Lies Like Wildfire

by Jennifer Lynn Alvarez

  Dad glances again at the flames, still miles away on the mountainside. “Ninety percent of wildfires are manmade,” he says. “It was probably the damn electric company.” His radio babbles at him again. “I gotta go.” He dips into his car, answers his radio, and squeals his tires as he pulls away.

  “Oh god,” says Violet with a loud exhale. “I just lied to your dad. I feel sick.”

  “You’re fine, V. It’s the weed and the heat. Give me your reins, and I’ll lead you back.”

  She shakes her head. “No, I have to check on Grammy and the poodles.” She starts to dismount.

  “I’ll go with you. My dad’s just being cautious. The fire won’t reach Gap Mountain.”

  She looks at me doubtfully.

  * * *

  —

  Twenty minutes later, we’re almost to Violet’s grandmother’s house—trotting on back roads, passing families standing on their front lawns. They’re either staring at the mountain or watering their roofs or packing their cars. A new Nixle alert pings on our phones:

  Vegetation fire approaching Gap Mountain.

  High winds a factor.

  Firefighting resources on-site.

  Prepare to evacuate.

  I whirl Sunny around and peer back the way we came. “Oh god,” I whisper.

  “What is it?” Violet turns and sees what I see.

  The fire, our fire, has grown into a ferocious wall of groping orange flames. It’s crossed the ridge, and it’s toppling trees, snaking toward town like a dragon. Smoke billows in endless jets toward the sky, and ash has begun to fall like snow.

  “It’s coming!” Violet cries. Pistol feels her tension and breaks into a canter. I kick Sunny and we catch up to her, hurrying to her grandmother’s.

  When we reach Elizabeth “Lulu” Sandoval’s house, a white three-story Victorian modeled after the mansions in San Francisco and surrounded by forestland, we find her packing her SUV. She’s wearing scuffed cowgirl boots, a T-shirt with a faded rainbow across the chest, and old jeans, with her gray hair tied in two long braids. You’d never guess she was rich by looking at her, but the Sandoval lumber fortune is immense. “Violet, Hannah,” Lulu calls when she sees us. “Are you girls all right?”

  Some sense of self-preservation has overcome Violet on the way here. She wipes her eyes dry and pulls herself together. “We’re fine, Grammy. What are you doing?”

  Lulu’s eyes dart east toward the fire. “I’m evacuating. What does it look like I’m doing?” The smoke drifts, blocking the sun, and the sky has gone from blue to muffled gray, like someone threw a blanket over it. Gusts of wind tug at my clothes, and bright embers streak down like comets.

  “The fire won’t reach us,” I promise.

  Violet’s grandma sighs. “Honey, it already has.”

  “What?”

  “It won’t be the flames that set this town on fire. It’ll be the embers.”

  I notice the red ashy particles landing around us. They can’t ignite her property because Lulu keeps it as firesafe as possible. Her immaculate lawns are green and moist, gutter guards keep debris away from the roof, and she’s tilled a wide firebreak between her home and the woods, but few people in Gap Mountain are so careful. The leaves that fell last autumn still clog gutters on homes throughout town, cords of firewood are stacked on paint-chipped porches, and dry lawns are littered with pine needles. Gap Mountain is primed to ignite.

  Violet and I dismount and help Lulu load up her Lincoln Navigator with boxes of photos, her medications, a suitcase, her important papers, a case of bottled water, snacks, and her three standard poodles. The big dogs leap gracefully onto the backseat.

  Next, Lulu sends Violet upstairs to pack some clothing. When Violet returns, she tosses two carry-on suitcases into the cargo area.

  Lulu glares at her phone, her impish face pinched. “I can’t reach your parents.”

  “They’re in the middle of the South Pacific, Grammy,” Violet says, reminding me that her parents chartered a private yacht cruise from San Francisco to Australia this summer. “Don’t worry, we’ll be safe in Bishop,” she adds.

  “Pet food,” I blurt out. “Did you pack pet food?”

  Lulu snaps her fingers. “Good call, Hannah. I’ll get it.” She walks briskly back to her house, her braids bouncing against her back.

  “We’ve got to get our stories straight,” I whisper to Violet when Lulu is out of sight. A hot ember lands on my skin, sizzling the fine hair on my arm.

  Violet’s half-closed eyes begin to clear. “Why?”

  “Because we lied to my dad,” I say, shouldering the blame with her. “Because Luke’s still on probation, and because you guys drank and smoked weed. No one can know we were at the Gap when this started.” I motion toward the flames.

  Her olive skin pales before my eyes. “But it was an accident.”

  “Doesn’t matter, V. It’s still arson, and Luke didn’t light that pipe by accident.” I wipe my face and start pacing. “We could go to jail.”

  Violet gives me a pained look.

  “Our stories have to match—yours, mine, and the others. We need to meet up and figure this out.” I pull out my phone and start a group text: Are you guys at my house?

  Seconds later we hear from Luke: The fire freaking took off! Yeah, we’re at your house.

  Me: Stay there. We have to meet up. All of us. Delete this thread.

  Mo: What about evacuating?

  Me: STOP TEXTING

  When Lulu returns, we persuade her to let Violet help me return the horses and pack my stuff. “I’ll drive her to Bishop as soon as we’re done,” I promise.

  “I’ll follow you,” Lulu offers.

  “It’s fine,” says Violet. “We’re heading away from the fire, and the roads are going to be jammed. We’ll be right behind you.”

  Lulu eyeballs her poodles and then climbs into the Navigator with a nod. “I’ll call ahead and book rooms at the Holiday Inn. I’ll get one for you and your dad too, Hannah.”

  I thank her and then Violet and I mount the horses and urge them into a lope. As we ride south, the wind increases, driving smoke and ash toward us. We lift our shirts to cover our mouths as the sky darkens.

  For the first time since I saw the flames, real fear slithers through my body. The fire is down the ridge now and chomping the trees and brush, gliding toward the north side of town. The homes there are old and sprawled on quarter- and half-acre lots. The north is where most of our elderly citizens live.

  Violet and I cross the road and spot a caravan of Cal Fire trucks speeding toward us, lights on, sirens blaring. Sunny loses it and bucks hard, throwing me off his back and into the brush. I land on my back. “Whoa!” I cry, grabbing at his trailing reins, but he whinnies and bolts into the trees.

  Pistol wants to follow, but Violet wrestles him into submission. “Ride with me, Han,” she says. My back muscles throb as I climb up in front of Violet, and we ride Pistol double to my house.

  Our phones ping with another Nixle alert:

  Uncontrolled vegetation fire has reached Gap Mountain.

  Structures under immediate threat.

  EVACUATE NOW.

  Fire 0% contained.

  Violet and I ride in shocked silence, picking our way down side roads and avoiding downtown. Soon, the first explosions reach our ears: propane tanks. Sirens ring out across the Mono County valley, and smoke spans between the peaks as if a nuclear bomb has gone off.

  Guilt settles neatly between my shoulder blades. I shouldn’t have grabbed Luke while he was holding a lit pipe. What an idiot move! So what if he mocked me? Why couldn’t I brush it off like Drummer or Mo would have? We all make fun of one another. Why am I always the one who gets mad? Is this wildfire my fault or his?

  I steer Pistol up my driveway, and there’s my
house, an old two-bedroom cabin nestled in the pines. Everyone is sitting on the porch when we arrive: Drummer, Luke, and Mo. My palomino, Sunny, found his way home too. Someone, probably Drummer, pulled off his saddle and locked him in the paddock.

  All eyes turn to me as Violet and I mount the stairs, and I release a pent-up breath. “Everybody inside. We need to talk.”

  5

  July 7

  5:35 p.m.

  Fire: 0% contained

  “We are so fucked,” Mo says as she passes out water bottles from my fridge.

  We grab seats around the scuffed farm table in my kitchen. Dishes are piled in the sink, and Matilda lies at our feet, whining because we’re ignoring her.

  The refrigerator light didn’t turn on when Mo opened the door, and a quick glance around my small house tells me why: the electricity is out. This means my well isn’t operational. If the fire comes this way, I don’t have water to fight it. My cabin is in the southern quadrant of Gap Mountain, and the fire is heading northwest, but that doesn’t mean we’re safe. Hot ashes are falling all around us. We need to go, but we also need to talk.

  Luke slams his fist on the table. “No, I’m fucked. I’m on probation.” His alabaster skin looks bloodless against his dark hair and eyes; his face scrunches with anguish. “I’m going back to juvie.”

  “No one is going anywhere as long as we keep our mouths shut,” I say.

  “God, I can’t believe I lied to the sheriff,” Violet adds. Shadowy circles have appeared below her eyes.

  Luke’s gaze meets hers. “You talked to Hannah’s dad?”

  She nods and I explain: “He saw us by the fire department and asked if we’d seen how the fire started and we said we didn’t.” The repercussions of this sink in with the others. A lie is a commitment—one we haven’t fully discussed, one that will bind us together.

  Luke frowns. “That’s good, I guess. Look, we saw two empty hunting lodges catch fire on the way here. This shit is out of control. The electricity’s shut off and the wells don’t work. No one can get water. We don’t want our names on this.”

  “You saw two lodges burning?” I ask.

  “Yeah, empty ones.” Luke won’t look at me, still pissed about our fight.

  “Tell her about the bears,” says Drummer. He’s amped and twitching, unable to sit still. He throws opens a cabinet door, retrieves a box of Frosted Cheerios, and starts shoving fistfuls into his mouth.

  Luke casts his eyes toward my kitchen window. “The wildlife is coming down the mountain. We passed right by a bear, and it just ignored us. And we saw some deer, and a coyote too, all running away from the fire.”

  I lean back and think. Property damage ups our crime to a possible felony, and that’s no exaggeration. California doesn’t fuck around when it comes to fire. Luke is correct: we are screwed if anyone finds out what we did. Besides ending up in prison, Mo, Violet, and I could have our college acceptances revoked. My heart races faster, and my guts twist unhappily. We need to get ahead of this.

  I glance at Violet and silently thank God she lied to my dad. “Listen, we aren’t suspects, not yet and maybe never. We just need to get straight what we’re going to say if anyone asks where we were, which they probably won’t.”

  “You’re right,” Mo says and lets out a huge breath. Her inhaler is in her hand and her eyes are red from smoke and tears. She doesn’t look good. “There’s no reason to suspect us.”

  I’ve given my friends more hope than I meant to and dial it back. “There will be an investigation, Mo. Cal Fire will find the point of origin, which is near the Gap, so we just need to make sure no one knows we were there. Did any of you talk about our plans for today?”

  “I don’t know,” Mo says. “Maybe? I can’t think.” Suddenly her phone vibrates with an incoming text. “Shit,” she cries, reading it. “My mom says the fire’s near Stony Ridge.”

  Luke bounds from his seat. “You’re kidding!”

  Mo trembles. “No—she says she can see flames. Oh my god.”

  Luke and Mo live in Stony Ridge, the neighborhood of older homes and mostly elderly citizens that I’m worried about. Luke, who hates phones, checks his and curses. “I have three missed calls from Aiden! My fucking mother better be home. She better get my brother out of there.” We all know Luke’s mom is probably gambling and getting high at the casinos in Nevada, not minding eight-year-old Aiden.

  “We need to get out of here too. We’ll have to talk about our stories later,” Drummer says, pacing.

  Luke turns up his phone’s volume, and it pings with a new message. “Shit, Aiden’s texting. He says he’s home alone and can’t find our cat.” His voice is strangled. “I gotta go.”

  “You can take my four-wheeler.” I grab the keys off the hook and toss them to him.

  “Can I go with you?” Mo asks Luke. “My parents are evacuating. I need to help them.” She wheezes and sucks on her inhaler, gasping. “My room. What about all my stuff?”

  Violet starts to cry, and we run outside together, with Matilda trotting at our heels. Luke jumps onto the ATV and starts it. Mo climbs on behind him.

  Drummer grabs Mo’s arm, yelling over the wind and the distant bang of exploding propane tanks, “You shouldn’t be out in this smoke.” Ashes flock the trees, the summer sky is nickel gray, and the winds have knocked over my bear-proof trash can.

  Mo shakes her head at Drummer, tucks her inhaler in her bag, and circles her arms around Luke’s waist. “I have to go home.”

  Luke squeezes the throttle and guns the four-wheeler onto my gravel driveway, the back end fishtailing, rocks flying. We watch as he and Mo vanish down the road, and then I turn to my friends: “Drummer, hitch the horse trailer to my dad’s truck. Violet, get Matilda’s leash. I’ll be right back.” I race upstairs to throw some clothes in a backpack.

  I don’t know where my dad keeps important papers, so I just snatch some clothes for him too and grab our photo album. It depicts the slow death of a family, ending with pictures of an abandoned dad and daughter, but I can’t leave it behind. I grab my phone charger and, on a whim, my yearbook.

  “Hurry, Han, let’s go,” says Violet as I come downstairs. She’s leading Matilda on a leash.

  “I’m ready.”

  I bump into Drummer on the porch, and his defeated expression stops me cold. “Your trailer has two flat tires,” he says “The horses have to stay behind.”

  Tears fill my eyes. “What if the fire comes this way?”

  He holds up a can of spray paint from my garage. I groan but I know what I have to do to protect my horses. I have three in total: Stella, Pistol, and Sunny, the last one compliments of my neighbor’s stallion that broke free and got Stella pregnant four years ago.

  While Drummer holds them steady, I spray my phone number on the horses’ sides. Once they’re marked, Drummer and I turn them loose and watch them gallop into the forest. “This is my fault,” I whisper.

  Drummer pulls me into his arms and dries my tears with his shirt. “It was all of us.” His heart knocks against my chest.

  I wipe my nose. “No one can ever find out.”

  “I know. They won’t. Where are your keys?”

  I find them in my pocket, and then Violet, Drummer, Matilda, and I load into my Wrangler and I steer the car down the driveway to the county road below.

  We cough hard on the smoke, and the sky is almost black. I can’t believe that tiny red pipe embers started all of this.

  At the end of my road is Route 395, and when we reach it, I slam on the brakes. The two-lane highway is jammed with cars heading south. They inch past, the drivers like zombies, eyes round and mouths gaping.

  Crammed into the cars and trucks are kids, dogs, cats in pet carriers, and birds in cages. People are towing horse, livestock, and RV trailers. We see truck beds loaded with suitcases, boxes,
cases of water, and more pets. One pickup holds three young pigs that are covered in ashes. Another truck bed holds an entire family, huddled and coughing. The cars aren’t letting us in, so I push the nose of the Jeep between two sedans and force my way into the southbound procession. A new Nixle alert lights up our phones:

  Structure fires in Gap Mountain between Summit Ave. and Windy Peak.

  Streets closed.

  Firefighters on-site.

  Leave now!

  “That’s the Stony Ridge neighborhood,” Drummer says. His pupils have contracted to tiny points, and his blue eyes are wide and glossed. “Luke and Mo could get trapped.”

  “Maybe we can catch up to them.” I throw my arm out the window as a warning to other cars and then whip the Jeep into the opposite lane, which is empty, since no one else is heading toward the blaze. The driver behind us lays on her horn.

  “Oh my god,” Violet cries in the backseat.

  I press hard on the gas pedal, and we speed in the direction Luke and Mo went in. I veer onto a backstreet called Sanders, the same road Luke took, and drive straight into a wall of smoke. My headlights beam on, but I can barely see the road. “Shut the windows!” Drummer shouts. Then he cranks up my air conditioning, which helps clear the air in the Jeep.

  “I don’t like this!” Violet says, her hands pressed against the ceiling.

  My mind flashes to all the old people living in Stony Ridge. How are they going to get out? I often hear the medical calls on my dad’s radio. Some of those folks have walkers, and there’s at least one resident who uses an oxygen tank. I know a few have dementia, and many don’t hear well, and some don’t have cell phones. Are they getting these Nixle alerts? Did my dad and Cal Fire get them out? What about kids like Luke’s brother, who is home alone? What if one of them dies? That’s felony murder. Shit! Tears sting my eyes. I don’t want anyone to get hurt.

  As we barrel into the smoke, I glance at Violet in the rearview mirror. Her glossy hair is tousled, her eyes shimmer like black glass, and she’s grimacing so hard she looks like a corpse. Beside me, Drummer wipes his palms on his jeans. His blond brows are drawn tight, hooding his eyes.