Heartland

by Davis Bunn

  “I’m on my way to Van Nuys. Spending the entire day with our accountants. I’ll leave strict orders we’re not to be disturbed. Standard ops when we’re crunching numbers.”

  Milo was quiet for a moment. Martin feared he would ask something inconsequential, such as, were they putting anyone in danger.

  Instead, the sales director merely asked, “How much is this costing?”

  “You sure you want to know?” Good old Milo.

  “Tell me.”

  “Think six firemen set for life. No, seven, because the chief required a double helping. No, eight. Our little on-site mole decided to take a cut.” Martin took a choke hold on the steering wheel. “This time tomorrow they’ll be shopping for beachfront properties in Bermuda.”

  Milo said weakly, “Maybe the bar at this lunch will serve me Valium in a glass.”

  “Don’t worry about it,” Martin said. “When it’s all done but the signing, we’ll slip it from the investment account, write it down as part of the deal package.”

  “What if it doesn’t work?”

  “It will work,” Martin said. “It has to.”

  Chapter 43

  Peter was in the second camera stand with Derek. Peter kept telling himself it wasn’t all that high, twenty feet off the ground. And that was true, so long as Peter remained focused in the direction the camera was pointed. But Peter had two little problems doing so. First, the stand was perched upon a hill that rose like a stony mole from the ridgeline. As in, the highest point along the high side of a narrow valley.

  The second problem was the real kicker. Which was, the stand’s other side hung slightly over the ridge. The ridge Peter tried not to think about. The drop was about sixty-eight thousand feet, or so it seemed to Peter. Straight down a rock face. Peter was certain if he turned around he could stare out over the valley holding the Parsons ranch, over Salton City, and right on out to the ocean a hundred or so miles to the west.

  Thinking about how just five skinny poles kept them from tumbling into the abyss left Peter’s tummy swooping with the eagles.

  He knew there were five poles because he counted them as he climbed the ladder into the stand.

  The ladder that had started in the pine forest on the slope’s gentler side. The side that masked the drop. The drop Peter hadn’t seen until he was up top.

  He asked, “You’re sure you can trust the carpenters?”

  “Relax.” Derek was busy at the portable monitor. He slipped the walkie-talkie from his belt and said, “Britt, it looks real good from this angle.”

  About a billion cables snaked up through the ladder-hole, fastened to the stadium-size collection of lights over the stand, to the monitor, and to the camera. Peter asked, “What about the weight of all this gear? Are you sure they took that into account?”

  The sound guy, hunched over even more equipment, asked, “What’s with him?”

  “Nothing. Everything’s okay, right, Peter?”

  “Maybe I should head on back.”

  “You stay put.” Derek vaulted into the camera’s hot seat. “They’re about to start the burn.”

  Ahn’s head popped into view. “Britt said I could come watch if it was okay with you.”

  “Join the party,” Derek replied, then said into his mike, “Ready to roll.”

  “Did the carpenters factor in him too?” Peter asked.

  Ahn walked straight to the stand’s other side. The side with the view all the way to Maui. “Man, this is just too cool!”

  Peter said, “I know those carpenters. They have a bad night, they decide the hammer’s too noisy, they skip every other nail.” Peter motioned to Ahn without turning around. “Get on over here. If we fall, let’s slide in this direction.”

  Ahn asked Derek, “What’s the matter with him?”

  Derek cast Peter a little grin. “Aw, our fearless writer is just having a slight case of the jitters, is all.”

  Peter complained, “I want to live long enough to name our babies.”

  “Mork and Mindy work for me.” Derek turned back to the camera and said, “Sound check.”

  “Go.”

  Derek hit the trigger on his gear and said into the walkie-talkie, “Rolling.”

  Britt’s voice rose from a stand about a hundred yards away. The echo rolled up from the valley behind Peter like a halloo from the far side. Peter felt his gut swoop again and could not keep back the groan.

  Derek said, “Here we go.”

  Ahn slipped over beside Peter. “I can’t believe I’m actually here.”

  The reason for their position became instantly clear. The burn was started by two guys in fire-retardant gear walking a line from Britt’s stand to theirs, down at the base of the nearside valley. The fire, centered between the two camera stands, swiftly towered above the highest pines. The breeze and the slope angled the fire up toward where JayJay and the fire crew stood ready for the shoot.

  Ahn asked, “Why is there so much smoke?”

  Peter managed, “We doused the trees in chemicals those guys brought with them. I don’t know what—”

  Derek’s voice had undergone a sharp change. “Hold the chatter. We’re filming and we need to get this in one take.”

  Between them and where JayJay and Kelly and the fire crew stood, the steadicam guy stalked the forest like a half-human centaur. A trio of bulldozers lumbered in, thundering along the ridge, clearing away debris. A single chopper buzzed overhead, carting its fire-bucket with eight thousand gallons of water. Derek’s other cameraman must have been filming the drop because Derek remained focused on the people below. The chopper dropped its load just beyond the fire line. Peter knew because the flames continued to grow and leap from tree to tree. From the other camera’s angle it would appear to be a perfect strike. Only the fire continued to grow.

  The smoke rolled up the slope and poured in dark waves over the fire team. But their stand remained in totally clear conditions. Peter’s gut calmed with the rising adrenaline rush. He could take in a bit more of his surroundings. The press were clustered upon the next ridge, about four hundred yards farther from the burn. The flames reached up high enough now to lick at the sky. Peter saw where the fire trucks had doused a great V ahead of the burn. The trees angled from the burn to the stand were a much darker shade. The trucks had spent two days drenching the area, so that the burn would be funneled up the hillside yet keep them safe. The cameras were aimed such that they would take in nothing beyond the burn’s water-drenched borders.

  Ahn said softly, “I never thought I’d want to see another one of these things again. Ever.”

  The soundman looked over and shook his head. Once. Then he pointed down at the guy with a satellite dish at the base of the stand, directed toward the approaching burn.

  Peter nodded. It was strange to be this close. His brain kept telling him he was fine. But the burn looked close enough to touch. And the noise. He had forgotten that the forest fire had a voice. A constant, sibilant, angry, rushing roar.

  Then it happened.

  One moment everything was working in movie-perfect control. The next, and the world was filled with a single great WHUMP.

  Peter felt the noise in his chest. Like the world had suddenly taken a great indrawn breath.

  Ahn asked, “What was that?”

  A ball of fire, big enough to look like it enveloped the entire valley, rose with the sluggish grace of a giant rising from slumber. Peter felt the heat crackle against his face.

  Ahn asked, “Is this supposed to happen?”

  “Down!” Derek flipped the catches holding the camera to the tripod, hefted it to his shoulder, and scrambled from his perch. “Everybody down!”

  When they started lighting the ribbon of fire, the only guy not seriously spooked on the ridgeline was the senior fireman. When Kelly had asked his name, he answered, “Missie, until this is over and in the can, you call me Chief. After that, everything is open to negotiation.”

  Things ran pretty much to form f
or the first minutes of the burn. JayJay had no idea exactly how long it took. He was back into firefighting mode. Running hard and actually relishing the chance to do something.

  Then came the noise. To JayJay’s mind, it sounded like something between a bomb and the earth clearing its throat. The explosion was more felt than heard. WHUMP.

  Everyone gaped as flames unfurled overhead. The fireball was so big it rose in slow motion. Spreading out like a great living bellow of rage.

  The entire crew just froze up solid. It took all the self-control JayJay had not to run around in tight little headless-chicken circles and to keep his voice from wobbling for the body-mikes as he yelled over, “What was that?”

  The fire chief jerked to alert status, keyed his walkie-talkie, and said, “Crew Two, you folks better wake on up. Looks like we got us a situation here.”

  Kelly trotted up. “Was that supposed to happen?”

  “It ain’t in any script I was shown.” The chief keyed his mike again. “Crew Two, come back.”

  One of his men yelled over, “We’re about ten seconds from toasting the dozers!”

  “Pull out!” The chief keyed his mike a third time and roared into his walkie-talkie, “Wake up, Drew! We’re into some serious business up here and it’s coming your way!”

  The same crewman yelled over, “Pull back where?”

  The chief squinted into the billowing smoke. “South along the ridge-line. Everybody move!”

  Chapter 44

  They aimed for the camera stand between the burn and the summit holding the press. JayJay and two of the younger fire crew helped Peter and Derek and Ahn load equipment onto two bulldozers. The chief, still unable to raise the emergency crew, ordered everyone to find perches on the dozer. JayJay helped the others up, then found there was no more room. The chief directed JayJay to hoof it along the trail to the parking lot and send up a red flag, while he herded the dozers along a longer but broader trail.

  JayJay did his finest version of Indian running, as in leaping scrub and trampling trees in his haste to make it through the brush. He had a fleeting impression of a camera sweeping alongside him. But he wasn’t sure. Maybe he’d gotten so used to having the ever-present glass eye staring his way, he could render the image out of smoke and drifting embers.

  When he finally broke into the clear, he was treated to a spectacle he knew he would draw out and laugh over once this was done.

  That is, if done was not the word they used to describe his sorry carcass. As in, toasty done.

  The image was this: the Hollywood press corps, the most recalcitrant and egotistical and rebellious group on earth, were all doing exactly what the cops ordered. Which was, Get on the bus. Now.

  The three doors leading to the three buses were a mass of squirming, wiggling, shrieking, wailing humanity. JayJay slowed momentarily, just long enough to embed that vision in his brain. Then he ran harder still.

  Which was why, when he finally got to the cops, he had to lean on his thighs for a second and gasp in enough air to tell the cop with the most stripes on his shoulder, “Need your communicator.”

  The cop was a local, which was good, since it predisposed him not to tell the actor to go play star somewhere else. He simply asked, “This for real?”

  JayJay huffed a nod. “We can’t raise the backup fire crew. Maybe their walkie-talkies are down.”

  “Oh, man.” The cop wore one of the shoulder-mikes. He thumbed it and said, “Sarah, come in.” He listened a second, then, “See if you can raise the backup fire crew.”

  “Channel eighty-six,” JayJay said. He heard footsteps crashing up behind him. “Least, that’s what our chief had down as the operating channel.”

  “Try eighty-six, Sarah.” Another wait, then, “Okay, go to eighty-five and seven. Well, try them again. What about our own folks, we got anybody down near them? Okay, patch me through. Earl, you there? We’re missing our backup fire crew.”

  The voice behind JayJay said, “And the three fire trucks they used for dousing the fire line.”

  JayJay wanted to ask Kelly why she wasn’t on the dozer where she belonged. But the cop was talking and JayJay needed to listen. And the portion of his brain that wasn’t occupied with the billowing smoke and raging fire told him Kelly would only have given him the extended tongue in response.

  The cop said to his mike, “And the trucks? What? Don’t give me that, Earl. How hard can it be to miss three red pump trucks? Hold on, Earl. We got us a serious racket here.” He frowned in the direction of the lead dozer, which cleared the brush and thundered in the direction of the departing buses. A dozen or so people in fire-retardant gear, and film crew in short sleeves and work boots and radio headsets, clung like limpets to the yellow sides. The cop said, “Speak up, Earl. Okay. Roger that.”

  The cop waited for the fire chief to join them, then said, “Earl can’t find the trucks or the crew neither.”

  Kelly said, “Martin Allerby. It’s got to be.”

  The fire chief said, “Who?”

  “Right now it don’t matter,” JayJay decided. Only then did he realize that Derek was standing about arm’s length away, getting the whole thing down on film. “But we better figure that all our backup are hightailing it for the Tijuana crossing.”

  Martin surprised himself. After two and a half weeks of sleeping fitfully and only when drugged, he managed to lose himself utterly in the long list of numbers and the accountants’ pedantic explanations.

  Their first disturbance came an hour after lunch, when the chief accountant’s secretary used the excuse of bringing in a fresh thermos of coffee to report, “Mr. Allerby, your office has been phoning in repeatedly.”

  Martin was careful not to look up from the ledgers. “They can wait.”

  “Gloria, your secretary, she says it is absolutely critical that you—”

  The accountant took Martin’s grim expression as his cue. “No calls means no calls. We’ll be done here in a couple more hours.”

  “No. Hang on a second.” Martin rose from his chair. Papers and sandwich wrappings blanketed the entire conference table. “Gloria is not the type to panic. Just give me a second.”

  Martin emerged from the office. He accepted the stack of messages from the accountant’s secretary, who had been turned sullen by holding off so many frantic calls. He glanced through them, the word urgent becoming ever more stressed and underlined with the passage of time. He looked up and said, “Looks like we may have to call it quits. I’ll return Gloria’s call from the parking lot.”

  Martin rode the elevator down to ground level. He had to resist the urge to whistle along with the show tune piped in over the loudspeaker.

  Midway across the parking lot, he phoned Gloria. “What do you have?”

  “Sir, of all the days not to be able to contact you—”

  “We’re talking now, Gloria. What’s going on?”

  His normally unflappable secretary was so frazzled as to require a fresh intake of breath between every few words. Like she’d been running wind sprints all day long. “I started hearing rumors, oh, I have no idea how long ago. There was a call from somebody who heard something. From a PR staffer on location.”

  “Which location?”

  “Which . . . Heartland.”

  “All right. Calm down. So there’s been a problem at the Heartland ranch. Was it the press junket? A wreck?”

  “Sir, no. There have been reports on the news as well. Wait, it’s coming on again. And pictures. Oh, Mr. Allerby, this looks awful.”

  “Tell me!”

  “The fire is completely out of control! Oh, here’s a flyover, Mr. Allerby, the whole valley is in flames!”

  “Has Britt called?”

  “No sir. I’ve been trying his phone all afternoon. And his assistant, Mr. Denderhoff. Oh, I can see the ranch! The fire is—”

  “Call the airport and book me a plane.”

  “Sir, I’ve tried. We’re too late. Every plane in fifty miles has been booked
by the newspeople.”

  “Then I’ll drive. I’m leaving for Salton City this very instant. Call me with updates. Find Britt.”

  Chapter 45

  The fire chief had aged about six hundred years. Or so it seemed to JayJay.

  He kept saying over and over, “That second team were my lifelong buddies. I can’t believe they’d do this to me.”

  Kelly looked at JayJay as she said, “Yeah, well, I guess what they say is true, hang around Hollywood long enough and the rot starts to work under the toughest hide.”

  The fire chief’s face had gone slack as an old hound dog’s, his eyes so dulled not even the rising blaze could ignite them. “I counted on those guys.”

  Kelly said to JayJay, “Looks like you’re up, Slim.”

  JayJay punched the chief’s arm. Hard. “Wake up there.”

  “Watch who you’re slugging, mister.”

  “Just making sure I got your full attention. You round your men up and get them down to my ranch. We’ll make that the line. I got meadows stretching out to either side with a spring we can use for pumping in water.” He turned to the hovering cop. “Better get hold of the forest service.”

  “Already have. There’s a big burn started about thirty miles south of here. They’re dug in good. They say it’ll be tomorrow at the earliest.”

  “What kinda units can we get up from the town?”

  “The equipment’s no problem.” The cop responded fast enough to show he’d been thinking the same thing. “The state’s been upgrading fire trucks in all the valley towns. But the crews are all volunteer. Mostly retired geezers who use it for a place to hang their checker games. A few college punks wanting a kick.”

  “Get them to the ranch. They’re your responsibility.”

  The cop nodded. “You taking charge?”

  JayJay glanced over, doing his best to ignore Derek and the big glass eye. The chief was moving, but dully. Unfocused. “’Til this guy says otherwise.” To the chief he said, “Get your men and equipment down to the ranch pronto. This thing is growing.” He turned to Kelly. “Let’s go.”