by Lou Cadle
“It was simple surgery, then,” Gili said. “But it’s not at all simple now, is it? I guess it never was, but it didn’t ever sound like a death sentence before.”
“No. A lot of things have become that. Though Kelly had stockpiled some antibiotics and pain pills, we’re out of both. Had we set more aside, they’d probably be expired by now anyway. So even a simple cut from a pocketknife could become infected and kill you. I try to stay aware of that as I’m clearing the land for new fields right now.”
“Are you thinking of letting us stay?” Saul said.
Smart man. “We are. Let’s see how it goes. We’ll come back tomorrow and tell you how things are. And a couple days after that, we need to harvest another field of grain here.”
“We haven’t touched it,” Gili said.
“No, I saw that. Okay, that’s it. That’s all I came for.”
“That was nice of you,” Gili said.
“I’d want to know, were I in your shoes,” Sierra said. “See you tomorrow, me or someone else.”
“Hey,” Saul said, “did you smell the smoke earlier today?”
“Smoke?” Hadn’t Joan mentioned that? Sierra felt a cold wave of dread. “Wood smoke, like a fire?”
“We guessed you were doing something like smoking meat,” he said.
Had they been, it was too far to smell it from here. “We weren’t. When did you smell it?”
“Oh, midday, maybe a little after noon,” he said. “Gili, do you remember?”
“Off and on all afternoon, for me,” she said. “An hour or so ago, it went away.”
“The wind shifts,” Sierra said, the worry settling like hot acid in her stomach. “When the sun sets, the mountains cool off quickly, and we usually get a downhill breeze for a time. When it’s full dark, it stops. This could be bad.”
“Why?” Gili said, frowning.
“Wildfire. Damn, I wish I’d listened to Joan.”
“Did she smell it?”
“Just a whiff. If I were you, I’d set a watch tonight. And get ready to fight a fire.”
“With what?” Saul said.
“I’d wet down your roof—roofs, including the storage buildings. And get buckets set out, filled with water.”
“There aren’t hoses here. Or blankets,” Gili said.
No. They’d taken everything of use like that. “I might pull the wagon right out to the main road too, in case you have to move fast.”
“That road wouldn’t save us if there’s a wildfire.”
“But I can’t think of any better protection. Find a wide spot where there used to be passing lanes. It’s not much better for us either. There’s a stream, but it’s dry. Too long without rain.” She felt anxious to get home, and before the sun set. “I have to go. Stay alert.”
“If we have to run, how do we find you? We can’t leave without Becca and Janine.”
Sierra had to make the decision for the whole group, which she hated doing. “We’re up the hill eight or so miles on your left. Keep an eye peeled as you come up, and you can see the tips of our wind turbines through the trees. I’m off.” And she was as good as her words, getting back to the car and hopping in, saying, “Let’s go.”
“Something wrong?” Pilar said.
“There might be a wildfire. I want to climb the tower before it’s dark and see if I can catch sight of anything.”
“Why do you say that?”
She explained as she backed up and got herself turned around. She pushed the car to its limit getting back up the hill.
At home, she ran out of the car and her father said, “Don’t rush so much you fall off that tower!” and she waved that she’d heard him as she tore open the door to the barn and grabbed the harness for climbing. She ran with it to the towers, buckled it on, and was about to climb when Pilar caught up with her.
“Let me double check it.”
“Hurry,” she said, but she let him. Overhead, the blue of the sky was deepening as night came on. The sun was already hidden behind trees. She went up the tower as quickly as she safely could and scanned the horizon, looking for a cloud of smoke. The trees blocked her view in most directions, the dead brown ones outnumbering the healthy green ones by three to one. She’d known that, had watched it happening. But at this moment, thinking about fire, she saw it all as an expanse of dry fuel, ready to burst into flame in a moment.
Absent wind, a fire would burn uphill, right? For now, the breeze was still coming down from the Rim, pushing past them toward Payson. She faced the direction of Payson, invisible from here, but she knew where it was. That might be the best place to be in a fire, with its concrete and stucco houses and wide highways.
She’d done a lot for Payson, but it had been easy to forget them. She’d stayed away during its epidemic, for she didn’t want Zoe infected, and truth was, she hadn’t spared them more than a brief thought in years. Now she envied them their defenses. They might still have a reservoir down there. A fire wouldn’t kill them.
No flames were in sight. Not yet. Over there, toward the west-northwest, there was a haze hanging over the trees. Not fog, not in this weather. It had to be smoke. The distance was hard to gauge. Beyond Payson, and north of it. Maybe a wildfire, but small still. Shit and damnation.
How fast could fire burn?
Should she take the car and go down to warn Wes? His group, she thought of more often. They were a lot alike, the two groups, although Wes and Jackson and Francie and all of them were a bigger group by a factor of eight or ten. To save the car, they’d quit visiting. But this might be a reason to go. Or they might already know. They were closer. Probably they’d been smelling smoke all day and knew what it meant.
She needed to rouse her own neighborhood first. Everyone, from Curt to Dev. Few enough people were available to fight a fire with Kelly out of the running. And there was a lot to do.
Chapter 17
Everybody was doing something to prepare for a possible fire. Even Becca had been pulled from her wife’s bedside to help scythe down grasses to a nub around the Quinn house.
Sierra had yanked down curtains, moved furniture away from windows, and was filling every container they had with water to keep inside. She had the rear floodlight on, lighting the yard. Zoe was hosing down the hen house again, under instructions to do it every hour. The hens were clucking, restless from the noise. Or maybe they were picking up the fear from the people around them.
“We won’t get eggs for two days, for disturbing them like this,” she said to her father.
Pilar answered, “I hope that’s the worst that happens. You sure you have to climb the tower again?”
“As soon as the wind shifts back, I’m up there. We have to know for sure.”
Curt was on the neighborhood road along with Rod, pulling all the trees and brush they’d cleared back into the cleared spaces, and then whacking down everything they could reach right on the road, trying to create a bit of a firebreak there. It wasn’t a wide road, but it could make all the difference to have a space between their houses and the burning woods.
“Any of those pines could fall right across the road,” Arch had pointed out. He’d been overruled by Curt, who had known a bit about fire, more than most of them. The most chilling fact Curt had given them was that a fire moves uphill at more than twice the speed it does along a flat valley.
“So if the wind is driving it to ten miles an hour along the flat, it’s covering twenty-five miles in an hour up the hill. And crown fires can go crazy fast. You often can’t outdrive them in a gas car.”
Her father and Zoe had harvested all the vegetables that could be picked. If fire swept across the garden and burned it down, and somehow the house were spared, they’d rather have the food safe indoors. There was no use to saving the house if they starved to death inside it.
Curt had said, “We need to keep an eye out for wildlife fleeing the fire, both as a warning, and as an opportunity to hunt. It might be the time to waste a bullet if we see a
deer.”
Arch was ready for that, with both rifle and bow. He and Dev had gotten a portable rabbit cage loaded with a breeding pair and put that into the open trunk of the car, parked now over at their house. If they all had to flee in the car, and a fire claimed their animal stock, at least they’d be able to restart that much. A brooding hen and her eggs would be the last thing tossed in the trunk. It was plugged in, getting a full charge.
Eleven people trying to hang on to that little car would be a trick, but it wasn’t as if there was traffic to worry about. Seven could sit, but they’d leave the doors open and four more would stand there, hanging on to the roof if need be. It might not move fast with a ton of weight, but it’d move faster than they could run.
Escape by car would be a last resort. Who knew what they would be fleeing to? And they could only drive as far up the hill as the blasted area Arch and Dev had made to keep anyone from driving down it. Eventually, the fire would catch up to them. So it really was the very last thing they’d try to do to guarantee their survival.
Sierra hoped this was all over-preparation, panic, and that the dawn would come and there’d be no fire, no problem, and except for the necessity of canning or freezing all the harvested vegetables, life would go on as before.
Everyone was dealing with his own property, except for Curt, who had pointed out the trees came much closer to his little cabin. “No way I can clear fifty feet of space overnight. If the fire comes through here, I’m SOL.”
Sierra feared they all would be. A tall burning pine tree falling over could crash through any of their homes. She’d never seen a wildfire, so she didn’t even know if it was possible, but that’s the image her mind kept sending her, a torch of a ponderosa pine, splitting with a terrible crack, falling in slow motion, shedding sparks, and thundering through the roof of a house as if it weren’t even there.
She’d done all she could at the house, and it was dark enough. The air was still. She couldn’t see the turbines spinning, for the yard light didn’t reach that high, but she could tell from the controller readout that they were barely spinning at all. The wind would shift now, if it did shift.
The best possible future was a night where the hot air lay deadly still over them, pressing down on them, making it hard to sleep. There’d been plenty of summer nights like that the past two years. That was better than the alternative, a breeze she’d normally welcome.
The instant she felt a stirring of the wind, she grabbed her gear.
She was strapping on the climbing gear, her father watching her, worried, making suggestions she didn’t need, when Zoe said, “Can I come up and see?”
“Zoe!” she said, exasperated. What a time to demand to be taught to climb the towers. Sierra forced herself to be calmer. “One day, I’ll teach you everything you need to know about the turbines, including how to climb safely. But that’ll be in the daytime, and in a few years more. Okay?”
“I don’t get to do anything.”
Pilar said, “You are doing things. Important things.” He tried to put his arm around her, but she shrugged it off. “What’s wrong?”
“She’s mad at me,” Sierra said. “Zoe, we’ll deal with that tomorrow, okay? Right now, we all have things to do. Could you go over to Joan’s and see how she’s doing? I need you to run messages for me right now, so we all know what’s happening and if anyone needs help.”
“To home too?” She meant Dev’s home.
“Of course. Just don’t go in and interrupt your grandmother. She’s busy.”
Zoe ran off toward Joan’s.
“What’s up with her?” Pilar said.
Sierra wasn’t in the mood to discuss her love life or crappy parenting skills with Pilar. “One disaster at a time,” she said. “Did you find that light?”
He handed over a strap-on headlamp. “It’s dim. The batteries aren’t what they used to be.” Their rechargeable battery supply had been rotated often, and conserved, but they were down to a handful of functioning ones.
“Better something than nothing.” She took it and strapped it on. “I won’t turn it on until I lose the yard light.”
“Be careful,” he said.
“Always,” she said, and she began to climb, going more slowly this time than she had in the light, making sure of each movement, staying focused not on what she’d see from the top, but on her technique and the careful motions she’d been trained in so many years ago. She made it to the platform, situated herself in the middle of it, and turned off the headlamp to conserve the batteries.
She faced toward where the smoky haze had been earlier.
A distant orange glow lit the haze from beneath. Definitely a fire. She sniffed the air, thinking she might be smelling smoke. Or that might be her imagination. She watched for long, tense minutes, trying to see if it was expanding, moving this way, or not. But she couldn’t see the flames. It was too far away to see anything but the color. Had it been dusk, she might have mistaken it for a glorious sunset.
It was not a sunset.
It was a deadly monster, consuming its food. If it turned for them, they were in terrible trouble.
She came down as fast as she dared. “It’s a fire. Definitely.”
Her father licked a finger and stuck it up. “Not much wind.”
“No. Not yet.”
“So we have time.”
“I’m not sure what else to do,” she said. “We keep the house pretty clear as a matter of course. I can scythe the yard down farther, but there’s not a lot of yard.”
“I can do that. Why don’t you go down to the road and help Curt and them. That might be your best use of time. Mine too, once I have the house as secure as I can. And once I make sure Joan doesn’t need extra help.”
“The windows in our house are all still open. If the fire comes all the way to us and I’m not here, don’t forget to close them.”
“I guess I can turn the yard light off now.”
“When Zoe gets back, do. And then keep her occupied somehow. I have no idea how.”
“Maybe I’ll get us set up for canning those vegetables we picked. We’ll need to do that tomorrow or the next day.”
“If we still have a house after tomorrow.”
He reached out and touched her shoulder. “It’ll be fine.”
“I hope so. I really hope so.” She shed her climbing gear and hooked it and the headlamp over a metal peg on the tower. “I wonder if you and I could climb up there and survive it above the flames. Let everyone else have the car and run. You and I get above the fire.”
“Not sure it’s high enough. We might get roasted up there. And we don’t have two sets of harnesses.”
“Right,” she said. “Stupid of me.”
“You’re not stupid. We’re both not thinking clearly. We’re a little scared is all.”
“Not so. I’m a lot scared.” She gave him a quick hug. “I’m going to check how the labor is going. If Kelly doesn’t need help, or a break, I’ll join Curt and Rod clearing brush. You can find me there if you need me.”
“Be careful.”
“You too.”
Sierra found Arch and Dev both preparing their own house and garden. She told them what she’d seen from the tower.
“How fast is it coming?” Arch asked her.
“As far as I can tell, it isn’t. Everything depends on the wind, so we all need to stay aware of that.”
“We’ll need someone awake all night, keeping an eye on its direction,” Dev said.
“If there’s any change in the wind, I’ll climb the tower again to see if the fire is progressing toward us. I suppose a lot of us are going to be awake all night.”
Dev said, “Where’s Zoe?”
“Just ran over to Joan’s. Pilar will keep her inside. I might need you to help keep her occupied at some point. I plan on helping clear brush, and I’m not sure I can convince her to go to sleep if no one else is in bed.”
“Probably we all should clear brush too, once we�
��re done with our own place,” Dev said to his father.
“I want to check the main road,” Arch said. “See if we can do anything there to protect us. If it weren’t so damned dry, I’d suggest creating a firebreak.”
“You mean burn one?” Sierra said.
“Yes.”
“It’s so dry, I’d be terrified to.”
Dev said, “Maybe if we get through tonight okay, we should talk about doing that. A very small section at a time, daytime only, and all of us out there with water and shovels and blankets to keep it from getting out of hand. We could burn a protective ring around ourselves.”
“A good idea,” Sierra said, though the thought of starting a fire on purpose frightened her. “I’m going in to check with Kelly, see if she needs me.”
“Thanks for that,” Arch said. “I don’t want her overdoing it.” He turned away and walked out of the light of their yard.
“He’s feeling the stress,” Dev said, watching his father go.
“We all are. I’m scared, Dev.”
“Yeah,” he said, turning back. “I’ve been thinking maybe it wasn’t the wisest choice to destroy the road uphill like we did.”
“No, that was the right decision back then. We can get the car beyond it. It isn’t that heavy. I bet eight of us together could lift it over the gap.”
“And end up where? I don’t want to stumble onto some armed compound up there.”
“If we’re running from the fire, we’ll be more worried about that.” It was too easy to imagine the flames licking at her heels—or at the tires of the car—as the overladen vehicle struggled to stay ahead of a crackling fire racing up the mountain.
“If I get separated from the group, you take care of Zoe.”
“Dev.” She felt exasperated at him. “You’re not going to die. Zoe needs you, and you’ll be right by her side. No heroics.”
“Pot-kettle advice.”
“I’m no hero. I never was.”
“Risk doesn’t seem to bother you.”
“Then I’ve been faking it too damned well. I’m scared a lot. I’m scared right now.”
