He wheeled the truck around and tore off down the highway back toward Dr. Ferganut’s house. In his rearview mirror in between the curtains of smoke he saw the outside edge of a large, reddish-white, cone-shaped wedge tornado moving toward them. Mesmerized, he watched as it ingested trees full of leaves and then spit their branches to the side like leftover bones. A moment later the top half of maple tree descended like a dandelion seed caught on a spring breeze. It crashed onto the road just behind him.
“What is it?” She said.
“There’s a tornado back there. It’s close. We gotta keep moving.”
Smaller fire whirls erupted out of the ditches on either side of his truck. One of them wobbled erratically about and spun across the highway in front of them until it flamed out. A flaming tree limb crashed to the pavement fifty feet in front of him so he swerved to avoid the debris. Large raindrops pelted the truck and soon it mixed with dime-sized ash-blackened hail.
“Are you okay? You look like you hit your head,” John said.
“I did. When I hit the ditch.” She reached up to feel her forehead. “I think I’ll be okay.”
“No. You were out cold when I found you. You need to go to the hospital.”
“We can’t make it back into town. There’s one over in Ainsworth but that’s way too far. I’ll be okay. I just need some ice.”
To John she did not look okay. She looked as if she was still groggy at best. The wind around them picked up and he glanced over at a small lake to his left and watched worriedly as whitecaps filled it.
A bolt of lightning punched the ground a mile behind them but he did not see any signs of the drones Dr. Minton used before. He was sure they were up there in the air and he hoped Dr. Ferganut sent more bees to bring them crashing to the ground. He kept checking his mirrors.
“What are you looking for?” Madeline said. She reached into the backseat, grabbed a rag and a bottle of water, and began to wipe the ashes off her face.
“I was just seeing if your dad sent waves of bees out to help us.”
“He did. But they’re not going to do any good. A saw a bunch of them go down. One of the drones fried them in midair.” Madeline pointed at the road ahead. “Slow down!”
John stepped on the brakes to avoid hitting a disorientated white-tailed buck that stopped at the edge of the highway. The terrorized six-point buck looked John in the eyes and then bolted across the road.
He took a deep breath and pressed on. He lost sight of the twister behind him and before long the rain ceased. The smoke began to thin as they crept further south and he took the opportunity to check the signal on his cell phone. Fortunately, the signal returned but he did not want to make a phone call unless it was urgent.
“What’s that on the road ahead? You might wanna slow down again,” Madeline said in a low voice.
John watched a pair of objects slither back and forth toward them. “Looks like snakes. But I don’t remember any brass-colored snakes around here, do you? Unless they’re power lines. No…”
He slowed his truck to a stop in front of the snakes. The snakes swerved from side-to-side until they exploded into flame just in front of his truck. Towers of flame rocketed up into the air and without thinking he swung his truck around them and drove on. It frustrated him that Dr. Minton could potentially alter the weather at all, while Dr. Ferganut did not have any comparable weapons of scale to use as a countermeasure.
In the distance, he counted four more brass-colored snakes and as they passed some of them by, he held his breath. The number of snakes increased the further south they went. He picked up his cell phone and dialed Dr. Ferganut.
“I found Madeline,” he said.
“Thank God.”
“But we could use some help getting back. There are snakes all over the road.”
“Snakes? Were they driven out by the fires?” Dr. Ferganut said.
“No. They’re making the fires worse. They’re brass colored. We keep dodging them but some of them are exploding. They’re everywhere.”
“Okay. Help is on the way. You said Madeline is with you?”
“Yes. She’s right here. Want to talk to her?”
“I’ll talk to her when she gets here. Hang tight. I’ve got an answer for this.”
At that the call ended and John looked longingly at Madeline. She returned a loving gaze and for a moment he wanted to pull over and kiss her.
He rolled down his driver side window to let some fresh air in but not far enough the let the sparks fly in. The hills around them were turning to ash along with any random trees that stood in the path of the roaring flames. As they neared the roadblock he drove through earlier, he heard a roaring sound coming from above.
“What is that? Is that a tornado?” Madeline said.
“No. I’m not sure what it is.”
Seconds later a red and white DC-10 air tanker swooped from east to west just above the highway. It dumped a shower of pink fire retardant powder in a line behind them and into the trees. The roar of the turbofan engines encouraged John, but he began to wonder what kind of help Dr. Ferganut would send. More exploding snakes danced across the highway in front of him and soon he had to slow to a crawl because there were too many of them.
The thunderheads continued to mature to the north. Gray and black flakes of ash blew about mixed with burning embers. In time, they passed the abandoned roadblock from earlier in the day. No police cruisers could be seen although a pair of red-and-white wildland fire engines barreled past the barricades and toward Valentine. Along the shoulder, a tractor-trailer with two yellow bulldozers on its flatbed stood in wait. Four firefighters stood nearby and conversed. One of them, a young man in his early twenties with black hair and dressed in yellow firefighting gear, looked dejected as he stared back at the hills.
John’s eyes, irritated by smoke and exhausted from stress, began to weep and burn. He grabbed a bottle of water from the backseat and squirted it into his eyes not caring if his shirt got wet.
“You okay?” Madeline said in a worried tone.
“I’ll be alright. But I don’t think we can make it much further.”
Soon John heard another droning sound through his window. Fearing his truck was breaking down from the heat and debris he checked the gauges on his dashboard. The external temperature gauge dropped to ninety-five degrees but the engine’s thermostat was still running high.
Moments later, numerous wireflies dropped down out of the smoke clouds and passed over their truck. Behind them a dozen copper-colored robotic hawks screamed down and picked the snakes up off the road one-by-one. The brass snakes writhed and snapped in anger until they were dumped into a nearby pond.
John pumped his fist and saw a clearing on the road ahead of him. He powered his way through the smoldering pine branches until the sky above began to clear out. The sight of the sun on the other side stung his eyes.
Further up the road he spotted another roadblock. Before they reached it a cloud of metal firebugs swooped over and past them. “Oh no you don’t,” John said. He felt the anger rising in his chest.
“Are those what I think they are?” Madeline said.
“I bet Dr. Minton is just around the bend somewhere.”
As John navigated around the police cruiser and the white sawhorse roadblocks, he kept an eye on all the traffic that was headed northbound. In the southbound lane he spied a motorcycle. He stepped on the accelerator in order to close the gap between the two vehicles.
“Are you sure it’s him?” Madeline said. She gripped the armrest in fear.
“Oh, it’s him. Same bandana, same jacket. And he’s got something strapped to his back.”
A lone robotic hawk circled high above them in the sky and then descended so that it flew only a few feet above John’s truck. John glanced up through the windshield to study the machine and noticed a small patch of duct tape on its underside. “Ha! See. I told you it was useful.” He pointed up for Madeline to see.
She shook h
er head and yelled as Dr. Minton took his motorcycle down a dirt road that led away from the main highway.
“Are you sure you want to do this with me?” He said.
“I’m all in.”
“Are you? This may be our only chance.”
She gave him a look of fierce determination. “Let’s end this.”
Chapter Fourteen
John locked his sights onto Dr. Minton with an angry tenacity. As Dr. Minton wound his way through the hills switching from one dirt road to the next, John kept wondering when the rain would turn the roads to slippery mud. Rain clouds built themselves back toward the southwest and it would be a matter of minutes before they arrived. The smoke was thin in this area and although the sun shone down on them it was about to be eclipsed by an expanding deck of cirrus clouds.
He picked up his cell phone and called Dr. Ferganut. “I’m right on his tail,” he barked.
“Dr. Minton’s?” Dr. Ferganut replied in shock.
“We’re working our way to the west. Where do these roads go anyway?”
“Where are you?”
“North of your place by a few miles.”
“Some end up by the Merritt Reservoir or the Snake River. Is he on his bike?”
“Yeah. I’d catch him in the next mile or so but he keeps switching roads. And I can barely see around some of the curves.”
Clouds soon smothered the sun and a light rain began to fall. If enough rain fell, John would have the advantage with two more tires and four-wheel drive.
“Be on the lookout for a counterattack,” Dr. Ferganut warned.
“What do you mean? It’s just him on his bike.”
“It’s always more than just him and his bike.”
Before John could respond, the call dropped. Meanwhile, Dr. Minton reached into a jacket pocket and pitched an object over his right shoulder. The object resembled a baseball painted black and bounced off the road like a hailstone.
A second later the ball rolled to a stop and split in half. A dozen or more winged firebugs emerged and whirled about excitedly. In seconds they raced toward John’s truck. He swerved to avoid the bugs but they exploded around the truck like thrown firecrackers. The explosions startled him but did little damage to his truck. Madeline flinched and covered her head with her hands until the danger passed.
Again Dr. Minton switched roads. If not for a small cloud of dust kicked up by his motorbike, John might have lost him entirely. He thought twice about the wireflies Dr. Ferganut gave him but there was no time to configure and launch them.
The rain intensified and with it the mud thickened on the road until it reached the consistency of cake batter. The fire had yet to reach this area but already the visibility was dropping. John slowed the truck down around a few of the curves but Dr. Minton had to do the same just to stay upright.
In time the rainfall became torrential. John wondered how much further Dr. Minton could ride on, because pools of water formed in the potholes of every dirt road. Up ahead John noticed the level of the land beginning to descend and in the distance he spotted a lake and a river valley. He also eyed a paved road, the first one he had seen in many miles of driving. The brown hills here were numerous as ever but the trees were sparse.
“What’s that up ahead?” John asked Madeline.
“It’s the Merritt Dam. And the Snake River. The water looks high on the river. Be careful,” she replied.
An impenetrable wall of rain overtook the lake and approached their location. It shrouded every structure, tree, and hill behind a curtain of white. “There’s no way he can keep going in this,” John said.
Soon the wall of rain hit them, too. “We gotta get off this road or we’re gonna get stuck,” John said.
Madeline clenched her seat so hard it turned her hands red. John held the steering wheel tight and struggled to see through the windshield. He watched helplessly as Dr. Minton made it onto the paved highway but in either direction it looked like the road was ready to be washed out.
In seconds, Dr. Minton’s bike went down to the pavement and took Dr. Minton with it. Just as John reached the pavement, Dr. Minton got back up on his bike only to struggle to make it through the floodwaters overrunning the road. The bike turned down Merritt Dam Road and headed toward the Snake River.
At times, John could not see more than a few feet in front of his bumper. He did not understand how Dr. Minton was still upright, but pressed on anyway.
Dr. Minton’s bike soon left the road but the act did not look intentional. The bike disappeared from view. When John finally made it to the location of the departure, he found no trace of the bike or Dr. Minton.
“Be careful, John. I don’t think we should cross the bridge. The dam looks like it’s starting to crumble,” Madeline warned.
John agreed and pulled the truck over to the side of the road just before the dam. He jumped out and ran on foot along the bank of the river. He spied a fresh tire track through the grass and mud and followed it as fast as he could. Several times he slipped in the grass and the mud and soon his tee shirt was drenched in totality. Whatever traction that remained on his shoes seemed to be of no use.
He then spotted the motorcycle lying on the grass near the edge of the riverbank. Next to it a softball-sized metal ball rolled around and came to a stop. The ball split in two and several brass-colored snakes emerged. These snakes were smaller than garter snakes but all of them except one slithered toward John’s feet. He stomped on them wildly and several exploded under his shoes. If not for the aluminized pants he was sure he would have suffered burns on his legs.
The final snake struck at Dr. Minton’s motorbike, exploded, and then set the bike on fire. With his feet in agony John scrambled away as fast he could. In seconds the gas tank on the bike exploded and knocked him flat on stomach. When he recovered, he staggered to his feet and hobbled over to the riverbank.
The river was now in flood, although he could still see the yellowish-pea-green bottom. He grabbed onto an overhanging tree branch to take a better look.
Nearby, Dr. Minton clutched a tree branch with both gloved hands as his black boots dangled out over the river. Strapped to his back was one of Dr. Ferganut’s copper-colored robotic hawks.
Against his better judgment, John extended hand to at least make an attempt to rescue the man. The floodwaters were rising steadily and if he lost his footing, he knew there was a good chance he would be swept away too.
“What’s that for?” Shouted Dr. Minton above the rain and roaring waters.
“I’m trying to save your life. Don’t you want to live?” John yelled above the rain.
Dr. Minton burst into laughter and then composed himself. “Young man, the game isn’t over yet.”
“It looks over to me. Give me your hand.” John grew impatient and fought the urge to walk away.
“There’s always room for one more player at the table.” At that the tree branch holding Dr. Minton above the raging river cracked but did not break free. Dr. Minton looked into the water and back up at John. He gave John a menacing grin and then let go of the branch. He splashed into the river below and was immediately swept downstream in a torrent of water and debris.
“No!” John shouted. He leaned out as far as he could on the riverbank but felt his legs give out from under him. He hit the ground with a thud and could do nothing but watch as Dr. Minton bobbed along on the raging waters and floated downstream.
Madeline soon joined John and grasped his arm to help his to his feet. After several slips in the sticky mud she finally pulled him to the side. “What happened?”
“He’s let go.”
“Dead?”
“No.” He gave her a frustrated but startled look. He sat down on the ground again and put his hands behind his head. “I gave him my hand. And then he went and jumped.”
Chapter Fifteen
On the long winding drive back to Dr. Ferganut’s house, John was thankful to be driving on paved roads again. The rain continued in t
orrents until they came within a few miles of the house. The entire time his feet throbbed in pain but he did not take off his shoes. As the scenery became more familiar, John spoke up.
“I feel like we lost out there today,” he began.
“How so?” Madeline said.
“I feel like he played us. It’s like he was laughing when he let go. Like he was in control the whole time.”
“He’s not in control. He never will be.”
“Yeah, but to think I lent him a hand.” He stopped short of telling her what he really felt. Truth was, a part of him wanted to kick the branch that Dr. Minton held onto. John did not know where the thought came from but despite his silence he knew Madeline sensed the rest of his thoughts.
“I’m angry, too. Really angry. I feel stupid for going to the store like that and then trying to drive through the fire. I put everybody in harm’s way,” she said.
“I would have come after you no matter what. I hope you know that.”
“What I did was stupid. What you did was brave.” She looked at him longingly and fixed her eyes on him for what seemed like a minute.
“I love you and I would lay down my life for you anytime,” John said in a low and somber voice.
“Did you ask my dad the last questions on your list?”
“Some of them. But what I really want to know is what is in the basement laboratory. After all this he owes me that much.”
* * *
As John pulled into the driveway, Dr. Ferganut hobbled out from the house as fast as his arthritic hip would take him. John could see pure joy in the man’s eyes despite the obvious physical pain.
Dr. Ferganut embraced Madeline as she descended from the truck. “I was worried to death about you.” Tears streamed down his cheeks and onto her shoulder.
She hugged him hard. “Thank you for sending help.”
John reached into the backseat and pulled out the box of unused wireflies and Dr. Ferganut’s laptop computer. He gently stepped out of the truck and when his feet hit the pavement it felt like he was jumping into a pile of broken glass.
The Fire and the Anvil Page 10