Torch

by Roxie Noir

  It just feels wrong.

  When the hour’s over, we head back down and get to work, but as hard as I try, I can’t stop thinking about Eaglevale burning.

  29

  Clementine

  I pull into the lot of Ashlake High School, cut the engine, and stare out the windshield for a few more moments. I feel like I’ve been doing this a lot lately, driving in silence before parking somewhere and sitting in more silence, but my brain is starting to feel fried. Like a frayed knot.

  Isn’t that the punch line to some joke? A rope walks into a bar, and the bartender says...

  Before I can drift completely off course, my radio buzzes at me.

  “Clementine, come in,” Jennifer’s voice says.

  “I’m here,” I say.

  “Are you coming back to the high school?”

  “I just pulled up,” I say.

  “Good. Can you come inside?” she says, sounding distracted.

  I almost tell her no, I was thinking I’d just sit in the parking lot while the rest of you worked all day, but that’s not even a little bit helpful.

  Instead I get out of the truck and walk into the high school, looking at the sky to the west. It’s still sunny here, for now, but a cool wind is just starting to pick up, and I can see the near-black clouds on the horizon, blocking our view of the Spires.

  It’s gotten bigger and darker since I left Harold’s cabin. I’ve been watching it in my rear view mirror all morning, hoping that it runs to the north or south of us instead of right over top. Doesn’t look likely.

  Maybe the rain will help, I think.

  Inside, Jennifer gives me the rundown: The Red Cross is here, organizing donations and cots and people and everything imaginable. Ashlake General Hospital is close to capacity, mostly people having smoke-related breathing trouble.

  “Old people and asthmatics, you know,” Jennifer says. “And the people who panicked and got into car wrecks when they were evacuating.”

  “That’s a way to make your day worse,” I say.

  “Right?” Jennifer says, shaking her head. “I can’t imagine. Anyway, anyone here has a medical problem, take them over there. There’s a couple nurses here doing the rounds, but they can’t do much beyond the basics. Otherwise, distribute food and blankets, calm people down, give them emergency numbers. That kind of thing.”

  “How’s the fire?” I ask.

  “I haven’t really heard details,” Jennifer says, picking up a stack of papers and looking through them. It looks like numbers to call in case of some specific emergency. “It might be shifting with the thunderstorm, so who knows how fucked things even are.”

  I just nod, then Jennifer looks up at me.

  “The hotshot crew is fine, though,” she says, her voice a little gentler now. “Working like animals, but fine.”

  I smile, and a warm wave of relief washes over my whole body. I hadn’t even realized how worried I was until right now.

  “Thanks,” I say.

  “And Robbie over at the checkpoint into Eaglevale reported an old guy in a pickup truck driving out about fifteen minutes ago,” she says. “Dunno what you said, but it worked.”

  “I invoked the ghost of his dead wife is all,” I mutter.

  Jennifer shrugs.

  “Well, now he’s not dead in a cabin,” she says. “Go hand out blankets and wet wipes. Nice butt will be fine.”

  I stick my tongue out at her, and she laughs.

  30

  Hunter

  Into the afternoon, the storm picks up speed. The winds get faster and sharper, and I can feel the updraft while I’m just standing still, watching the forest.

  Worse, smoke is billowing upward as the wind sucks it skyward, yellow wood smoke against blue-black storm clouds.

  We take a quick break, and I turn on my phone to snap a few pictures, because it’s striking, almost beautiful. There’s no service, or I’d send them to Clementine, just to let her know I’m okay, still here, taking photos.

  That I’m thinking about her, even if I didn’t get to follow through with my promise to jerk off while I’m doing it. The rock she gave me is still safe, in a pocket that zips shut so it won’t fall out. I wish I’d given her something, but it just didn’t occur to me.

  Next time.

  Silas and I are taking a quick break when the radio crackles, and he answers it.

  “Briefing on the beach,” says Porter’s voice. “Report immediately.”

  Silas and I look at each other, then practically swallow the rest of our granola bars whole, grab our gear, and head back. We can both tell this isn’t good, even if we were both expecting the storm to change things around.

  When we get there, there’s a dozen guys from the crew geared up and heading off. Everyone is busy, with the frantic energy that always accompanies a change in plans.

  Porter looks tired. His skin is nearly gray, his eyes look sunken, and he’s even grouchier than normal.

  In that moment, I don’t envy the guy his job. Even if I think he’s an asshole sometimes, he’s responsible for making sure a whole crew does their job and doesn’t die in the process, not to mention the well-being of the people whose houses we’re trying to save.

  Making the wrong decision is easy when you’re faced with steep mountains and raging wildfires and storms that seem to come out of nowhere, and it’s easy for that decision to be deadly. For once I’m glad that I only have to follow orders.

  “Casden, Dewar, there you are,” he says.

  I want to point out that we were nearly a mile and a half away, but I know it’s not the time.

  “We’re gonna leave the Eaglevale firebreak where it is,” he says to us. “Air support thinks that between what we’ve already done and water drops, we’ve got it handled.”

  As if on cue, a tanker plane flies overhead, and Porter gives it a few moments until he can be heard again. There’s another dozen guys readying equipment on the beach, handing tools, packages of food, ponchos, and water bottles back and forth.

  Porter points at them.

  “Dewar, you’re with them,” he says to Silas. “There’s a place a mile up you can cross the river. We can’t let the fire burn over the ridges to the south of here. Thomas can fill you in.”

  We both turn and look at the tall, steep peaks in the distance. Once the fire gets there, it’ll be hard to keep contained, since fighting it on nearly-vertical terrain is pretty much impossible. Plus, with winds like this, fire travels downhill almost as fast as it travels uphill.

  “Got it,” Silas says, nodding. He claps me on the shoulder and then walks to the group.

  “And me?” I ask, since I’m still the only person who isn’t busy, and I’m itching to get back to work, nearly crawling in my own skin.

  “You’re with me,” Porter says. “I need eyes on this thing. I’m working blind. I don’t know where it’s going or what it’s doing, and you’re the one who knows the area best. You up for that?”

  “Shit yes,” I say, just glad to know what I’m going to be doing.

  “Good,” Porter says, nearly cracking a smile. He folds a map into a small square, puts it in his pocket, and lifts his own pack. “Let’s do this thing, then.”

  We head for a small, rocky outcropping right on the shoulder of the mountain. It’s hard as hell to get to, but it looks like it’s going to offer a near-perfect view of most of the valley, so that’s where we go.

  In addition to all the other problems with forest fires, it’s surprisingly hard to know where exactly they are. They can move incredibly fast, especially one this big and hot, and since they’re vast and in the wilderness, it isn’t like someone’s reporting where the edges are at all times. Even with air support, it can be hard to get a good picture.

  And you wouldn’t think it, but a fire can sneak up on you. In a dense forest, when you can’t see over the tops of the trees, it’s easy not to realize how close one is until you feel that incredible wall of heat, and a fire can outrun a person
, especially in the deep forest on tricky terrain. That’s why you need a lookout.

  The spot Porter’s chosen is only about two miles away, but there’s no trail. For the first mile we have to shove our way through branches and undergrowth, continually checking that we’re on the right path. Then we get to a long, steep boulder scramble, and though we look for an easier way up, everything else is nearly vertical.

  As we climb, the sky gets darker and darker, even though it’s still early afternoon. The wind picks up around us, and I can hear it whistling through the trees, even through the small spaces between the rocks I’m climbing over.

  Halfway up, Porter leans against a rock. He’s breathing hard, has his jacket open, and his t-shirt is soaked with sweat. I stop as well, and we both take a drink of water. We’ll be useless if we pass out from dehydration.

  “Shit,” he says, when he finishes drinking. “I was hoping we’d be up there before the wind really hit.”

  “We couldn’t see this slide from the beach,” I say. “It’s harder and longer than it looks.”

  “Ain’t that always how it is,” Porter says, almost reflectively, and I just nod.

  He’s not so bad all the time, I think. I could stand to remember that.

  “You recovered?” he asks, hooking his water back onto his pack.

  “Never been readier,” I say, and then both of us laugh, because it’s beyond untrue.

  By the time we get to the ridge, every muscle in my body is screaming. They’ve all been screaming for at least twelve hours, so I just ignore it. We take another moment to drink, catch our breath, and get our bearings. The wind is nearly howling now, so strong that I can feel it trying to knock me over, and the sky is an unholy gray-black-yellow color, half wood smoke from the fire and half the oncoming underbelly of a nasty thunderstorm.

  Don’t get burned alive and don’t get struck by lightning, I think to myself. Piece of cake.

  At least we’re in the mountains and there won’t be any tornadoes. Once we were out fighting a prairie fire in one of the Dakotas, and during an incredible thunderstorm, I got to watch a tornado twist across the landscape only a couple of miles away. We all just stood there and watched it, because what else were we going to do? It’s not like there are basements in the middle of nowhere.

  As soon as we can, we keep moving to the lookout point. The trees thin out, and between their tops, I can see the vast swath of black, brown, and gray burned areas. It’s an uneven line going back toward the Spires, and from here, it’s easy to see how random wildfires are. In some spots the burned area is narrow, nearly cut off completely by lush green foliage. In other spots, it’s wide, almost the entire area between the river and the ridge line to the north.

  Then, closer to us, I can see the spot where the fire jumped the Quartzite River. It’s narrower where that happened, not nearly as solid and wide a fire break as it is here.

  At last, we reach the point, and both of us just look around for a moment. It’s beautiful, wild, and dangerous. We’re in the middle of an enormous U, made by the fire: one leg across the river from us, to the southeast, the main body of the fire still to the west. Through the smoke, I can see the bright orange line flickering only a few miles from the firebreak we made, a big black swath that cuts along the base of the hill.

  I hope it works. Dear God I hope it works. Too late to do anything else about it.

  “It’s going up the ridge,” Porter mutters, looking to the northwest. There’s another bright orange line, and this one is moving up a mountain, so quickly we can actually see it moving. The storm is closer to that side of the fire, and even from here I can see the wind whipping it in every direction.

  As we watch, an updraft sweeps the mountain, and where it meets the flames the fire spins upward, into a loose cylinder of orange and yellow.

  Porter and I both hold our breath, because fire whorls are dangerous and almost impossible to predict, even in a place where everything feels dangerous and impossible to predict, mostly because it is.

  An involuntary shiver goes down my back, and I pull out my GPS and compass.

  Porter and I take measurements quickly: wind direction and speed, temperature. We mark where the fire is right now on a map, where it might be heading soon, though with the updraft and the wind changing direction every few minutes, we may as well be throwing darts at a map.

  Still, I was afraid it would be worse. The firebreak protecting Eaglevale is as good as we could make it, and that’s air support’s first priority, though the thunderstorm is making flying dangerous for them. The fire working its way up the ridge, far to the northwest, could be a big problem, but not for a few more hours, and there’s no point in worrying about it until this storm blows over.

  Most of the crew heads downriver, to the east, and they’re protected from the fire by the wide, rushing waters of the Quartzite. Porter radios air support while I radio the guys down below, but for once, it seems like the situation might be under control.

  Well, relatively speaking. By wildlands firefighting standards.

  “We should head back down before this storm blows us off the ridge,” Porter says, facing the fire to the northwest. “You said you’ve hiked into the Spires?”

  “Two years ago,” I confirm, and I tell him the story about how my mom thought it might help me re-integrate into society.

  He almost cracks a smile.

  “What’s the terrain over there? Rough, rocky?”

  “And steep,” I say. “Especially those ridges where the fire’s heading now. If they burn and then get rain, it’ll be rockslide central with all the plant matter gone.”

  Porter just shakes his head.

  “Too risky to send anyone,” he says, then points at another long, low valley. “What about that way in?”

  He’s already thinking about next steps, about where to contain the fire on the other sides, and together, we start planning a strategy. We talk for a good ten minutes, checking the wind and the weather and the maps every so often. It starts to rain, big, fat drops, and I think we should leave before the rocks get too slippery.

  We’re wrapping it up when the radio crackles.

  “Captain, come in,” says a staticky voice, and even those three words are shot through with panic.

  Porter frowns and takes the radio off his belt.

  “Porter,” he says.

  “It’s jumped the river,” the voice says. “Just east of the camp by about a quarter mile, when the winds picked up.”

  We both turn around in silent horror and look to the southeast. As we do, a hot, dry, smoky wind blows up the slope and into our faces, stinging my eyes.

  Down below there’s a bright orange spot, muted by the smoke pouring off of it. It’s crawling along the river bank, on this side of the river, toward our camp.

  It’s also starting up the slope, and even from here, I can see the base of each tree smoke, then catch, and then the fast whoosh of flame as it consumes the whole trunk, leaving the whole tree a hundred-foot torch.

  “Go,” Porter says, and points at the boulder scramble.

  31

  Clementine

  People are pouring into the high school now. Not just from Eaglevale, but anyone who didn’t have somewhere else to go in Coldwater or the other small, surrounding towns. They’re sitting in small groups in the gymnasium, in the cafeteria, collecting in the high school auditorium.

  For the most part, people are calm and orderly. They mostly know each other, which isn’t surprising, and for much of the day, Ashlake High operates like a commercial for the best of humanity.

  Outside, it gets darker. Trees are shaking in the wind, and when I glance out the windows that face west, I can see that the sky over there is nearly black.

  He’s fine, I tell myself. The rain will help. He’s with two dozen other guys, all of whom will be perfectly fine.

  I still wish I could hear from him, but the radios are for official business only.

  I walk into the cla
ssroom where they’ve stored piles of blankets and grab an armful. There’s a woman with a week-old baby who had to evacuate, and while I don’t have most of what she needs, I can at least make myself useful somehow.

  Outside the thick-paned school window, the wind starts to howl, and despite everything, the sound raises goosebumps on the back of my neck.

  If something happened to the fire crew, they’d tell you, I remind myself, then head to deliver blankets.

  The new mom looks tired and stressed, but she smiles and thanks me for the blankets and her husband takes them from me, even as the baby cries.

  “If it helps, you’re taking this better than plenty of people who don’t have newborns,” I tell them.

  They both look at the baby, who’s wrapped in a blanket, kicking her feet, wailing away. The mom pulls her blanket a little tighter, then looks at me and shrugs, a half-smile coming onto her face.

  “We were in pure survival mode anyway,” she says. “I’ve barely noticed we’re not at our house.”

  Yikes, I think, looking at the baby’s tiny, angry face.

  “Well, good luck,” I say to them. “It can only get better from here.”

  I close the door gently and leave.

  Turning the corner, I nearly run head-on into another woman.

  “Sorry!” I say, holding out my hands.

  “Do you work here?” she asks, taking my shoulder firmly in her hand.

  “I’m with the Forest Service,” I say.

  She takes a deep breath, and my stomach tightens, because this woman is obviously just barely keeping it together.

  “I can’t find my daughter,” she says.

  I nod, and strangely, a sense of calm washes over me, now that I have a task, something to do besides trying to be useful and thinking about Hunter.