by K. C. Crowne
“... Owen's with me... sister... help... Bucknell Ranch...”
The call dropped, and the line went dead in my hand after that. I growled in frustration and had to physically fight the urge to hurl my phone into the darkness.
“What's going on, boss?”
“I couldn't make everything out,” I said. “All I know is that Owen is with Sarah. They're at a ranch – I think it's the ranch her sister works at, and the fire's closing in on them.”
“Shit,” Luke muttered.
“What's going on?” Wes asked, as he staggered out of his tent, his voice thick with sleep. “Aren't you guys supposed to be resting up for tomorrow?”
“Sarah is in trouble,” Luke said.
At the mention of Sara being in trouble, Wes woke up entirely. He was quickly alert, and all traces of sleepiness fell away in the blink of an eye. He was ready for action.
“Did you know?” I asked Wes, feeling a surge of anger within me. “Did you know she an Owen were heading off to her sister's ranch? Or why in the hell they went in the first place?”
“Dude, I was sleeping,” he said. “I had no idea.”
“The Bucknell is a horse ranch about five miles from here,” Luke said, his eyes glued to his phone.
I looked up to the sky and saw the direction the smoke was headed – still straight down the valley, but it was blowing a little bit harder. That increase probably sent some burning ashes ahead and ignited some hot spots along the way, which was probably how the ranch was being surrounded by flame.
Luke and Wes looked at me, obviously waiting for my orders. We shouldn't be leaving the base camp; not with the fact that we're on duty at sunrise. Protocol would have us stay here and send one of the overnight crews to bring them back. Protocol would have me inform the captain on duty and let him deploy the personnel.
This wasn't a difficult decision for me to make – fuck protocol. Those were our people, and as far as I was concerned, it was up to us to get them back.
“Okay, we have to move,” I said. “We may not have much time.”
“I'm driving,” Wes said.
I nodded. “Yeah, good. That's good,” I say. “Okay guys, get dressed. Let's get our asses moving. The lives of our friends are on the line.”
Wes had driven up on his own, in his own personal truck. It would attract a lot less attention than rolling out in one of the rigs, which was good. The last thing I wanted to do was attract attention to us when we were breaking the rules like we were.
A couple of minutes later, we were all dressed and piling into Wes' truck.
“Let's go,” I said.
* * *
“The main roads are cut off,” Luke said.
“Shit,” I muttered.
Wes was driving, I was in the passenger seat, and Luke was in the back, his face glued to the tablet, watching the drone footage. With the pickup in the winds, hot ashes had indeed been blown ahead, and ignited dry brush around the ranch and some other structures. Crews were already on the scene, but they wouldn't have a handle on it before it overwhelmed the ranch.
I'd hoped we'd have at least until tomorrow afternoon before any homes or buildings were threatened, but I'd been too optimistic, apparently. The bulk of the structures in the path of the fire still lay well beyond – the ranch was out there on the fringes – which meant, it was lower on the priority scale. The crews would sacrifice the ranch if it meant saving the ten other homes that lay beyond that.
It was all about getting ahead of the fire. We saved what we could when we could, but we also had to make some hard decisions – and those decisions included which structures couldn't be saved and which had to be let go.
The trouble here was that nobody knew Sarah and Owen – and whoever else – was out at that ranch. The mandatory evacuation order was in effect, so the crews fighting the blaze figured the place was empty. They didn't know anybody was there. That fact increased my stress over not telling anybody, but I knew if I did, Sarah and Owen were going to be in deep shit by my higher-ups over breaking the evacuation order. We couldn't do much about the ranch owners, but our people could – and would – be disciplined harshly.
“We need another route in, Luke,” I said.
“Working on it,” he replied.
His head was bent down over his tablet, his face a hardened mask of concentration as his fingers flew over the screen. If anybody could find us a way in, it was Luke. I had every faith in the man.
“Got it,” Luke said. “The fire's moving quick though, so our window is going to be tight. Really fucking tight. I'm sending the route to your GPS, Wes.”
“Got it,” he said.
The truck rumbled down a rutted dirt road, bouncing us around inside the cab. We weren't too far from the ranch, but all around us was a hellish landscape. It looked like something straight out of a dystopian movie. The sky was black, though there was an orange glow in the air all around us. Every now and then, you could see fingers of flame shooting up over the trees, licking at the sky. In a way, it was beautiful, but it was also eerie as hell.
“Fire's getting close,” Luke said.
“Too close,” I replied.
“We're here,” Wes said. “Sort of.”
He turned off the dirt service road, and past a sign that read “Bucknell Ranch.” We still had a ways to go yet. The service roads we were on were long, winding, and not nearly as direct as the main roads. But, with flaming debris littering the main roads, downed power lines, and fire all around, our options were pretty damn limited.
The service road we were on was a back way onto the ranch, and ran parallel to several large, enclosed fields. The fields all stood empty. Barren. Desolate. Ash rained down heavily, and Wes had to use his high beams, the bright lights lancing through the darkness and smoke that enveloped the world around us. Even though the windows and vents were all closed, the smell of the fire was still thick inside the cab.
Progress was slow and halting as Wes crept along the dirt track, not wanting to run us into something, or worse, roll us into a ditch. We wouldn't be any use to Sarah if we were dead or out of commission. I was keenly aware of each second that passed though. Every single grain of sand through that hourglass brought that hungry beast of a fire closer to our door. If the monster somehow got around behind us and sealed off the service roads we'd taken in, we were absolutely fucked.
“I can't see shit,” Wes said.
I strained my eyes, trying to peer through the dark of the night and the smoke. I thought I saw lights in the distance, but I couldn't be sure. It was hoping we were closing in on the house because I felt like we were fast running out of time.
“There,” Luke said, as he leaned forward and pointed at something beyond the windshield. “Somebody's waving a flashlight.”
I strained my eyes to see, and sure enough, somebody was standing amid the smoke and falling ash waving us down with a pair of flashlights. The figure was small, and I knew it was Sarah. Relief flooded my body, and I let out a long breath.
She came into view fully as we entered a lot. She had a cloth tied around her face, so that only her eye showed, but I would know that tight little body anywhere. I jumped out of the truck before Wes had even come to a full stop, and ran to her, sweeping her up in my arms, and held her tight. I wasn't thinking about the reaction of anybody else, or any potential fallout from doing it. I was just so happy and relieved to see her alive and unharmed that my emotions got the better of me.
She clung to me tightly, and after a long, awkward moment when Wes and Luke joined us, I set her back down. Wes and Luke both stepped up and hugged her as well, though with a lot less emotion than I had, which only intensified my feelings of awkwardness. I cleared my throat and looked around.
“Where is everybody?” I asked. “Where is Owen?”
“He's helping them load the last of the horses into the trailers,” she said. “My sister refused to leave without them.”
I nodded. “Stubborn. Must be in the gene
s.”
The smoke in the air was getting thicker, and the red and orange glow in the sky was getting more vivid as the fire drew closer. The ranch itself was doomed, but I had to admire her sister's spirit and compassion in not wanting to let the animals die. Unfortunately, it put us all in a bad spot.
I turned my eyes to Sarah. “Coming out here was stupid, Sarah,” I said. “You could have gotten yourself killed. You and Owen are in some deep shit when we get out of here.”
She lifted her chin a bit, defiance flashing through her eyes. “I wasn't about to let my sister die out here,” she said.
“I understand that, but –”
“As far as Owen goes,” she cut me off. “This isn't his fault. I dragged him out here because he had a truck. I take the responsibility for this. All of it.”
She clenched her jaw and looked at me, daring me to argue with her. There were a thousand things I wanted to say. As relieved as I was to see she was okay, I was pissed that she put herself – and us – in this position. I'd just torn Owen a new one for doing something similar, and there she was, putting us in an even worse position than he had.
“We need to do this later,” Luke said. “The wind is gusting harder. Those flames are going to be here in a hurry.”
Wes retrieved a box from the truck and started handing out breathing masks. With as much ash and smoke in the air as there was, I was glad he'd thought about it. My head had been so caught up in the danger Sarah was in, I hadn't thought about the situation clearly enough.
We strapped on our masks, and I looked at Sarah again. “We'll talk about this later.”
“Great,” she said. “Now, let's get my sister and the horses out of here.”
She led us to a stable, where Owen and a tall guy with dark hair were just shutting the door on a trailer. The horses inside were stamping their feet nervously, snorting and making all kinds of noises. They knew the fire was upon us and were getting antsy.
Sarah's sister was smaller, but almost a spitting image of her. And when she walked up to me, I could see she had the same spunk and attitude as her big sister.
“This isn't Sarah or Owen's fault,” she said. “It's mine. I'll accept whatever legal punishment –”
I held up my hand. “Later,” I said. “We'll deal with all of this shit later. Right now, we need to get everybody out of here and to safety.”
Wes handed the smaller woman a breathing mask, then tossed one to Owen. The newbie caught it and strapped it on quickly, not meeting our eyes. He knew he was in trouble with me. Again. The man who'd been with him at the trailer walked over to grab a mask from Wes.
“Hey, you okay?” I asked, pointing to his leg. “Are you hurt?”
The man was tall and had dark hair. His skin was a tawny, like he worked in the sun all day. He looked fit, but wasn't too strong, looking made up of lean muscle. I took him to be one of the ranch hands who'd stayed behind to help trailer up the horses.
“No, I'm good,” he said, and chuckled. “Old war wound.”
I nodded as Sarah's little sister – Jacklyn, I thought her name was – sidled up beside him. The way she looked at him told me that she was absolutely taken with him. I could see why. He was a good-looking guy. Rugged. He seemed like somebody you'd cast if you needed a cowboy in your movie.
“Okay, well you better get that mask on,” I said. “And we need to get out of here. That fire is coming and it's not going to stop.”
“I'm going to ride with Eric in the truck with Silver,” Jacklyn said.
“Silver?” I asked.
Jacklyn nodded. “She's the mare who just gave birth,” she said. “If not for Owen here, she might have died having her foal. He's a pretty handy guy.”
I looked over at Owen, who still wouldn't meet my eyes. I would have called him a great many things, but handy wouldn't have been one of them. Especially when it came to horses giving birth. I guess you really did learn something new every day.
“I need to drive the other truck,” Owen said, finally looking up at me.
I opened my mouth to object, but he headed me off. There was a firmness and resolve in his face that I'd never seen in him before. There was also something else. Something I couldn't quite identify, but his bearing was a lot more mature than I'd ever seen in Owen. It was actually impressive.
“I know I'm in the shit with you again,” he said. “I get it. But I want to get these horses out of here and to safety. Most of the ranch hands are gone. Eric and I are the only ones who can drive the trucks with the trailers on them. So, let's get the horses out, and you can tear me a new asshole later.”
I nodded. “Okay,” I said. “Let's roll then.”
I watched Owen walk toward the lead truck, and then watched Jacklyn and her guy, Eric, as they made their way to the second. Something about the guy seemed off to me. I couldn't put my finger on it, but there was something about him I didn't like.
“Yeah, I'm not crazy about the guy either,” Sarah said from beside me.
She looked up at me, studying my face, and could obviously read my thoughts. She'd always been sharp, intuitive, and insightful like that. It was something I appreciated about her. At least, I did, until she turned that on to me.
“Okay, let's get out of here,” I said. “Fire's coming.”
As we walked back to Wes' truck, I saw just how close the fire was getting, and it worried me. The orange and red glow in the sky was brighter than before, and the smoke seemed to be getting even thicker. As I looked out across the fields where they trained their horses, I saw small fires beginning to spring up as hot ash fell from the sky to ignite the dry grass.
We were out of time.
“Run,” I called. “Get to the truck.”
With the two horse trucks behind us, their headlights slashing into the wall of smoke and darkness in front of us, we made it to Wes' truck and quickly piled in. The wind was starting to howl, carrying the heat of the fire with it. If you looked around, you'd swear the world was ending – and unless we got moving, it very well could be for us.
Wes fired the truck up, and quickly turned around, heading back down the service road we'd come in by. All around us more fires, aided by a few strong gusts of wind, were springing up in the fields, and began spreading rapidly among the dry grass and brush.
Sarah looked out the window, her eyes wide, her expression aghast. “It's moving so fast,” she murmured.
“Wildfires do that,” I said.
“The ranch is lost,” she said. “My sister is going to be devastated.”
“They'll rebuild,” Wes said. “And you saved the horses, so there's that.”
“Everything's going to be okay,” Luke chimed in. “The ranch can be rebuilt. The important thing is that you and the others are all okay.”
“Yeah,” she said listlessly.
Wes powered down the service road, and though fires were igniting in the fields all around us, adding to the nightmare landscape, our path somehow remained clear of falling debris. That might not have been the case if we'd waited too much longer to leave, but we made it out unscathed.
Wes got off the service road and pulled back out onto the main highway. With both horse trailers behind us, we headed back toward base camp. Everybody was safe and accounted for. Sarah was safe and accounted for.
That was all that mattered in that moment.
7
Luke
Wes was behind the wheel, Sarah in the passenger seat, while Austin and I had piled into the back seat. The smoke was thick, and the fire was bearing down on the ranch. The sky was lit up in shades of orange and red, seeming like a pale imitation of the sunrise.
All of us were coughing and hacking a bit, clearing the shit out of our lungs. Wes put on the air conditioner, trying to blow the odor of the fire out – though, I didn't think he was going to be able to get that stink out for a while.
“This is where it gets hairy,” Austin said.
The fields all around us were beginning to glow with th
e embers of the burning ash that rained down from above. I knew it wasn't going to be long before they were ablaze. I didn't have much hope that the ranch was going to survive the fire. That didn't matter though. All that mattered was that we got the people – our people – out safely, and alive.
A powerful gust of wind rocked the truck as we rumbled down the dirt service road. Ahead of us, the trailers were swaying back and forth, both from the wind, and from bouncing along the rutted track we were driving on. The glow of their taillights dull and eerie in the smoke.
“They really need to start paving these fire roads,” Wes said.
The atmosphere inside the truck was tense and filled with a sense of dread. With smoke thicker than San Francisco fog, the glow of the fires painting the sky, and the flames shooting heavenward in the distance, the world outside looked like the gates of hell had been opened.
“Luke, are the roads ahead clear?” Austin asked.
I tore my gaze away from the window and looked back down at the tablet in my hand. I called up the drone footage and tried to get a fix on where we were in relation to the blaze. I saw the main highway, watched the fire coming down the valley, headed for the ranch. Smaller hotspots were flaring up as the burning ash spread with the wind, and the flames were moving quickly. Faster than even I anticipated them moving. Tomorrow was going to be a hell of a day, and I didn't think we were going to be able to save all the structures. I just hoped all of the people had gotten out in time.
“Fire's moving fast, but it's mostly still contained to the valley,” I said. “We need to get off this service road, and onto the main highway as quickly as possible. If we can keep it behind us, we'll be able to get back to base camp in good shape.”
“Good,” he replied. “Good.”
“Thank you, guys,” Sarah said, her voice soft. “Thanks for coming to save our asses. I wasn't sure we were going to make it out.”
“We're just glad you're okay,” Austin said.
“Yeah,” Wes chimed in. “Very glad.”
