by Toni Draper
“I think it might be Mendoza’s,” Isa said, “which means she must be there somewhere. I’m on my way!”
Plotting the tower’s location from ten miles south, Isa, who had been heading in the opposite direction, turned her Civic around on the dusty park road and mumbled a thanks for the maneuverability of small cars. She never did like how pickups fishtailed.
Seeing and pulling in beside Davila’s truck, the two met up at the base of the tower, and Mike quickly led her to the Wrangler, which she confirmed as Mendoza’s. Clipping her radio to her belt, she started out one way while he went in the opposite direction.
“Mena!” she called repeatedly, receiving no response. All she heard was Davila’s voice echoing her shouts. Within minutes, a small ground fire blew up in their vicinity, but it posed no real threat to them and they easily smothered it. However, it served as a brutal reminder that time was of the essence. Fearing several of the spots could join forces, create dangerous conditions, and make it necessary for them to abandon their search, Isa worried and wondered where Mena could be and why she hadn’t responded to their calling.
“Why don’t you keep searching down here while I head back up the tower for another look?” Mike suggested. “I need to make sure we’re safe here and see if I can get an idea for how long. It’s not likely, given the density of the surrounding forest, but I want to try and see if I can see anything from up top.”
Isa agreed it was worth a shot as she continued calling Mena’s name, crisscrossing the area and trying to imagine where she might have gone. The very wind carrying her voice off into the distance blew a little stronger, enough to part the branches of the trees and reveal a tiny spot of unnatural color further west in an area neither had yet searched.
Mike saw her looking up in his direction and pointing toward what had caught her eye.
“I see it too!” Mike radioed Isa before preparing to join her back on the ground.
When she had all but given up hope of finding it, there it was again. A piece of Mena’s yellow Nomex shirt. She would never again curse the brightness of the fabric that could be seen from where she was, down in the brush.
“I found her!” Isa radioed. She then instructed Mike, “Hurry! Call 911!”
In no time, Mike reached them and stooped to pick Mena up.
Isa could tell Mena was dead weight in his arms, but at least she wasn’t dead! Perish the thought!
The bulging veins in Mike’s neck, his tight-lipped mouth, and the sound of his breathing let her know that despite his physical fitness, it was a struggle to carry Mena’s limp body up the hill. Isa looked at the gash on her head, oozing bright red, yet it was already crusting over with dry, darkened blood. As Mike laid her down on the ground, the rise and fall of Mena’s chest showed her breathing was steady but shallow. More worrisome than that was the fact that she was nonresponsive, out cold.
“It looks like she took a nasty fall. Best I can tell, she hit her head on a rock or a tree on the way down. In my truck, there’s a water bottle and a first aid kit,” Davila said.
Before he’d even asked, Isa was on her way to get them.
He poured water over a piece of gauze and gently dabbed around the wound.
“I didn’t want to move her, but I couldn’t leave her out there. Who knows how long before help gets here or this whole area goes up?”
“You did the right thing, Mike.”
Isa stooped by Mena’s side and felt for her pulse. Just as she felt pressure on her wrist, Mena moved her head from side to side and appeared to be waking up.
“Mena. Mena, can you hear me?” Isa asked.
“Syd?” Mena mumbled with closed eyes and a furrowed brow.
“What?” Isa asked. “What did you say? It’s me, Isa,” she repeated. But Mena’s body quickly went slack again as she appeared to slip further into unconsciousness.
Thankfully, a siren could be heard as the rescue vehicle approached from the south. A helicopter, which now circled the area, had been placed on standby, in the event they needed to airlift her. Jumping out of the cab of the transporter, the paramedics grabbed a handheld stretcher from the back, threw an oxygen mask and tank on top, and set out for the tower in a run.
As one checked Mena’s blood pressure and pulse, the other pulled out a light and shined it into her eyes, lifting her lids to check her pupils’ response. “Any idea how long she’s been out?” he asked.
“No, I’m afraid not. I pulled up at about four-twenty and shortly after found her vehicle here. We found her about three quarters of an hour after that, about a hundred yards down that way.” Davila pointed.
The EMTs looked at and dressed the open wound on the side of her head near the temple, immobilized her for the journey, then placed her on the stretcher and lifted it.
Isa looked at Mike, then at them, and asked, “Mind if I come along?”
Mena was transported to Flagstaff Medical Center with what was being considered a possible life-threatening head injury. She remained unresponsive and unconscious. In the ER, doctors examined her and nurses hooked her up to an IV and various other bags and monitors as Isa anxiously awaited word on her condition.
It seemed like an eternity had gone by before one of the more compassionate nurses came out with the news that, “It may be a while before she comes around. We’re going to move her to the critical care unit, where trained staff can keep watch over her until she does.” Isa was told she could wait there, that visits with patients in the CCU were restricted to brief interludes, and that someone would soon be out to give her more information.
About twenty minutes later, another nurse came out of the double doors into the waiting area where Isa sat.
She jumped to her feet when she heard, “Family for Mendoza?” called.
The nurse asked Isa as she approached, “Are you family?”
Isa nodded her head. “We’re sisters.” Given the circumstances, she didn’t see any harm in the lie. After all, they were sisters in a sense—as much members of the sisterhood of firefighters as the men could be brothers.
The nurse led her to Mena’s bed, where yet another nurse was by Mena’s side, recording her vitals on a chart. She smiled as Isa walked in.
Isa waited for the other one to leave before admitting honestly, “I’m a friend. I was there when she was found.”
The nurse smiled in understanding, letting her know rules were sometimes meant to be bent and that she wouldn’t tell anyone they were skirting hospital policy.
Isa looked at her name badge—Alexandra Pogue, RN—and said, “Thank you.”
Alex smiled, finished up what she was doing, and left the room so Isa could visit in private.
She spent her five minutes looking at Mena, overwhelmed by emotion and silently crying. “Mena,” she spoke to her usually strong friend who now looked so helpless in the bed. “Why didn’t you tell anyone where you were going? Why do you always have to be so damned independent?” she yelled.
Before she could berate Mena much more, Alex was back. She held a clear plastic bag in her hands, in which Isa could see Mena’s uniform and what must have been her personal belongings. “Would you like to sign for this?” she asked Isa. “It’s everything that was on her when she was brought in.” She handed her the bag, recorded Isa’s ID information, then escorted her out and continued with her rounds.
Without breaking the seal at the top, Isa saw a gold chain, a wallet, and some keys inside, on top of the clothes.
She carried it with her back to the waiting area where she sat in a chair and slowly separated the bag’s top. In the wallet were twenty-three dollars in cash, an American Express card, Mena’s driver’s license, and a few business cards. She flipped through them, stopping when a flash of red ink caught her eye. IN CASE OF EMERGENCY CALL had been handwritten down the right edge of one of the cards. Isa pulled it out of its protective lin
er. It read: Sydney Foster, PhD. Professor of Anthropology and Cultural Studies. University of Maryland. The address was a place called College Park.
Sydney? Syd? Could that have been what Mena had said?
She turned the card over in her hand and went back and forth in her mind, not knowing what to do or whether she’d be jumping the gun if she called the woman. It’s around noon eastern time, she mentally calculated. As far as college goes, it’s the middle of summer, and odds are there won’t be anyone on campus. But dedicated professors usually pick up messages. With that rationalization, she convinced herself, then stepped out into the hall to dial the number. She was surprised when the phone was answered after ringing only once.
“Sydney Foster,” the woman on the other end of the line identified herself.
Isa’s mouth went dry as soon as the stranger’s voice came on. “Hello, Dr. Foster. My name is Isabel Salas.” The silence gave Isa cause to pause and wonder how big of a mistake she’d made in calling. However, not one to be so easily deterred, she forged on. “I’m a friend of Jimena Mendoza.”
Sydney’s heart skipped a frantic beat, and she nearly dropped the phone. She struggled for composure, having both hoped for this day, for word from Mena, and dreaded its ever coming. Thoughts and speculations intertwined as she waited for what seemed like an eternity for the woman to go on.
“There’s been an accident. Mena’s been hurt.”
God…please, no! Sydney silently mouthed and bowed her head over the papers on her desk, struggling to keep the tears at bay and her emotions bottled tight. Okay, injured means still alive, she reasoned. But how, and why, had the woman called her?
“We’ve worked fire lines together for a while now. I didn’t…I don’t know if she has any family I should call. I was the one who found her. I was just given her things at the hospital. That’s when I went through her wallet trying to find something, and I found your card. That’s why I’m calling.”
Then she wasn’t a lover. Oddly, Sydney felt relief before audibly gasping as she remembered the day she’d written on her card and given it to Mena. It surprised her that she’d kept it, that she’d carried it with her to this day.
“Anyway, other than a few dollars, a credit card, a couple of register receipts, and a driver’s license, your business card was the closest to a personal link I found. But if you don’t mind my asking, how do you know Mena? Are you family?”
Sydney paused momentarily before responding, “We were once very close. Time and circumstance have since come between us, but I still care for her very much. Thank you for calling.”
Not one for dragging out small talk under the best of circumstances, Sydney asked Isa for the name and location of the hospital and told her she’d be there as soon as she could. The phone had barely clicked off before she was back on the line calling Southwest Airlines and a hotel to make reservations.
Chapter 2
Back on the fire line, Peña did his best to stand his ground and send his guys out at the end of their twelve-hour duty days, but that was seldom possible during an initial attack or when conditions warranted the need to have them work longer. And it was tough for other reasons. He knew what it was like to leave before the job was done. He’d been one of them for a long time. It’s unthinkable to walk out while a fire rages out of control. For most of them, it was a calling, not a job, and the day didn’t follow the hands of a clock. You stayed until you were no longer needed, ’till the work was done, then you went home to a tent in a field or a parking lot until the fire was completely out.
But Peña also knew well-rested men were more alert and less likely to make mistakes. They could do more than just push a shovel and swing a Pulaski; they could put some thought into their actions and move faster. So he insisted they take regular breaks with the threat of permanently cutting the noncompliant from the squad. Thankfully, lots of fresh volunteers were pouring in from all over the country. This fire was making national news, and it had the attention of everyone. Even nature groups that loved this land, like the Sierra Club, would do what they could to save their outdoor home.
Their biggest and most immediate concern now, as they fought fiery flames on all fronts, was being surrounded with no way out. Several times already, they’d had to relocate their incident command post to a new safe zone when the previous one became no longer so. The culprit had been the surface fuels: branches, twigs, cones, and dead vegetation. They couldn’t get ahead; they were having enough trouble keeping up.
The intensity of the heat made it feel like those on the line were inside an oven. The heavy protective clothing they wore only served to weigh them down more, slowing them in their race against time, but it was all regulation. If the fire, heat, and smoke weren’t enough, there was always plain old exhaustion. That’s why paramedics were on hand with plenty of water and tanks of oxygen, which they had to be careful to keep away from the heat. They’d set up their own M*A*S*H community on the outskirts of hell town. There, they waited for the weak and weary to come. Before releasing the men back to the blaze of the battleground, they routinely checked blood pressures and for signs of dehydration.
The rangers had heard a rumor that there were more than a dozen fires in the Coconino National Forest alone, ranging in size from one acre to more than a thousand. With strength in numbers, they joined forces to their left and right, growing larger and mightier, refusing to bow in defeat to the enemies who fought to put them out. Small flashy fuels—consisting of dry grass, leaves, pine needles, twigs, and other dead brush—served the fire as highly combustible kindling, but it was the wind that posed the biggest threat. Every time they had the main fire surrounded by cleared lines that had been dug by hand and connected to existing trails, roadways, streams, and rocky areas that served as natural breaks in the terrain, the air would increase its speed and often change direction, defying all their hard-earned accomplishments.
Although the men and women on the ground moved in quickly to mop up hot spots, fledgling fires jumped across previously cleared safe zones, and they were having trouble keeping the phoenix from rising from the ashes over and over, breathing new fires they fought valiantly to fend off. But they kept on, refusing to give up. Side by side and on all fours, they crawled through the hot and smoldering duff. As they moved, puffs of smoke were forced out of the ground by the weight of their bodies as they searched for underground hiding places where fire had buried itself, waiting for a later flare up.
When they came upon an area they had doubts about, the finder would order the line to “Stop!” Using their hands or shovels, the feelers would turn the cooler earth on top over and under in an attempt to smother any subterranean embers, forcing the last dying breath of the fire out. Sometimes water was available, thanks to pumper trucks, and engine crews would drag lines of hose far into the woods, willing and eager to douse. Not until everyone was convinced any chance for re-ignition had been extinguished would they clear the area and continue with their dirty forward march.
“Run! Get out of here!” Peña warned his crew. They’d feared the worst the moment they saw how fast the fire raced behind them up the hill. He called out to the others as loud as he could and hoped they could hear him over the roar of the fire. “To the safety zone! Everyone! Get out of here now!”
The men dropped their tools, some even their packs, and ran as fast as they could. Several followed. Some, in a panic, left others in the wake of their dust.
Isa, back from the hospital and with them, mumbled an out-of-breath prayer as she fell in step, breathing hard and stretching herself to her limits to keep up with their longer strides and quicker paces. “Holy Mary, Mother of God!”
She pulled the rosary out from under her shirt and held the rosewood beads against her mouth. The soles of her boots slapped the hard and relentless earth beneath her feet as she followed the blur of yellow shirts she hoped would lead them out. Not yet, please, dear God, not now, not
here, not like this. She begged and pleaded for just a little more time. She didn’t want to die without having yet really lived, loved, or been loved. She didn’t want to die, period! Her heart pounded in her chest, and her lungs ached with every breath and step she took.
“Come on, hurry up!” She heard the guys in front as they encouraged those trailing behind to pick it up. They were so close that if one were to miss a single step, like dominoes, they would all come down. The sound of frightened men and women gasping for oxygen, the smell of fear and sweat, that distinct aroma of imminent death, permeated the fiery air and mixed with the stench of burning sap, grass, and bark.
The group of front-runners rounded a bend and broke apart, some choosing one direction while others went their own ways. Isa imagined they were following primal instincts they hoped would make a difference in a race in which only the fittest would survive. She went as far as she could until it was only her mind still capable of running, after her legs simply gave out.
While the others continued to outrun their fates, she seemed to accept hers for what it was, and with a “Me rindo, Señor,” sat to await the coming of the Lord on what she feared would be her grave.
When Peña, who had been directly in front of her, looked back, he saw she was no longer following. “Salas!” he called.
Whether pulled back of their own accord or by that of guilty consciences, the others heard him and stopped in their tracks. As much as they feared for their own lives, they couldn’t abandon one of their own, not out here, where she didn’t stand a chance alone.
“Go on!” Peña insisted. “Keep going! I’ll go back.” And with that, he waved them off and turned, retracing his steps toward the far-reaching fingers of the unfurling inferno. He found Isa where she’d fallen, about fifty feet back. Curled up in a fetal position with her arms over her head, she was rocking herself slowly, crying and praying. With no time for communication, he bent over her, picked her up, and ran with her in his arms.