“What?” Her voice was an indignant screech. You would have thought he was asking her to leave behind her firstborn child.
The others joined in, a cacophony of complaint, and Malcolm threw up his hands. He had no time and no patience for this crap. “Okay, okay.” He clipped on the cable. “Pete, take her up.”
Melissa whisked into the air.
“Who’s next?”
The red-haired guy, who said his name was Brandon, stepped backward, so Malcolm fitted the second girl—Vi, Di, something like that—into the other harness and sent her up next, complete with backpack. The fire was making steady headway, a trailblazing flame only twenty yards away now with the smoke steadily thickening. He and Brandon both wiped their streaming eyes and pulled their shirts up to cover their mouth and nose. The updrafts must have been getting worse, because Lou was muttering an admirable breadth of profanity into her microphone as the helicopter bounced around unsteadily above them.
One more to go. Malcolm had interpreted Brandon’s step backward to let the girl go first as chivalry, but when he tried to hand him the harness, Brandon shook his head and backed away, his hands extended in a keep-back gesture. “No. I can’t. There’s no way. Not dangling like that …”
Unbelievable. This guy thought there were options? “So, you want to stay here and burn?” Brandon looked toward the fire—fierce and threatening—and shook his head again, gulping in fear. Knocking him unconscious was a serious temptation, but Malcolm resisted the impulse. “Then close your eyes and do it.” Brandon nodded, but he was shaking so hard, it was difficult to adjust the harness and lift on his backpack. At last he was ready. “Take it up, Pete.”
Brandon, tense and pale beneath his sunburn, shook his head. “No, no, please, no.”
“Tell him to get braced,” Pete said. “This one’s going to break speed records.”
The cable tightened. Brandon lifted off. The instant his feet left the ground, he freaked. Arms flailed. Legs thrashed. His head twisted back and forth like something out of The Exorcist. His spastic movements set him swinging on the end of the cable, and Malcolm stepped forward with the vague idea of calming him down somehow. Big mistake. One of the frantic kicks slammed hard into Malcolm’s arm, Brandon’s heavy hiking boot hitting directly on the point of Malcolm’s bent elbow.
A faint cracking sound and a distinctive internal popping sensation hit a millisecond before the searing pain reached his brain. He rocked forward for an instant, pulling his arm in tight against his chest, fighting the agony. Stop it. Stop it now. With enormous effort, he straightened and focused on Brandon’s progress.
The guy had embraced full panic mode. He spun in circles in midair and swung back and forth in short pendulum arcs the whole way up, jerking at the end of the cable like a human worm on a giant hook. Pete leaned out of the helicopter, yelling, his words ringing in Malcolm’s headphones. “Hold still. Hold still and let us pull you in. Hold still.” It did no good.
Brandon reached the level of the helicopter door. The winch stopped, but instead of calming down to let them help, he lunged frantically toward the interior of the chopper, which only sent him spinning in circles on the shortened cable.
“Shit.” Pete had pulled the microphone away from his mouth now, but Malcolm could still hear him yelling. “Stop. Put your hands on your chest. Hold still. We’ll get you in.”
Malcolm used his left hand to pull his injured right arm tighter against his chest. The fire was so near now that sweat flowed in rivers down his face, his chest, his back. Come on, get this idiot in. We’re wasting too much time. The fire crept closer every minute.
As if he’d heard Malcolm’s thoughts, Scott leaned out from his perch beside the open door and foolishly reached for the hiker while he still flailed. In a convulsive jerk, Brandon seized Scott’s wrist, pulling him off balance.
Scott tipped forward toward the open door, forward toward nothingness, and his shriek transmitted clearly. Even at this distance, the panicked look on his face was obvious, and Malcolm could well imagine Scott’s terror as the ground—jagged boulders, dark earth, aggressive fire—loomed into view too far below. Scott teetered, shifting outward farther, much farther, too far, the hiker’s weight too much to fight against, his feet scrambling for purchase. Then, as suddenly as he had fallen forward, Scott was jerked backward, breaking the hiker’s hold.
“Oh my god,” Scott said. It sounded as if he could barely speak. “Thank you. I thought that was it.”
“No problem,” Pete said. Even through the headphones, his calm voice was steadying.
At last, Bandon quit thrashing. By the time he finally disappeared into the helicopter, Malcolm was ready to cheer. “Okay, you two,” he said to Pete and Scott. “Good job. Now, if you’re done playing around, I’m ready to get out of here.” He made it sound light, but the truth was that he was about to melt in the heat, every breath scalding. What if, right this minute, Nirav was fighting heat like this? This whole operation had taken too long. They needed to get moving again.
He looked at Trip’s backpack, but there was no way he could deal with it with his arm. Trip would have to live without it.
In only a moment, he was back up at the helicopter. Pete helped pull him in, and Malcolm cursed inwardly over his one-handed awkwardness.
“You okay?” Pete asked.
Malcolm shrugged his uninjured shoulder. No point in answering. “Let’s get these people where they’re going.” He leaned back against the bulkhead and tried to hold his arm still. The cargo space was jam-packed, with Trip and the women smashed against the bins in the back, the winch hulking in the center, and Brandon, Malcolm, and Scott squished with several backpacks into the space between the winch and the pilots’ seats. Scott still looked slightly green from his near escape.
Pete swung the overhead pulley inward, freed the cable, and crashed the cargo door closed.
“Move it, Lou,” he called. She nodded, and they quickly left the rescue site behind.
“We’re heading on to search again, aren’t we?” Scott’s anger came through loud and clear. “We can’t screw around anymore.”
Lou and Pete both shook their heads at once. Lou never shifted her focus from her controls, but Pete answered as he finished retracting the cable. “We keep searching only if you want to crash.” He wasn’t being flip. “This chopper is rated for eight people, total. We’ve now got eight, plus the winch, plus more than a hundred pounds of backpacks. Three more people are a no-go. We’ve got to unload.”
Scott spit out a stream of profanity, which Lou and Pete both ignored.
Malcolm said nothing. He had known from the start that success in picking up the hikers meant additional delays before resuming their search. Unless he pitched a few bodies out the door, they were stuck taking these people the rest of the way to safety before they could head out again. More delay. More risk. He checked the time. Already after ten. Every passing minute tasted more and more bitter. Hang in there, Nirav. Hang in there.
Pete clambered over Brandon to get back to his chair, and the helicopter swooped down the mountain, heading back to the field where they’d begun. Scott still looked pissed, but he handed Malcolm a bottle of water. The air conditioner started to make some headway now that they’d closed the door, and Malcolm could swallow without the sensation of choking on grit.
The hikers made no effort to talk, trapped on a noise-filled planet without headphones.
Malcolm cautiously shifted into a more comfortable position, his injury screaming every time he moved his arm. His elbow had swollen, already turning a dark blue-black, and it pulsed with every heartbeat. A fine coating of ash filmed every inch of his skin, hair, and clothing, and his face radiated heat as if he’d been sunburned. He needed to get back on track. Fast.
He closed his eyes. Forced himself to take five slow, deep, breaths. Focused on the pain. He visualized compressing the agony into a neat package and setting it aside on a high shelf—still present, still hurting like hel
l, but an object separate from himself. He selected a mantra—Nirav, Nirav, Nirav—and concentrated on his breathing while consciously relaxing the muscles around his injury. He took a few final breaths, rolled his head in a slow circle, and composed his face. Not as effective as morphine, and not as effective as using this technique in a quiet, comfortable space, but when he opened his eyes, he could cope again.
Brandon turned to him. “Thought we were done for.” His voice shook as he yelled above the engine noise. “Couldn’t abandon Trip, but, damn, that fire was getting close.” He reached out as if he intended to clap Malcolm on the shoulder but pulled back, belatedly zeroing in on Malcolm’s swollen arm. “Thanks, man, for coming to get us.” He stammered it awkwardly and turned away.
Scott hadn’t appeared to notice Malcolm’s damaged arm yet, and his growl reverberated through the headphones. “Yeah. Right. Thanks. We rescue a bunch of strangers while our own children are trapped down there.”
Malcolm tried to shift his arm into a more comfortable position. He didn’t often find himself on Scott’s side, but for once, he agreed.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
THURSDAY, 10:05 AM
Onward, one step at a time. There was simply no other option. Every step sent bolts of jarring pain through Kat’s feet, and her attempts to roll her weight to the outside of each foot made her stumble.
“Kat, should we pray?”
Lily’s question caught Kat off guard, and she dragged her thoughts from her own discomforts to give Lily a close look. Tension radiated from the girl’s face, and her hands twisted together fretfully. At the overlook, she had asked about dying in an adult voice, but at the moment she looked very young, very tired, and very frightened. Kat wrapped her arm around Lily’s shoulder and gave her a hug.
“Yes. If you feel like praying, that’s a great idea.”
Lily nodded, and her lips moved silently for a time as she walked.
Kat’s religious background was decidedly moth-eaten. Mandatory services at the boarding school where her father taught had meant itchy tights, starched dresses, and the embarrassment of being on display as she sat with her parents in the front pew reserved for faculty. The soaring music spoke to her, but she had never been able to accept the expected leaps of faith. Cancer had not resolved her ambivalence, but there were times when Kat envied those who believed. Surely life would be simpler if one could hand over trust to an outside force.
Kat considered asking Nirav if he, too, would find some comfort in prayer, but the boy was so withdrawn into himself, she let it go. Despite her personal doubts, the idea of prayers floating around them reassured her. She wasn’t sure who or what she spoke to, but she whispered a quiet request under her breath regardless. Please, keep these children safe.
She hobbled on. Lily carried the shoulder bag and helped Kat over logs and rocks, and Nirav stuck close to Kat’s side, holding tight to her hand to keep her from falling when she tripped. Tye lagged, tugging backward on his leash, and Juni walked beside Lily without making any effort to forge ahead. They couldn’t keep going like this much longer.
They reached a level stretch, and Juni lifted her head high, her nostrils quivering, more alert than she’d been since they left the rockslide. She moved forward a few steps, looked back at Kat, and whined.
“Juni, it’s okay. Come here.” Lily snapped her fingers.
Juni ignored her and gave an imperious bark. Tye perked up and pulled forward on his leash, and Kat tried to pick up the pace. Maybe the dogs knew something she didn’t. Juni dashed ahead and disappeared into the knee-high weeds. Tye followed, dragging Nirav with him.
“Wait for us,” Lily called.
Nirav and the dogs disappeared around a bend, the first time the boy had been out of Kat’s sight since they’d left the cottage, and she hurried as best she could. What if she couldn’t find him again? She flashed back to the years when Sara was young, that constant parental watchfulness and the fear that a moment’s distraction could be serious. What if Nirav got hopelessly lost? She’d been saturated with fear for so long, this overlay of new panic startled her. They had covered twenty or thirty yards when Nirav shouted and raced back toward them, alone.
“Water. Juni, Tye, are finding water. Come. Come.”
He waved them onward, and Kat redoubled her efforts. Perhaps Lily was wrong and the pond was right here, not lower on the mountain. Perhaps they had already arrived. They rounded the final curve in the road, and Nirav swept his arm in a grand look-at-this gesture.
Water, yes, but not much of it. Not the pond. The ruts they followed crossed a narrow gully here, and a rivulet trickled down its center, forming small, dinner-plate-sized puddles as it curled in a thin line around rocks and boulders on its way downhill. At some point in the past, this had been a proper stream, but months of drought had shriveled it into this poor imitation.
The dogs wasted no time. Juni stood beside one of the deeper puddles, lapping water steadily, and Tye sprawled in the center of the dribbling flow, his fur thoroughly soaked as he drank. Nirav picked his way upstream a few yards to reach water the dogs hadn’t yet churned to mud. He cupped his hands into a clear puddle and brought them, dripping, to his mouth.
“Can we really drink this stuff?” Lily sounded half wistful, half incredulous, but she rushed toward the water even as she asked the question.
Kat hesitated, but worries about parasites seemed ridiculous at this point. “Go up where Nirav is.”
Lily set down the shoulder bag, and Kat pulled out the empty iced-tea bottle and limped her way up to the children. Lily was already drinking from her hands, but Kat sat on a rock, the first rest she’d permitted herself since abandoning the car. She angled the bottle in front of a trickle and waited as it filled. Seen through the clear glass, the murky water turned her stomach. She closed her eyes and swallowed it down in huge gulps, the same way she’d forced down cough syrup as a child.
The cold wetness left a gritty residue on her tongue, but at least it soothed her mouth and throat, and it didn’t taste as bad as she’d expected. She finished the bottle and filled it again, sipping more slowly this time. She splashed water on her face to rinse off some of its grime, then slipped off her sandals and put her feet in one of the deeper puddles, the cold water instantly soothing.
“Lily, did you see the stream that fed your beaver pond?”
Lily thought for a moment. “There was a footbridge. Dad and I stood on it and looked at the pond. Not much water under the bridge, though.”
Kat gestured to the meager flow at their feet. “You mean, like this?”
Lily nodded and peered downstream. “Do you think this is it?”
“I don’t know.”
Here it was—the decision she’d dreaded at the overlook. Keep going on the road in the hope they could outflank the fire. Stay here and wait for rescue. Or try for the pond.
The pond that might or might not be above the fire, might or might not lie along this stream, might or might not be large enough to protect them. A choice that gambled with death.
This time she couldn’t run away for a month to debate the question.
She tried to ignore a wave of queasiness that radiated from her belly. It was hard to concentrate. Her newest round of cancer had destroyed her hopes for the future, but the decisions she made now would live on, one way or the other, even if she wasn’t around to know it. Choose wrong and these children were doomed.
“There’s some granola and one last apple in my bag,” she said. “Go ahead and finish it while we have the chance.”
Lily and Nirav shared it out, passing the apple back and forth, sneaking bits to the dogs, the smoke-filled sky behind them a backdrop of malevolence. They didn’t talk. Their bodies drooped in exhaustion, and they both glanced again and again down the mountain, as if they expected fire to erupt in front of them at any moment.
If Kat had been alone, she suspected she would simply sit here, her feet in cool water, and let the fire take her, but she had t
o make a choice. At their current pace, the fire would inevitably catch them no matter which direction they went. Getting to water—real water, not this whisper of a stream—was their only realistic chance of safety. Until now, they had simply been running away. If they tried to find the pond, it meant they would be seeking a specific destination, which felt intentional and reassuring. But it also meant heading toward the fire, not away from it.
Lily and Nirav finished the food. They were waiting. Waiting for someone to make the right choice.
If only she knew what that was. Kat took a slow, smoke-tinged breath. “We’re going to the pond.” She forced herself back to her feet.
Lily looked downhill at the smoky red sky, and she shuddered. “The fire’s there.”
“I know, but we can’t stay here.”
“I’m tired.”
“We’ll rest when we get there.”
“I’m scared.”
“Me, too.” Exhaustion made the two simple words sound more despairing than Kat had intended.
Nirav looked down at Kat’s feet as she shifted her weight from one to the other. He frowned, took one tentative step toward the trees, then one step back to where he started. “I am coming back,” he said, as if trying to talk himself into it, and he headed again for the trees.
The boy probably sought some privacy to pee. “Make sure you can still see us.”
He nodded, and he looked back at them every two or three steps.
“We won’t leave you,” Kat said.
He glanced around one more time, then stepped behind a tree, his head down, studying the ground.
Kat and Lily waited, and in a few minutes he returned. He had left empty-handed, but now both hands were heaped with rhododendron leaves. He set them down beside Kat.
“For feet.”
Kat shook her head, puzzled.
Nirav called Tye toward him and began unwinding the bulky mass of vet wrap she had used on his most recent bandage. Now Kat got it. “Great idea.”
Nirav tore the long bandage, leaving enough on the dog’s neck to keep the wound covered, and he helped Kat press the stiff leaves over her cuts, binding them snugly with the stretchy wrap to hold them in place.
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