Fishing In Fire, page 14
“What do we do?” The girl who had screamed was starting to hyperventilate.
A horn sounded, loud enough to be heard over the other cars, pickups, and SUVs honking in panic. “Wait, wait, quiet!” Maria said. The horn sounded again. One of those loud air horns from a big semi truck.
The guy in her passenger seat pointed ahead. “Look!”
A semi hauling a flatbed trailer had backed up to the fallen tree in front of them. A man, maybe its driver, waved his arms over his head and pointed at the river beside the highway. It didn’t take long for the first of the stranded travelers to figure it out. A mother led two crying children off the road to wade through the river, around the burning tree in front of them, and up to the truck. The driver helped them into his cab as Maria and the other stranded travelers stampeded to bypass the roadblock and catch a ride on the flatbed. When they were all aboard, and the semi honked and then rolled ahead toward McCall, Maria let out a relieved sigh, clutching her manuscript backup flash drive, grateful to be alive.
CHAPTER 12
Yumi had led the group to Hazard Creek easily enough. Well, it wasn’t easy, but it was simple compared to trying to climb up the mountain or get over that giant crack that had nearly killed Annette.
Their current problem was so obvious, so horrible, that none of them had to mention it out loud. They’d all sunk into a quiet terror. So far, they had run from a front of fire, a scary wall of flame creeping up on them. But the winds had picked up, and shifted. And at least two separate fires had merged. Sparks had flown. The fire had jumped. Faster than anyone could have imagined, there were fires spread out on all sides now, and the thick smoke swirling in blacked out the sun, until day became night.
Kelton handed Yumi a flashlight. It helped a little bit, but they had to stay close to spot obstacles at the same time. There was really no point in Yumi leading the way anymore. She’d put away the map and compass. There was no more navigation. All they had left to do was follow this creek to Highway 95.
If they could make it there before the fire closed in. They all simply kept going. Running when they could, or moving along at a fast walk or scramble over rocks, under low branches. Everyone, including Yumi, tripped or fell a bunch of times.
“Where are the animals?” McKenzie asked. “We haven’t seen one deer or raccoon running from all this. They just going to stay and burn?”
“Oh, I hope not,” Morgan said.
Hunter coughed. “Animals—” He coughed again. The smoke was thick all around them. “Like deer? They can smell all this smoke from miles away. They can hear the fire crackling. They just take off. Fire crews almost never see dead burned animals. The animals are too smart to get caught up in . . .”
Yumi was glad when he shut up.
Annette moved up beside her. “We aren’t going to make it, are we?”
A tree higher up on the slope to their left seemed to explode with fire. It cast enough light to help them see the way forward, and it sent a shower of sparks, like angry fireflies, down all around them.
“Ow!” Mason shouted. “Look out! Those things hurt! Right on the back of my neck!”
Hunter shouted too. Then Morgan.
“What about the creek?” McKenzie asked. “Maybe we could swim the rest of the way? The sparks can’t go through water, right?”
“Mason? What do you think?” Yumi asked. He had become the fire marshal of the group. She was pretty sure he hated the job.
Yumi glanced back at Mason, the orange firelight reflecting on his sweaty grimy face. There were tear tracks through the dust on his cheeks, either from fearful crying or from smoke irritation. Yumi probably looked the same. Mason frowned. “Maybe if the creek was higher. But it’s real shallow in a lot of places. We’d be crawling or tripping over all the rocks in the creek bed. I think we’ll move faster on land.”
Nobody argued with him. They must have been too tired or too scared. And anyway what Mason said made a lot of sense. The sound was intense and getting louder. Yumi would have thought the flames would be silent, with just the crackling of burning wood, or maybe the loud crash of a falling tree. But the fire wasn’t silent, and it didn’t simply hiss. The dark woods all around them roared with an inhuman monstrous sound. In the early, unnatural dark, it sounded like ghosts, like monsters, or as if the entire earth shook with fury at them. As though the forest were punishing them for their intrusion, for trying to take its fish. The fire howled and screamed.
Rather than a solid wave of fire, the blaze burned in clusters, so that in the black bottom of the dark creek valley they stumbled on through a tunnel of flame. Trees and bushes ignited, crackling and whistling high up on the mountains on either side and at different elevations. Hot sparks blew fiercely above them.
Yumi was glad for the white spot of light from the flashlight. It gave her and, she hoped, everyone else in her group a target, a direction. The flashlight fired a beacon that beckoned them forward. Here! Go this way! Follow me, and do not be distracted by all the other burning lights here in the dark.
“It’s my fault,” Annette said. She was speaking a little louder than she might have done to be heard over the roar of the flames. “My idea to go out to the woods fishing.”
Yumi felt sorry for her friend. Guilt was hard. But Yumi had plenty of her own. Maybe if she had found a more direct route they could have stayed ahead of the fire. It was bad enough with the fire closing in all around them, and her aching body begged for rest after the many hard miles they’d charged through the woods. Annette was one of the best people Yumi had ever known. Yumi wanted to be a good friend. But she didn’t need Annette’s self-torture right now.
“If I had hurried over that log across that ravine,” Annette said. “That wasted so much time.”
“Enough!” Yumi said. “I get it. But there’s plenty of blame to go around. If Morgan hadn’t frozen up while she crossed the log. If I had a found a better route. If we’d all walked faster. If we hadn’t spent so much time at the cabin. If we hadn’t all wasted so much”—Yumi cursed—“time arguing over the stupid war. We’re all bad. But unless you’ve got a time machine to go back to fix things, just . . .” She could see Annette’s hurt expression in the dim firelight. “It’s not going to help us, Ann. OK? We get home, we’ll have a sleepover sometime and we can talk all about it then.”
Yumi stopped for a moment and turned her head away from a shower of sparks falling before her.
“I’m sorry,” Annette said.
“I’m sorry too,” McKenzie said. Yumi sighed, but McKenzie continued. “I mean it. Because I, like, take the blame. All of this is looking like . . . well, it’s bad, and it makes so much of what we’ve been arguing about, what I myself have been arguing about, seem so stupid now, OK?”
“A lot of that was my fault,” Swann cut in.
McKenzie didn’t say anything right away, and Yumi worried the peace would collapse right there. “Annette, you were apologizing for getting everybody into this, but you didn’t invite me to Painted Pond. I overheard you and we went for it. So I got Morgan and Mason into this. But when we were trapped up there on top of the mountain, Annette, that was so cool how you got that hatchet out and started chopping. It took all of us together to build that bridge.
“So, yeah. In, like, the time we have left,” McKenzie said jokingly, “let’s be friends.”
She held out an offer for a fist bump, even as a tree in the distance behind her erupted in a towering inferno. Swann touched her fist to McKenzie’s. Morgan joined in. Yumi held up her fist from a distance.
But Annette offered her fist slowly, not even looking at the others. “Maybe . . . we have more time than we thought.”
What was Annette talking about? Yumi followed her gaze. “What is it?”
“Look! What’s that?” Annette pointed far ahead of them toward a white light.
“A brighter fire?” Mason said. “Something burning hotter?”
“No!” Annette said. “Come on. Ahead of us, down there. That’s not fire. Right?”
The light moved, first to their right, then stopping, before moving back to the left. And when it moved back to the left, it must have cleared a tree, because now they could see two white lights.
“Headlights!” Yumi shouted. “It’s a car or something!”
“The road?” Morgan called.
“Or a road!” Yumi yelled. “Come on! Let’s go! There’s someone there who could give us a ride!” She led the charge ahead, flicking the flashlight on and off. That vehicle was still a long way away. If she could signal to the driver, they might stop for them.
It was as if a new energy had flared up in all of them just as fast as many of the trees were igniting. They ran or walked as quickly as they could, all of them talking about how the lights could mean safety at last. Some of them even laughed.
Then the distant lights vanished. Yumi let out a sigh and wanted to collapse on the ground and give up.
“It’s OK,” Annette said. “The lights had to come from a road up there somewhere. Roads lead to roads. Just keep going.”
Yumi had no idea how Annette could remain so hopeful, but she was glad she did. The group moved on, an agony of sore feet, aching muscles, and more and more small painful burns from hot flying ashes. Finally, they emerged from the heavier tree cover, and then, as if by a miracle, Yumi’s flashlight shined upon something that shined back. A Highway 95 road sign!
“Hey!” Yumi shouted. “This is it! This is the road!” She laughed. “We made it!”
The whole group cheered as they scrambled up onto the pavement, their shoes crunching on more burned out cinders there.
Swann and Kelton hugged. Hunter threw his arms around Annette. Mason picked Yumi up in a big bear hug and swung her around, laughing. Morgan and McKenzie danced.
“You did it, Yumi!” Annette said. “You brought us through.”
“Wait a minute,” Yumi said. Something was wrong. They weren’t thinking about this right. “Wait a minute! Put me down! Hey!”
She felt bad for killing the party, but what she had to say couldn’t wait. “This isn’t right. It’s still dark as night.” She pulled out her phone. It was only seven. There were hours of daylight left. They’d been so excited about reaching the highway that none of them had been paying attention. “The fire’s spread a lot farther than we thought.” The Little Salmon River ran along to the west of the highway, and beyond that, more burning woods. “The fire’s jumped the river.”
“Does that mean the road’s cut off?” Morgan asked. “Please tell me we didn’t come all this way for nothing.”
“Maybe we should just get in the river,” Annette said. “The fire can’t possibly burn through water.”
“I wish that could work,” Mason said. “It would be sweet to simply float south to safety in New Meadows. But the Little Salmon River flows north.”
“There was a car!” McKenzie said. “Or a truck or something. Some people are still driving this road. Or trying to. Let’s follow the road south, at least for as long as we can. The river runs along by the side of the road most of the way. We can jump in the water as a last resort, but in the meantime, let’s head toward New Meadows and get help.”
McKenzie was right, and Yumi was happy when the others quickly agreed. They paused only long enough for Hunter to use his water filter to pump clean water from the river, filling their CamelBaks.
“Come on, Higgins!” Yumi shouted. “You’re taking forever! We gotta go!” She hated yelling at Hunter, but the fire was closing in.
“Just fill them with river water,” said Kelton. “What’s the difference?”
Hunter kept pumping. “The difference is a zillion microscopic organisms in the water.”
“Plus ash,” said Mason.
“You want to drink all that?” Hunter asked. “Get sick and poop your guts out for a week? Go ahead. Or wait a second, and this filter pump will take out the bad stuff. Make it safe to drink.”
“Fine,” Yumi said. “But that’s enough. Let’s go!”
Hunter packed up his pump, and with everyone chugging desperately needed fresh and crisp clear cool water, the group returned to the highway and headed south. After so long in the woods, being on the pavement felt like a dream. They didn’t have to worry nearly so much about tripping, and without even talking about it, they soon sped into a light jog. It made no sense trying to run as fast as they could when they still had miles to go.
But soon enough the road rounded a corner and headed toward heartbreak again. Just past a road construction area, the highway was jammed with broken vehicles that had been on a last-chance desperate drive. A mix of six cars and trucks had been reduced to a burning roadblock. Fire roared in the trees and shrubs between the pavement and the river.
“Oh no,” Annette said. She leaned forward, peering into the mess before them. “It’s hard to tell, but it looks like the vehicles are all empty. I mean, I don’t see any . . . you know.”
Yumi felt like someone had punched her in the chest. This was it. What could they do now? What was left? Hiding in the river? She staggered back, off the road onto the gravel shoulder area that had been expanded for the construction. She felt dizzy, and leaned against the muddy track of a piece of heavy equipment. She coughed against the smoke.
“What do we do? What do we do?” Morgan asked. “We can’t get past those burning cars, those trees! If the cars are stuck, so are we!”
McKenzie sat down on the ground and hung her head. Annette paced, shoulders slumped. Hunter stepped up to Yumi’s side. Mason stood before her.
“Hey, you OK, Yumi?” Mason asked. “You don’t look so good.”
“He means, you look worse than you have since this all started,” Hunter said.
“What are we going to do?” Yumi whispered, more like a wheeze. She could hardly breathe. “I’m out of ideas. I got nothing.”
“Hey, Hunter.” Annette’s puffy hair fluttered in the breeze. “Your grandpa owns a road construction company, right?”
“What does that have to do with anything?” Yumi asked.
Hunter motioned around the job site. “He didn’t get this contract, though. His company is working near Boise.”
“But he has big things like this?” Annette pointed at the machine behind Yumi.
“Bulldozers?” Hunter said. “Sure. He has a few of them. Why?”
“Ever drive one?” Annette asked.
Yumi squeezed her eyes tightly shut and then opened them again, taking a deep breath and rising to her feet. “No way. Grandpa wouldn’t let either of us drive a bulldozer.”
“These things cost, like, a quarter of a million dollars new,” Hunter explained. “But we’ve both driven Grandpa’s skid steer. That’s a big track-wheeled machine.”
Yumi smiled. She looked from the full-sized bulldozer to the burned-cars roadblock. “Higgins, are you thinking what I’m thinking?”
“If what you’re thinking is really dumb, then yes, I am,” Hunter said.
McKenzie stood up. “What? What does that mean?”
Yumi pointed around the construction site. “A couple of lunch boxes scattered around. Some tools. “This bulldozer is parked totally randomly. The construction guys didn’t quit for the day. They evacuated in a panic. Which means . . .” She exchanged a smile with Hunter before they both scrambled up the machine’s steps to the cab. Yumi rushed inside and slid into the seat first. “Bingo! Keys!”
Hunter pointed at the controls. “You want me to—”
“I got it!” Yumi said. “Here, hold this!” She handed Hunter the flashlight and he shined it on the controls. “OK, so turns out this is a lot different than Grandpa’s skid steer. But that’s not going to stop me. Grandpa actually showed me all this on his bulldozer once.” It was kind of a lot to remember. She hoped she’d get it right. Yumi turned the key partway, waiting for the annoying buzz sound to stop. When it did, she turned the key the rest of the way and the engine roared to life. Maybe it was her imagination, but she thought she could smell that horrible stench of diesel fumes, even over the smoke all around them.
Yumi stood up from her seat and leaned out the window. “All right!” She shouted at her friends. “This has been the most messed-up fishing trip of my life. I’m tired from walking. Tired of these stupid little embers burning me. And most of all, I’m tired of running away, in fear for my life. I say we go home. Climb in, and let’s go bust open the road!”
She worried about all of them fitting in the cab. The seat was designed for a big tough construction-worker type of man, so seventh-graders fit a little better. Hunter and Yumi sat in the seat. There was a little dead space behind the seat and on either side. Annette sat on Hunter’s lap. McKenzie and Morgan climbed up and squeezed in back. Swann and Kelton curled up in the little space to either side of the seat. It was tight. A clown car of nightmares. Mason gripped the handle by the door and stood on the small platform outside the cab.
“I’ll duck inside if the fire gets to be too much,” Mason said.
“There’s not even a steering wheel,” Annette said. “Yumi, how are you going to drive this thing?”
Yumi gripped the drive lever. “It’s all right here. Grandpa talked me though it once, just showing Higgins and me when we asked him the same question.”
Hunter pointed at the smaller of the two floor pedals, the one on the right. “So that’s throttle. Remember it’s the opposite of a regular gas pedal. It’ll kill power the more you push on it.”
“That’s stupid,” Kelton said. “Why would they make it like that?”
Yumi shrugged. “Don’t know. Don’t care.” She grabbed the smaller lever on her right. The engine was in neutral. This lever couldn’t hurt anything. “I think . . .” She pulled the lever back, the machine noise changed, and the dozer blade lifted off the ground. “Bingo! Blade control.” She raised the giant steel blade in front of them about a foot off the ground. “Can’t have that dragging everywhere.” A burning tree branch fell right over the steel arms that held the blade.
