t checked the big national stations.
“I’ll call and make a reservation now. In case I need to come.”
“Okay.”
“And you call me the instant you know anything.”
“Sylvia will call you. I’m sure of it.”
“She’d better!”
“She will. Try not to worry.”
“How can I not worry?”
“I don’t know. I’m failing. That’s for sure.”
A long pause. “I’m sorry. I haven’t been very sensitive, have I? You must be frantic as well. How are you doing? You’re not hurt?”
“No, no. I’m fine, except I’m anxious. I thought I’d hear from her by now.”
“Are you getting news I’m not getting? I mean, like TV news?”
“With the internet, you can get our news. If the fire gets big enough, it’s possible you can see a live feed of it via one of the news stations.” He’d noticed that before, searching on YouTube for one of last year’s fires down in LA, that there were two-hour-long live feeds still up from that. “But probably the Sacramento Bee website is your best bet. There might be a pay wall.”
“Spell that for me. Sacramento, like it sounds?”
He spelled that, and the name of the paper. “Francine, I know you’re worried. I’ll keep you informed. Everything I know, you’ll know. I think everything will be fine, and in a year, we won’t even remember how frightened we were right now.”
“I doubt that. James, I’m glad you’re okay, and you stay safe, right? Don’t take any risks.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“And have Sylvia call me! The instant she calls you. I don’t care if it’s three a.m.”
“I will.” He hoped he would be calling her.
By 11:00 p.m., the phone calls wound down and he plugged in his phone to recharge. He tried to sleep, but it was hopeless. At midnight, he went out to a convenience store, got a bunch of energy drinks, and stayed up, scanning the web, hoping for more news. He had a radio feed on in the background. He bounced between the Bee’s website, YouTube’s last hour of videos, and Google News. They were calling it the Chute fire, for a ravine near where it started. “Shoot fire,” it sounded like. Wasn’t that like some old mild curse a 49er would’ve said back then?
Need more caffeine. Worn out from worry and a long day, he was starting to lose focus.
After opening another energy drink, he searched the web under more terms, like Nevada County fire, where it was burning, and Yuba County fire, where it had begun. Time frame, last twenty-four hours. A few new articles he hadn’t seen until now, posted to newspapers, popped up. He read them. No certain cause was listed. But he didn’t care about the cause right now. He would, he knew, especially if the fire cost him his home.
Even more so if it cost him the woman he loved.
He didn’t want to have that thought, really did not want to have it. But every hour that passed, every minute, when she did not phone, when she did not show up at the hotel door, he grew more worried.
Sylvia, where are you?
By two in the morning, the news was dying down, though the last he’d heard, it didn’t sound as if the fire was. And he was jittery from caffeine, and even more jittery from not knowing where Sylvia was. He had to do something. Even if it was the wrong thing, he couldn’t just go to sleep. He had to act.
Chapter 16
James knew the area for ten miles in every direction from his home from hiking it. If it were daytime, he could hike in from several different directions and get to Pinedrops on trails he knew. He knew that was stupid, to go hiking into an active wildfire, but he’d almost do it. Almost. If someone would guarantee him he would find Sylvia, he would definitely do it.
But he had no idea where to begin to hunt for her. There was no reason to go blundering around the woods at night and get himself lost. And not even tomorrow morning, at least not until he’d crossed off all his other options.
Still, he needed to be closer to home than he was right now. Even if all he did was stand at the roadblock and wait, he needed to be there. To be physically closer to Sylvia would tamp down his anxiety a bit.
He kept checking his cellphone as he drove, not wanting to miss a text from her. He made it to Hoyt’s Crossing again, and there was still a roadblock, with temporary emergency lights set up. A different sheriff’s deputy stood in front of it, a woman. He rolled down his window and came to a stop.
“Sir, can I ask where you’re headed?”
“Pinedrops. My home in Pinedrops.”
“Ahh,” she said. She looked down at the ground, and then back up. “Driver’s license, please. So I can verify you live there?”
“Of course, Officer—” he stared at her breast where her name was printed, then realized he was staring at a strange woman’s breast like some perv. “Sorry,” he stuttered.
“Your name sounds familiar,” she said. “I think I might have talked to you on a call up in Pinedrops. Maybe nine months ago?”
“You did?” He looked at her again. “Right, about that awful neighbor.”
“A domestic violence call, right. Haven’t been back out on one since though.”
“They moved, thank God.” They’d been horrible neighbors, playing music too loudly, fighting, borrowing lawn tools and not returning them until Sylvia had screamed at them “This is not Lowe’s!” and slammed the door on them. Their house, he had wished would burn back then. Or fall into a black hole. Or anything to get rid of them. But their irresponsibility stretched into financial realms, no surprise, and they had to move out anyway.
And so they’d missed the fire. Seemed like the opposite of karma balancing things out.
“I’m Venita Rios,” the deputy said.
“Right, I remember your name now.” Remembering the awful neighbors had brought back his memory of her. “Officer Rios.”
“Deputy, actually, but don’t worry about it.” She handed him back his license and pointed. “Pull over up there. Let’s talk.”
He did, but his heart was racing a
t her serious tone, at the words “Let’s talk.” This wasn’t going to be anything he wanted to hear. Not at all. When he started the car, she waved an arm at someone he couldn’t see. At the wave, another officer—deputy—got out of a car to man the roadblock. There was no traffic but James’s car.
He parked the car where she’d indicated and waited. Deputy Rios appeared at his window and asked him to open his car door. She squatted in front of him to have better eye contact, or to seem less intimidating.
Not good at all.
She delivered her news in a calm voice. “The fire crossed over into Pinedrops in mid-afternoon. They fought it until after sundown.” She looked away.
“And?”
“There’s a lot of loss of property.”
“My wife.” He was fighting tears now. “My wife was at home, working. Did everyone get out? Have they been evacuated?”
“There were some egress problems at first, from what I understand.”
“Meaning?”
“The road was blocked. But they got bulldozers in there in time, and they cleared the road. There were some minor injuries. A few serious burns. We had to arrest one guy fighting the fire with a garden hose to get him out of there in time. He was released once we got him out of there. But as far as we know now, no fatalities.”
“Thank God,” he breathed.
“Sir, was your wife disabled? Or on medications that might have made her drowsy?”
“No, no.” A beat late, he understood why she was asking. “Have you found bodies? Burned bodies?”
“Rescue and recovery hasn’t started yet. Can’t until dawn, and won’t really commence until tomorrow when everything cools off.”
He thought it through. Houses burned down. They’d be hunting for charred bones among the bedsprings, wouldn’t they? God. “Sylvia wasn’t like that. She didn’t drink. And I doubt we have any pain pills in the house. We’re both healthy people.”