Rain of Fire

by Linda Jacobs

  It sounded like a train was passing close. Above the din, people yelled.

  “Kelley, you okay?” called the owner’s husband from where he hung on to the checkout stand.

  “Everybody out!” Kelley bellowed in a voice that didn’t match her small stature.

  Harry the hoarder stood braced in his coveralls, struggling to hold onto his plastic water jugs. He lost one, the tap smashing to spread liquid with rhythmic glugs.

  The power went. Daylight grayed the area near the automatic doors, and auxiliary lighting came on toward the rear.

  The store looked like one of those video clips of a California earthquake taken from the supermarket security camera. Pickle jars fell from the shelves and smashed, cans of corn landed on edge and dented, toilet-paper towers toppled. An unappealing mix of sour odors rose.

  Harry watched his water jug drain as though he wished he hadn’t paid for it.

  Kelley made a staggering run for the exit.

  The pregnant woman Harry had jumped line on sat with her arms protecting her stomach.

  Alicia had never felt so helpless.

  Kyle clutched Strawberry’s reins as the horse continued to surge. Ground waves rolled down the canyon. The trees shuddered, then began to whip. She heard the snapping of their trunks over the ghastly grinding of the earth.

  “Get off the horse, Kyle.” A faint shout. She caught a glimpse of Wyatt on hands and knees. He held Thunder’s reins, but hooves sheathed in steel pawed the air.

  A brimmed hat went flying. Thunder reared and plunged and she could no longer see Wyatt.

  Kyle dismounted on the uphill side and the ground came up to meet her. Without the steadying pressure of her knees, Strawberry went berserk.

  The reins tore from Kyle’s hand. Despite the treacherous footing and the hysterical animal, she tried to grab onto the saddle, anything to try and get the animal under control so she would not go into the canyon. Her hand snagged the loop of her climbing rope beneath the saddlebag and it came free.

  With a shrill neigh, Strawberry went over the edge.

  Thunder either fell or leaped, but in a heartbeat, he too tumbled into the canyon.

  The ground began to slide. From up the hill came an ominous rumble that didn’t belong to the earthquake. Clutching her rope, Kyle scrabbled sideways and got onto an outcrop of volcanic scoria.

  Making a last stand on the crumbling shelf, Wyatt stood with his hand stretched toward her. Then the trail collapsed and in dreadful slow motion, he went into the canyon.

  Perched on her island of rock, Kyle’s vision darkened from the edges. Sound assaulted her, rumbling and clacking over a low vacuuming roar. All she could see was a jumbled mass of rock and earth before her face, with tree roots protruding.

  The ball looked identical to one she had once grabbed hold of in Rock Creek Campground. Using the slick muddy roots for a handhold, she’d pulled herself from the filthy flood. There she had crouched and gripped the rough rock while aftershocks rumbled through.

  That wasn’t right, though, was it? Hadn’t she always remembered dragging herself from the water and crawling up onto the slope?

  On Nez Perce Peak, Kyle knew there was something about that long-ago morning that she wasn’t seeing. With a sob, she knew it was right there, just beyond her wall of darkness.

  She didn’t want to know what it was.

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  SEPTEMBER 28

  As it finally had when Kyle was six, the ground on Nez Perce stopped moving. It brought the same sense of shock … that such chaos could turn to normalcy in a heartbeat. And along with it came the disbelief that she’d survived once again.

  Quiet descended, along with a faint rushing of water. Dust choked her throat and gritted against her teeth and tongue.

  Her tunnel vision began to clear; swimming bright sparks floating above the jumbled slope. Although she knew all was still, things kept tilting to her left. With a shaking hand, she pushed against the rock. Her shoulder protested and threatened to collapse, but she struggled up and stared out over the slide.

  Clouds of rock flour obscured her view of the stream at the canyon bottom, down over a hundred feet. Though boulders still clacked against each other, she cupped her hands and cleared her throat. “Wyatt! Nick!”

  It came out a croak.

  The only answer was the clatter of collapse as more of the hillside tumbled into the abyss. God, where were the guys … the horses?

  She cried out again. What had she gotten them all into, asking Colin to send help and getting Nick here, forcing herself to overcome her nightmares and take Wyatt along into the backcountry?

  “Strawberry! Thunder! Gray!” She couldn’t see them at all, and that had to mean …

  Her chest heaved, and a sob tore through her throat. If the horses were buried, then Wyatt and Nick …

  Alone, she was alone with no radio or anyone who knew where she was. No, it couldn’t be … somebody had to be down there.

  When she’d cried as a child for her parents she’d been destined to failure. This time, she determined to find the others if she had to tear aside every boulder and grain of sand.

  Looking down, she saw at her feet the climbing rope she’d pulled off Strawberry. Though she didn’t believe in divine intervention, for that matter, in divine anything, this piece of good fortune made her scalp tingle.

  Quickly, she picked her way off the outcrop onto the slope where trees were still firmly rooted. Selecting a stout pine, she looped the rope around the trunk and secured it with a bowline knot. Without any climbing equipment to slow her descent, and no gloves, Kyle wrapped the rope around her body and placed her already scarred hands around it.

  She planted her feet on the hillside with the rope between her legs, held on tight and started to edge backward down the slope. A few feet down, she crossed onto the uncertain footing of the slide.

  Every few feet she stopped and looked around. Each time, she shouted and heard no reply, saw nothing but the ruined canyon wall.

  Wyatt lay in the shelter of a pine trunk. Skiing on top of the slide, he had almost managed to stay upright. Then his feet had sunk in and he’d sprawled headlong. For what felt like forever, boulders the size of his head had bounded past or leaped the pine trunk over him. He saw them vaguely, for in his plunge down the hill he’d lost his glasses.

  As the rain of rock subsided and things got quiet, all his body parts seemed intact and he felt no pain to suggest internal injury. For a long moment, he lay disbelieving his good fortune. Then the bubble of detachment burst.

  He’d seen Thunder and Strawberry tumble end over end in the landslide, screaming in a way that tore at his gut until the raw earth covered them. He prayed they had died cleanly rather than suffocating slowly.

  Wyatt tried to stop panting and breathe evenly, but it took another minute before he could croak, “Kyle.”

  The last he’d seen Nick and Gray, they’d been holding their own. “Nick!” he tried, his throat still too dry to raise his voice.

  There was no answer save the whisper of wind through the trees and the shushing of the creek. He tried not to think of being the only survivor out here. Though Nick was a volcano junkie who’d been gung-ho to get to Nez Perce, Kyle hadn’t really wanted to go to the mountain. She’d gone along to be game, and if Wyatt’s decision to pack in with horses rather than work harder at getting a chopper had gotten her killed …

  Desperation surged in him. “Kyle!”

  All was quiet, except that up the slope somewhere he heard the skitter of gravel. Recalling that the quake had been preceded by the same precursor, he went still and prayed it was too soon for a decent aftershock.

  When no rocks came careening down, he tried to push up and found his right ankle strangely without sensation.

  “Wyatt?” The vice that had seized his chest backed off a half-turn.

  “Kyle? Thank God!” He thrust a hand up, the same muddy color as the rest of the slide. “Here. I’ve lost my glass
es.”

  There she was above, roping down like a fuzzy mountaineer in his nearsighted view. As she clambered closer, his heart swelled at the welcome sight of her jeans-clad fanny smeared with earth. From the cleaner look of the rest of her, her hair still half-braided, she had not been caught in the slide.

  She arrived at his side in a small avalanche of stones. “Are you hurt?”

  “I’m not sure … Nick?”

  “I saw him go off the shelf, like you.”

  “God,” he said. They stared at each other for a moment.

  Then she shouted, “Nick!” with an edge of hysteria.

  A faint snort came from the lower left hand side of the slope. Kyle turned to him with a questioning look.

  “Gray! That you, boy?” Wyatt called. Another snort was followed by a long horsy sigh. “I don’t like the sound of that.”

  “Do you have your radio?” Kyle asked.

  “With Thunder.” He gestured toward the pile of rubble.

  “My radio is with Strawberry.”

  “Oh.” Wyatt thought from her expression that she understood the slide had taken the animals.

  Above them, there was a sudden clacking of rocks. His stomach twisted.

  “Can you get up?” Kyle asked. “Hang onto this rope?”

  Another little shudder. The sound of pebbles sifting threatened to loose his bowels.

  “I’ve got to.” He moved his feet, pulling them free of the loose debris.

  She freed one hand to help him rise and he got a look at her palm, scraped and slick with blood. She wiped it on her pants before clasping his hand and pulling him up.

  The instant he put weight on his right ankle, a stab of pain shot all the way to his brain.

  He inhaled sharply. “Shit. I’ve done something here.”

  Kyle grasped his arm. “Lean on me.”

  “You’re not hurt?”

  “I was up on the rocks above the action,” she said in a shaky voice.

  Even without his glasses, Wyatt saw the grim look on Kyle’s face. “I mean are you doing all right with all this?”

  For an instant, he caught a glimpse of something primal in her eyes. “Hell, no, but I have to.”

  Though he wanted to run off the treacherous ground, the best he could manage was to grab the rope above Kyle. Together, they began a lopsided sideways hobble over stones that looked blurred and turned underfoot. It was amazing how he took for granted his usual sure way of walking in the field.

  Kyle steadied them both from behind him and he wondered how she managed with her rope-burned hands. “One step at a time.”

  “Yes, ma’am.” He found a hollow between two larger rocks and his ankle complained again.

  “Don’t ma’am me. Move your right foot left about six inches.”

  With Kyle’s help and slow painful steps, Wyatt made it onto the forested slope. There, they both let go the rope, and he was able to see well enough to limp along. He cupped his hands once more and shouted, “Darden!”

  Nick did not answer, but there was another tortured sigh.

  It was difficult to keep up with Kyle as she hurried toward the sound, but he managed. He didn’t want her to face what they might find alone.

  Kyle saw Gray first. The big horse lay with his head facing downhill at the base of a trail of broken earth. His front leg lay crumpled beneath his chest and both his rear legs canted at crazy angles. His saddle was empty.

  Wall-eyed, Gray struggled to lift his head.

  “Broken neck,” said Wyatt. “Poor devil.”

  Kyle’s heart surged when she saw Nick sprawled beyond Gray’s shoulder. It looked as through he’d stayed on the horse until the last, for his limp hand still held the reins. She reached him and knelt, thinking that the next seconds could change so much.

  Wyatt slipped in beside her and reached for a pulse. With one hand on Nick’s neck and the other on his chest, he said, “He’s breathing.”

  She exhaled the one she’d been holding.

  Wyatt bent closer and squinted. “Describe any injuries you see.”

  Nick’s face was pale, but that might be from the beige dust that coated everything. Although he appeared largely unscathed, if he’d damaged his spinal cord he might never walk upon a volcano again.

  “What we need is a chopper,” Kyle concluded.

  She grabbed Nick’s radio, hanging from one of Gray’s saddlebags. Wyatt took it, squinted, and clicked buttons. “Mayday, Mayday. This is Ranger Ellison. We need a medevac stat.”

  Bent beside Nick, Kyle smoothed back his matted hair and felt the stickiness of blood. On the side of his head where he’d hit the ground, she found a swelling knot. “He’s hit his head on something.”

  Gently, she tapped her fingernail on his collarbone. When he did not respond, she became more aggressive, pinching his earlobe and calling him in a sharp voice. His eyelids did not even flutter. Desperation welled and she screamed, “Nick!” reaching for his shoulders.

  Wyatt put a restraining hand on her arm. “Don’t move him.”

  She slumped down. “Sorry.” She knew better than that.

  “He’s breathing, but unresponsive,” Wyatt said into the radio. “We’re on the south side of Nez Perce Peak. On the trail where the shelf goes along the canyon, the pilot will see the slide.”

  Tears ran down Kyle’s cheeks as she brushed her fingers along Nick’s beard. If they had just risen ten minutes earlier this morning, they’d have been well clear of this stretch of canyon. Right now, she’d be calming Strawberry with a soothing hand on her graceful neck. Wyatt would be subdued, Nick ebullient. All of them would have been impressed by the distant sound of avalanche in the canyon.

  His report complete, Wyatt moved away and squatted behind Gray’s head. Very gently, he stroked the horse’s limp withers. The only response was another roll of eyes.

  Wyatt unsnapped the flap on his pistol holster. “I hope the dust hasn’t clogged this.”

  Kyle gasped.

  He met her eyes. “Look away.”

  The shot echoed through the canyon.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  SEPTEMBER 28

  In the waiting room at the Mammoth clinic, Kyle checked her watch against the wall clock. It had been nearly an hour since the chopper brought them in.

  She and an equally filthy Wyatt waited in the crowded anteroom outside the treatment area, drawing stares from others.

  “We should have taken Nick to a bigger hospital,” she said.

  “No second guessing.” Wyatt shifted in the plastic chair. “After the way David died, I thought we should bring Nick to the nearest facility.”

  Kyle cradled a cup of machine coffee in her raw red hands. Nick’s words about dying in the field kept playing in her mind.

  Wyatt squinted at the wall clock.

  “Almost eleven,” she read it for him. “Do you have a spare set of glasses?”

  “At my house.”

  Much as she wanted him to stay with her, she suggested, “Why not go and get them?”

  “Then I can check on the seismic.” He echoed her anxiety over whether the quake had relieved any of the pressure at Nez Perce.

  Their eyes met.

  Wyatt started to rise and stopped. “Before I go, you sure you’re okay?”

  Kyle met his gaze. “Truth to tell, I’m numb. I just keep telling myself the quake is over.” She put her palm onto the flat arm of her chair.

  He looked down at her hand. “You notice there are no significant aftershocks.” She’d been trying not to think about it.

  “Could be a sign we’re in for more.”

  “I hope not.”

  Wyatt got up and winced when he put his weight on his right foot.

  “You should get that looked at.”

  “Since it hasn’t swollen, I think it’s just a stone bruise.” He tested it gingerly. “I’ve got an elastic bandage at home.”

  He put his hand on her shoulder and left it a moment. “I hope Nick’s all ri
ght.”

  “He should be.” Kyle gave a faint smile. “His head has always been hard enough.”

  She watched Wyatt walk away.

  If Nick made it through, how would he feel about how close he’d come to the edge? Surely, this brush with death was going to have an impact on him.

  “Please, please,” she repeated, as close to a prayer as

  she’d come since she was six.

  Two men came in wearing neon vests. The larger man cradled his wrist and the other had a seeping cut over his left eye. From their conversation, Kyle gathered all their efforts at clearing the road in Gardner Canyon had been negated as another section of the cliff had collapsed onto the road. The man with the bad wrist told his buddy he was evacuating the area as soon as he was treated and could gather up his family.

  A chill ran down Kyle’s spine. If it were true that the area of instability underlying the park was as large as the GPS data indicated, even Mammoth might not be safe. Certainly, the people who had been through this morning’s quake weren’t ready for another one.

  A mother came in carrying a crying girl of about six years. Tangled brown curls framed a small scarlet face. The child didn’t look hurt, but her sobs kept working up into screaming fits.

  It reminded Kyle of herself as a six-year-old, being airlifted out of Madison Canyon to a Billings Hospital. She lay in a strange bed with high rails like a crib, though she was too big a girl for one. Light came in from an open transom over the door, giving a dim view of beds filled with sleeping children.

  Before nightfall, Kyle had been watching the other kids, but though they talked to her, she hadn’t answered. In the bed on her left was a girl about five with her arm in a cast. Her mother and father had brought her a new doll dressed in blue to match her pajamas. On the other side was a girl in a green nightgown; she had burned her hands grabbing a stove burner. White gauze made her hands look like paws. She had kissed her parents and promised to never do that again. In the corner of the room was pretty flushed Sally, her mommy had called her that when she came in and asked Miss Darla if Sally’s temperature had gone down yet.