by Lou Cadle
He watched the mudflow, still speeding inland, carrying its load of debris.
“There goes my car,” said the woman, and they watched while it drifted up the street past them.
Francie told Ms. Gilcrease about the volcano erupting while they waited out the lahar. While the two women talked, Chad tried to think. The inflow was easing off, he thought. The mud had reached a new high, covering the walls at least a foot higher than the first lahar. Probably there’d be an outflow next, a different current to fight, but he bet it would be much less forceful—at least this morning it had been. Within a few minutes, he thought he’d be able to navigate through it without becoming a casualty himself.
Those minutes ticked by too slowly. The afternoon was wearing on. He had to get them out of here before dusk, no matter what, but the sooner the better. He tried to decide. Should he carry one of them out with him? Or go get help first? He’d move four times quicker alone.
His plan clear in his mind, he told it to the women. “I’m going to go get help. You two sit tight and I’ll be back as soon as I can. I’ll get you up to the porch first, Francie.”
She shook her head. “I’m fine here. I can stand, but I’m afraid I’m too hurt to walk through this. Just go.”
“No. You need to get up there, Francie and lie down. What if you go into shock?”
“Shit,” she said. “You’re right.”
“I know I am.” He grabbed her under the armpits and, when she let go, he backed around the porch and up the mud-covered stairs. It was much like dragging the dummy in the physical firefighter test, but he didn’t have to pretend he cared this time. It was Francie, his partner, and he did care. He’d do whatever it took to help her. He said, “Wrap that blanket around your shoulders, and you feel faint or spacey, you lie down, get your feet up.”
“I’ll be fine,” she said, but the faintness of her voice said otherwise. She unclipped the mud-covered radio from her belt and offered it to him.
Chad wasn’t surprised when it didn’t work. He squeezed her muddy hand in farewell. Then he turned and strode through the mud. It was like it had been this morning, hard work to stride through it, but harder with the mud being higher and resisting him more. Only eight or nine hours ago this had started, was that possible? He felt he’d lived years in this one day.
Under the sloshing mud, there was a thicker layer from this morning’s lahar, denser, and the surface between the two was distinct and slippery. The asphalt under that may as well been a mile down, for all he could feel it. He pushed through the mud, block after block, hurrying uphill as fast as his muscles and the mud would allow him to move, powering past debris he felt hit his legs, ignoring everything but his goal.
Cars were overturned or pinned against the walls of houses. At least no bodies this time, none that he could see. He couldn’t spare time to do anything about it if he found one. He had to get help for the living first.
The mud was below knee level now, the level dropping off quickly as he approached the edge of the disaster area where the ground started to rise. Finally, he hit clear sidewalk. He bent over, rested muddy hands on muddy thighs and caught his breath. But only for a few seconds. He had to find an ambulance.
He forced himself to a jog, running down the block with splatting sounds as his muddy feet hit pavement. He glanced up the cross street, ran another block. The mud was ahead of him again, so he cut down a side street away from it and saw a crowd of a dozen people on a street corner, most of them taking pictures. He forced himself to jog the rest of the way to them. Every time his weight came down on his bad Achilles, it hurt like blazes.
He called to the group ahead of him. “Chad Keppler. Camas Fire. Are your cell phones getting a signal?”
“No,” said a man. “No one can get through. You okay?”
“I have two injured women back in the lahar. I need the fire engine or an ambulance. Have you seen one around here?”
The people in the crowd were all shaking their heads. The first man who had spoken said, “I’ll help you get them out.”
“I will too,” said a woman.
Chad hated to do this. He had no authority to order volunteers into action. If one of them got injured, it would be his fault. “It’ll be dangerous,” he said.
“Been that kind of a day,” the first man said, cheerfully. “Let’s go.”
Everyone but a father with a toddler in his arms offered to help. Chad asked the father and a young businesswoman in impractical shoes to go hunting for the fire engine or an ambulance. He gave them the cross streets to meet them. At the last second he remembered. “Tell them a firefighter is injured.” That’d assure quick response. He led his volunteer rescuers back to where he’d exited the mud.
“Last chance to back out,” he said to his volunteers, before stepping back in. “I won’t think less of any of you if you do.”
No one did. So he led them into the mud and they waded back towards where he’d left Francie and Ms. Gilcrease. As he led them, the phrase “blind leading the blind” kept running through his mind, and he couldn’t shake it off. He’d prefer to have someone official to give the orders, but he was all there was.
They made it all the way to the women without anyone getting injured, and Chad heaved a sigh of relief at that. He had his volunteers organized into teams in no time. Once he showed them how to roll its edges to provide handles, the muddy afghan worked well enough as a stretcher with four to carry Francie. The chair also had four people to share the burden now. With so many to help, they moved faster than Francie and he had carrying the woman, despite the higher level of mud. Whenever someone slipped, three others compensated to make sure neither woman got dropped, though one of his volunteers did get coated in mud up to his chest on one fall.
Chad could see the ambulance ahead now, its lights flashing in the light of early evening. He’d never been so happy to see emergency lights in his life.
“Francie, they’re there, waiting for us,” he said. “You’ll both be in EMT care in a few minutes.”
The EMTs waited at the edge of the mud for the rescuers to come out. Chad handed over the injured women and backed off.
“I’ll have them call in to the firehouse,” Francie said, teeth chattering, as she was wheeled in to the back of the ambulance. “You’re done for the day, partner. You did great.”
He raised a hand in farewell, too tired to think of anything more to say to her. After the ambulance doors closed, he made sure to shake the muddy hands of each of his volunteers and tell them what a terrific thing they’d done. And then he stumbled away, alone.
He was wiped out. Part of him wanted to keep helping, but he knew he shouldn’t. He couldn’t. He was done in.
I’ll shower tomorrow. I’ll see about Francie tomorrow. I’ll help more tomorrow. Right now, I’m dead on my feet.
Somehow, he managed to limp the ten blocks back to where he’d left his car. The little hill at the end seemed like Mount Hood itself. It was all he could do not to lie down on the sidewalk and take a nap before climbing it. But he pushed on until he saw his car. He realized he was welling up tears in relief at the sight of it. Stupid kid, he told himself. His keys were still at the bottom of his jeans pocket, tangled up with Ms. Gilcrease’s muddy keys. He’d get those back to her somehow tomorrow. He unlocked the car, slid his wet, muddy body into the back seat and, despite shivering, was asleep within seconds.
26
Northwest Flank.
Dusk deepened. Ellen felt the oncoming night as a whip, driving her faster. But the footing in the deepening gloom soon made going faster difficult. The effort of not tripping over invisible obstacles drained the last of her strength even more quickly. Her palms were scraped raw by holding the limbs that framed the stretcher. She could have wept with relief when they stumbled out onto another packed dirt forest road. They trundled on, exhausted, hungry, thirsty, but grateful for the surer footing.
Her blisters had their own blisters, and she could feel raw skin
chafing against her hiking boots. She had bought them a month ago and broken them in with neighborhood walks back in Nebraska, but it hadn’t been enough callus-building for this sort of endurance test.
Too soon the sky darkened to black, leaving the road too dark to hike safely. “Let’s stop and eat,” said Ty. “Finish what food we have.”
“What?” said Akroyd. “Speak up, please.”
Something else to worry about, the more pleasant scientist and his hearing. She remembered the booming explosions that signaled the start of the eruption and how her ears had rung. A half-mile closer, or standing on a ridge instead of in trees, and maybe she’d be deaf too. There but for the grace of God, as her grandfather used to say. Or think of poor Corey, the pilot, lying on the stretcher. While the others were dividing up the food and off in the woods relieving themselves, she knelt by him and said, “How you feeling?”
“Truth?”
“Of course.”
“Not great.”
She wished she could see his face better, but he was only a vague shape in the dusk, and a voice. “Leg hurting?”
“Some.” His voice sounded strained, more strain than “some” pain might generate.
Akroyd brought over her share of the food.
“Here,” she said to Corey, “have half the granola bar.”
“Nah.”
“Fair’s fair. Everybody gets a bite.” Though not much more than a bite.
“Can’t,” he said.
“Sure you can.”
His hand groped out in the dark and found her arm. He gripped her ash-crusted flesh. “No. I mean—damn, I’m sorry, but I’m sick. Really sick.”
“From getting jostled around so much?”
“No. Maybe a little of it is that, but my side hurts like hell, and it feels hot to the touch. I think I may have some sort of internal injury.”
Concern knifed through her. “Why didn’t you tell us?”
“To what purpose?”
“Aw, jeez.” She was worried for herself, for Ty, for them all, even for that irritating scientist Norio. And now most of all for Corey.
He said, “It started hurting maybe a half hour after the accident, after you all started carrying me.”
“I wish I could help. Maybe someone else knows more about first aid than I do.”
“I doubt it. None of you are medical professionals. Don’t tell them.”
“Of course I’m going to tell them,” she snapped. “Damn. Sorry, I didn’t mean to bark at you. But it’s not the time for macho man stoicism. Maybe one of them knows what to do.”
“I know what to do. Keep me quiet, unmoving, and call the ambulance.” He snorted with amusement but it was cut off by a gasp of pain.
“Hey Ty,” she called. “Do you have a cell signal yet?”
She saw the light of his phone going on. “Nope, sorry,” he called. “How about you two?” Two more lights flicked on. They flicked off again a few seconds later in silence, the meaning clear. No cell signals.
“What luck. How many places do you think there’s no cell service in the U.S?” she said to the pilot. “This must be the one place.”
“Nah, there’s a lot, I imagine. It’s a big country. Lots of wilderness, still. Idaho, Montana, the southwest deserts, Colorado. Anywhere there are mountains.” He made a soft sound of pain.
Her gut twisted in sympathy. “I have to tell them you’re hurt,” she said. “We need to figure out together what to do, here.”
“Damn it,” he said, but there was resignation in his voice.
She groped for his shoulder, gave it a pat, and got back up. She walked over to the others and said, “We have a new crisis.”
“What’s your problem now?” said Norio.
“It’s not mine. Ours. Corey thinks he has internal injuries. He’s in bad pain.”
“What?” said Akroyd.
It seemed impolite to stand here and yell about the pilot in his hearing range. Either they should go over and talk with him, or keep their voices down. But Akroyd’s hearing problem made subtlety and discretion not an option. All their other options sucked, too. Stay? Go on in the dark? Split up?
“Our pilot can’t go any further, I’m afraid,” she said, loud enough to include Akroyd. “He’s injured worse than we knew. Maybe I should stay here with him, and you guys should go down hill and send up help.”
Ty was shaking his head before she had finished the sentence. “I won’t leave you alone.” He turned his phone back on to give them a bit of light to see each other as they talked.
“I’ll stay with Corey. It’s not like a gang of killers and rapists is going to come up toward the volcano, is it?”
“It’s not people I’m worried about.” Ty looked back up at the mountaintop, though the dusk had rendered its heights invisible.
“We stopped smelling smoke a long while ago. We’re far enough down now to be safe from everything else, aren’t we?” she looked to Akroyd.
He shook his head. “Don’t look at a map of Pompeii and Vesuvius, not if you’re looking for reassurance on that point. And we’re still literally on the mountain. But even if we reach the river, we won’t be safe.”
Norio said, “And the river in particular won’t be safe. Not navigable. It’ll be flooded, full of mud, up over its banks. And that’s despite closing down all the dams, as they probably have done. The highways along the banks may be under water. We shouldn’t head that way.”
“I don’t think we can afford to worry about every what-if,” Ellen said. “Maybe the volcano will erupt worse, maybe it won’t. But Corey is not going any farther tonight.”
“I’m right here,” Corey called, sounding exasperated. “And I kind of need to piss, so if someone could help me.”
Ty asked Akroyd to join him, and they went to help the pilot. Turning away, Ellen could hear them turn him, his gasp of pain. Then the sound of urine striking the ground. The sound of the other men moving the stretcher a few yards along the road, closer to her and Norio. Though he was only a couple feet away, she couldn’t see Norio’s face. Night had fallen.
“Damn,” she said, as Ty and Akroyd joined them again. The thought had struck her belatedly. “You should have looked to see if he was peeing blood.” She hadn’t lowered her voice enough.
“What if I was?” said Corey. “Like that would change anything.”
“Maybe you should quit drinking water,” said Norio. “In case they have to operate on you, aren’t you supposed to not drink water?”
“I don’t know,” said Ellen. “He shouldn’t dehydrate on top of everything else.” Her lack of knowledge about this was frustrating. If only she had a library, an Internet connection. Of course, if the smart phones could pick up a signal to get the Net, they’d pick up a signal for 911. “You could be right,” she said to Norio. “I just don’t know.”
“So what do we do?” said Akroyd. “We’re not going to make much distance carrying the stretcher in the night.”
“Hauling the stretcher is done,” said the pilot. “Whatever you all do, you leave me here. I can’t take any more jostling.”
“Not alone,” said Ellen. “I won’t leave you alone.”
“Yes,” said the pilot, “Alone. Just go. All of you. Even in the dark, you can make a good pace without me.”
“I should go back for the instruments,” said Norio.
“Fuck your fucking instruments!” snapped Ellen. “They’ll keep. He won’t. You should go on and get help, is what you should do.”
Ty said, “Right. You two go on down. With two, you can split up if you come to a fork in the road. Ellen and I will wait here with Corey.”
“No,” said Ellen. “You’re fit, you’re fast. You go too, Ty. Keep to the road, all three of you.” If something else did go wrong and the mountain managed to kill her and the pilot, she wanted Ty to be well away.
“There’s no reason for all three of us to go,” Ty said. “One would be enough.”
“Two might be be
tter, in case one gets hurt,” said Akroyd.
Ellen made sure her voice sounded strong and sensible. She had to convince Ty to get to safety. “Three would be better if the volcano does erupt again, if another one of those ash hurricane things comes roaring down this way. Better two of us dead than three of us.” She couldn’t bear the thought of Ty dying.
“They’ll go,” said Ty. “You and I will stay.”
“All of you can go,” said Corey from the darkness where he lay. “We take a GPS reading, you punch it into your phones, they’ll know right where to find me.”
“No,” said Ellen. It was too easy to imagine herself as the injured person. She’d not want to be left alone, hurt and frightened, in the dark, though she’d try to be brave, too. “No way am I leaving you here.”
“We need to shit or get off the pot,” said Norio. “Time’s burning.”
“Maybe we should burn some time,” said Ty. “Sit down, eat, drink water, rest for an hour. We’ll be calmer with a little rest and it’ll be easier to think. Or two hours, even. Take a nap until the moon comes out of the ash and lights the road.”
“I think Norio’s right,” said Ellen. “Don’t waste time.” The pilot might not have two extra hours. “Please, Ty, go without me.” She kept her voice quiet, trying to talk just to him.
He grasped her aching hands in his. “No, Ellen.”
“Is it better we both die than only one of us?”
“That’s assuming something else will go wrong with the volcano. If it doesn’t, you’ll hate me forever if I leave you here.”
“No, I won’t. Besides, if the volcano kills me tonight, it’d be a very short period of hate.”
“I’m. Not. Going,” he said through gritted teeth, and his tone told her he really wouldn’t. He raised his voice to include the scientists. “You two go on down. Take the GPS reading of where you leave us. We three will stay here. No more arguing. Let’s just get it done.”
The little bit of food—a few nuts and the apple, probably bruised badly by now—went with the hikers who would need the fuel more. The two scientists had cell phones, and they took the GPS unit with them, but Ty kept his own phone and said he’d turn it on again at dawn, in case it could help rescuers find them. Until then, he’d conserve the battery.
