Chasing Fire

by Pamela Clare

The two turned and walked away as Joaquin’s mother and grandmother walked in, his dear, old abuelita holding her rosary.

  “¡Pobrecito!” His mother hugged him. “You scared your mother to death.”

  Jesse climbed into the brush truck, breathing hard. He’d been working a small backburn in the canyon on the fire’s southern flank, trying to keep the blaze from fingering off again. He was slick with sweat, covered with soot, and thirsty as hell.

  Jenny Miller handed him a cold bottle of water. “Here.”

  “Thanks.” He twisted off the top, drank.

  He and some of the other volunteers had been pulled off the line to work with Jenny and Hawke’s A-shift in a last defense of Scarlet Springs. They would start on the western edge of Scarlet proper, spraying down houses and businesses so that embers carried off the ridge by high winds wouldn’t start new fires.

  “We need to protect the town so it will be here when the head of the fire comes to burn it down,” Ryan, Hawke’s A-shift captain, had joked.

  Chuckles.

  But everyone was wondering the same thing: Did they stand a chance against this beast?

  Thanks to the fan guns, the blaze was twenty-percent contained, but it was the other eighty percent that worried Jesse.

  Jenny wet a pink bandana and wiped her face. “Any news about Hawke and Silver?”

  Jesse shook his head. “Nothing since they found them.”

  They drove through smoke from the backburn above Scarlet down into town, turning left to reach the western-most edge of the town proper. The houses on the thickly forested slopes above them were too dangerous to protect, but this space in the valley was defensible.

  They parked in the hospital parking lot, where Ryan gathered everyone together.

  “Listen up!” Ryan looked up at the smoke above them. “We don’t have much time. We’re going to roll through town starting with Quarry Street, and we’re going to water down the rooftops and the trees. Before the flaming front reaches the backburn on Dead Man’s Hill above town, the wind is going to start showering this place with embers. We’re going to put those out. But if the fire breaks past the backburn and backs down the mountainside, we will evacuate to the reservoir. Quarry Street is our get-the-fuck-out trigger. I don’t want anyone else to end up at the burn center. Is that clear?”

  Heads nodded.

  “Any news about the chief and Silver?” someone called from the back.

  “Not since they were evacuated.”

  Ryan divided them up, assigning crews to different trucks, and set them loose. “Let’s do this for Hawke!”

  “For Hawke!”

  Jesse moved off with Jenny and a couple of other guys in the brush truck. They took out the hoses that had already seen so much action today, hooked one end to a fire hydrant, and aimed the other at a row of homes that included his own.

  It felt surreal to stand there dousing the place—the roof, the walls, the wooden fence, the wood pile, the trees. He couldn’t help but think of the time he and Ellie had spent inside those four walls. She’d lived here the night he’d met her. He’d carried the twins through that front door when they’d been sick with strep, and, yeah, he’d gotten sick himself. They’d lived there when he’d proposed, when they’d gotten married, when Dylan had been conceived and born.

  If the fire took it all, they would rebuild—but it would hurt.

  They moved to the next house and the next until they’d soaked that entire block.

  Jesse wished they could get the fan guns down here and hook them up to hydrants, but he knew that wouldn’t work.

  Their connections weren’t compatible with fire hydrants, and the machines only functioned with water kept under intense pressure.

  But that was okay. That was all right.

  They’d beat this fucker one way or another.

  The big Skycrane flew overhead, hose dangling from its belly. The helicopter was working on spot fires, while the SEATs were protecting homes and bombarding the canyons that led into Scarlet, trying to bottle up the blaze.

  If they could funnel the flaming front into the backburn…

  The first ember landed in the grass not far from Jesse’s feet.

  Still holding the big hose, he stepped to the side and stomped it out. He reached for his hand mic and called it in. “Wind is carrying embers our way.”

  But Ryan had already seen and called it into Scarlet Command.

  At first it was just an ember here or there, small ones carried aloft by the wind. Then spot fires started on the mountainside above them.

  “Fuck!” Jenny shouted.

  But Jesse had known this would happen. He heard through his earpiece when Ryan called this in, too. Scarlet Command responded by diverting one of the SEATs and the Skycrane to the spot fires above town.

  Jesse looked to Jenny. “We are not giving up!”

  “Giving up?” Jenny grinned. “Hell, we’re just getting started.”

  They kept at it, drenching houses and trees in their little corner of Scarlet while the mountainside above them ignited, one spot fire at a time.

  The Skycrane didn’t have far to go to refill its tank and seemed to pass overhead every few minutes, while the SEATs took much longer. Where was that fucking Supertanker?

  “Three o’clock!” Jenny shouted.

  Jesse looked to his right, saw that embers had ignited the leaf litter in someone’s gutter. They turned the hose on it, put it out.

  But as the fires on the mountainside above them grew in size and number, it seemed to Jesse that they were fighting a losing battle.

  Marc stood near the door, glancing outside every so often, the inaction wearing on him. He wanted to do something besides stand here. He wanted to get out there, to go after Rossiter and the others. Instead, he was standing here, waiting.

  He glanced at his phone, smiled at the photo of Sophie and Tessa with Mia and Joaquin.

  “He looks pretty good for a guy who almost died twice today.” Darcangelo leaned back against the wall, winced, stood upright again, a scowl on his face.

  The man was hurting, but he was too damned stubborn to do anything about it.

  Across the room, Megs sat at her desk listening to radio traffic, the others double-checking gear they would take with them when they finally had the green light to head up to Camp Mato Sapa. There were ropes, litters that broke down into two pieces, medical kits—all kinds of shit—spread out around the room. People were just passing the time, keeping their hands busy.

  It gave Marc an idea.

  “Hey, is anyone here an EMT?” he asked.

  Heads came up, and almost everyone raised a hand.

  “Is something wrong?” Megs asked.

  Marc pointed to Darcangelo with a jerk of his thumb. “This guy got second-degree burns on his back when we evacuated some pets earlier today. He’s being stoic about it. I think he needs treatment.”

  Darcangelo shot him a look that could kill. “I’m fine.”

  Megs stood, hands on her hips. “I’ll be the judge of that. Show me.”

  Darcangelo took off his shirt, turned so Megs could see his back, and lowered his voice to a whisper. “You’re dead, Hunter.”

  Marc grinned.

  Megs pointed to a chair. “Sit. He’s right. You need medical attention.”

  Darcangelo glared at Marc but did as Megs asked.

  “Nicole, bring me a burn kit.” Megs looked over the wounds. “Some of these are fairly deep. Many of the blisters have popped, leaving open burns.”

  Nicole returned and handed Megs the medical kit.

  Megs pulled on a pair of gloves, then took out a tube of gel that she opened and quickly blotted onto the burns, a look of concentration on her face.

  The scowl on Darcangelo’s face faded, replaced by relief. “Thanks.”

  “You still planning to kill me?” Marc asked.

  “Hang around and find out,” Darcangelo muttered.

  Creed chuckled. “Yeah, Rossiter says you two bick
er all the time.”

  Marc pretended to be offended. “Rossiter said that?”

  Megs worked on Darcangelo for about ten minutes, covering the burns with sterile gauze. “Unless you’ve had one recently, you should get a tetanus shot.”

  “Really?”

  “That’s standard these days.” She stripped off her gloves. “You’re done for now, but you’ll still need to see a doctor.”

  “Thanks. That feels a lot better.” Darcangelo stood to put on his shirt.

  “You’re welcome.” Megs tossed her gloves in the trash.

  It was then Marc noticed that Sasha and Nicole were staring at Darcangelo’s chest. They liked what they were seeing, too. When they realized Marc had caught them, they looked at each other and shared a guilty laugh.

  Yeah, they didn’t fool him. Women were every bit as horny as men.

  It was the sound of voices outside that drew Marc back to the front door.

  “Fire crews,” he told the others. “It looks like they’re hosing down the rooftops or something.”

  Megs hurried over, peered outside. “That’s exactly what they’re doing. God, someone give them respirators or face masks. It can’t be good for them to be working in such poor air quality.”

  Smoke rolled through the streets like fog. The sharp scent of it permeated The Cave and clung to Marc’s clothes, but at least he and the others were indoors. The firefighter crews were out there, doing hard, physical work in the thick of it.

  “Some of these guys are volunteers from nearby departments,” Megs said. “I don’t recognize them.”

  The volunteers were working in this smoke, trying to save a town that wasn’t their own—and they weren’t getting paid for it. Marc had to admire their spirit of service, even if he thought they were a little crazy.

  And what exactly are you doing here, Hunter?

  That was different. He was here for Rossiter.

  That’s when he saw it—a glowing ember. It drifted to the ground like a snowflake from hell, landed on the sidewalk, and went black.

  Darcangelo walked over, looked outside, too. “Embers.”

  Herrera joined them at the door. “The fire’s got to be close now.”

  A burst of static.

  Megs hurried over to the radio, listened to a rush of radio traffic. “This is it.”

  They walked outside all together and stood looking up at the wall of black smoke rising over Dead Man’s Hill above town.

  If the backburn worked, it would halt the flaming front in its tracks. If it didn’t, the fire would start backing down the hillside, and Scarlet would be doomed.

  Megs pointed to the small fires on the mountainside beneath the ridge. “The fire is already spotting.”

  “That’s it then.” Nicole looked like she might cry. “Even with the backburn, they can’t stop it now.”

  Megs slipped an arm around her shoulders. “Don’t say that yet.”

  A Sikorsky S-64 Skycrane rose off the reservoir and moved in on the spot fires, dousing one as another flared up. Then it turned its nose westward and disappeared.

  “Where the hell is he going?” Creed pointed to their left. “The reservoir is that way.”

  Then a roar shocked the air. It wasn’t coming from the fire.

  “Look!” Sasha pointed to the east, eyes wide.

  Marc stared. “Holy fucking shit. How…?”

  A 747 Supertanker tore up the canyon, flying so close to the rooftops of Scarlet Springs that it looked like it was going to slam into the mountainside.

  Well, that explained why the Skycrane had disappeared.

  The supertanker banked, hugging the contour of the slope, a seemingly unending stream of orange slurry leaving its hold, blanketing the spot fires on the mountainside and the top of Dead Man’s Hill. Then it gained altitude and disappeared to the south.

  Marc found himself shouting and cheering with Darcangelo and everyone else.

  “Way to go, Sheridan,” Darcangelo said.

  “I’m going to buy that man a drink.” Marc shot Sheridan a quick text to thank him.

  But the fire wasn’t out.

  On the mountainside, a few spot fires still burned, and on the ridge above town…

  Cheers faded to silence, everyone looking to the west, embers falling like a rain of fire, thick, dark smoke churning skyward.

  Marc found himself holding his breath, time measured in heartbeats.

  A wall of flame at least a hundred feet high flared up—and disappeared.

  Again, Marc stared. “They did it.”

  The backburn had worked.

  For a second time, Scarlet’s smoky streets echoed with cheers.

  Chapter 20

  The sweet sound of Vicki’s voice drifted over Eric, a hand stroking his hair. “I’m right here, Eric. Can you hear me?”

  Was she crying?

  He wanted to answer, wanted to open his eyes, but couldn’t.

  “He’s still a little out of it from the anesthesia,” said a voice he didn’t recognize. “He’ll come around soon.”

  “I don’t want him to suffer. He’s been through enough.”

  “We’ll do all we can to keep him comfortable.”

  Then he was off again, drifting in and out of awareness.

  When at last he opened his eyes, he found Vicki still beside him.

  She smiled, stroked his hair. “Welcome back.”

  “Vicki.” He reached for her with a bandaged hand.

  She took her palm in his. “I don’t think we’ll be able to hold hands for a while.”

  “Is oral sex out?”

  She smiled, laughed. “As soon as you’re home again, you will get all the head.”

  He liked that idea.

  Sadly, he wouldn’t be leaving any time soon. “Did you talk to the doctor?”

  She nodded. “He explained all of it—the temporary skin grafts, how they’ll eventually take some of your own skin for permanent skin grafts on the two worst areas. He says you’re probably going to be here for a month with physical therapy and possible follow-up surgery after that. He also said he expects you to recover and to walk normally once you’re healed.”

  They had stitched sheets of lab-cultivated pig skin onto his leg to cover the deep second-degree burn area—the biggest part of it. Those would protect him from infection and help his skin heal faster and scar less. They’d done the same with the worst areas of full-thickness burns, but those would have to be replaced with sheets of his own skin from donor sites. The doctor had warned him that it was going to be painful, and he was going to spent a lot of time in this bed.

  But, hey, he was alive.

  He raised his hand to Vicki’s face, the weight of his own failure weighing on him. “I let everyone down, Vicki.”

  She smiled, shook her head. “No, you didn’t. Your plan worked. You saved Scarlet. The fire isn’t out, but it is contained.”

  Maybe it was the morphine, but Eric could hardly believe what he was hearing. “Contained?”

  She held up her phone so that he could see the photo she’d gotten from Megs of the 747 Supertanker dropping retardant on spot fires above town. “Check this out.”

  It was the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen.

  He closed his eyes, relief sweeter than morphine.

  The town was safe. Scarlet was safe.

  Then he remembered. “What about Taylor?”

  “Austin is fine. He sheltered in a lake and became hypothermic. Bear found him. He’s at a hospital in Boulder, but Lexi says he’s going home soon.”

  Austin was safe. Bear was safe, too.

  Eric exhaled. He wasn’t sure he could have lived with knowing he’d sent his best friend to his death. “Camp Mato Sapa?”

  The smile left Vicki’s face, giving Eric his answer. “No news yet. The Team is heading out to search for them soon.”

  “Jesus.” Eric knew what they were going to find—charred bodies twisted in positions of agony, the last writhings of friends
. Hours had gone by since the fire burned through Mato Sapa. The fact that no one had seen them and no one had heard from them could only mean one thing.

  “It’s not your fault. You did everything you could.”

  He squeezed his eyes shut, fighting not to imagine how much his friends had suffered. “Tell that to Naomi and Kat.”

  “Oh, my poor, sweet man.” Vicki stroked his hair again. “Please don’t do this to yourself. You’ve been through hell already.”

  Slowly, the story came out of him. The argument with Robertson. The first backburn. The news about Taylor and Camp Mato Sapa. The chopper crash.

  “I thought we were dead. We were spinning, heading straight for the fire, but John, the pilot, held on. The man is a hero in my book.”

  “I can’t wait to meet him.”

  “When I realized we were alive, the job became survival. The fire was headed straight for us. Silver knew what to do, but John and Ramirez, the photojournalist, didn’t. We grabbed our gear from the chopper and ran. I chose a deployment site. Silver cleared it, while I told the other two what to do.”

  “You must have been terrified.”

  “I didn’t have a lot of time to be afraid.”

  He told her how he’d been the last to deploy and how he’d noticed too late that the plastic package that held his shelter had been slashed in the crash. “I knew that meant the shelter might be compromised, but I didn’t have time to run back to the helicopter and search for another one. The fire was on top of us.”

  Understanding dawned on Vicki’s face. “That’s why your shelter failed.”

  “I crawled in and hoped for the best, but …” The memory of unbearable heat and excruciating pain made his skin shrink, goosebumps prickling his arms. “I knew the moment the shelter failed. I thought I was dead.”

  Vicki cleared her throat as if fighting not to cry. “It must have been so painful.”

  “Worse than anything I could have imagined. I screamed and fought not to thrash around. I knew if I moved, I’d let in more hot gas and maybe lose my grip on the shelter.”

  Tears spilled down Vicki’s cheeks now, distress on her sweet face. “You just had to lie there and burn? Oh, God, Eric.”