“It looks like all thirty thousand people are trying to get out of Dodge,” Mack observed.
“Lot of traffic,” Lucas agreed.
Mack pointed. “That’s going to be the command post up ahead in the city park, all those big tents.”
The truck drove a little bit farther and stopped and the engine died. I yawned and wagged as people climbed down to the street. Mack swung himself over the side and then reached up to help Olivia down.
Lucas snapped my leash into my collar. “Okay, Bella.”
He lifted me up and I went limp in his arms. It always felt good to be held by my boy. Grunting, he handed me down to Mack, who gathered me to his chest and then set me on the ground. Lucas hopped down and grabbed my leash. “All right, now what?”
Mack clapped Lucas on the shoulder. “We made it. I’m going to get back to it. Glad you guys are safe.”
“Thanks for everything, Mack.”
Mack reached down and petted me the way people do when they are leaving a dog.
“Let’s go see what we’re supposed to do,” Olivia suggested.
We left Mack and his friends and their trucks and walked a short distance to a grassy area where several male dogs had recently lifted their legs. The steady hum of cars moving slowly in the roads, closely following one another, was a constant presence, as was the much fainter but still detectable odor of burning wood.
I saw many people milling around next to big white structures that reminded me of the soft-sided room where we slept next to the Jeep. These were much larger, though, and they rattled and rippled in the stiff wind.
A woman climbed up some metal steps and stood on a large wooden box. I squatted in the grass near the freshest male dog mark, announcing my arrival to any dog paying attention.
“What’s going on?” Lucas asked a tall man.
The man turned and looked at Lucas with a cynical expression. “We’ve been listening to government employees make announcements. So far, that’s about all that’s been accomplished,” he replied drolly.
“The whole town’s evacuating,” a woman next to the tall man added. “There’s been a line of cars and trucks backed up since dawn. Some people are waiting until the last minute to leave because they don’t want to get stuck in traffic.”
“So the fire’s coming here?” Olivia asked anxiously. “To Paraiso?”
The tall man shrugged. “No one has said anything definite yet.”
“Attention! May I have your attention!” the woman on the box called.
Several people yelled right back at her, saying things like, “Hey! Listen up!” Two people whistled, the sound harsh and shrill on my ears. The sound of voices quieted, though I could still hear the cars on the road behind us.
“I’m Whitney Walker, district wildlife manager,” the woman on the box announced loudly. Apparently, we were not going to go anywhere soon, so I sat and waited for Lucas to decide what to do next.
“At times like these it’s easy to forget about wildlife,” the woman continued, “but obviously they are even more impacted by all this than we are—they can’t get in cars and drive away. So we all need to understand just how many thousands of animals have been displaced by this fire. That means they are out of their territories. They are lost, confused, and frightened. Some predators are very territorial—like cougars as an example—and they react to being forced to leave their comfort zone in unpredictable ways. Stay away from them, all wildlife, even deer. They should all be considered dangerous. Especially do not approach hurt animals. A hurt animal might see you as a threat and try to protect itself.”
I picked up a scent rising sharply above the smoke and turned my head to see a car driving by us with goats sticking their heads out the window like they were dogs. They didn’t bark the way dogs would, but they stared at me and I stared at them. What was this place, I wondered, where people took car rides with goats?
A new man clumped up the wooden steps and stood next to the woman, who moved to the side. He clapped his hands together. “All right, eyes on me, I need your full attention,” he called in a near shout.
“We’re standing here not saying anything, how much more attention do you need?” Olivia murmured quietly. Lucas grinned at her.
“I am Deputy Steve Holcomb with the Colorado Division of Homeland Security and Emergency Management,” the man began. “I have been in contact with our command center. We have fire to the north, the west, and the east. Our only escape lies due south.”
Whatever he was saying upset the people standing around next to Lucas and Olivia. Some of them spoke quietly to each other.
“Okay, everyone, settle down,” the man commanded. “I’m not finished.”
Olivia rolled her eyes at this.
“We are in control. National Guard trucks are headed this way, accompanied by fire companies from Eagle River, Clear Creek, and Jefferson. They should be here within an hour and a half. This town is under mandatory evacuation orders. If you have a vehicle, you need to get in it and go. Now. Otherwise, remain right here at the command post. The National Guard is our only way out, and we’re not waiting around for anybody once the trucks get here.”
A man in a wide-brimmed hat raised his hand. “I can see the fire from my home,” he stated. “It’s many miles away. The second peak over. I don’t think you need to panic.”
The man on the box frowned. “I am not panicking,” he corrected testily. “We’ve got gusts up to fifty miles an hour. That means the fire is moving at top speed. Coming at us from three sides. Understand what I’m saying, here?”
“After we leave, then what?” someone else asked. “What’s going to happen to Paraiso?”
The man looked around. “This place is going to burn to the ground.”
Nine
Whatever words the man had just uttered, people flinched away from them like a dog being told “Bad!” Some raised their hands to cover their mouths. Everyone was upset and began talking to each other in louder voices. I stretched, feeling their tension. Lucas was calm, though, which was comforting. He and Olivia exchanged glances.
“Hey! Quiet,” the man on the box shouted. “I need your full attention, here! I’m not done.”
The man directly in front of Lucas raised his hands to his mouth. The motion caused the distinctive smell of cooking meat to waft toward me, and I lifted my nose to it. “Hold on. This is our home,” Meat-man called to the man on the box. “You can’t ask us to just abandon everything. There’s still time to do something.”
“Mandatory means mandatory,” the man on the box replied tersely.
Meat-man glanced at the people on either side of him. They were like Lucas: the same age, and all men. They were shaking their heads.
“You want us to leave our town and just let it burn?” another man shouted from the crowd.
The man on the box put his hands on his hips. “You’re not listening to me. You have to leave. This is not a request. I am in command. If you’ve got a functional vehicle, you need to be in it.”
Meat-man spoke again, his voice rising above everyone else’s. “We’re going to fight this fire and save our town. Don’t even try to stop us.”
I noticed several people nodding at this.
“If you do not follow orders, you will be subject to arrest,” the man on the box countered sternly.
“Who is going to arrest us, you?” someone jeered.
I felt a mood stirring the crowd the way the wind was blowing smoke, a rising anger passing from person to person. Lucas stirred and I put my nose up to touch his hand.
“You are disobeying a direct order from the government,” the man on the box said. “You want, we’ll wait for the National Guard to explain things to you.”
Olivia turned to Meat-man and his friends. “Do you really think you can save the town?”
Meat-man nodded. “It’s just a question of how much time we’ve got. We know what to do—cut down trees, dig a firebreak.”
“We were camping
near Vail Pass when this thing hit,” Lucas told him. “The whole situation went south pretty quickly.”
Olivia nodded in agreement. “The fire whipped up so fast that there was nothing we could do. It was like the mountain just exploded. No one would have been able to save anything. We were lucky to escape with our lives. What happens if you get trapped here?”
This caused the men to glance at one another in a way that suggested they were communicating without speaking.
“That’s a risk we will have to take,” one of the men said finally.
I shuffled a bit closer to Meat-man’s delicious odors.
Olivia looked at Lucas and shrugged. “If it were my home, I guess I’d feel the same way.”
Lucas nodded. “Best of luck, guys. We’re going to get on one of the troop trucks and evacuate.”
People began drifting away from the man on the box, who had turned his back on everyone and was speaking to somebody else. I followed Lucas and Olivia to talk to the man in charge.
“Excuse me,” Lucas said.
The man whirled and scowled at Lucas. “You and your buddies are going to burn up here and I don’t give a damn,” he spat.
I decided I did not like him.
“They aren’t my buddies. I don’t know them,” Lucas replied mildly. “I’m just coming over here to tell you that I’m a first-year medical resident and I’m offering to help.”
The man shook his head. “You’re a little late. We already evacuated everybody who needed medical attention.”
“The way you talk to people makes them not want to do anything you say,” Olivia informed him coldly.
“You want trouble, lady?” the man replied threateningly. “If you want trouble, you’ve come to the right place.”
Lucas stepped in front of Olivia. His voice remained soft. “What kind of trouble are you talking about, exactly?”
The man stared at Lucas for a minute, then turned away. “I don’t have time to deal with people like you,” he muttered.
Olivia stepped forward and opened her mouth and Lucas put a restraining hand on her shoulder. “Hey, I see sandwiches and water in that tent. Let’s grab something and wait for the trucks.”
Olivia’s posture softened and she relaxed, nodding. Lucas took us across the lawn to a soft room from which tantalizing odors came flowing out, pushing past the smoke. He grabbed some succulent-smelling bundles and Olivia found water bottles. She cracked one open—“Here you go, Bella”—and poured the refreshing water into her cupped hand. I drank gratefully, licking her fingers in the process.
Lucas pointed. “I have another Mack sighting.” He waved, and I saw Mack, who was standing with his friends, nod and smile. I hoped he would be joining us.
“Let’s find someplace less crowded and sit down,” Olivia suggested. “Have a meal like normal people.”
“Sure,” Lucas agreed. “Hey, Mack!”
Mack came over and I wagged, happy to see him. He put a hand down and I licked it, tasting dirt and smoke in equal measure.
“They’ve got sandwiches in the tent,” Olivia told him.
Mack nodded. “I’ll get one in a sec. I guess the evacuation isn’t going very well. There’s really only one road going south, and it’s all jammed up. The trucks that were sent to come get us keep getting stuck in traffic.”
“Should we try to catch a ride with somebody, or wait for the National Guard?” Olivia asked.
Mack shrugged. “I don’t know, hard to say. The fire trucks will be leaving last, but we’ve got good communications, so we’ll be monitoring the situation in real time. I’ll hold a place for you, if you want—just be sure to tell me if you manage to snag transportation from somebody else.”
“What is the real-time situation, Mack? How bad is it?” Olivia asked.
Mack looked grim. “Bad. They’re calling it the largest fire in United States history. Wyoming, Idaho, Colorado—it’s all burning.”
“But we’re okay here for a while?” she pressed.
Mack gave her a frank look. “I know it pissed people off to hear it, but we’re abandoning Paraiso. We expect the town to be hit pretty hard. Soon as the trucks arrive, we’re loading up anybody left and getting out of here.”
For a moment no one spoke. I stared meaningfully at the delicious-smelling bundles in my boy’s hands, but he didn’t notice me. “Okay,” he acknowledged. “Meantime, we’re going to head down the street a little, find some shade, and eat.”
“Okay. Don’t go far, though.”
“We won’t.”
“Here.” Mack reached for his belt and unbuckled something that looked like a big phone. “Keep it on channel nineteen. That’s the coordinated-response frequency. You’ll hear everything, including the 911 operator. You’ll know the second the trucks pull up. Don’t delay when that happens, man. Get back here fast.”
Lucas accepted the big phone. “Thanks. I mean, roger that. Ten-four, over.”
Olivia held out her hand. “Maybe an adult should carry the radio.”
They all grinned and we left Mack. Confused, I looked over my shoulder several times to see if he was going to follow us, but he was busy talking to other people.
Lucas faced Olivia. “All we can do is wait.”
“I guess. I’m going to duck into that pharmacy for just a second,” Olivia said. “Then we can have a picnic.”
Lucas frowned at her. “Why? What’s wrong?”
Olivia sort of cocked her head at him. “What’s wrong? What’s wrong is that when a woman says she needs to get something from the pharmacy, her husband isn’t supposed to ask her a lot of questions about it.”
“I’ve been trained to ask questions.”
“And I’m training you to mind your own business,” she responded lightly.
They smiled at each other and then Olivia left us to go into a building. I looked up expectantly at Lucas, uneasy that she was out of our sight. This happened all the time, of course, but in this place, on this day, with the smoke and the wind, I was anxious. I wanted us to all be together and to get back in the Jeep and go home or to a dog park.
Olivia came back and I greeted her happily, putting my paws on her chest so she would bend over and let me lick her face. “Bella, you nut, I was only gone for five minutes. I got some dog food.”
“Oh, great idea. There are some picnic tables over there,” Lucas said. “Let’s go sit and eat and talk about something besides the fire for a while.”
We crossed the street and Lucas and Olivia sat down at a wooden table. I climbed underneath it, listening to the delightful sounds of paper being unwrapped to release the bouquet of meat and cheese into the air. I felt confident I would be getting a treat soon, and I was not wrong; Lucas reached down with a pinch of meat, which I gobbled eagerly. I was, I realized, hungrier than usual. Then Olivia put a paper on the ground. I wagged excitedly at this promising development. She leaned over and pulled the lid off a can and all the smoke odors fled before the blossoming bouquet of the meaty meal she emptied onto the paper. I attacked it instantly. It was delicious almost beyond belief.
“Good dog, Bella,” she told me. I wagged and she sighed. “I know it sounds crazy, but I feel like I can relax, finally.”
“Relax. With fire coming at us from every direction,” Lucas repeated skeptically.
“Like you said, all we can do is wait. Trucks will be here soon, and you heard what they told us, the fire is miles away,” Olivia responded. “Even the wind seems less forceful than it was. And I’m enjoying a sub sandwich with my husband. A lunch date. So, yes: relaxed.”
I frantically licked the paper, chasing the phantom taste of my dinner, then stared up at them alertly, waiting for a hand to drop more treats.
“I don’t think I’ve ever been more frightened than I was driving down the mountain toward the lake, with the fire coming, making all that noise,” Lucas whispered after a moment.
Olivia went still. “I was terrified, too. But you said we were going to be okay
, and said it with such assurance, that I believed you. It’s what gave me the strength to sit there in the back seat and just hold on.”
Lucas leaned forward and took Olivia’s hand in his. “And you gave me strength. This whole way, I couldn’t have made it without you.”
Olivia and Lucas talked more while I did Sit at their feet, waiting patiently. Then a movement caught my eye and I lunged to my feet, staring in disbelief. A pack of unknown creatures plodded slowly and solemnly toward us, filling the width of the street. Huge creatures. They were shaggy, with dark fur and wicked horns. Each had a head the size of my dog bed. Threatened, I bolted to the end of my leash and strained, barking furiously at them.
“No barks, Bella,” Lucas admonished. “Those are just some buffalo passing by. They won’t hurt us.”
I was astonished to be told No Barks. Did he not see these enormous monsters coming straight at us? Sometimes people say or do things that a dog cannot hope to understand. I stopped barking, though, because I was a good dog and I knew to behave when there was still meat on the table.
“Displaced by the fire,” Olivia murmured. “That one in front is the size of an SUV.”
Lucas nodded. “He’s enormous. I’ve seen herds of buffalo before, but never this close.”
The fur was up on my back and I allowed a growl to rumble through me despite No Barks.
“You know,” Lucas remarked, “I read somewhere that there are more injuries to people in Yellowstone from bison encounters than all the other animals combined.”
Olivia stirred. “Maybe we should take our lunch and go somewhere else.”
“They do seem to be bearing right down on us, don’t they?”
Olivia and Lucas stood and I looked up at them, wagging. And then the most wonderful thing happened. Lucas leaned down to me, extending his fingers pinched together around a very tiny morsel.
“Bella?” Lucas said to me. “Do you want a t-i-i-iny piece of cheese?”
He and Olivia laughed as I focused all of my concentration on those fingers. The smoke, the wind, and even the monsters on the street were forgotten. I tentatively licked the cheese from between my boy’s fingers, wagging happily. T-i-i-iny piece of cheese meant that Lucas loved me.
A Dog's Courage--A Dog's Way Home Novel Page 7