by Sally John
Lexi had grown quiet, as if her bravado dwindled through that second tunnel. She led them but talked less, except in quiet tones to Zak. Once they’d reached this spot, she didn’t move from his side. They sat close together on his coat with the cat. Claire imagined that her daughter felt like she did: safe next to the professional.
The third fireman, Chad, watched over Ben and Indio and wrestled playfully with Samson. Her in-laws huddled under a blanket, one of three they’d managed to bring along with the lanterns and knapsacks. Lexi and Claire were wrapped in the other two.
Claire felt a rush of gratitude for their rescuers. They kept putting her family first before their own needs. In spite of their outer garb, helmets, and air tanks, they’d toted the blankets and knapsacks stuffed with water bottles, crackers, apples, and chocolate.
“You’re cold,” Eddie said.
“A little.” The blanket, T-shirt, and flannel-lined denim jacket were not quite enough to keep her warm in this hole in the ground. “You must be freezing.”
He shook his head but rubbed his arms. His light blue shirt had short sleeves. “It was a hundred and five degrees this afternoon.”
“Take my blanket.”
“No. Thanks.”
“We could share it.”
“I’m fine.”
She couldn’t decipher the color of his eyes. They were light. Maybe blue? His face was narrow and youthful, but crow’s-feet and a distinct air of maturity suggested he was at least her age. His hair, matted down from the helmet, was brown.
“Eddie,” she said quietly, “are we going to make it?”
“Yes.”
“Can we stop with the official version? I promise not to lose it again.” It wasn’t the threat of death that had pushed her over the edge.
“I have no idea.” He studied her face for long seconds. “Doing okay?”
“Yes.”
“Okay. Truth is, this is a first for me, hiding out in a gold mine with not all that much distance between me and a firestorm burning out of control with absolutely no hope of containment in the next few hours. If the fire or heat doesn’t drift toward the opening and catch the wood framework in the tunnel and beyond, yes, we’ll make it. If the smoke doesn’t settle in here, yes, we’ll make it.”
Her breath caught. “I really don’t want to die right now.”
“Me neither.”
“Are you afraid?”
“Yeah. You heard the noise when we entered the second tunnel?”
She stared at him. It had been a horrendous roar.
“The fire has reached the path we hiked in on. The temperature up there would melt— I mean, it’s unbelievably hot. We’ve got about five minutes of air left in our tanks. The lantern batteries won’t last forever.”
“Okay.” She blew out a breath. “Let’s go back to the official rah-rah version.”
He smiled. “Zak and Chad stacked the rocks over the opening, sealing it as much as possible. And we are alive.”
She nodded. “What I screamed about back there, it had nothing to do with the fire.”
“Do you want to talk about it?”
She glanced at the others. They were all conversing in low tones. Perhaps Indio and Lexi didn’t need to hear her story yet. Telling a stranger first might be easier.
She turned to Eddie. “The thought of unloading sounds good. You sure you don’t mind?”
“Why would I mind?”
“It’s ugly and personal, and you don’t know me.”
“It’s kind of hard to shock a paramedic-firefighter. I’ve more or less seen it all.”
“What do you do with ‘it all’?”
“I run several miles a day when I’m not on duty. Eventually ‘it all’ turns into a determination to help, to do more, to do better.” He shrugged. “Then I go back to work.”
Gratitude flowed through her again. “Thank you for taking care of me.”
“You’re very welcome.” There was a sparkle in his eyes. “You’re . . . pleasant to take care of. And now I’ve stepped over a line. Ooh-boy. I apologize. That wasn’t a come-on.”
She smiled. “I like the thought of being pleasant. I accept that as a compliment.”
“Okay.” He grinned. “So tell me what happened back there. Are you claustrophobic?”
“I didn’t think I was.” She thought back to their first flight from the house, driving her car behind Lexi, finding their way blocked. “When we met up with you, I was so scared I couldn’t think straight. My husband grew up here, at the Hacienda. I knew without a doubt there was no other way out. It’s so remote that Ben and Indio had to get special insurance through the state. No private company would cover them.”
“No wonder you were scared.”
She pulled up her knees and wrapped her arms around them, clutching her elbows. “Later, when we were hiking to the mine, I felt like something was chasing me. I think it was more than the fire. I think it was a memory. I started crawling through that tunnel, and then it was like it caught me.”
“You started screaming.”
She nodded. “I saw myself— No, it was more than seeing. I was a little girl again, trapped in a basement. I know it was a real memory even though I can’t remember ever thinking about it before tonight. I must have been three. My mother locked me in a root cellar with no light on. My dad let me out after what seemed like hours and hours. My voice was gone, I’d screamed so much. I don’t remember being comforted. My dad yelled at my mom, and he hit her. She kept say-ing it was an accident. My brother was a baby. I think I just got in the way, and she didn’t know what else to do with me. She wasn’t a well person.”
“Claire, I’m sorry.”
“Did you hear Indio praying? She said Jesus was there with me when it happened. I know she believes God is always with us, past, present, future. She says He’s in every breath we breathe. I wish I had her faith. I wish I believed I wasn’t alone, then or now.”
“Hmm.”
She noticed his wide eyes. “I thought you said nothing could shock you.”
“I admit, this is throwing me for a loop. You’re supposed to be on a couch, reliving such stuff with a psychologist, not running from a fire and diving into a gold mine to save your life.”
“As my mother-in-law would say, God works in mysterious ways.”
“What do you think it all means?”
“I don’t know. An old pain has been dislodged. It’s like so much of my life recently. I’m tired of pretending things don’t hurt. I’m tired of acting like I’ve got it all together. Of giving the impression that I feel safe and secure. I guess it wasn’t just my marriage.”
“I’m sorry.”
“I don’t know exactly what to do with these hurts. I think it’s all a process. More painful than I could have imagined, but good has come from it already. I’ve started to ‘find myself,’ pathetic as that sounds for a fifty-three-year-old to say. Which is why I really don’t want to die right now.”
One of the lanterns went out, throwing a new shadow across the dusky room.
Claire jumped. The murmured conversations stopped. Eddie reached for her hand.
She clasped his and scooted nearer to the stranger who offered more safety than she’d ever known before in her life.
Sixty-three
Max shivered in the backseat of his car, under a blanket someone had draped around him. The engine was on, the heater blowing full blast. Danny and Erik sat up front. They wouldn’t let him near the key or gas pedal.
“I should have been there,” he murmured, half to himself.
The car was parked on the road’s shoulder. They weren’t going anywhere. Uphill was fire. Downhill was abandonment of the woman he’d abandoned every which way for the past thirty-three years. He would die before going downhill.
“I should have been there.”
In the distance, reporters still waited for news; emergency workers still commanded firefighting efforts and waited to go in and rescue people. Mercif
ully, the Kodak-moment view remained hidden from his sight.
But he knew it was there—the blazing hillside, the canyons, the mountaintops . . . with his child, his parents, and Claire somewhere in the middle of all those flames.
“I should have been there.” His voice choked.
“Dad.” Erik sighed. “Please stop saying that. We all should have been there. We all know Papa gets the heebie-jeebies if there’s a fire anywhere in four counties. We all know he and Nana need extra help around the place on a good day.”
Danny said, “Leave it to Mom and Lexi to jump in while we sat back and twiddled our thumbs. At least Jenna hadn’t gone up yet. Did you know she was going? Soon as school was out, but there was some special faculty meeting that kept her late. Then Mom told her not to come. If anyone could talk Papa into leaving the horses, it was Nana, and they didn’t need another car up there.”
Max said, “I didn’t know any of that.”
His sons exchanged a look.
“You’re right,” he declared loudly. “You are absolutely right.”
They turned to face him.
“That I don’t know jack. But I’ll tell you one thing I do know. I am not going to let your mother go. She’s the most important thing that ever happened to me, and I swear I will not let her go. Do you hear me?”
Danny reached over the back of the seat and grasped his knee. “We hear you. Just relax, Dad, okay? We can’t do anything right now except wait.”
There was a tapping on Erik’s window. He slid it down. “Hi.”
“Hi.” It was the fireman, the young one, checking on them again, as if they were his special assignment or something.
Max figured it for one of two reasons: either Erik’s semifamous television status . . . or the fact that their situation was hopeless. Or maybe it was both. When this was over, the world would know the Beaumonts had lost half their family along with the old homestead, and—just imagine—the good-looking talking head could describe how great these guys were.
Noel—they were on a first-name basis now—leaned through the open window. “Has your sister heard anything yet?” He referred to Jenna, at the house now with Kevin.
Erik said, “No.”
“Okay. Well, we have some news. Not sure what it means exactly.”
“What?” Max’s volume hit whisper or shout; there was nothing medium about it.
Danny squeezed lightly on his knee.
Noel said, “We’re missing three guys. The last we heard they were just south of Estudillo Corners, on the east side of Reina Road.”
Silence filled the car.
“The fire jumped around. Trees fell. They got . . . separated. We lost radio contact.”
Danny said, “The road runs southwest there, to a neighboring ranch. Maybe . . .” His voice trailed off.
“That’s where things went wild. We’re thinking now a third hot spot developed to the south. It’s the only explanation.”
“How? It doesn’t make any sense.”
“It happens. Where does Reina Road meet the drive to the Hideaway?”
Max said, “One point two miles southeast of the Corners.”
“And that’s the only way in?”
And out. The words hung in the air.
Nobody said anything. There was nothing to say. They all knew it was the only way in and out. They all knew fire burned between it and Reina Road.
Noel said, “Is it a real hacienda? The old adobe kind? Red tile roof?”
“Yeah.”
“Those thick walls don’t burn. Roof would be good. Unless it’s got wooden eaves. Fire would go inside through those. If it got close enough. But if it doesn’t get too close, the eaves are protected, and the heat wouldn’t be sufficient to shoot through the windows—”
“Shut up!”
“Dad!” Danny was in his face now.
“Tell him to shut up!” Tears sprang from his eyes.
“Dad!”
“Tell him to shut up!”
Above the noise of his own blubbering, he heard the window hum its way up and close.
Sixty-four
They turned off all but one lantern to conserve the batteries. The shadows deepened, and with them, fear crept in, a palpable thing.
Claire moved nearer Eddie. They leaned back against the wall, their shoulders touching, her hand on his arm. Only the stranger’s solid physical presence kept her from falling again, down into that abyss.
On the other side of her, Lexi and Willow sat beside Zak. Beyond them was the tunnel opening. Indio, Ben, and Chad—Samson’s head plopped on his lap—rounded out the half circle. Then came the pile of crumbled rock and dirt, a reminder that death had visited before in that place.
Except for Indio’s occasional soft humming, they all remained silent.
For Claire, as the long minutes ticked by, hope played a game of tag with despair. Would the fire miss them? Or would death creep down into the gold mine?
She thought of Max, Erik, Jenna, and Danny. How she ached to hold them all! To tell them how much she loved them. What must they be going through right now, not knowing if the rest of them were dead or alive?
Max . . . Did he worry for her? That would be a first. She couldn’t imagine it. In an odd way, he was so much like her father: aloof, dis-connected, his heart sealed off. Why had she never seen the resemblance? Why had she glommed on to a man who did not have the strength of character not to abandon her? She should have known.
“It’s okay,” Eddie whispered, tracing her cheek with his thumb, pushing aside the tears that now fell silently.
She turned slightly and pressed her face against his shoulder, holding her breath, stifling the cry that built up in her chest.
Eddie put his hand on the back of her head—firm assurance from a stranger that he wouldn’t leave her.
Why wasn’t Max there?
Sixty-five
At three in the morning, Jenna’s tears quit. They didn’t falter; they just quit. She didn’t have any more available. The well had gone dry. Or wherever it was tears came from.
She thought she’d cried a lot because Kevin rejoined the Marines. That was nothing compared to images of her mom, her sister, and her grandparents being burned alive, being turned into ash.
“Jen?” Kevin stirred beside her on the couch where they lay together. “You’re shivering.”
“We have to go. We have to go. I am not sitting here any longer! I’ve got to get to Dad. I’ve got to get closer to them, Kevin. I’ve got to get closer.”
“Shh, shh.” He kissed her forehead. “Okay. Let’s go.”
Tears stung again.
He was so precious to her.
Daddy!” Seated in the back of the car, Jenna clutched her father’s arm. “Oh, Daddy!”
The sight of him panicked her. He was a wreck. Tears streamed down his face, and he couldn’t talk coherently.
She cried, “They’ll be okay. They’ll be okay! Danny knows. He just knows.”
Her dad pulled her into an embrace, squeezed tightly, and cried against her shoulder.
Through her own tears, Jenna soothed him as best she could. Through the window she saw Kevin with her brothers, drinking the coffee they had brought from the house.
She and Kevin had talked their way through the roadblock. Danny had told her on the phone to mention “Vallecitos Canyon.” The phrase worked like “Open sesame,” a magical command that moved police cars and softened stern tones.
There was still no word. Firefighters were missing. Her family was missing. Distant flames raced down the mountainside toward Santa Reina, lighting up the predawn sky like noonday.
Sixty-six
They were down to one working lantern.
Claire held Lexi tightly to herself. She kissed the top of her head and shuddered at the thought of total blackness.
Zak and Eddie had gone up through the tunnel to check on things, using the lights on their helmets to illumine the way. Indio sang softly, choruses and old hymn
s about God’s faithfulness. Ben and Chad stood, stretching upright as far as they could, their hands pushed against the ceiling. They joined in with some of the familiar verses. Claire hummed to herself now and then when she had an extra breath.
“Mom, I think I’m okay with dying. Nana tells me often that Jesus loves me. But I really don’t want to go yet.”
“Of course not, hon. Jesus understands. You’re still young.”
“It’s not just that. It’s like, I mean, He’s very real tonight. More real to me than ever before. And what have I ever done for Him? Not a whole lot.” She sighed. “I suppose He hears this stuff all the time from people when they think they might die at any minute.” She raised her voice to mimic. “‘Oh, just let me live, and I’ll do whatever You want from now on! I swear I will!’”
“Probably.”
“Nana reminded me that I don’t have to be perfect. He just wants me to be real with Him. He wants me to trust Him with my life.”
“Nana always has the best advice.” Nana as well as those teachers and pastors who had influenced her at church so many years before. In spite of some confusing lessons on marriage, they opened up to her the world of God’s love and forgiveness, a merciful place of peace.
“Lex, when we let God be head of our lives, everything is right, even when it’s all going down the tubes. Like tonight.”
“Are you making crazy promises to be perfect and do better?”
“Oh yeah. First thing I’m going to do is make you chocolate chip cookies, because I haven’t for such a long time.”
Lexi giggled. “Sounds good to me.”
She smiled. “But I realize I’ve tried my whole life to be perfect. And you know what? It hasn’t worked. I think I’ll listen to Nana, too, and just try to be real, especially with God. A night like this one puts things in perspective.”
“That’s for sure. Will you go back to Dad?”
Claire stilled. “I—I don’t know. That may depend on him. If he can live with me being real, that would be a good starting point to work from.”