by Saro Yen
Suddenly I’m falling. I realize my error, possibly fatal. The fire wasn’t on the other side of the highway. It was on this one. Some bend or some curve gave that illusion. Or it’s jumped. Now there’s fire before me. I look back. There’s fire behind. The wind is unhelpful now in telling me which way it’s coming. It must be coming both ways because either way I look it looks to be getting closer.
I look back in the direction of the last marker on the rutted road, then back in the direction of the rutted road to the Freeway. Maybe I can make it back to the Freeway. It should be safe there right?
I stop the Beast and squint into the distance. How far could it be? Is it really that much closer? Maybe the wind will change and it’ll burn itself out. Maybe.
I make to get out. Then I stop myself. What good would that do? I start the Beast up again and turn it around towards the marker on the rutted road. I begin taking the rutted road back towards the Freeway. I stop as I reach the farm road to turn back onto the freeway. Back west, back towards the main road there is only black sky. It seems almost as if the two columns of fire have converged there and colluded to make it darker than midnight except for where the fire flares near the horizon. The other way is still a chance, a subtle reflection of light from the sun that’s setting in the opposite direction. And the road, the road might lead to something like a natural feature that we could take shelter in.
I think back to everything I passed on the farm road. There must be some break in the grass I can use. I think of creeks and drainage ditches. Long corrugated tubes of metal full of water. Levies and lakes. Did I pass any of that on the way out here?
Hope or a known quantity? The freeway was smoky but I could deal with it. I could pass it. But then, just barely, right? Who knows really? Conditions may have changed. Then, there’s no guarantee I’ll find anything but dry grass for miles down the other way and a wildfire is no joke. But I could probably outrun it in the Beast. I don’t know why but I turn back towards the freeway, towards that angry orange and black wall. Why? What the hell am I doing I ask myself many times.
I try to assuage myself. I’d seen something back there. Something that can help me. Help us get through this. Some sign that had indicated a reservoir or lake or something. Gotta find out what it is. I gotta go back, right?
What the hell am I doing? I put on the brakes. I sit there idling the Beast and try to convince myself that this is stupid. The ultimate stupidity. I turn the other way. What was I doing? I laugh to myself. Laughing jogs something in my head. Something about satellites and solar panels and receivers. GPS. GPS. The book said GPS would work for years afterwards.
I turn on the GPS. It tells me it’s acquiring signal. I wait. It tells me acquiring signal. I get impatient and start driving away from the highway again. Five minutes later it finds something and shows me a map. Brilliant. I’m in the middle of a blank field. Uncharted. Unmapped. I sit there and zoom. Zoom. Zoom. Scroll. Zoom.
Then there it is. There just north of me. A reservoir. I look to the angry, boiling horizon and wonder if the fire has gotten there already. If the fire is between me and the reservoir…I map the distance to it. Three miles. I look up at the horizon. The fire doesn’t seem that far away.
I have to leave the freeway, put some more distance in between me and it. I can turn north again. Fuck. I should have just stayed going north before. Lost time. All that lost time.
I turn north immediately, into the tall grass ahead of me. In my mind each second delayed might mean the difference between finding water and finding a wall of fire before me. I rub at my forehead, the sweat coming off it like I’m in the midst of it already. I go until I can go no more. It can’t be more than a thousand feet before me, and there’s no water to be seen. I check the GPS. I’m still a mile away. I back up and head towards the other shawl of smoke and stop when I’m in the midst of dark sky. The fire seems to be coming on in three directions now.
BookMark
It’s the worst feeling in the world, your own doom creeping towards you in slow motion. You sit there and tell yourself…if you’d just a little faster, a little more deliberate with your movements, little less wishy washy, you could have made it. You would have been all right.
The first strands of smoke reach me. Arcing cinders begin settling in the grass all around, touching fires here in there within a few hundred feet around us. The wind picks up and fans them into bigger fires amidst the alternating patches of dry grass and green strands.
Charley whimpers.
It seems only a moment ago, resting, things seemed so hopeful. And now I’m actually in Hell. Sitting in the middle of Hell.
What now? Just lie down and give up then? Charley’s whine pitches up at me as if he’s imploring me to come up with something else. Anything.
How do I save my truck? How do I save us?
My mind scrambles for the unlikely, the ridiculous. I could make a fire break like in a movie I saw once. Always like in a movie I saw once. But there’s no time. Light a stick and run back and light the dry grass. Then what? Where would I find something to light? A stick. I go for a stick and some cloth. No. Gasoline. That might be better.
I take a few tent poles bundled together and tear the quilt that I’d had in the back and wrap it around the metal. Then I douse the shreds of fabric with some gasoline and light it. Bingo, a pretty good torch. I take the torch and touch tip to the dry grass downwind, running in a line perpendicular to the wind. The drought dry grass catches quickly and I chuckle nervously to myself as I run down the field: I’ve never done something like this. How am I even still alive? The closest I’ve been to playing with fire like this is watching some obscure movie in the 80s about African Tribesman. This is insane.
It turns out better than I expect, the wind catches and combs up the fire and I’m delighted by how well it works. In a few minutes I have a patch of burn about five hundred feet long and almost as much across and growing by the second.
Through the cracked truck window I can hear Charley begin to bark at me. We’re celebrating. Yeah! I am the fucking fire bearer. Charley continues barking and somehow I pick out something, call me crazy, a note, a tone to it. I whip around to a scene that makes my chest collapse. The wind, however subtly has, as greatly feared, shifted, has a slightly southern component now and my line is whipping down. I stick my finger in my mouth and wet it and stick it up into the air. Useless because I don’t know what the fuck those African tribesmen were doing. The wind could be fixing to change. I have to move fast, back to the Beast, so that I can move it into the cleared area.
Right then, just as I’m moving back, is when some devil or even the god that’s left me behind chooses to sneer down at me. The wind turns back over on itself sharply and I get a face full of blinding smoke and heat. My lungs burn with the dry singed air. It gets so hot that I’m forced on the ground. I cover my hair with my hands and feel even the skin on the back of my hand begin to peel. The wind eases and shifts a little more and allows me a measure of freedom. I hear Charley barking at me madly. I look up and squint at the truck and make out the form of the truck surrounded by patches of fire. The constantly shifting wind plays with it, the flames surging and withdrawing and surging. Charley! I force myself back on my feet. The wind surges again and the fire nearest to the truck edges towards it. I move slowly, testing where the heat is bearable. Sometimes it gets so close even that I can feel it through my thick clothes against my adrenaline dulled skin. I click on the key fob to unlock the doors. I run past the cab of the truck in which Charley is barking his head off to the back of the bed. I’m already choking and light headed. I grab the thick canvas tarp and comforter and also the handle of the duffel and drag them out of the truck bed. I wrench my shoulder on realizing I’d put a few more 12 packs of water in it when I first got back on the truck after camping out. I scream at the strain on my shoulder and then stumble up to the passenger door to throw it open. No time, no time to get in the driver seat and move the damn thing. Dammit
. When I open the side door Charley comes bounding out, barking, circling my legs. All I can think to do in the hazy confusion is to lead him towards the burn of grass that I’d made and hope that it’s large enough. I throw the comforter on the ground and grab a 12 pack of water I’d been dragging around inside of the canvas bag and with the combat knife empty the whole honeycomb of water over the comforter. I take both the canvas and comforter and mold it into a shell, the heat and air already at a choking magnitude as I force Charley under the blanket and then crawl under myself.
The roar of the fire becomes even more deafening than it had been and I can hear and feel the sizzling and cracking. I hope that the comforter does not dry out and catch fire. God, I hope. I bring Charley in closer. It’s getting awful hot. I’ve got two bottle of water unopened and I open one of them and douse Charley’s fur some more and he tries to lap up the flow of water as I pour. I open the other bottle and I have to take a sip to quench my mounting thirst and then give Charley a sip and save the rest. I douse a separate scrap of fabric and alternately hold it over my nose and Charley’s, though he doesn’t understand and tries to nuzzle my hand away. It’s the only way I can take a breath without choking.
Charley is also coughing crazily, an old man’s cough. I take the damp scrap of fabric and lightly wrap it around his entire muzzle. Breathe through the cloth, dammit. It’s getting hotter again and I wonder if the wind will ever shift the other way and provide some relief. I crack the bottle of water open and squeeze the remainder over our bodies. I notice that some patches of the comforter are already bone dry and smoking with the precursor of ignition. The heat continues to rise, or so it seems. It feels like we’re going to be cooked alive in a little wrap. But then, it begins to recede, the heat and the roar and the crackle. Then bangs, like gunshots. And that’s when I remember the ammunition I’d had in the back of the truck. I look out from underneath the comforter right as a gout of fire brushes its tendril of heat across my face. Another snap and I swear feel something graze my forehead. I prepare to die having survived the fire we are going to fucking die in a hail of bullets. All I can do is grasp the comforter with white knuckles as if the flimsy piece of fabric can protect us. I close my eyes and huddle into Charley as the pops pick up in frequency, like popcorn in a microwave. Several times I feel things, little vibrations in the ground and wonder if I’ve been mortally pierced and just don’t feel it. I yelp with the exquisitely painful awareness of both life and death and line between and when I do Charley is there to lick my face.
Soon, the bangs and reports peter out and I realize things might end well for us, even anticlimactically, but I wait, a low profile, under the comforter. When I haven’t heard anything for many minutes, I venture a peek out: the fire has been spurred on by the wind again: the fire stranded on the other side of the fire break when the wind turned had been extinguished and when the wind turned again the walls of fire on either side of the break came back around and rejoined before us, a resurgence. It’s been pushed onward by the wind, farther down, a few thousand feet and far enough away to give us some relief. I throw the part of our life saving comforter away from my body and make to stand, I’m weak. I have to crouch for a few moments and then when I stand I feel another heat on my back, then a great roar. I flip around only to see a second breath of fire consume the Beast: The gas, I think. The jerricans of gas going up: not the gas in the back but the tank of it that I had in the passenger compartment, or the tank underneath the truck. If the wildfire had left it relatively unscathed, drivable, then the internal fire took care of that. Then more cracks from whatever ammunition is left: I get back under my blanket.
When it’s all over I peek out again. I don’t know how long it’s been. An hour? More? I get up and notice the fire in the Beast has finally gone out.
I can’t believe we’re alive. I look all around at the charred plain. Almost looks like the hand of God reached down and cupped over us. We are on one of the only pieces of uncharred grass for thousands of feet in any direction. We’re parched. Some of my skin must be burned. I can feel in patches where I know my skin will blister or boil. Some of Charley’s fur is charred. But we’re alive.
I sit down on the scorched earth and start to laugh. I’ve decided that this story is a comedy. Divine absurdities. Since three days ago, that’s what it’s been. Charley throws his half of the comforter off and joins me, putting his head on my lap. I rub behind his ears.
When I am done cackling I begin to pat myself and Charley down. No gunshot wounds. I believe I have a few first degree burns. Charley has some singed fur. With my other hand I lethargically drag the duffel bag closer to me. I rummage around the contents: four bottles of water left, distorted by heat, but at least still intact. Some beef jerky. Some additional dried snacks. The hand chargeable flashlight that I had gotten from the law office. Some clothes. Thankfully I also have the large revolver and a shotgun. A box of fifteen shells and half a box left of bullets. Then the most precious gem, a small jar of preserved pears that miraculously has not cracked in the heat or broken apart in my rush to get away.
I wait until the hulk that was once the Beast cools down. It must be hours though my estimation of time has never been good.
I don’t know why I wait so long. Some misplaced sense of loyalty, like I want to honor its sacrifice or something.
Also, I want to check to see if anything is left.
I find little but the skeleton of the Beast charred black as the surrounding grass. It’s burned beyond recognition. RIP friend. I stand there and listen to the taps of water falling from the ruined duffel, the one I’d sliced apart and soaked with Ozarka before throwing it over us. The fire had dried it out in patches and things are still wet even though it felt like lying in an oven.
Weird. The Beast almost even looks melted in a sad way. Not in the rictus of death, but as if it had wanted to keep going for me but in the end couldn’t. Its fender droops on each side and its hood is melted down into the engine compartment. The center of the roof has sagged down below the sides of its face. The truck bed is completely gone probably because of all the fuel that had been in the back and because it was flimsier stuff. I don’t even look that hard. I know everything is gone. There will be no salvage here.
In the midst of mourning I hear a whimper beside me. Charley has plopped down at my feet. His pure white fur is already streaked with gray darkening to black.
“Come here boy,” I say to him as I stoop down. It’s hard to tell just where he’s hurt because his fur isn’t singed and the places he’s licking are dirtied with ash. I part the snow white fur and where I don’t see ashy gray I see bright pink and wonder if this is supposed to be the actual pallor of his skin.
“How did you get so dirty so quick boy?” I ask as I try to follow his tongue but it’s an impossible task, really. Ah, boy, you’ll survive. If I feel like I just have really bad sunburn, with all your hair I’m sure you’ll be all right.
No, I shouldn’t say that. I look up at the burned, ruined plain all around me. I’m worried about the wrong danger, the wrong damage. We’re not singed, but we’re out here in the seeming middle of nowhere, no vehicle and not much water. Nothing really except for a few salvaged bottles, a few dry crackers.
I linger over the cool remains.
I look until I can’t stand to look anymore, to be still.
We’ll have to hump it on foot, God knows how long. I gather the content of the duffel bag. I tie up the torn open canvas into something that works somewhat like a bag and put the gathered supplies back inside. Four deformed bottles of water. A package of saltines. Some Clementines squished to nearly indistinguishable pancakes. Silver lining: at least it’s a lot lighter than it had been. “C’mon boy,” I say. Charley turns back from where he’d wandered off to, sniffing some phantom in the ash. I bid a fond farewell to a friend, the horse I’d rode in on.
Then I turn and Charley follows.
We walk back towards the freeway but suddenly I feel tired.
I feel like if I take another step I might not be able to lift my leg up again. Yet I do. I make it back barely to the rutted road we‘d come in on, Fuck it, I lie down and pull the canvas bag over me. Charley lies down next to me and exhaustion takes us.
???? It’s The Next Morning.
What do you do? You walk alone and you hope it’s only for a while. Not completely alone: you walk with your dog. You walk towards a city you can’t yet make out where the road disappears on the horizon, where your last hope in the world might be.
Shouldn’t you find hope where you can? You’re only a hundred or so miles away. From what? You find a purpose, a consolation anyway. A philosophy. An idea curling down from your head to twirl around your finger. An absentminded comfort.
I walk first with this fantasy: the ridiculous hope that everyone is simply in hiding, the remote hope that they have gone south to avoid the catastrophe, the realization that this is probably not the case, the real here-ness of this smelly pile of gray ash streaked white fur walking beside me, the idea that my eyes are probably the last human eyes that will ever fall upon this horror behind or that beauty ahead, the sun firing its rays across a smoke smudged sky. From here on out, just me.
The wind picks up. I feel it on my face and I see it in the graceful curlicues drawn on the screen of smoke. I walk with eyes up, admiring.
A comfort, maybe: the thought that something beautiful remains. Also that I exist. Such obligation. It must be the loneliest and least lonely moment of my life. I walk now like a new man, the momentum lifted from my eyes I begin to come around to the possibility that I might not find something at whatever end I’ve chosen for this journey. It feels like I’ve been frivolous these last few days, I suppose, just like it would have if somebody I loved had died and I’d gone back to living my life as a grown child. Now all I have is time to look back on a world of regret.
