by Pamela Clare
“Woohoo!”
The smoke began to clear, and ahead he saw it—the highway.
Ahearn slowed but didn’t stop at the stop sign, fish-tailing as he turned right and heading toward Scarlet at sixty miles an hour, Conrad and Megs following.
They didn’t stop till they got back to The Cave.
It was only after he’d turned off his engine that the full force of what had just happened hit him, uncertainty gnawing at him. “Shit!”
Had everyone gotten away, or had they just abandoned friends to die?
Chapter 12
Gabe reached for the last hold as he neared the entrance to the cave. He’d done some hairy free soloing in his life, but he’d never had to free solo to save lives. Every person here was depending on him for their survival. It didn’t matter that he wasn’t wearing a climbing prosthetic or that he was on-sighting what was a solid 5.12—no practicing while roped in, no time to examine the route, no beta from someone who’d climbed it already.
Don’t think about it.
He hauled himself upward, caught the lip of the cave, pulled himself over the edge. He got to his feet, glanced inside the dark space, relief rushing through him.
The cave was big enough to hold all of them.
He shouted down to Belcourt. “We’re good!”
He fixed a pulley in the rock with a rusty piton, set up a kind of assisted belay, and lowered the rope to Belcourt, who already had everyone in climbing harnesses. “Hurry!”
The fire had already engulfed the camp buildings and was now burning through the grass and brush toward them.
Gabe hauled little Dean and the lightest of the camp counselors up, the two of them harnessed together, Dean in tears despite the counselor’s attempts to reassure him.
“We’re going to burn to death down here if you don’t hurry!” another counselor shouted.
That wasn’t going to help.
Gabe ignored that, tried to comfort the boy. “It’s okay, buddy. You’re safe up here. Go back and find a good place for Grandpa Belcourt to sit, okay?”
Dean sniffed, nodded.
Gabe sent down the rope again, and, with the help of the first camp counselor, hoisted up the other two counselors, their dead weight supported in part by the pulley, until only Belcourt and his grandfather remained on the ground.
“You next,” he heard Belcourt say.
“You go. I can wait.”
“No, Grandpa. I can climb this without the rope. I’ll be right behind you.”
Gabe lowered the rope, his hands blistered from the friction.
Grandpa was a bit heavier than the others.
“Pull!” Gabe shouted over his shoulder to the counselors.
The fire was almost below them now, its roar deafening.
Belcourt had done as he’d said, following his grandfather up, climbing without the security of a belay as Gabe had done. If he fell...
As soon as Old Man Belcourt was up, Gabe tossed down the rope, shouting to be heard. “Hold on!”
Belcourt took hold of the rope, letting Gabe and the others pull him the rest of the way up to the cave.
The fire had reached the cliff now, smoke thick in the air, the heat rising up from below almost unbearable.
Coughing, Belcourt hauled himself over the edge and into the cave.
Gabe took his hand, pulled him to his feet. “Are you okay?”
That had been awfully damned close.
Belcourt nodded, still coughing. “A bit toasted … You are … one hell of a climber, man. I’m not sure … I could have done that.”
“You almost did.”
It had been a calculated risk.
If Gabe had fallen, he’d have been killed, and they would have wasted precious minutes that probably would have cost the rest of them their lives. If the cave hadn’t been big enough to hold them all …
Yeah, that would have been a clusterfuck.
Smoke was blowing into the cave now, carried by the wind, making everyone cough. If they didn’t stop it, they might end up dying of smoke inhalation anyway.
Belcourt gestured toward the cave’s entrance. “We … should try … to cover it.”
Gabe glanced around for something that could span the five-foot-tall and two-foot-wide opening. “Anyone have a … tarp stuffed in their underwear?”
Grandpa Belcourt turned over the big drum he cradled in his arms. Strapped to the underside was some kind of blanket roll. “I have this old … Pendleton blanket. It was a gift… from your Grandma’s parents.”
Gabe didn’t want to take that. Embers would scorch it. It might even catch fire. He opened his mouth to say so, inhaled smoke, coughed.
Shit.
They didn’t have a choice.
Grandpa untied it, handed it to Belcourt, who unrolled it, his expression grave. “Pilamayaye, Tunkasila.”
Gabe had spent enough time with the Lakota, who had a special relationship with the Navajo, to understand that Belcourt was thanking the old man.
Smoke stinging his throat and eyes, Gabe walked with Chaska to the entrance, fumbling through the camp’s rack of climbing gear in search of something to hold the blanket in place.
Belcourt used the flashlight on his cell phone to examine the rock, coughing hard. “There’s a … crack here. Any … small cams?”
Gabe handed him the smallest cam he could find, then held the blanket in place, shutting out light and smoke, while Belcourt jammed the device into the small crack as far as he could.
One of the camp counselors held something on an outstretched palm. “I’ve got a carabiner on my keychain.”
“That just might work.” Gabe took it, held the blanket in place while Chaska searched for another fissure in the rock.
Gabe saw it—a narrow crack. “Here.”
Belcourt took the carabiner, picked up a rock, and beat the metal loop into the crack. “If this doesn’t hold…”
“It won’t—not for long.” Gabe turned to face inward, pressed his back against the blanket where it overlapped with rock, then stepped carefully onto the bottom of the blanket to keep out as much smoke as he could.
Belcourt put away his cell phone and did the same, leaving them in the dark, the two of them standing only two feet apart, the fire raging below, drowning out the sound of coughing.
“We don’t have to stay long!” Gabe shouted. “Just till the fire passes!”
That’s when it hit him, like a fist to the stomach.
Fear.
Kat. Alissa. Nakai. Noelle.
He loved them more than life itself.
Had they made it back to Scarlet? Was the fire about to catch them on the road?
Gabe closed his eyes, sent up a silent prayer.
Creator, keep them safe.
Then, in the darkness … a drum beat.
The deep thrum of the drum was audible above the roar from outside. Gabe could almost feel it in his chest, like a heartbeat—strong, steady, sure.
Then the old man started to sing.
“Wakan Tanka, Tunkasila/Wakan Tanka, Tunkasila/Pilamayayelo he…”
Grandpa was thanking the Great Mystery for providing this cave, for giving them the skills to reach it, for keeping them safe.
Belcourt began to sing along with his grandfather. The camp counselors joined in, too, their voices stronger together, rising in the darkness, chasing away death, banishing fear. Then above the other, deeper voices, Gabe heard it.
Little Dean was singing, too.
Joaquin rode in the back of the truck, the mood somber since Hawke had gotten the call on the radio about the kids’ camp—and his missing friend. Brandon Silver had explained the situation to Joaquin quietly.
Hawke had asked his best friend, a park ranger named Austin Taylor, to search for someone named Bear. The fire had burned through the area where Taylor had gone, and no one had heard from him since. The fire had also burned through a canyon where more than sixty people, most of them children, had been trapped. The people H
awke had sent to rescue the kids hadn’t been heard from either.
Madre de Dios.
Joaquin didn’t want to imagine what might have just happened—people, including children, dying of smoke inhalation or being burned to death. The thought put a knot in his stomach, the mental images it conjured too horrible even to consider.
He turned his mind back to his work, scrolling through the images on his camera. Firefighters using drip torches to start the backburn, the sky beyond them gray with smoke. An exhausted firefighter taking a drink, sweat beading on her soot-blackened face. Firefighters looking up at the helicopter as it arrived for its first water drop.
Then Joaquin came to it—the shot that told the story.
Hawke stood with his boots planted firmly in the black, sunglasses in hand, glaring at the hundred-foot-tall wall of fire as it raced toward the backburn, as if trying to put out the blaze through force of will alone.
The exposure was perfect. The contrast in colors—the yellow of his shirt and green of his pants against the black beneath his feet and the orange wall of flame—made it pop. The composition was pretty solid, too.
It was his pick for the front page—so far.
“Great shot.”
Joaquin looked up from the camera to find Silver looking over his shoulder. “Thanks.”
Silver kept his voice low. “So, you’re friends with Gabe Rossiter?”
Joaquin nodded. “Good friends.”
“Is he as crazy as he seems when it comes to the climbing shit?”
Joaquin couldn’t help but smile. “Crazier.”
“I believe it.”
Now it was Joaquin’s turn to ask a question. “Do you have family in town, people trying to evacuate while you’re up here?”
Silver’s brows drew together in a frown. “A girlfriend—or maybe she’s not my girlfriend. Hell, I don’t know. It’s complicated. Her house is gone. I want to call her to see how she’s doing and make sure she’s safe, but I left my phone at the firehouse.”
Joaquin held out his. “You can borrow mine.”
“Thanks, man.” Silver took the phone, typed in a number, left a short message. “She didn’t answer.”
“She probably didn’t recognize the number.”
“Yeah.” But there was worry on Silver’s face.
What a terrible thing to be split between duty and the desire to protect loved ones.
In the front passenger seat, Hawke was speaking to someone with his hand mic.
“He’s talking with the super of the hotshot crew,” Silver explained. “They’re meeting us at Ski Scarlet.”
Any word about the kids or Taylor?
Joaquin wanted to ask but couldn’t. He didn’t want to distract anyone, least of all Hawke, who had the weight of the world on his shoulders right now.
They drove up the switchbacks toward the ski resort, the sun dimmed by smoke. The firefighters climbed out, most of them heading toward thermos barrels of water. Joaquin was last, but he followed Hawke toward a group of firefighters standing around a turquoise buggy with the words IHC PINE RIDGE HOTSHOTS painted on the side.
A Native hotshot crew. How cool was that?
Hawke shook hands with the group’s superintendent, Aaron Tall Bull, and the two men got down to details. Joaquin didn’t get all the firefighter jargon, but he did understand the basic discussion. The fire had outflanked the initial backburn, so they were trying to decide where to start again—on the ridge just above Scarlet Springs or in the canyon below it. The ridge would be riskier for firefighters, but falling back to the canyon below town meant letting Scarlet Springs burn.
Hawke turned away from the conversation, spoke into his hand mic. “Eight-sixty-five, Scarlet Command, go ahead.”
Eight-sixty-five.
Those were the call numbers of the person Hawke had spoken to when he’d gotten the news about the kids’ camp.
“Are you certain?” The man’s expression gave away nothing, but his jaw tightened. “Who stayed behind?”
Hawke squeezed his eyes shut, breath leaving his lungs in a tight exhale. “Any word on Taylor? Okay. Eight-sixty-five, copy.”
He released the mic. “Fuck.”
His head fell forward and for a moment he stood there, silent and still. Then he drew in a breath, lifted his head, and raised his hand mic. “Dispatch, Scarlet Command. Have the rescue helicopters continue to Haley Preserve and Camp Mato Sapa to search for survivors.”
Joaquin supposed another photographer might have tried to capture that moment—the stress, the despair—but he couldn’t.
Hawke turned to him, shadows in his eyes. “Our buddy Rossiter was at Camp Mato Sapa when the fire burned through. He and a handful of others voluntarily stayed behind because there wasn’t enough room in the vehicles for everyone.”
It took a moment for Hawke’s words to sink in, but when they did, they were like a blow to the gut, knocked the breath from Joaquin’s lungs.
Rossiter.
That son of a bitch.
Joaquin’s next thought was for Kat and the kids—Alissa, Nakai, little Noelle.
Mierda.
He swallowed the lump in his throat. “Has anyone contacted Kat—his wife?”
Hawke shook his head. “She was driving one of the vehicles and knows he stayed behind. I’d rather wait to call her until we have some final word.”
“Yeah. Right.” Joaquin felt sick.
How much courage had it taken for Kat to drive away and leave the man she loved behind, knowing he might not survive?
“Is there any chance he might have made it?”
“Knowing Rossiter, there’s always a chance.” Hawke rested a hand on Joaquin’s shoulder and then went back to his discussion with the hotshot crew.
Naomi sang, the kids singing with her.
“The wheels on the bus go ’round and ’round, ’round and ’round, ’round and ’round. The wheels on the bus go ’round and ’round all through the town.”
Ironically, the van’s wheels were barely moving. They were stuck on the highway just outside town, traffic slowed to a crawl.
“The wipers on the bus go swish, swish, swish…”
She kept the song going, doing her best to make this less scary for the children, but it had been terrifying for her, too.
Leaving Chaska behind like that, seeing the fire coming toward them…
Thank God the sheriff’s deputy and Gabe had arrived when they had, Megs, Conrad and Ahearn not far behind them. They would make sure Chaska and the others got to safety.
The camp would burn, all the work they’d put into restoring the buildings lost. But the buildings and everything in them could be replaced.
If she had lost Chaska…
God, no.
She couldn’t go there.
She would have to come up with an evacuation plan so this never happened again. She’d never imagined having to drive everyone from camp at once. They’d been extremely lucky this time, no thanks to that fallen tree.
“The horn on the bus goes beep, beep, beep…”
A horn honked outside, making the children laugh.
Naomi laughed with them and went back to singing. “The horn on the bus goes beep, beep, beep, all through the town.”
Then in her side-view mirror, she saw the sheriff’s deputy and Kat and Gabe’s SUV slow to a stop. They’d made it out.
Thank God.
“Mona stepped on my toe!” a little voice called out.
“I didn’t mean to,” Mona answered.
“I’m sure it was an accident. Can you say ‘excuse me,’ Mona?”
“’Scuse me.”
“I know you’re all crowded in here. Try to be patient and understanding with each other. We need to pull together like true Lakota. As soon as we get to the fairgrounds, you’ll be able to get out and play.”
What they would do after that, Naomi didn’t know. They needed safe lodging for the counselors and the kids, or they needed to send the kids home
a few days early. None of that was going to be easy to arrange.
“What should we sing next?” she asked the kids, moving forward a couple of car lengths.
“Row Your Boat!”
“No, that’s for babies.”
“Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star!”
In her side-view mirror, Ahearn, Conrad, and Megs pulled up, making up the rear of the long line of traffic.
Conrad jumped out of his SUV, ran up to the sheriff’s vehicle, and talked with the deputy—it looked like Julia Marcs—through the window. His head fell forward, his fists clenching. He kicked the dirt.
Naomi’s pulse skipped.
She watched as he walked to Kat’s vehicle, bent down, his head shaking.
Kat climbed out, ran to the side of the road, and threw up.
Oh, God.
Ice slid down Naomi’s spine, fear making her throat tight.
Megs leaped out of her truck, joined Conrad and Kat, taking Kat into her arms.
Naomi pulled over, parked. “Stay in the van, kids. No fighting!”
She ran to where the others stood. “What is it? What happened?”
Conrad met her gaze, a sheen of tears in his eyes, regret like pain on his face. “We didn’t get to the camp. The fire … We barely made it out ourselves.”
His words didn’t make sense to Naomi, a rushing sound in her ears.
She shook her head, backed away, ran to the sheriff’s vehicle, hand on her heavy belly. “Is Chaska in there?”
Julia shook her head. “I’m sorry, Naomi. There wasn’t room. He, his grandfather, Gabe Rossiter, and three camp counselors volunteered to stay behind. There’s a rescue helicopter on the way, but the fire burned through the camp not long after we left.”
Naomi staggered back, shaking her head. “No.”
Chaska couldn’t be gone. He couldn’t be.
Chaska!
Strong arms caught her as her knees buckled.
Conrad drew her to her feet, held her close. “We don’t know anything for certain yet. There’s still hope.”
The children.
The thought cut through Naomi’s shock and anguish. She pulled away from Conrad, turned toward the van. “I have to get back to the kids. They need me. I have to—”