Heartland

by Davis Bunn

  Together they trotted to the pickup. JayJay talked as he unhitched the horse van. “Take the truck. Go find Miller at the Ford dealership. Tell him to get everybody he can on out to the ranch. See if they got somebody with clout at the forest service.”

  She had to shout now to be heard over the rising flames. “What about you?”

  He tightened the saddle-girth and slipped the bit into Skye’s mouth. “I got to go save me a director.”

  “Here.” Peter came running over with Ahn. Both of them held armfuls of mini oxygen bottles. “Take these.”

  JayJay pulled two feed sacks from the horse van. He held the necks as they stowed the bottles, then tied the cords together and slung the sacks from the pommel. Then he swung himself into the saddle. “Time to fly.”

  Martin waited until he was out of the LA concrete spaghetti and aimed up I-5 to phone the only other number set into his new cell phone’s speed dial. Even so, he checked around. As if anybody on this desert wasteland of a road would care what somebody in a Volkswagen was doing with his phone.

  The phone answered with a rush of what sounded first like static. Then a voice shrilled, “Help!”

  Martin said nothing. Just listened as the static became a beast’s furious roar.

  His spy shrieked so high the phone could not handle it. But Martin understood the final two words.

  “We’re trapped!”

  He cut the connection and turned off the phone. He could not totally suppress the smile. And who could blame him.

  After all, he now had a fat Bermuda account that he could claim for himself.

  Chapter 46

  JayJay finally got around to admitting the truth when only Skye was around to hear.

  Which was, he was scared out of his wits.

  No surprise there. Not with the fire raging up and over the ridgeline, a great blanket of smoke and fury. The fire was moving so fast the rear trees still smoldered, like they were sulking over being left behind. The ridgeline and the left-hand stand, where Derek had been, was basically one solid wall of red. The smoke obliterated any chance JayJay had of seeing the other stand. The one where Britt and Kip and the second cameraman and the script girl and a couple of others had been working.

  But it did not look good.

  Which was why he raced over still-smoldering earth. Hugging as tight to the fire line as he dared. Cutting the distance, and making better time, because most of the undergrowth was now fiery ash. Skye whinnied with alarm or pain, he couldn’t be sure which. But the horse was as steady and trusting as ever, pushing hard and relying on JayJay to keep them both alive.

  The earlier drenching was good because it kept the flames from eating too far into the safety line. But it was also bad, because the wet trees were now smoking from the reflected heat. And the smoke was not merely blinding. It puffed in the way of trees that were just begging for the fire to notch up a single degree more. And when that happened, they were going to ignite. Three-quarters of a mile of tree-size firebombs. All exploding at once.

  JayJay touched Skye’s flanks with his heels. He didn’t need the whip. Skye was as taut as JayJay. The horse leaped forward. Not seeing any better than her rider. But trusting JayJay just the same. Twice the smoke pushed aside enough for JayJay to get a sighting of the gray-tainted sun and fix the ridgeline. The third time it happened, JayJay spotted the director’s stand, or what was left of it. Fire licked up the near side, devouring the rail and the cables. The stand began to tip over, a reluctant sacrifice to the roaring beast. Then the smoke closed in again. JayJay was fairly certain the stand was empty. Which was all that mattered. He fitted the kerchief tighter over his mouth and nose and nudged Skye forward.

  From where JayJay sat, it appeared the only reason they didn’t gallop straight over Kip was that the AD gave his best rendition of a steam whistle and drew Skye up on her hind legs.

  JayJay figured the little feller was going to go into one of his patented conniption fits. But as JayJay slid from the saddle, Kip threw his arms up over his head and shrilled, “Yippee yee ki yay!”

  Britt came staggering out of the smoke. He had his arms wrapped around the terrified-looking script girl, who could not stop coughing. The director’s face was streaked with ash and there was a burn mark on his cheek. But he grinned at JayJay and said, “So maybe there’s something to this prayer thing after all.”

  The steadicam guy came staggering behind the others. He got as close to JayJay as he could, and spoke the first words JayJay had ever heard him utter. “Okay, hero, where’d you stash the actor fellow?”

  Britt waited until they got the script girl up on Skye’s back and they distributed the oxygen bottles to ask the steadicam operator, “You getting this?”

  The steadicam guy was back to silent running. He just sucked his bottle and gave the director a double thumbs-up.

  Britt was still grinning with weary relief. “Time for act three.”

  The limo driver was jacked so high by the smoke and the need for speed he actually two-stepped his way around the limo to open the door for Britt, who greeted him with, “I think we’re way beyond the courtesy zone, Gerald.”

  “Hey, you let the dog out, he might never fit back in the kennel.” The guy swept into a smoke-streaked bow. “Can I get you anything? Canapés? Champagne? A new charge on your oxygen tent?”

  “Just get us to the ranch in record time.”

  “Caddies have a tendency to sway a little when you do curves at high speeds,” Gerald warned the group. “Anybody with funny tummies might want to follow behind in the truck.”

  They headed downhill in a limo, an equipment truck, and one of Miller Whitley’s service department loaners. Skye was safely on her way back to town with a messenger sent to direct volunteers. The limo ride brought to mind a yacht fitted out with afterburners. On curves the limo devoured every inch of road. Twice the crevices to their right disappeared, revealing a fire that appeared to be racing them down the ridge.

  Gerald kept up a cheery commentary on the way. “Now that they’re far enough from the embers not to have their hair spray go up like firebombs, the Hollywood press have gotten all brave again. Your three bus drivers have basically seen their tax bracket hike upward from the bribes. A couple of passing Mexican farmworkers sold their produce trucks for down payments on condos in Acapulco. All the taxis in two counties are just plain gone. Nineteen news choppers are inbound. Along with every rental plane between La Jolla and Seattle.”

  JayJay had a death grip on the ceiling and door handle. It was the only way to keep from banging around the limo like peas in a soup can. “Long as they stay out of my way.”

  The spectacle that awaited them when they rounded the final bend and the ranch came into view was good for a serious intake of everyone’s breath.

  Gerald, however, had seen it all before. “Drinks and charbroiled refreshments will be served on the veranda at six.”

  The flames formed a crescent that licked its way down the hills. Plural. Once beyond the drenched trees, it had spread in both directions. And soon as they rose from the limo, they all felt the same thing brushing against their faces.

  The wind.

  Gerald held Britt’s door and said, “Is now a good time to discuss my per diem?”

  JayJay said, “You best get out of that fancy suit, bub. On account of your services are needed on the line.”

  Derek came trotting over. With Ahn. And Peter. And Claire. And Kip. And Miller. All of them wore the same wide-eyed smoke-streaked expression. Staring not at Britt. At JayJay.

  Derek said, “The fire chief might as well have lost his buddies in the fire.”

  Miller agreed, “Fellow’s gone down like a gut-shot balloon.”

  JayJay asked, “Where’s Kelly?”

  Grins pushed through the weariness and the ashes on five faces. Miller said, “Hoss, that is some honey you got yourself there.”

  Peter said, “She’s playing general.”

  Derek said to Britt, “I go
t the second camera stuck on her like snot on my baby’s upper lip.”

  Claire said, “Yuck. You think maybe you could find a more appealing way to describe that?”

  Derek went on, “My assistant cameraman just got herself promoted. She’s up on the roof doing sweeps with the official gear.” He poked the tape-strapped camera at his feet. “I’m hopping around with this old clunker.”

  JayJay asked, “What about the forest service?”

  “They’re a day out,” Miller said. “We’re it, hoss. I got my men spread down the creek bed, making us a fire line. Kelly’s directing the fire crew down at the valley’s far end. The dozers pulled in about five minutes ago. You want to take them over?”

  “I’m on it,” JayJay agreed.

  Derek asked, “Where’s the steadicam?”

  Britt said, “In the truck coughing up his left lung.”

  Derek said, “You need to tell him to give me his gear. I’ve worn one a couple of times. Tell him he’ll still get paid. But we need to use it.”

  Miller still had not lost his grin. “Can’t believe you folks are talking about film with this fire bearing down.”

  “We are not going to let them win,” Britt said, hot as the approaching flames.

  Miller showed confusion. “Who’s that?”

  “Never mind.” JayJay pointed them forward. “Let’s go save the day.”

  Chapter 47

  JayJay knew it fifteen minutes into his new gig. The army of locals who were still arriving, streaming into the smoky valley and being directed into the fire line by Ahn and Claire and Peter, made no difference. None.

  He sent Ahn off to gather the bosses. The ones that mattered. The fire chief joined them. But he was not fully there.

  When they met on the porch’s front step, Derek said, “Britt, you and Ahn and Peter step out of camera range.”

  Britt said, “You’re giving directions now?” But they all did as they were told.

  Then, just as JayJay was getting ready to shape the words, there she came. Stepping out of the smoke like the chieftain she was.

  JayJay leaped down the steps and ran over. Kelly sped toward him, as fast as the fire-retardant gear and her load of weariness allowed.

  They met in a bulky embrace. And laughed at how hard it was to hug properly when dressed in jackets thick as Sheetrock.

  JayJay shrugged out of his coat and dumped off his hat. Slipped inside her jacket and took hold of the woman. Tight hold. And kissed her.

  Kelly tasted of soot and fire and sweat and worry. It was the finest flavor JayJay had ever known.

  They broke for air and a shared smile. Kelly said, “You look some kind of fine, Slim.”

  “Funny,” he replied. “I was just thinking that very same thing.”

  “There you go,” she said. “Another star stealing his lady’s best lines.”

  JayJay led her back to the others. All without letting go.

  Miller said, “I never thought fire clothes could be something erotic. Guess that shows how much I know.”

  JayJay said to his team, “We need to lose the ranch.”

  He pointed back up the ridge. The upper ridge and most of the slope where JayJay had ridden were ablaze. The almond orchard was gone. The fire’s two incoming arms were sweeping out as well as down, a hundred and fifty yards max from the meadow’s border. JayJay went on, “We use the town’s trucks and douse the fields. Move the teams back to the other side of the cottonwoods. Focus all our effort on extending the fire line through the orchards to either side of the ranch.”

  It was Claire who said, “Give up your home?”

  “Either that or risk the town.”

  It was then that JayJay’s two worlds finally meshed. Looking into the eyes of this woman who had been his sister and then a stranger and was now a sister again. Different, and the same. JayJay was so very glad to be able to say, “Besides, it’s just an old cabin. Full of memories that don’t mean nothing to nobody.”

  Chapter 48

  They had won. Everybody knew it. The fire was still fierce, but was now contained within the valley’s natural confines. The fire trucks strung their hoses out from the spring to the portable pumps and shot huge streams of water over the ranch and the surrounding meadows. JayJay split his dozers, two to the denser orchards down below the last meadow, one to help extend the natural break made by the road. Kip played number two both to Miller and to Britt, keeping the road clear, ordering the stream of new arrivals to park well away from the fire and hoof it in, getting all the trucks and gear out of the ranch. Britt remained the director. He was the one man in touch with everyone. He used runners as well as walkie-talkies, since the new workers had no communicators. He watched both the cameras and the fire crew, like he was simultaneously directing two overlapping scenes.

  The fire line was not nearly as broad as anyone would have liked. But the spring meant there was a steady flow of water. And the chopper was back repeatedly now, dumping water where Britt ordered via cell phone. JayJay stayed on the dozers, running back and forth between the two lines. Britt and he had racing confabs every time JayJay passed the station. Ahn was his deputy on the pair working the orchard. Claire handled the others.

  Derek’s clothes were drenched almost black with sweat from keeping up with JayJay.

  JayJay waited until the flames started licking across the far meadow to say, “I’d say it’s time.”

  Britt nodded. They were enough in tune now that words from one worked for both. “Do it.”

  JayJay said to the nearest runner, the square-jawed Ford salesman named Piston, “Tell Miller to clear everybody away from that far side. We’re falling back. Let’s meet up here.” He said to Claire, “I’ll go fetch the dozer working the western slope. You tell the machine down the east side to head out.”

  But as he started out across the meadow, he felt it. The awareness surged like a current through his hands and up into his brain.

  The barn was going up now, no amount of water able to keep the dry old wood from burning. JayJay hustled toward where the cottonwoods had been chopped down, the stream framed now by raw stumps. The corral fence was burning. The ranch’s drenched roof was smoldering sullenly. The puddled meadows were turning to ash without ever really blazing up.

  Ahn must have seen where his gaze was centered, because he asked, “You okay?”

  “Not sure.” JayJay had not even realized the kid was there beside him. The niggling sensation grew stronger. He did not bother to tell Ahn to go back. There was nothing to be gained from wasting his breath. He started jogging, the heavy coat bouncing hard on his shoulders with each step.

  Miller emerged into the clearing, surrounded by a weary, soot-streaked, but satisfied crew.

  Then it happened.

  The wind did not arrive in the same punching downblast as at the last fire. Instead, there was a quiet sibilant rush, like the trapped fire muttered curses against them and all their efforts.

  The valley caught the smoke and clamped it down tight. Blanking out the way ahead. Burning his eyes with soot. The only light was flickering embers, sweeping by in rushing swirls.

  Ahn coughed and said, “I believe I’ve been this way before.”

  JayJay gripped his jacket and spun him around. “Move! Straight ahead.”

  They found Miller by colliding with him. The mayor of Salton City had finally lost his smile. “What in heaven’s name was that?”

  “Downdraft.” JayJay snaked out and connected Miller with Ahn. “Link up. One hand in front, one behind. Miller, you head straight on.”

  “I could blunder into Nevada and not know it.”

  “Something tells me this ain’t gonna last.” JayJay started running.

  A voice from the gray wilderness called out, “Where you headed?”

  JayJay did not bother to reply. All his senses, all his energy, were hunkered down in one tight alarm.

  Kelly needed him.

  JayJay rode the signal like he was following a sce
nt. He did not have time to figure out what was going on. He could not even afford to hope he was wrong. All the confusing mess of who he was and where he’d sprung from and where he might or might not be headed. All gone. He was surrounded by an impenetrable mist, and the only way he was going to make it happen was if he used everything, the fear and the rage and the weariness and the tension. Everything. And plugged it into the socket where his heart resided. Just another primitive hunter on the scent of game.

  Just life and death was all it was.

  He used a tracker’s lope. Limbs all loose and everything on the move. Dodging branches that appeared at the last split second from the gray choking soup. He passed a few figures stumbling toward him. He checked the faces and in the instant he realized they were not Kelly, he gripped them hard enough to shock them from their fear and confusion. Pointed them straight back and said the only words that registered. Safety is that way.

  Then he was gone.

  His hands were fists in front of his face. His knees came up almost to his chest as he leaped over dead growth. He heard a rising thunder and was amazed to realize it was the sound of his own breathing.

  Then he stopped. Fitted the kerchief tighter around his mouth and nose. Clamped it down with one hand. Breathed as shallow and soft as he could. And listened. Not for sound. For the guidance. The link. The compass of his being. Searching through the drifting embers and the searing smoke for the only spark that mattered.

  He angled right. Running hard. Straight into the approaching fire.

  Then he saw her.

  “Oh, lady. No.”

  She was slumped on the ground. A branch lay beside her. Her helmet was shattered. Which was supposed to be impossible. Her hair was spilled out and covered her face.

  He stooped over her. Slid her into her arms. “Come on, Kelly. Let’s get you out of here.”

  She did not move. He could not tell if she was breathing at all.

  JayJay reached around her inert form and pulled the kerchief from his mouth. He fitted his own lips over hers. Her face was oily with old sweat and felt so very very cold.