“I’m Pete,” the young guy yelled over the engine noise. “And this is Lou, our pilot.”
He gestured toward the woman sitting in the right-hand cockpit seat. A gloved hand lifted in acknowledgment.
Pete gave Malcolm’s damaged face a slow double take, but not with any more reaction than anyone else did, and then he banged the door shut behind them. He clambered into the copilot seat on the left, threw some switches, and tapped his wristwatch. “Beat the estimate by ten minutes.” He had to yell to be heard over the engine’s roar. “Does that really mean a ten-K bonus?”
Damn right. Ten minutes might make all the difference. Malcolm nodded and yelled back. “Double if you can rescue my son and two others from this fire. Get this thing back in the air.”
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
THURSDAY, 7:30 AM
Kat clung to the vibrating steering wheel of her lurching car and prayed its frame would hold together. They were moving forward, away from the fire, but they were making miserable, inch-by-inch progress. The car canted first one way and then the other as they bounced over rocks and dropped into washed-out potholes. Branches screeched along the roof and sides of the car, and it shuddered horribly each time they hit a sapling or a shrub. Kat kept her foot on the gas pedal and her fear locked away. Hopefully nothing essential would get punctured.
“Where are we?” Lily asked.
“Not sure exactly, but we’re moving in the right direction.”
The question reminded Kat of car trips when Sara was little. Trips on smooth four-lane highways, with Triple-A TripTiks highlighted in colored magic marker to show the route. Trips Jim conceived, planned, and led, while Kat just had to keep Sara entertained. If only someone else would take charge now, someone who would take care of her and these children. Keep them all safe.
Instead, she was on her own and driving on faith. The smoke faded as they progressed, revealing a corridor of green vegetation free of flames and floating ash, a tiny glimpse of hope.
She glanced in the rearview mirror. The children hung on grimly as the car’s jolts tossed them back and forth. All of them would have bruises, and Kat’s head still throbbed from her collision with the window. Her waist and chest ached from being thrown so often against her seat belt, and she wondered if her implants would hold up to the beating. It was a stupid, inconsequential thought, but far better to think of stupid things than to meditate on reality.
Their right front tire hit a particularly large rock, and the steering wheel jerked out of Kat’s hands. She fought to regain control and slowed even further. The road—assuming anyone in their right mind would call it a road—appeared to be curving steadily to the right. Kat tried to picture the contours of this part of the ridge as she had seen it from the cottage, but she couldn’t remember the details well enough to envision their route.
“How will Dad find us?” Lily asked. She had calmed enough that a whine was easily detectable.
Kat picked up her cell phone for the thousandth time and checked its screen. Still no signal. “Your father will find us. Or we’ll get word out. Find a spot where my phone will work.”
She hoped the words faked a calm confidence. How the hell would anyone find them now? She risked another glance at Nirav, who sat silent. Far more silent than normal, even for him. “Nirav, are you okay?”
He nodded his head yes. A foolish question. He wasn’t okay—none of them were. Lily reached over and squeezed his hand, and Kat returned to the bone-jarring task of clutching the wheel.
They forced their way forward almost a mile, assuming the odometer could be trusted on such uneven terrain, and then they reached a barricade. A huge tree had toppled long ago, and its rotting trunk blocked the ruts ahead as effectively as the fire had blocked their path off the mountain. Kat slowed to a stop and turned off the engine. She rested her forehead against the steering wheel for a moment. Helpless. Frustrated. Trapped.
She wanted to sit in the silence. Perhaps take a nap. Instead, she pulled herself out of the car. The children and dogs got out as well. She walked up to the downed tree and nudged it with her foot. Chunks of bark broke free, but the bulk of the trunk remained immovable. A job for chainsaws and a backhoe.
She checked her cell phone, walking back and forth to see if she could get any glimmer of a signal. Nothing but more disappointment.
Dense undergrowth edged in on all sides. No easy path around the roadblock. No more driving. If they wanted to keep moving forward, their only option was to keep going along the old roadbed on foot.
She walked back to the children. Lily leaned against the scratched and dented back door of the car, her forehead deeply creased as she glared at the downed tree. Nirav stood to one side, watching Juni and Tye sniff their way through the underbrush. He still clutched his bowl, which he’d refilled with the apples.
They were out of immediate danger, and they all needed a moment’s break.
“Okay.” Kat tried to make her voice cheerful, but the fear that wrapped itself around every nerve ending made it difficult. “Let’s rest for five minutes and eat something.”
“I am hungry,” Nirav said.
Kat managed a half smile. “Yeah, me, too.”
Nirav set his bowl on a tuft of grass and handed out apples. Kat retrieved the bag of granola and block of cheese from her bag. No knife—damn, she should have thought of that—but she broke off small chunks of cheese and handed them around. Nirav gave half of his to Tye, and the puppy nuzzled him for more. Kat didn’t have the heart to make him stop.
“So, how do we get the car around the tree?” Lily asked.
Kat gave her a sharp look. Lily knew better. It was obvious they couldn’t move the car any farther. “We don’t. From here, we walk.” Kat used a no-big-deal tone of voice and hoped Lily would buy it.
Lily’s eyes widened. “Walk? We can’t—”
Kat cut her off. “Just until we get a cell signal. Hopefully not far.”
“Why can’t we stay here in the car?” Lily wasn’t quite whining this time, but she wasn’t far off.
A tantalizing prospect—sitting still in upholstered comfort instead of tromping across a wooded mountainside with two children and two dogs in tow. They could even have air conditioning until they ran out of gas. The fire might be headed in a different direction by now. They might be safe here. They could rest and wait for rescue. Maybe they didn’t need to reach a cell signal; maybe all they needed was patience.
Undecided, Kat took a deep breath. And smelled smoke. Not strong, not piercing, a vague smell like friendly smoke drifting from a distant fireplace chimney. But definitely more than she’d noticed a few minutes earlier.
“We need to keep going.” Maybe she’d made the wrong call in leaving the cottage. Maybe they would have already been rescued if they’d stayed. Instead, she’d brought them here. They’d made it this far. They couldn’t just sit and wait.
She peered ahead into the overgrown forest. The old road served as only a feeble indicator of where the mountain might be passable, a tenuous path through an intimidating wilderness. The shifting shadows below the trees took on menacing shapes, and at that moment, fear owned her.
The best safety lies in fear. Shakespeare certainly had a line for every occasion. Kat steadied herself, and she gave the children a lying smile. Cue the actors. In this scene, you pretend you know what you’re doing. Action.
“We need to keep going,” she repeated. Her voice hardly shook.
She picked up her shoulder bag, stuffed her cell phone into her back pocket, and clapped her floppy red hat on her head. She didn’t trust Tye to stay with them the way she trusted Juni, so she put on his harness and attached his leash. “Nirav, can you take care of Tye?”
“I am taking Tye.” He took the end of the leash and gripped it tightly. The food seemed to have restored both his energy and his spirits.
“Lily, you help Nirav. And keep an eye on Juni.”
Lily frowned, but she took a step closer to the boy.
Lily opened her day pack and pulled out clothing, a toothbrush, toothpaste, and a hairbrush. Kat checked Nirav’s and found the same.
“Leave it all here.”
“Leave our stuff?” Lily’s voice rose high, thin and anguished, the trivial loss more immediate than the larger danger.
“We can come back for it after we’re rescued.”
Another lie. Kat doubted she’d ever see this car again, and the thought ate at her like acid. She and Jim had bought it together, test-driving dozens and choosing this one only after Jim read every Consumer Reports car review for the previous ten years. She was leaving behind more than an automobile. She stuffed the last apple and their dwindling supply of cheese and granola into her shoulder bag along with the Mason jar of tea, and then she passed the open wine bottle of water to the children.
“Drink up.”
Nirav and Lily gulped thirstily, and Kat drank the last swallow. She dropped the empty bottle beside the car and suppressed a feeling of guilt as she looked at the panting dogs.
“All set?” she asked.
“I guess.” It would have been hard for Lily to show any less enthusiasm.
Nirav said nothing, but his eyes fell at once to his bowl, which still sat by his feet. The bowl Kat had chosen. The bowl so like the one treasured by Nirav’s mother.
Kat sighed. Nirav couldn’t carry it and also deal with Tye.
“Would you like me to take it?” she asked.
Nirav’s face lit up at once. “Yes. Please. Thank you.”
“What!” Lily’s hands were on her hips, again reminding Kat of Sara and reigniting her need for her daughter. “You mean he gets to take what he wants, and I have to leave everything behind?”
You’re not the only one who’s left things behind. Kat resisted the temptation to say it out loud, and her glare silenced Lily. She wedged the bowl into her bulging shoulder bag.
“Okay.” She returned to the downed tree. “Nirav, you first.” She hoisted him up so he could scramble over the top, and then she lifted Tye onto the trunk so he could jump down the other side. Juni bounded up and over with no problem.
Lily waved aside Kat’s offered hand and swung one leg over the broad trunk. “Ew, gross.” She clambered to the other side and looked down at her legs with a horrified expression. Slick, black, half-rotted tree crud coated her skin and transferred itself to her hands when she tried to rub it off. She glanced down at the tree and took a step back—white larvae squirmed in the area where she had knocked a chunk of bark out of place. She gave a small whimper. “We so need a car.”
Kat picked a different spot to climb over but ended up equally filthy. The least of their worries. “It’s just dirt. Come on, Lily, you can do this.”
Kat paused to take a final look at the car. Torn leaves and broken twigs hung from the side mirrors, the door handles, the windshield wipers. Deep cracks split the front bumper, a sapling-shaped dent deformed the hood, and huge gouges scarred both sides where branches had grabbed hold. It was trashed, but Kat’s feet didn’t want to move on. Leaving it meant they were abandoning their last tie to civilization.
* * *
They trudged along the old roadbed, three humans and two dogs, making slow progress. Brambles scratched every inch of exposed skin. Rocks lurked to stub toes and twist ankles. The children at least wore tennis shoes, but Kat regretted her flimsy sandals with every step on the rough, uneven ground.
They walked in single file, Kat and Juni in the lead. Juni stuck close, and she nosed Kat’s leg repeatedly, asking for reassurance. A vague smokiness clung here, but they couldn’t see or hear any actual fire, and the rush of adrenaline Kat had been riding on ratcheted down a half notch, leaving her tired and full of doubts. What if she’d made the wrong choice by running? An endless tunnel of trees and rhododendron imprisoned them, leaving no way to see where they were going or where they had been.
Where were Scott and Malcolm? They had to be freaked-out by now, worried about the children. If they weren’t trapped, they must have called in the fire. Let people know a rescue was needed. They were probably in some police station in town, pacing, worried, waiting for news. Well, no. Malcolm wasn’t the anxious, pacing type. He would be calm, at least on the surface. His anguish would be hidden underneath. Not an easy trick, as she was learning now, trying to hide her fear from the children.
Would Sara see the fire on the news? Would she worry? Forest fires usually got only a ten-second clip—a shot of busy firefighters, then a return to the latest political scandal. She probably didn’t even know what was happening.
Kat forced a powerful wave of sadness aside and forged onward.
Lily’s pace slowed, but Nirav plodded on, his eyes never still as he examined everything around him. A tough kid. No tears, no complaints. He reached down to untangle Tye’s leash from a dead branch, and Kat wondered where his thoughts took him. He’d already lived through enough horror, and now he’d have plenty of fodder for new nightmares.
If he lived long enough to have nightmares.
Lily asked for the third time for something to drink, and Kat reluctantly passed around the jar of tea. The children drank sparingly, and Kat gulped the last two swallows. No more tea, no more water. She returned the empty jar to her bag, hoping there was some chance they would find water ahead. A thin dusting of cinders settled on her arm, and she brushed it off, angry at yet another reminder of their danger. Other than the whispery talk of the breeze in the branches, an eerie silence pervaded the forest. No birds. A bad sign.
“How much farther?” Lily asked.
Kat checked her phone. No signal yet, but they’d only been walking for half an hour. “I don’t know. We need to get to an open area to see where we are.”
“We need a map.” The criticism in Lily’s voice implied that Kat had intentionally launched them on a poorly equipped expedition.
Kat repressed a sharp reply. Lily was twelve and scared, and Kat had indeed launched them on a hopeless trek. She rubbed her thumb along a particularly bad scratch on her thigh and concentrated on putting one foot in front of the other.
They needed more than a map. They needed a phone that actually worked. Water. A fairy godmother.
She should have wakened earlier. She should have known the dry lightning of the night before meant danger in a drought. She should have grabbed the children bodily and hauled them to the car in pajamas instead of wasting precious minutes while they dressed. She should have left a note at the cottage. Or in the car.
Stupid. Stupid. Stupid.
Too many mistakes. Someone different might have known what to do. She might be making matters worse now by insisting they keep moving instead of sitting still and waiting for help. This was far worse than making decisions about her cancer. With cancer, the only life at risk was her own.
Less than five minutes later, they approached a break in the trees, a patch ahead where Kat could see an expanse of sky. She walked faster, hopeful. Perhaps a road. A real road, not an overgrown trail, a road that would lead them to safety.
But when she reached the edge of the gap, she stopped, dismayed. A rockslide. The mountain dropped steeply here at almost a forty-five-degree angle. At some time in the distant past, the slope above had broken loose and cascaded downward, obliterating the ruts they followed and clearing a swath about a hundred feet wide through the vegetation. Waist-high boulders. Stones of all sizes. Loose dirt and gravel. The whole area looked haphazardly tossed together, as if it could destabilize and plummet farther down the mountainside at any moment.
The old roadbed continued on the other side of the rocky jumble, but to get there, they would need to pick their way across the slide. Uphill, to the left, the rockslide looked equally difficult to cross. Downhill, to the right, the drop-off steepened even more, becoming almost vertical. The slightest slip and they would tumble into free fall. Trying it with two children would be nothing short of idiotic.
She dug deep, struggling to find the strength to hang on. She’d survived her surgeries and those long weeks of chemotherapy. She’d survived Jim’s sudden death. She had to keep it together now.
She composed her face and turned to tell Lily and Nirav they would wait here and hope for rescue. They couldn’t go farther. Lily stood beside Juni, her body sagging. Nirav squatted, petting Tye. All four sets of eyes turned toward Kat.
Waiting.
Trusting her.
Behind the children, in the area of sky visible in the space cleared by the rockslide, a dark roiling cloud of smoke loomed over the valley like an omen of evil. They hadn’t outrun it. The fire must still be approaching.
Kat tried to tap into some reserve she hadn’t yet exhausted. If they stayed here, action on their part was done, and all they could do was sit and hope. If they stayed here, they’d be giving up.
She forced the words out. “We need to cross these rocks.”
Lily looked from Kat to the landslide, and then she peered to the right at the drop-off. “No way.”
“Straight across.” Kat pointed to the ruts on the other side. Close enough that she could see individual grasses, but impossibly far.
“Do we have to?” Lily’s voice cracked.
Kat checked her phone. Nothing. She replaced it in her back pocket.
“Yes. We have to.”
Nirav followed the conversation closely, and he now looked downhill, his face apprehensive.
“We’ll be fine.” Kat stepped over and gave him a quick hug.
She hoped they believed her. All of them were tired, and even Tye now walked sedately on his leash instead of zigzagging all over the place, all his puppy-energy spent. This wasn’t at all a sensible attempt, but another glance at the smoke cloud fortified her resolve.
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