Olivia pointed. “What does that light mean?”
“What?”
“On your dashboard. The red light.”
Lucas peered down at something. “Oh, that must have just come on. I’ve never seen it before.”
“It says ‘Airbag,’” Olivia noted.
“Yeah,” Lucas agreed ruefully. “It means there’s some kind of malfunction in the airbag. That’ll be expensive.”
“So, if we crash, the airbag won’t go off?” Olivia demanded. “That seems more important to me than the cost of fixing it.”
Lucas gave her a reassuring look. “Don’t worry, if we crash, I’ll throw my body in front of you.”
“Great,” she replied. “That’s all we need, another excuse for you to throw your body at me.”
They both laughed, so I wagged.
“Seriously, though,” Olivia pressed. “Is that what it means? We get in a collision, no airbag?”
“Sure, it could mean that. Or it could mean the airbag will go off without warning. Driving along a mountain road, and bam! Face full of nylon.”
“O-kayyy,” Olivia answered slowly. “Would you let me out here, please?”
Lucas grinned.
I caught a quick and intense odor and knew we had just passed something dead in the sun—another sharp contrast to the stiff creatures in the musty room.
“You know what I like about you?” Olivia said. “You have every right to be proud of yourself for graduating from med school and being a resident. But whenever people ask what is going on with you, you always also tell them about me and my job and my life. You’re a good husband, Lucas. I probably could have done better, but you’re okay.”
“Oh, you could have done far better, Olivia,” Lucas promised her.
Olivia reached over and put her hand on the back of my boy’s neck. It gave me a warm feeling to see that. They were doing Love to each other.
Lucas eventually stopped back where we had left our smells and the small cloth room. We were going to spend another night out in the mountains! That meant I would be together with Lucas and Olivia the whole time. At home, I was often alone for almost unbearable stretches of the day. But here, outdoors, I would always have my boy within sight.
Lucas pulled a familiar metal box out of the Jeep, sweeping tantalizing fragrances through the air as he set it down. They were food odors, strong ones—especially after he fiddled with it and heat began blossoming from within. The smells were like memories, reminding me of grilled fish and other meals from days spent in the mountains.
I watched Lucas attentively as he placed some meat inside the smoking box. Sometimes when we were doing this, going up into the mountains in the Jeep and spending the night in the tent, Lucas would build a fire in some rocks and cook food on long sticks. Tonight, though, Lucas seemed happy with his metal box. (I know I was happy.) As usual, my own dinner came from a crinkly bag, but there were some scraps from Olivia’s plate that Lucas placed in my bowl. I ate those first.
A dog knows it’s always important to eat the best treats before turning attention to anything else.
When the sun dropped behind the mountains, the air chilled and we were soon inside the soft-sided room. I slept between Lucas and Olivia, my head on Lucas’s chest the way his head had been on the chest of the man lying on the floor.
I was drowsily aware of the metal box and it still smelled wonderful.
The night was far from quiet. Small creatures scrabbled around, their odors wafting into the cloth room. An occasional fox screamed, which always startled me. A dog barking at night is a beautiful, peaceful sound, but the call of a fox is disturbing.
I imagined Big Kitten out there hunting creatures and bringing them back to me so that we could share a meal. She preferred to do her stalking in the darkness, while a dog likes to hunt in the day to see prey like the squirrel I was set to catch before that small male blundered into the situation.
I could not smell her, though, and did not know where she was. What I could smell, faint but undeniable, was smoke.
Five
I awoke just as birds were calling to one another about the impending sunrise. I sat up, concerned. What had begun at night as a barely detectable odor of smoke had become much more powerful, though it somehow had managed to not penetrate my sleep. Worried, I gazed down at the shadowy forms that were Lucas and Olivia. I felt afraid and wondered if I should nudge Lucas. I did not know how he would react to that. I imagined him being unhappy and speaking to me sternly, as he sometimes did in the middle of the night when I had a perfectly good reason to bark at something.
In the end, I decided to sit and wait for them to awaken, even as I felt my fear rising. Out there somewhere in the mountains, there was a fire.
A very big fire.
The acrid tang grew stronger, picking at my nostrils, flaring them. The odors were on me like a pressure, and I waited restlessly, yawning and staring at my boy’s face, and at Olivia’s, willing them to wake up and do something that a dog couldn’t—fix the smoke.
Light gradually filtered in the sides of the soft room, and with the dawn came irregular, strong gusts of wind, rippling the walls. After a particularly howling burst seemed to move the entire room, Lucas yawned and looked at his watch. “Good morning, Bella.”
I wagged and leaned forward to lick his face. I felt so much better now that he was awake. He would know what to do.
“Okay, thank you for the kisses. That’s enough. Okay!”
Olivia groaned as Lucas crawled to the tent door and unzipped it. I followed him out into the morning, squatting, watching him peer up into the sky. Strong blasts of wind blew pebbles and dust at me. I blinked the grit out of my eyes and watched my boy for clues as to how we should react to the smoke.
With a rustling sound, Olivia stepped out, stretching her hands above her head. “I need coffee,” she declared sleepily. “Wow, windy day.”
“Weirdest cloud over there. See?” Lucas replied. “Strange color. It’s not supposed to rain today, just high winds.”
Olivia followed his pointing finger and frowned. “That’s not a cloud. That’s smoke.”
“Smoke?”
“It’s a fire. A huge fire. Don’t you smell it?”
Lucas inhaled deeply. “No, not really. Do you?”
“Yes. Somewhere out there, something’s really burning. Look at it!”
“Let’s hope it doesn’t head in this direction.” Lucas began opening and shutting boxes, one of which was called a “cooler,” where the delightful perfumes of meats and cheeses wafted out on cold air. I wagged while he banged some things together and decided that I liked the cooler even more than the hot metal box.
Olivia wandered away and stood with her back to us, head tilted up. I kept my eye on Lucas, though so far he had not pulled anything edible out of the cooler.
“I’m pressing the coffee,” he called to her.
Olivia rejoined us. “Hey, I have a bad feeling about this.”
“The fire, you mean?”
“It might be coming this way. Hard to tell. The wind is kind of blowing all over.”
Lucas looked around. “Do you think it’s coming up from the valley? We could get trapped up here if it does.”
“It’s for sure coming from the direction of the valley, but when you look down you can’t see any flames. Just black smoke. I wonder if maybe we shouldn’t leave, just as a precaution.”
“We were going to hike to the summit today.”
“I know, but…”
Lucas passed her a metal cup and she drank from it. They were staring at each other but not talking. Dogs stare at each other, too, but usually it’s because we’re just astounded to see another dog.
Lucas sighed. “I guess the smart thing to do would be to pack up, head down to a town where we can get a cell signal, see what’s going on.”
“Vail? Frisco? Leadville?”
“Probably back to Frisco.”
“Why do I think the deciding factor might be a c
ertain bakery-slash-restaurant?”
“Rhymes with minnamon molls,” Lucas agreed cheerfully.
“How nice, another surprise for your wife.”
Car ride!
Lucas put everything back into the Jeep and I sat in the back seat as we slowly ascended a steep rutted road, swaying and jouncing. Olivia’s window was down but I didn’t thrust my nose forward in the space between the seat and the door because the smoke made it unpleasant. The smell was much stronger than it had been when the sun was rising. I hoped at the end of this car ride we’d be in a place where the air wasn’t heavy with the sooty scent of burning wood.
Eventually Lucas cranked a tight turn and then sped up, headed downhill. “It’s getting worse,” he told Olivia. “Roll up your window, would you?”
I registered without disappointment as Olivia’s window slipped up and seated itself with a squeak. On the other side of the glass, the tree-filled hill rose up sharply on Olivia’s side, while on my boy’s side it plummeted nearly straight down. The wind continued to punish the swaying branches.
I could feel a gnawing anxiety growing in both of them. Olivia reached her hand out and touched Lucas’s neck, but I took no comfort from the gesture because she was so tense. “We’re going to be okay, though, right?” she asked. “Lucas?”
He gave her a pensive look. “The problem is, we don’t know where the fire even is. And with this wind, it could be heading right toward us and we wouldn’t even know it.”
“I’m glad we left when we did.”
“Is this where I’m supposed to say, ‘My wife was right’?”
“Again,” Olivia corrected. “Your wife was right again.”
“Yeah. I’m glad we left when we did. The smoke is getting thicker by the minute. For all we know we’re driving right toward it.”
“Do you think we should turn around, then?” Olivia pressed worriedly.
“Maybe. Can you look on your phone and see where the road takes us back in that direction?”
She pulled out her phone and began touching it fondly. “Well, that’s not helpful. I can’t pull up maps. I don’t have a signal, either. No bars.”
I glanced at her. I knew what No Barks meant, but did not know why she would be saying it now. I sneezed, which did nothing to clear the tickle from my nose.
Lucas coughed. “I’ve got it on recirculating, but it’s still getting pretty bad in here.” He reached forward and touched something and the air began blowing loudly from the dashboard.
Olivia shivered. “I feel like the wind is trying to push us off the road.” Her hand reached up and gripped a handle above her.
“There’s that scenic turnout not far from here, remember? We’ll get out there, see what we can tell about where the danger is. Okay?”
Olivia nodded. “Sounds good. Maybe I’ll be able to get a signal from up there, too.”
“We’re going to be fine, honey.”
Olivia reached out and touched a tender hand to my boy’s neck again. He slowed for a tight bend in the road.
“Lucas!” Olivia screamed.
Lucas slammed the Jeep into a stop so abruptly that I nearly toppled from the seat.
We had found the fire.
In front of us, all the trees were burning, flames roaring loudly up into the blackened sky. As we watched, a tree crashed across the road, sparks dashing off with the wind as it smashed onto pavement. The smell was overwhelming.
“The trees are burning on both sides of the road!” Olivia’s voice cracked with dread.
An awful terror poured from Lucas as he backed up, swung the Jeep around, and raced back up the way we had just come, the engine roaring loudly.
“My God.…”
Olivia’s eyes were wide and horrified. “The whole world was on fire back there!”
“Did you see how fast it was moving?”
“No—I mean, I just saw flames everywhere. Lucas, what do we do if the fire’s in front of us, too?”
Lucas glanced at her, then grimly turned his attention back to the road. We were swaying into the turns, and outside the windows the trees were flying past in a blur, shaking their limbs at us. I was too agitated to lie down, so I just stared out the front, the smoke so strong in my nose that my eyes were tearing up. I panted with agitation. I wanted to do Go Home, to have a t-i-i-iny piece of cheese, to lie in bed with Lucas and Olivia and have everything be normal. To be gone from this scary place.
“Whoa!” Lucas shouted. A car came flashing around the corner, its horn blowing, and Lucas veered to avoid it, his wheels crunching on gravel, the Jeep sliding. I was flung up against the door. My boy wrestled with the wheel and we skidded to a halt, sideways on the road. “He nearly hit us! Are you okay?”
“Yes. Yes. But where’s he going? That way’s the fire.” Olivia reached over the seat and I licked her hand. “You okay, Bella?”
“He’ll find out soon enough,” Lucas replied grimly.
We started moving again, still headed uphill.
“We just need to find a place out of the smoke, see what’s going on.”
“I don’t understand how we can go from a normal July day to a forest fire so quickly,” Olivia fretted. “There was no warning.”
“It’s the high winds. They can make a tiny fire huge and push it at speeds over twenty miles an hour.”
“It’s so nice to be married to a man who watches the weather channel,” she replied.
Lucas grinned at her. Then I felt the Jeep slow. Olivia gasped.
Up ahead of us, more trees were burning. The fire was a wall and it was coming straight at us. At us fast.
Lucas twisted in his seat, staring behind us as he backed up, the engine whining tightly, while all around us the trees seemed to explode, columns of smoke and fire blasting out toward us.
I barked, hating the fire.
Olivia was weeping. “Oh God, Lucas. We’re trapped.”
“Hang on.”
The Jeep yawed to one side as he spun the wheel, and then we were going forward again.
“We just came from here!” Olivia protested wildly. “This way is the fire!”
“I know.” Lucas stopped the vehicle and we all sagged forward. He gave Olivia an intense look. “Okay. Get in the back seat. Put Bella in her harness.” He leapt out onto the road and ran to the back and started pulling things out of the Jeep. Instantly the choking smoke was much worse.
Olivia twisted in her seat uncertainly to watch Lucas gathering items from the back. “What are we doing?”
“See that lake down there? If we can get to it, we should be safe. There’s an island maybe fifty yards out with no trees. Nothing to burn, surrounded by water.”
“What? We can’t drive down there. There’s no road—there’s not even a trail. It’s too steep—it’s the side of a mountain!”
Lucas came back around, carrying something. I whined. I did not want to be locked in the Jeep with Olivia, I wanted us to all be together. The fire all around us made me want to press up against my boy, to climb in his lap and be held. He opened his door. “Here’s her harness. I think this whole area could be engulfed any second, so we don’t have much time. I know it’s really steep and rocky, but there’s no other way to go. We’ve got to get to the lake, and if we try on foot, we’re not going to make it. The fire’s coming too fast.”
“Okay,” Olivia said. “I trust you.”
He left his door open and returned to the back of the Jeep. Olivia scooted her seat forward and climbed over it and slid in next to me. I licked her face but was not wagging because she held my harness. I did not like the harness due to the fact that it kept me from roaming freely in the back seat, cinched into place by the belts. She buckled me into it while Lucas took the flattened pad we usually slept on in the soft-sided room and shoved it into the space between me and the back of the front seats. A familiar motor buzz started up.
Within seconds, the flat pad began growing, pushing at us. Olivia pushed back on it. “Air mattress?”
“Air bag’s out, remember? This should help cushion the two of you. It’s going to be a rough ride.”
“Take the doors off,” Olivia responded.
Lucas stopped, looking at her questioningly.
“We don’t know how deep the lake is. If we sink, we’re going to want to be able to get out,” she explained.
Lucas nodded and was soon wrenching at the Jeep’s soft doors, setting them down at the side of the road.
The sleeping pad kept growing. “I think it’s inflated enough!” Olivia called to Lucas over the top.
The sound of the motor ceased. Lucas jumped in the open door and clicked his belt in place and looked over at us.
“I love you, Olivia.”
“I love you, too, Lucas.”
They stared at each other a moment and the fear was so strong I panted with it.
Then Lucas said, “Hold on to Bella.”
Six
Olivia put her arms around me as the Jeep lurched forward. Within moments we were bouncing and jerking, the vehicle rocking with hard slamming crashes that hurt. Olivia cried out as a vicious impact sent us hurtling into our harnesses. The engine was screaming and Lucas was clinging to the bucking steering wheel and a tree limb hit the windshield with a huge bang and then there were glittery pebbles flying everywhere. We tipped one way and then way over the other way and hit something that stopped us, throwing me forward against my belts.
“Oh God, Lucas!”
“Hang on!” Lucas grabbed at the stick on the floor and the Jeep careened backward, then forward again. He desperately twisted the wheel and teeth-rattling impacts rammed my body in all directions. The harness held me but forces tore me back and forth, so many jarring shocks shaking us I couldn’t focus my eyes. “It’s a cliff!” Lucas shouted. Then suddenly we pitched forward, no longer shaking, an odd floating sensation, and I heard Lucas yelling something else and then with a tremendous concussion we jolted to a halt and we were upside down and water was pouring in from the sides, rushing all over us.
“Lucas!” Olivia screamed. She unsnapped her harness and fell headfirst into the water. I felt her hands on me and my buckles released and I dropped into the water, too. She reached over and shook my boy by his shoulders.
A Dog's Courage--A Dog's Way Home Novel Page 4