by Grey, Helen
The kind of thinking that could get me into serious trouble.
“Let’s go.”
So off we went. Following the landmarks on the brochure, we came to the first campsite. Abandoned. No tents, no signs of a recent campfire, nothing. Of course, this campsite was on the far north end of the valley, and from my experience, most campers, unless they were hunters or really wanted to get away from society, rarely chose the furthest campsite from other human beings or buildings that offered supplies, showers, or restrooms.
A narrow, shallow stream ran through the bottom of the valley. We were deep in the woods now, but even through the canopy of the tree line, I saw the dark, black, roiling clouds of the fire. I couldn’t tell if it was getting closer because we were too far down now and my sense of smell didn’t help.
I was tired, but that was from days of backbreaking labor, not so much the trek we had made on the way down. We came to the second campsite about twenty minutes later. We did see signs of campers; a few empty soup cans that hadn’t yet rusted over, the remains of a campfire. A tin bucket still half filled with sand sat beside the fire ring. I nodded in approval. These campers had known the dangers of forest fires. Doused their campfire with sand. There were no signs of a tent, sleeping bags, or any scrambling rush to escape, so it looked like no one had been here at least in the past couple of weeks.
Onward we went, winding our way through the bottom of the valley, following the stream. Despite the fire raging not far away, it seemed peaceful here. The gurgling of the stream, bubbling water over rocks, a gentle breeze. And yet, I saw no signs of animals. I heard not one bird. They were smart. When they smelled danger in the air, they would travel downstream, away from the fire that threatened.
“Maybe the captain was right and the authorities did manage to get everyone to leave,” Matt commented.
We made our way to the third designated campsite. I nodded, certainly hoping that was true. We had made good time. I was anxious to get back up to the fire line and join the other Hotshots. Then, to my surprise, a gust of whirlwind blew a flurry of dust into my eyes. I paused, ducked my head, and swiped at them. Not dust. Embers.
At the same time, Matt and I looked up through the trees. Black, roiling smoke. In the distance, I heard the crackle of flames. My pulse began to race. “Oh my God, the fire has topped the ridge!”
We picked up our pace, jogging now as we headed toward the third campsite noted on the brochure. My heart sank when I saw a cluster of tents.
“Hello!” Matt called out.
Six tents had been erected in a half circle around a cold campfire. All of the tents were zipped up. I ran from one to the other, unzipping the doorways and peeking inside. “Empty!” I called after I checked each one.
Were campers still in the area or had they simply abandoned their campsite? We didn’t know. Matt and I stared at one another. We were thinking the same thing. I turned toward the west and he turned toward the east and we began calling out.
“Hello! Anyone here?”
We paused in between each shout, pausing to listen to any reply. Matt headed into the tree line toward the stream side of the campsite while I headed slightly upslope toward the aspens.
“Hello! Anyone here?”
Matt and I each called out, not at the same time. We paused before the other called out so that we wouldn’t drown out the cries of anyone responding. Soon, Matt joined me and shook his head.
“I’m not hearing a damn thing,” he commented. “He glanced over his shoulder toward the eastern slope.
I followed his gaze. Up there, in the tree line, I thought I saw snatches of flames. “Shit,” I muttered. I glanced up at Matt. “It looks a couple of miles away, but what do you want to do? Do you think there’s anybody here or do you think they just simply up and left everything?”
He shook his head. “They had ample warning to leave, according to the authorities, so I don’t see why they would have left everything behind.” He glanced up toward the slope of aspens. “Maybe they’re up there in the trees somewhere, taking pictures or something.”
“Wouldn’t they have heard us by now?”
Matt shook his head, frowning. He pulled the map from his pocket, studied it carefully for a moment. “There’s a waterfall up there, about halfway up the slope and over there by those rocks.” He pointed. “See over there?”
I followed his pointing finger and nodded. If they were near a waterfall or anything larger than the stream we followed down here, chances were they wouldn’t hear us calling. Still, the time it would take to venture up the slope toward the waterfall would eat up precious time. We still had several more campsites to search before we reached the far side of the valley below.
“We can’t take the chance,” I said what we were both thinking. “We’re going to have to get up there as quickly as we can, make sure that there’s no one there.”
He nodded. Without saying another word, he quickly headed upslope. I paused long enough to attach the pieces of my multi-tool together, giving myself support, much like the walking stick I had at home. Then I quickly followed him up the steep, shale-sided mountainside. In a matter of moments, he was nearly fifty yards ahead of me. I tried to pick up my pace, but it was like he was possessed.
He turned around once, glanced over his shoulder, and impatiently waved at me, as if urging me to hurry up. I nodded, forced my legs to move faster. They burned. My thighs bunched, my calf muscles protested, but I moved faster, gritting my teeth as I forced myself upward one foot at a time.
I don’t know how far we ventured upward, but the angle was incredible. I was in really good shape, Matt even better, and yet we were both breathing hard, hunched over from the physical exertion. Taking this hike at a leisurely rate wouldn’t be a problem, but we were in a hurry. We couldn’t waste any time lollygagging our way up the slope.
Finally, we reached a small plateau. Gasping for breath, resting my hands on my knees, I stared upward. Up ahead I saw a gorgeous waterfall. Nothing too big, maybe twenty-five feet tall. There, in a small meadow off to the side, I saw a cluster of people.
The minute Matt saw them, he rushed toward them. I followed, ignoring my screaming muscles as I forced air into my burning lungs. It looked to be about half a dozen young teenagers and two adults. They stood near a cluster of rocks, eyeing the fire with alarm. When they saw us, they all began to start calling and yelling at the same time.
“Is this your entire group?” Matt asked one of the adults, making no introductions.
A middle-aged man, slightly portly man with a balding head, nodded. “We’re here on a church retreat. We came to look at the colors—”
“We have to get out of here, now.”
Matt’s voice was firm. Urgent.
Two of the young teenage girls stared at Matt, then me, eyes wide with fear. They gazed up at the fire, which could now be plainly seen near the top of the opposite mountain as it made its way over the rim. Three younger boys stood behind them, one of them trying to show a display of bravado, although the other two students shifted nervously from foot to foot, glancing between us and the adults.
“Dad, I think we’d better—”
The other man in the group, who looked pale, tall, and thin, turned to Matt and shook his head. “I think we’ll be safer here, near the water. We can get into the water, hang onto the side—”
“Mister, that fire is moving fast, and we’ve got to get you all out of here. If we move quickly, follow the stream down slope, we can get you to safety. Up here, you’re taking your chances.”
“But the water—”
“Dammit!” Matt’s swore, pointing at the water roiling at the base of the waterfall and then heading sharply downward. “You see how fast that water is moving? There’s no way you can hang onto anything to keep you from being swept downstream. You have just as much chance of drowning as you do of being burned if you don’t move. Now let’s go!”
The man opened his mouth as if to argue, and I stepped
forward, talking to the girls in a firm, sharp tone of voice. “I want each of you to form a line. Hang onto the waistline of the pants of the person in front of you. Quickly!”
The girls quickly did as they were told and the boys followed suit. With a few mutters, the adults took the rear, grumbling between themselves as they did so. I glanced at Matt. “You take the lead and I’ll bring up the rear.”
Matt immediately headed down the slope. The girls, then the boys, and then the two adults and myself followed. I quickly grew tired of listening to the mutterings and comments of the two adult men and, losing my patience, finally told them to shut up. Skinny Dude glanced back at me with a dark scowl, but I didn’t care. They were being foolish, thinking that they could outsmart a fire. They had the lives of five teenagers in their hands, and they were willing to risk them to the supposition that the water would save them?
“You have no right to talk to us like that,” Balding Guy shot back. “I’m an experienced camper, and I’m sure that—”
“You may be an experienced camper, Sir,” I said, carefully watching where I placed my feet. “But have you ever been caught in the middle of a wildfire?”
He said nothing, but quickly turned around. Still, I saw him shaking his head in disgust. “You can thank us later,” I said. “Those kids couldn’t have hung on to anything in that fast-moving water for more than a few minutes before being swept downstream.”
The other one, Skinny Dude, turned and quickly glanced at me. Like his friend, I could see the anger in his gaze. To my intense surprise, he paused and gave me a body check. Seriously? “Move on,” I said. “We can’t fall behind.”
“You’re quite bossy,” he muttered. “We weren’t in any danger up there. I think you’re taking us into a way more dangerous situation by dragging us down this valley. I’m an attorney. If anything happens to any one of us, you can count on me suing your pants off.”
I shook my head. “Get moving,” I said. “We can’t get separated.” My heart pounded, but not from the physical exertion. From annoyance. The audacity! It wasn’t as if I was expecting effusive thanks, but this attitude was unexpected. Suddenly, from up ahead, I heard one of the girls cry out. I located her just as she slipped and fell, sliding a short distance down slope. Matt quickly hurried after her.
“See, what did I tell you?” Skinny Dude snapped.
He glared at me.
“This is your fault. I’m going to sue—”
“Shut the hell up,” I snarled, quickly hurrying down the slope after Matt. The girl lay on her back, crying. The others waited at the top of the path, watching. I quickly knelt down beside the girl. Matt followed suit on the other side. “Where do you hurt?”
“My ankle!” she sobbed. “Oh my God, I’ve broken my ankle!”
I glanced at Matt as he helped her into a sitting position, and then carefully examined the girl’s foot. She wasn’t wearing hiking boots or shoes, but a pair of low cut bejeweled tennis shoes with no decent tread on the soles. I shook my head as I lifted up her pant leg, saw no blood, no bones jutting out, and no displacement. I carefully palpated the ankle joint and shook my head. “It’s not broken. You might’ve sprained it or just twisted it.”
She looked at me, eyes wide and filled with tears, her lips trembling. “It’s broken, I just know it is!”
I shook my head. “No, it isn’t. I’m a nurse. So is he. I promise you, it’s not broken.”
She looked from Matt to me, then to Matt again. To my amazement, her expression transformed from panicked to near adoration as she stared at him. What the hell? Was she actually making eyes at Matt? Why, she couldn’t be more than fourteen years old!
“Come on,” I said to Matt. “Let’s get her up on her feet, see if she can put pressure on her foot.”
“I can’t!” she cried, leaning toward Matt. “It hurts… it hurts!” She wrapped her arms around Matt’s shoulders.
If we weren’t in such a circumstance, I might’ve burst out laughing at the expression on Matt’s face. A combination of horror, dismay, and discomfort. He glanced at me over her head, but I merely gave him a look and slightly shrugged my shoulders. “Come on, young lady… what’s your name?” I asked the wailing girl.
“Beth… Bethany,” she managed.
I grasped Bethany firmly under her arms and gently pulled her away from Matt. It took all of my strength, my knees already weak and wobbly, to get her separated from him, but between the two of us, we got her standing. She tentatively placed her left, injured foot down on the ground and then immediately lifted it up, crying again.
“Oh, it hurts! It hurts!”
I looked at Matt over her head, rolled my eyes and then shrugged. “You want to wrap it?”
He shook his head. “No time.” He glanced down at Bethany and spoke to her gently. “Bethany, we’ve got to get you back to the top of the slope. One of the adults will have to give you a piggyback ride the rest of the way.”
She looked up at him with what I could only defined as googly-eyes.
“You mean you can’t carry me?” she asked, her voice a plaintive whine.
I resisted the urge to laugh, but then, I couldn’t really blame her. Matt was one handsome dude. I watched as Matt shook his head, keeping his expression blank. “One of the adults can carry you. I have to keep my hands free to use my tools if necessary.”
With no further ado, Matt and I placed one of the girl’s arms over each of our shoulders and got her back up the slope. To my not so much surprise, I caught her placing her foot down on the ground occasionally, and while it might have been slightly sprained, it wasn’t anything that was in any way dangerous.
At the top of the slope, I glanced at the Balding Guy and Skinny Dude. “Which one of you want to take the first turn giving Bethany here a piggyback ride?”
Skinny Dude frowned. “You can’t fix up a stretcher or anything for her?”
Matt was losing patience. “Bethany, your first piggyback ride is with that guy there,” he said, gesturing to the balding man.
The man nodded, turned around, and crouched down slightly so that Bethany could climb onto his back. Then Matt turned toward Skinny Dude. “In case you didn’t notice, Sir, there’s a big fire heading this way. We can’t waste time to make a stretcher. Besides, she doesn’t need one. If that fire catches up to us, we’re not going to get out of here. We’ve got three more campsites to check on our way down to the bottom of the valley. Now let’s go!”
Without another word, we set out again. The fire continued to shift downwind and down slope, and while it moved a little slower than it would have moving up slope, it was still moving fast.
Matt glanced at me as he pulled his walkie from his waistband. From where I stood, I couldn’t hear him, but he spoke fast. After a moment, he nodded, and then glanced back at me and gave me a thumbs up. I gathered that he had made contact with the base camp, notified them that we had campers, and that some sort of transport would be waiting for us along the way down the valley.
We approached the next campsite about a half-mile from the point where Bethany had slipped down the slope. As Matt and I quickly checked the area, I saw Balding Guy place Bethany gently on the ground. She stood on her own two feet while Skinny Dude moved forward to switch places with him.
It looked like Bethany didn’t really want to piggyback ride anymore, but she couldn’t very well admit that she had faked an injury. I still wasn’t sure that she had faked one, or why she would have done so in the first place—yes, I did. She wanted Matt to carry her. Still, I didn’t want to take any chances. Not because Skinny Dude had threatened to sue me, but because if the girl was injured, Matt nor I wanted to see her injury worsened.
Reluctantly, Bethany climbed onto Skinny Dude’s back, and he pitched slightly forward, mumbling under his breath. In a matter of moments, Matt and I determined that there was no one at this campsite, and hadn’t been for a while.
“Two more to go,” he said, and then set off once again.
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He set a quick pace. I felt the breeze against our backs, continued to inhale smoke-filled air. Once in a while, I saw an ember floating on the breeze. Not good. I had no idea whether the Hotshot crew was still upon the slope trying to clear a break in the brush, but if this wind kept up and it swept down between the slopes into this valley, it was likely to push the fire right down the middle.
The next campsite was abandoned as well. We seemed to be making good time, but the complaints regarding our pace increased from not only the group of teens, but the adults as well.
One of the other kids slipped and fell. When the other teens rushed to help him up, I saw the fear in their faces. More than once, I caught each of them looking over their shoulders, watching the fire. They coughed. One started to cry. The adults were no help.
I heard Skinny Dude grumble that Bethany was too heavy. He gasped for breath, grunting heavily with each step. He asked Balding Guy to take her again. Balding Guy turned to him, gave him the evil eye, and then nodded. It seemed as if even he grew annoyed with the other adult.
“How much longer until we get down?” Skinny Dude asked as Bethany slid off his shoulders and waited for Balding Guy to once again crouch down so she could climb onto his back.
“Depends on how fast we can move,” I replied. He gave me a dirty look. My patience was thinning. I wanted to slap him. Jerk.
They were starting to panic. I glanced at Matt, realizing that he sensed the same. He paused the group and then gestured for me to step a short distance away so he could talk to me.
“A helicopter will be waiting at a clearing just outside the next camp. Depending on what they send, it might only be able to take the injured girl. The others are going to have to follow us out of the valley until we can get them into a transport truck.” He glanced over at the increasingly fearful group. Every one of them stared upward at the mountain behind us, watching the flames shoot fifteen, twenty feet into the air at the top of the ridge. It seemed to be standing still, but I knew better.
