Wildfire at Dawn

by M. L. Buchman

  After that, she kept quiet, calmed her horses and herself.

  And did her best not to smile too much at the image of her white knight, in char-dusted yellow Nomex and a hardhat, riding hell bent for leather out of the flames.

  # # #

  It was dawn by the time Akbar came off the line. He’d turned down the chopper ride and followed the trail east toward the Lodge. He was dog tired, but they’d beaten down the southeastern branch of the fire.

  The deep slice that Krista’s team and the choppers had cut into the fire to clear his escape route along the trail had been held. And it was rapidly tied into the flanking retardant they’d been building along the edge of the canyon. The fight to contain it had been close, but they’d held it at bay while the choppers trapped the upper lines of the fire from spreading sideways.

  They’d let the flames above the trail run up the mountain to die above the timberline, on the barren rocks left behind by the summer’s retreating snow. The edge of the fire defined by the southern ridge of Zigzag Canyon and the right angle slice of the PCT had been held. There was no need to evacuate the Lodge or the ski areas.

  The north side was still in play, but a Hotshot team had become available and one of the new high-capacity fixed-wing air tankers would be on site as soon as the sun was up. The BAe-146 with its four jet engines could deliver three times the load of the Firehawk. So, he’d left half of his smoke team embedded with the Hotshots, and released the other half when a mop-up crew had arrived at his and Krista’s side of the fire.

  It felt good to simply walk off the high tension and adrenalin of the firefight, but he was thankful for the level trail. A day and a night on the front lines had left him a little lightheaded. The morning chill sliding downslope from the ice fields slowly cooled his skin until he was glad of the exercise to keep him warm. He should have kept his jacket when he was tossing his gear aboard the chopper headed back to camp.

  He wanted to check on the horses, see if Mister Ed was willing to talk to him, and he’d bet Laura would be up on the mountain early this morning.

  Akbar reached the corral below the Lodge as the sun edged over the mountain peaks to the east and splashed long dark shadows that distorted the world.

  The horses were still asleep. He leaned on the corral rail and watched them for a while.

  Laura had trusted him and he’d found a way to deliver. Women who trusted Akbar were usually in for a rude shock somewhere along the way. But for Laura, he’d been driven to a creative solution by his desire to deserve her trust. That the tactic had ultimately led to the containment of the fire had entered into his plan, but he hadn’t actually expected it to work as well as it had.

  He liked the way it felt that she’d trusted him. And that he’d proven himself trustworthy. He also knew there’d have been no blame if he hadn’t saved the horses; it wasn’t something a woman like her would do. There’d be hurt and pain and tears and all of those other things he’d always done his best to avoid, but there would never be blame. Like his crew, she simply knew he’d always do his best.

  Akbar realized that the big gelding was watching him from across the corral.

  “Yeah, who are we kidding?” he whispered softer than the dawn. “Trust isn’t the question that’s bothering us, is it?”

  Mister Ed shook his head, flipping his dark brown mane back and forth and making his big ears flop ridiculously.

  “It’s that she loves us.”

  The horse offered a snort.

  At the sound, Akbar spotted movement over in the corner of the corral. On a bed made of straw bales and a couple of horse blankets, Laura shifted position slightly, then slid back into sleep.

  As quietly as he could, he clambered over the fence. He stopped a step away and looked down at her. Love was a word that he’d heard a lot in his family; it was a family sort of word.

  How hard would it be to imagine Laura in a family sort of way? Not very hard at all once he tried it. Akbar found it easy to picture living in the beautiful cabin in the woods, a small herd of horses dancing about the corral, maybe even a kid. Nope, not hard to picture at all.

  If he put her I love you in a place down inside himself, it made perfect sense.

  He heard the slow clip-clop of the big tan gelding coming up behind him across the hard-packed earth. Mister Ed stopped with his head beside Akbar’s shoulder. He rubbed the horse’s nose as they looked down at the sleeping woman together.

  “Yes,” he told the horse. “She makes it real easy to imagine.”

  “Hey, lover,” Laura greeted him with a sleepy voice, looking up at him with those half-lidded honey-gold eyes.

  “Hey, my love,” he had to try it out. Oddly enough, it wasn’t scary at all. It fit inside him as if he’d been waiting his whole life for that one missing piece.

  She lifted one edge of the blanket. He left the horse and slid against her warmth, holding her long into the brightening day.

  Chapter 12

  It was precisely one week later when Akbar was jerked awake—shortly before dawn—by the massive thunderclap of a huge explosion. Laura’s bedroom was briefly lit by a light as bright as a lightning bolt. No lightning had been predicted, anywhere in the state.

  He’d heard a sound like it once near the end of the New Tillamook Burn. A massive explosion had flattened a large circle of trees at the northern end of the fire. No one was talking about it; “abandoned propane tank” the newspapers had reported. Yeah, sure. A propane tank sitting out in the middle of the Tillamook State Forest. He hadn’t been able to figure out what it was. He could tell Jeannie knew, but she’d looked grim and gone tight-lipped when he’d asked.

  This blast was close, loud. Moments later, a second one lit the pre-dawn sky again and rattled the windows an instant later. It was close. No time to count the seconds to estimate the strike’s distance.

  He was out on the porch with Laura close beside him. Only a hand in front of her kept her from running naked into the woods to see what happened. He waited for it, saw the underlit smoke climbing into the cloudless, pre-dawn sky above the tall trees.

  There was a fire burning below the black smoke. A second tower of smoke rolled skyward to the south of the first one.

  By instinct he’d grabbed his radio from the charger as they’d run out onto the porch.

  “Grab our boots!” They’d left them on the porch last night. “Come on!” He wasn’t letting go of her hand or his radio until he had them out in the open. As soon as she had the boots, he sprinted over to his truck and called out on the radio.

  “MHA base. Someone there? Wake up!” he shouted into the mike. Mark or TJ or someone was bound to have the radio near their bed turned on.

  “MHA base,” Jeannie’s voice was blurred with sleep. Mark’s acknowledgement followed a moment later.

  “I have a double-explosion at Laura’s cabin. Big ones. We have fire in the woods.” He didn’t need to give any more details.

  “Roger, we’re coming!” Mark’s answer was wide awake and there was a heterodyne squeal as Jeannie’s response overlapped his. He could hear the siren already climbing in the background of the dual radio call.

  He tossed the radio on the hood of his truck and dug into his ready box. Laura had been too reluctant about leaving his side in the Zigzag Canyon fire, no way would he be able to get her somewhere safe if her cabin was threatened. He glanced up at the two smoke columns against the pinking sky. The tips of the smoke cloud were arrowing right toward them. Not much breeze, but what there was of it would drive the fire right at them.

  “Here,” he dug out the long cotton underwear and a tossed a spare set at Laura. “We’ve got to get some clothes on.”

  Without a word, she dragged them on. In moments they were both outfitted in Nomex, hardhats, and were lacing up their boots. His beautiful lady was a calm center, his stable rock. How he had lived all these years without her, he couldn’t imagine. It was completely an extra added bonus that she looked so goddamn cute in a hardh
at.

  He grabbed both of her shoulders and turned her to face him. Her eyes were wide and her breathing rapid—nowhere near panic but not as focused as he’d like.

  Akbar pulled her in briefly and kissed her. When he checked again, she swallowed hard, nodded once, and he could see the panic recede a few more steps. Getting to grab her butt was just one of the perks of being in love with her.

  “Okay. First thing you do is go to the cabin, get your radio and set it on my frequency. After that, get your hose running and start soaking the side of the cabin toward the fire. You went with a metal roof, so don’t worry about that much. Get the logs of the cabin walls and the first ten feet of ground as wet as you can. And Laura?”

  He waited until he got the verbal, “Yes?” meaning she was present and listening.

  “If I tell you to run, you don’t ask, you don’t hesitate, you goddamn run. Roger that?”

  She opened her mouth to protest and he cut her off.

  “I am so not going to lose the woman I plan to spend the rest of my life with to some goddamn arsonist over a cabin we can always rebuild together. Are we clear now?”

  Laura nodded, hesitantly at first, then more emphatically as the message sank in. Then she hit him with one of her glowing smiles and he felt taller than Tim.

  He turned her, aimed her at the cabin, and slapped her butt to get her moving. He took the precious few seconds to watch her find her feet and break into a sprint. Not quite how he’d ever pictured proposing to a woman, but then Laura wasn’t quite like any woman he’d ever met, so it fit.

  Then he grabbed an axe, but left the chainsaw. This fire was too close to fight with a firebreak, they were going to have to fight it on the ground. He stuffed his radio into its pouch on the front of his jacket at his left shoulder. A quick double-click came out the speaker of someone keying their own radio. He looked over to see Laura emerging from the cabin holding up her own handheld.

  Akbar turned and headed into the woods. His buddies were still ten minutes out, so it was too dangerous to approach the fire directly. Instead, he circled wide of the flames avoiding the road and began trotting in a wide circle through the woods toward the fire’s origin.

  # # #

  Laura had both of her hoses running and was glad that she’d put down the money for the higher-powered well pump. She’d merely thought to save time when filling the horses’ watering trough. Now she held the two nozzles side by side and swept them up and down the side of the log cabin and soaked the perimeter ground—both grass and planting beds.

  A glance over her shoulder showed the two columns of smoke merging into one larger one. In the growing light she could see that they weren’t as black as she’d first thought. But they had been. As black as…

  Arsonist. The word finally snuck back into her memory. As black as a gasoline fire. By the size of the explosions, a lot of gasoline. And the smoke was changing color as it began burning the forest.

  Had whoever lit the fire even known her cabin was here? It was well hidden.

  Arsonist. It was a hell of an odd word to have in a marriage proposal. She felt absolutely ridiculous to be standing here in full firefighter’s gear, spraying her home to protect it from a lunatic’s fire. That she was also grinning like an idiot really put her sanity in question.

  The woman I plan to spend the rest of my life with. That so worked for her. She was head over heels gone on her charging knight in Nomex yellow. She hoped that he understood her smile was the loudest yes that she’d been able to give at the moment. His proposal had simply filled her too much for any words.

  The smoke had spread wide across the morning sky by the time she’d sprayed down the closest side of the log cabin and yard. She started back down the length to soak it more thoroughly when she heard the little lawnmower sound of the drone, followed shortly by the thudding beat of a helicopter arriving overhead.

  She’d come to appreciate that sound deeply.

  Now they could help Johnny fight the fire. She looked all around the clearing, but could see no sign of him. She considered radioing him to see where he was, but didn’t want to interrupt him wherever he had gotten to.

  # # #

  Akbar dialed down the volume on his radio as he moved from tree to tree through the forest. The fire was still so newly started that there wasn’t a “black” yet where the fire had burned and left behind nothing but char. He skirted the trailing edge of the fire seeking the origin, letting the fire’s roar mask any sounds he made. It wasn’t the full-throated freight train of a monster fire yet, but it was definitely up to accelerating semi-truck. A whole line of them.

  Please. Please. Please, let the arsonist still be here admiring his handiwork. According to his training, that was not the least unusual. They craved the fire and wanted to watch it burn. He didn’t know what he’d do when he found the guy, but the Pulaski fire axe felt good and solid in Akbar’s hand.

  Whatever accelerant the bastard had used to start the blaze had been a powerful one. Gasoline fit the profile.

  He stopped beside a couple of white-barked aspens.

  The Fire Marshall’s report had identified gasoline as the accelerant at the four-point origin of the Zigzag fire.

  If it was the same arsonist, what else did the two fires have in common?

  Shit! He’d been so stupid.

  He turned and sprinted back toward the cabin hugging the encircling fire as closely as he dared to find the shortest route back.

  The only other common factor between the two fires was Laura.

  # # #

  Laura had kept glancing over her shoulder as she worked the hoses. She’d now sprayed both the front and back of her home as well as repeating her coverage on the side toward the flames. She had planted alternating rhododendrons and red-twig dogwoods along this side of the cabin, one so pretty in the spring, the other in the winter. She began working on the shrubs.

  A man came out of the woods as another helicopter joined the first one above the fire. Too tall for Johnny, too short for Tim, and too narrow-shouldered for Ox. She shifted the hoses further along the cabin wall.

  When she looked back, the man was much closer. His clothing was wrong. He’d lost his hardhat somewhere. He had dark hair and patrician features.

  It only took her a moment to attach a name to the face, Grayson Clyde Masterson.

  “Hello Laura.”

  Her world slowed down in that instant. Slowed down so much that she couldn’t help but assume it was some sort of a human survival mechanism. She even had time to be surprised at the feeling of her heightened perception.

  The fires suddenly made sense. Grayson had burned a whole side of Mount Hood, but he’d done it very carefully. Everything had been perfectly timed to trap her party in the heart of Zigzag Canyon. Only Johnny’s quick work had saved the day and the mountain.

  Grayson had lit these fires as well. She had refused him passage to her bed and instead taken in another who would appear inferior to Grayson in every single way: stature, heritage, and career.

  Laura also had time to note what Grayson was carrying. In one hand, a wine bottle with a rag dangling out of the top. In the other, a small bit of silver that might be a lighter.

  Behind him, descending so fast it looked as if it was about to crash, a helicopter plummeted toward her horse corral. It pulled up at the last second. Someone who’d been in the cargo bay dove out the door, doing a rolling landing, and began sprinting in her direction.

  Still in her slow motion world, she saw Grayson flick his lighter and move it toward the wick on his Molotov cocktail.

  It was Mark leaping over the corral fence, too far away to help.

  Around the side of the house, Johnny appeared. One moment not there, the next running at Grayson.

  He too would be too late.

  She saw the instant that Grayson noticed Johnny’s approach. His sneer twisted into a snarl. The moment before, he’d probably been planning to burn her cabin right before her eyes. Now he p
lanned to burn her lover.

  The cold of the twinned brass hose nozzles still chilled her hand.

  Grayson lit his incendiary at the same moment she raised the hoses from where they’d been drowning a rhododendron. He cocked his arm back to heave the flaming bottle at the oncoming Johnny.

  She hit the bottle with both nozzles. It was knocked out of Grayson’s hands and fell to the ground behind Grayson, not a dozen paces from her or her cabin. But it didn’t break. Instead it merely rolled in slow motion, still aflame as she continued shifting the hose toward her next target.

  The twin sprays of water caught Grayson full in the face at the same moment that Johnny slammed his axe handle into Grayson’s gut.

  Grayson stumbled back.

  It took forever for him to fall. Like a tree falling, first only a look of surprise to indicate the loss of balance. Then flailing arms. Then—

  Laura couldn’t look away from the unfolding disaster.

  # # #

  Akbar dove at Laura, driving her to the ground with a flying full-body tackle as the gas-filled wine bottle exploded, splashing a circle of fire for a dozen feet in every direction.

  Some of it struck the cabin wall.

  It had also coated the back of her gear in flame. He kept her in a bear hug and rolled her away from the flame, over and over on the muddy ground until she was extinguished.

  Once he was sure the flames on her were fully out, he held her at arms’ length and checked her. She blinked dazedly, but appeared fine. She might not even have known she’d been on fire.

  He glanced over his shoulder to make sure he wasn’t burning as well. Smoulders from his own gear indicated that he had been, but he appeared to be unscathed as well.

  Then he saw the man in black jeans and turtleneck. He lay unconscious in the center of the fire. Akbar’s first reaction was to figure out how to get him out, but it was way too hot, he couldn’t get close enough.

  Laura started to turn around and he wrapped his arms around her to keep her facing the log wall.

  Mark too stood a dozen yards back from the flame. He had his radio out and moments later they were all awash in a thousand gallons of water that hammered down out of the sky.