Firefighter

by Jennifer Li Shotz

  But there was no time to stop.

  They just had to keep running.

  They ran until they reached a downed tree that lay across the streambed. The kids slowed their pace and, their chests heaving and their limbs aching, scrabbled over it. As Matt threw a leg over the dead trunk, he looked over his shoulder and let out a cry of relief.

  They had put a safe distance between themselves and the fire—for the moment. There were no flames behind them, no sizzling fire spitting sparks. At least a mile uphill, back the way they had come, a curl of smoke rose above the trees.

  But Matt knew they shouldn’t get too comfortable. His dad always told him it was a rookie mistake to relax when you thought a mission was going well. That, his dad would say, is when we let our guard down. And that’s when the trouble starts. You learn from experience that it’s not over until it’s really over.

  But still. “Guys!” he gasped. “Take a break.”

  They slowed to a walk, then to a stop on the stream bank. Curtis bent over, his hands on his knees. Amaiya walked in a slow circle, her hands on her hips. Dev just stood there, his back to the rest of them.

  His head was down and his shoulders shook. Something wasn’t right.

  “Dev!” Matt shouted, running around in front of his friend. Amaiya and Curtis heard the fear in Matt’s voice and dashed over.

  Dev’s face was pinched in concentration, and his chest rose and fell rapidly but unevenly. Matt noticed that with every breath, Dev’s neck muscles clenched and unclenched. His face was colorless, and his lips had a strange blue tinge to them. Dev opened his mouth and closed it again, and when he did, Matt thought he heard a squeaking sound coming from his throat.

  It was such a weird thing to do. It was almost like . . . like . . . like a fish gulping air.

  Dev was gasping for air.

  “It’s okay, Dev!” Matt said, buying time while his mind raced and panic flooded his brain. He had no idea how to help his friend. What Dev really needed was medicine, fast. But not helping wasn’t an option, so Matt needed to come up with something quick.

  Amaiya and Curtis helped Dev sit down on the ground while Matt ran through a thousand thoughts in a second. He looked at his friend and saw the fear in his eyes.

  If I couldn’t breathe, Matt thought, I’d be freaking out. And when you’re freaking out, your heart beats faster and you feel like you can’t breathe.

  Before Matt could figure out what to say, Amaiya took charge. “Dev!” she commanded. “You cannot panic! Do you hear me?”

  Dev nodded.

  “That’s right,” Matt chimed in. “We don’t panic. Panic doesn’t help.”

  He put a hand on Dev’s shoulder and looked him squarely in the face. The fear in Dev’s eyes was like a blow to the gut, but Matt pushed away the emotions. “We have to get your heart rate down, Dev. Do you trust me, man?”

  Dev nodded.

  “Then I need you to trust me on this: You’re going to be fine. You will be able to breathe. You will have oxygen. Got it?”

  Dev nodded again, and a tiny bit of hope flickered in his eyes. His nostrils flared as he sucked in air.

  “So slow it all down, Dev. Go slow. Innnnnnhale. Exxxxxxhale.” Matt took a long, slow breath to demonstrate. Dev followed Matt’s instructions.

  “Good, Dev,” Amaiya said in a soothing tone. “Slower. See? Matt’s right.”

  Soon, Dev’s face began to relax, and his chest moved at a more normal pace.

  He finally spoke. “I’m cool,” he said, his voice tight. It looked like it took all his focus to get the words out. “Just smoke. And running. Be fine.” No sooner had he said the words than he was wracked by a painful series of coughs that sounded like they were being squeezed out of him. He closed his mouth and tried to suppress them, but they escaped from between his lips.

  Dev closed his eyes and focused all his attention on breathing.

  Matt and Amaiya stood up just as Curtis let out a loud yelp.

  “No way!” he called out in an excited voice. “Look!”

  Matt raised his head. The sun had started to come up, and in the pink dawn light, he was surprised to see where they were.

  He’d been so focused on Dev that he had totally tuned out the crashing sound of water. And he hadn’t realized they were standing on a wide bluff.

  Curtis stood at the edge, staring down at something and pointing. Scout stood next to him, his ears angled forward as he looked down too.

  Matt and Amaiya ran to Curtis’s side.

  Matt’s field of vision swooped, and his heart leaped in his chest.

  They were perched at the top of a tall cliff, where the stream gurgled and tumbled over the edge and became a waterfall. The waterfall.

  About twenty feet below, a man sat leaning against a rock with his foot resting in the water.

  It was Matt’s dad.

  16

  “DAD!” MATT SHOUTED OVER the thundering waterfall.

  His dad’s head shot up at the sound of Matt’s voice. “Matt!” he called back, his face crumpling with emotion at the sight of his son. “Oh, thank God you’re safe.”

  “I lost the walkie-talkie,” Matt yelled down. “I’m sorry. Are you okay?” His dad gave him a thumbs-up and slowly, carefully, used a rock for balance and stood up on his good leg.

  “Stay there,” Matt yelled. “We’re coming to you.”

  “How do we get down?” Curtis asked.

  Matt scanned the landscape around them and surveyed their options. It suddenly felt as if they had come to the end of the world.

  The cliff they stood on spread out to their left and their right as far as he could see. It was possible one of those directions would lead them to the trail that would take them to the bottom of the waterfall. But it was also possible either of those directions could lead them directly into the path of the fire. They didn’t have time to find out which it would be.

  Directly behind them was the wall of flame heading down from the peak—they certainly weren’t going back toward it.

  And in front of them . . . well, that was a sheer, twenty-foot drop.

  But it was also their best option.

  Matt and Amaiya exchanged a look. Her eyes fell to her feet, where the earth dropped away beneath them. She seemed to be preparing herself, and Matt knew she understood exactly what they needed to do.

  They needed to climb straight down.

  Under ideal conditions, this would have been a challenging—but fun—route for Matt and his friends to climb. They were all experienced enough to handle it—Dev in particular. But they’d been awake for almost twenty-four hours, had hiked miles over hard terrain, and were being chased by a wildfire—nowhere near ideal conditions. They were all exhausted and shaky.

  On top of that, the rocks were wet and slippery from the waterfall. The smoke made it hard to see in the faint morning light. And Dev could barely breathe. He was too unsteady to make a tough climb like this.

  And what about Scout? He would never make it. He would tumble right over the side.

  This descent would only be safe if they were clipped in with harnesses and ropes and bolts in the rock, and if there was someone on the ground to help belay them down slowly.

  That was it!

  Matt quickly searched the area, desperately hoping he’d find exactly what he needed.

  A few feet away, set back from the edge, was a large, squat boulder. Matt ran over and leaned into it with his shoulder, pushing against it with all his weight. It was as big as a car, and it didn’t budge.

  Perfect.

  Amaiya and Curtis watched him with curious expressions.

  “Amaiya,” Matt said, “you guys came up to rock climb on Mount Kit, right?”

  She nodded. “Why?”

  “So you have ropes? And harnesses?”

  Her face brightened. She knew where he was going with this. “We do!” She took her pack off her shoulders and rummaged through it. She pulled out a length of thick nylon rope, her climbin
g harness, and a few carabiners. Curtis did the same, pulling his equipment—and Dev’s, which he had been carrying—from his backpack.

  They sorted through their gear and came up with a plan while Scout sniffed and pawed at the pile of ropes on the ground. Curtis and Matt knotted several long pieces of rope together while Amaiya held up a harness and turned it around in her hands.

  Dev sat in the same spot, his eyes closed and his head back against a rock. Every couple of minutes, a fit of dry, harsh coughs took over his body. Matt could tell he was struggling. Scout wandered over to Dev and lay down at his side, with one paw on his lap, as if he knew Dev needed to be comforted. Dev rested a hand on Scout’s neck.

  “I think I got it,” Amaiya said. She snatched up a pile of carabiners and used them to clip two harnesses together at several points. She held up the contraption she had created. “That should do it. See?”

  Matt and Curtis grinned. “Amazing,” Matt said.

  Amaiya had transformed two people harnesses into one dog harness. Scout would be able to slip his legs through the holes, and they could weave ropes through it and clip the straps around his back. Then they’d be able to lower him down the side of the waterfall to the flat land below.

  They looked at each other and, without saying a word, understood that they would have to do the same with Dev.

  “Someone has to go down first,” Matt said. “To disconnect them when they get to the bottom.” He looked from Curtis to Amaiya and back again. “But I need to stay here with Scout. So, which one of you wants to go?”

  Matt knew it was a big ask. Whoever went first was the guinea pig who would test whether the system they had rigged would work . . . or not.

  Curtis bit his lip and Amaiya swallowed hard.

  “I’ll do it,” they said at the same time. Then they both laughed nervously.

  “Amaiya,” Curtis said, his tone growing serious, “let me do it. You stay here with Dev. He needs you.”

  He was right, and Amaiya knew it. She nodded.

  They stood up. Curtis stepped into his own harness and clipped himself into one end of the rope. Matt wrapped the other end of the rope around his waist and tied it with a military-grade knot his dad had taught him. Gathering up the rest of the slack, he walked over to the boulder and circled it, then sat down on the ground facing it, with his back to his friends. He stretched out his legs and put the soles of his feet firmly against the rock.

  On one end of the rope, Matt would brace himself against the boulder. On the other end, Curtis would lower himself slowly down the side of the cliff. In between them, the rope would wrap around the giant rock, which would serve as a sort of pulley, doing much of the work of supporting Curtis’s weight and helping Matt control the rope.

  Matt had taken off his sweatshirt, and he used the sleeves as makeshift gloves so the rope wouldn’t burn his hands. He looked over at Amaiya and Curtis. Amaiya was checking Curtis’s harness. She stepped back. Curtis gave Matt a thumbs-up, and Matt nodded in return.

  They were ready.

  17

  MATT SUCKED IN HIS BREATH, then let out one long, slow exhale. He shook out his legs and hands and gripped the rope tightly. Then he felt it go taut as Curtis began his descent. Little by little, responding to the tension in the rope, Matt let out the slack, and slowly, Curtis made his way to the ground.

  Matt couldn’t believe how heavy his friend felt—even with the boulder distributing his weight. Matt’s knees locked and his legs twitched. His forearms shook with exertion, and the muscles in his back flexed so tightly it felt like they would snap. The rope threatened to pop out of his hands at any moment. Scout sat next to him, close enough to let Matt know he was there to help, but keeping a watchful eye on the edge of the cliff.

  It felt like an eternity. Matt gritted his teeth and wiped the sweat from his brow with his shoulder. He took quick, sharp breaths through his nose. He didn’t think about all the ways this jury-rigged system could go terribly wrong, or the fact that a fire could be swooping down on them at any moment, or that he still had to do this twice more—once for Dev and once for Scout—before he could even begin to figure out how to get his dad off the mountain with a busted leg.

  Instead, Matt focused on one inch of rope at a time, and then the next inch, then the next. He listened for the sound of Amaiya’s voice as she called out the distance Curtis had left to travel. “Ten feet,” she said. “Nine. Eight . . .”

  Finally, Matt lurched backward as the tension in the rope disappeared. Curtis had his feet on solid ground.

  “I got him!” Matt’s dad yelled up from below. Matt felt the rope vibrate as his dad untied Curtis from the harness.

  Matt’s whole body was trembling—as much from the effort as from the nerves.

  Their plan had worked.

  Matt quickly pulled the rope back up and took a moment to catch his breath. It was Dev’s turn. Matt stood up and walked over to his friend, who was breathing more easily but still seemed really out of it. Matt and Amaiya helped Dev stand up and eased the harness around him. Scout circled them, supervising.

  Dev would have to hold on to the rope to keep himself upright as Matt lowered him down.

  “Dev, you understand what’s happening here?” Matt asked.

  “I understand,” Dev said, his eyelids heavy and his chest letting out strange squeaking sounds with every breath he took. “I get it.”

  “You’re going to be clipped in, but you’ll also need to hang on to the rope, okay?”

  “Yep. Hang on. Got it.”

  “Hey, man,” Matt said, putting his hands on Dev’s shoulders and looking up into his much taller friend’s face. “You’re going to do great. Curtis and my dad are on the ground waiting for you.”

  Dev looked Matt right in the eye and grinned. “Neither one of them is soft enough to break my fall, so I plan to hang on tight.”

  Matt and Amaiya rolled their eyes.

  “That’s the spirit, Dev,” Amaiya teased him.

  Matt punched Dev in the shoulder—just like Dev always punched Matt.

  Then Matt walked around the boulder and sat down again.

  It pained Matt to think of his friend being so helpless, especially on a route he would be excited to tackle under normal circumstances. Dev was an insane rock climber. When he climbed, he was in total control of his body, but at the same time he looked so free, as though he was a part of nature.

  But today, Dev’s body was working against him. Instead, he would be strapped into a harness, clinging to a rope, while he was lowered slowly to the ground.

  It wasn’t right. But Matt knew it was their only choice.

  “On three,” Amaiya called out. Matt was facing away from them, but he could hear her guiding Dev over the side of the mountain. Matt felt the rope go taut, and he began to let out the slack.

  Amaiya alternated between encouraging Dev and calling out the remaining distance to Matt. Matt’s leg muscles burned, and his back ached. His hands chafed even through the sweatshirt.

  “Thirteen. Twelve,” Amaiya called out. “Elev— Dev!” she shrieked.

  The rope jerked Matt’s arms, hard. “Amaiya!” he screamed. “What’s happening?” Scout hopped to his feet and ran to Amaiya in a few long strides.

  Matt felt as if the weight on the other end of the rope had suddenly doubled. The rope vibrated and yanked his arms, making his knees feel like they were about to buckle under the strain. He pushed even harder against his feet to keep himself from being dragged right around the rock. “I can’t hold on—”

  “It’s Dev,” she shouted back. “He passed out and let go of the rope. He’s just—he’s dangling there. Dev! Wake up! Wake up!”

  Through the sound of the blood pounding in his ears, Matt heard Scout’s familiar whimper and whine. The dog scampered toward the edge of the cliff.

  Matt used every muscle in his body to hold the rope—and himself—steady. Adrenaline pumped through him, and he felt dizzy with fear. He shut his eyes until it
passed, but two terrible thoughts played on repeat in Matt’s head: If he couldn’t hold on, Dev would plummet straight down onto a hard stone surface.

  And if that happened, Dev would never survive.

  Scout started barking—a loud and relentless barrage of noise that was unlike anything Matt had ever heard. Even without seeing him, Matt knew what Scout was doing. He was trying to wake up Dev.

  Suddenly the rope jerked and the weight grew steady again. Scout did it!

  Matt heard Dev’s faint voice echoing off the rocks. “Sorry,” Dev said.

  “Are you okay?” Amaiya called down to him.

  “Yep. Won’t happen again.”

  “It better not,” she said. “Don’t you dare scare me like that.”

  Matt’s hands were cramping. He couldn’t hold on much longer.

  “Enough chatting,” he shouted. “Keep it moving, Dev.”

  “Wow,” Dev called up in response. “So impatient.”

  Matt was happy to hear that his friend—his extremely sarcastic friend—was himself again.

  “Five,” Amaiya called. “Four . . .” Then, at last, Matt felt the beautiful relief of weightlessness in his arms.

  Dev had made it to the bottom.

  “Dev’s good!” Matt’s dad shouted up. “I got him!”

  Scout felt light as a feather compared to Dev’s deadweight. After the dog was safely on the ground below, Matt and Amaiya threw the rest of the gear over the cliff and climbed down on their own, slowly and carefully.

  As soon as Matt’s feet touched solid ground, he ran straight to his dad.

  So many emotions passed across his dad’s face in rapid succession that Matt couldn’t track them all. His dad opened and closed his mouth, like he wanted to say something. But instead of speaking, he folded Matt into a hug of near-crushing strength. Matt sank into his dad’s arms. Scout hopped up and wormed his way between them, and they stood like that for a long moment.

  Matt’s dad released him and turned to the other dirt-streaked, ash-covered kids. For an excruciatingly long moment, his face was blank as he studied them one by one. Matt didn’t know what he was going to say. Would he scold them for going up Mount Kit without permission in the first place?