All eight of them rushed back along the trail and across the bridge over the beautiful swift river. Annette surveyed her favorite fishing spot, this peaceful outdoor paradise where, less than an hour ago, her biggest concern had been talking to Hunter, trying to figure out if he liked her and whether or not she should let him know she liked him. She thought the situation over as the suspension bridge bobbed a little under the footfalls of the larger group. How silly it all sounded, spending so much time and energy worried about crushes when they were in so much danger.

  They’d just sat there, joking, fishing, and relaxing in the sun, and all the while a deadly fire was spreading and cutting them off from home. Why hadn’t they simply done the easy thing and fished on Payette Lake? Then they’d be safe and comfortable in McCall, probably swimming or eating ice cream by now. Instead, she just had to show off, trying to act like a big expert fisher who knew the woods. She was the one who’d suggested they go fishing way out on Painted Pond. The other group had overheard her and beat them to the place, but after finding their intended fishing spot occupied, did she make the sensible suggestion to just go back? Of course not! She’d dragged them deeper into the wilderness, deeper into trouble. Expert fisher? She didn’t know anything.

  After crossing the bridge, Yumi pointed with her whole arm, fingers together and extended in this Army gesture her dad sometimes used. She called it “blade hand.” In her other hand she held her compass. “We gotta head north. Let’s pick up the pace.”

  The group hurried into a trot, about as fast as they could manage through the thick woods, through the abundant dry fuel for the fire that was coming. All the shrubbery forced them to move in a single-file line or sometimes two-by-two. Morgan and McKenzie stayed close, whispering together, probably more mean cutting comments, probably about Annette and how she’d landed them all in deadly danger.

  “I’m really sorry about this, everybody.” Annette spoke loudly, so the entire spread-out group could hear. “I didn’t mean to trap us all in trouble.”

  Swann laughed. So did Kelton. They’d stuck close together on this march too.

  “What is possibly funny about this, Swann?” McKenzie called out from where she, Morgan, and Mason brought up the rear.

  Not the fighting again? Why couldn’t everybody leave the war behind? Was it too much to ask that they peace it out long enough for them to return to safety? Should she say something, speak up and ask for calm before another battle ignited?

  But Swann did not take the bait. “Oh, sorry,” she said. “No, you’re right. This is all terrible, but I was just thinking about how when Hunter, Kelton, and I were trapped in the snow up on Storm Mountain, we all kept blaming ourselves.”

  “Well, I shouldn’t have taken that shortcut,” Kelton said.

  Swann gently bumped her shoulder against Kelton. “If you hadn’t, then we wouldn’t have spent so much time together in that abandoned mine.”

  “Yeah, Swann,” Hunter said, panting a little as Yumi led them up a rocky slope. They had to watch where they walked, stepping from the top of one rock to another, forcing careful but rapid progress up the hill. “That was really fun. My broken leg and everything.”

  “You’re right,” Kelton said. “It was miserable. Just like this has become, but for how it all turned out, I’m glad it happened. And it gives me hope that someday we’ll look back on this and be happy about how it ended. For real.”

  “Oh, that is just so, so cute,” McKenzie said. “I’m glad you think this is all a game, Kelton, but some of us are taking this seriously.”

  “C’mon, McKenzie! I don’t think it’s a game!” Kelton shouted. “Did I say that? What’s the matter with you? You don’t think I understand the trouble we’re in or what it’s like to be stranded out in the wilderness in a dangerous situation?”

  “It’s OK, Kelton,” Swann said quietly. “Let it go.”

  “I won’t let it go!” Kelton shouted. “You may be hot stuff in a fashion show or on the volleyball court, McKenzie, but we’re not in school and nobody cares how you look right now. Out here? You’re in our world. I used to get all upset when you’d give me crap, used to worry about popularity, the Pops and the Grits. But being out here”—he held his hands wide, gesturing all around—“I figured out that people are people. That’s what the wilderness does, strips people down to their basic. I learned that the hard way. I get that. You don’t. So let me help you understand something, princess. Nobody’s gonna bow to your crown out here. So you can either help us get out of this or quietly accept our help. Either way, shove your oh-so-better-than-everyone attitude, because nobody cares who you think you are.”

  Annette bit her lip. So much for peacing it out. Kelton had just dropped a gallon of gas on the fire of the war. Annette turned around for a moment to look at him. Who was this guy? It was as if a rebel outsider had gone up on Storm Mountain this last winter and a totally new person had returned. Mrs. Dunlap, their health teacher, had subjected their entire grade to an embarrassing lesson about how they’d all be undergoing significant changes, but she’d said nothing about this kind of total personality transformation.

  Mason coughed. Was he covering a laugh? “Smoky out here,” he said.

  Yumi pressed her fist against her mouth in a halfway effort to hide her laughter. “Some big stones,” she said appreciatively. “Big stones up here. Don’t trip.”

  McKenzie had to be mad about Kelton yelling at her. Annette couldn’t remember anyone ever talking to her that way. But McKenzie didn’t reply. At least not to the whole group. Instead she fell back on her familiar tactic of bitter whispering with Morgan. After more fast hard marching north through the tough terrain, they reached one of those rock features that made the Idaho woods so beautiful, and so challenging. Suddenly great jagged columns of stone rose before them, a barrier that would take forever to climb, assuming they could figure out a way up the nearly vertical slope at all.

  Yumi stopped the march and turned back toward the rest of the group. She wiped her forearm over her sweaty forehead. “This is probably as good a place as any to head west to hook up with Warren Wagon Road.”

  Annette’s legs shook like Jell-O. Her muscles ached. The bright blazing afternoon heat cooked her body. She wanted to rest. At the foot of the rise in front of them there were enough big rocks for everyone to sit down for a little time-out. But she didn’t dare say anything. She would not be the weak one who first begged for mercy.

  The group shifted, like a herd of cattle, without a word, to move west toward the road. Maybe they’d get lucky and find a passing vehicle and they could sit for a ride to safety. On soft seats. With air-conditioning.

  After a challenging climb up and down the ridge, it was a short walk through the woods. When they finally stepped out of the scrub brush onto the hot hard blacktop of the road, there was no one and nothing but even more oppressive heat rising in waves off the pavement to cook their legs.

  “This isn’t the most high-traffic road in the area,” Hunter said after a few minutes. “In winter, they just close it to cars and trucks and leave the snow on the road for snowmobiles. Way up north, there are some out-of-the-way bars and restaurants.”

  “Oh, I wish it was winter,” Morgan said quietly.

  “I know the radio said the highway’s only open to emergency traffic, but someone will probably be driving along soon, though,” Kelton said. “Someone like us trying to escape. Probably.”

  “Maybe.” McKenzie cocked a hip out and folded her arms. “But you guys are stupid to hang around talking about it.” She started walking north. Morgan glanced around helplessly for a moment before following. When the others joined them, McKenzie led Morgan to the opposite side of the pavement, fast-walking in angry silence.

  Swann scoffed and was about to say something, probably something nasty to McKenzie. But Annette held up her hand and the group marched down the road.

  chris and ben had been friends their whole lives, growing up in suburban Portland, Oregon, and graduating from high school together. The summer was nearly over. Soon they’d be off to separate colleges, and as they both acknowledged, they’d probably drift apart.

  “But not before we have one last adventure,” Chris kept saying. Two weeks ago, the two of them had grabbed whatever camping and hiking gear they could find and crammed it into Ben’s mom’s minivan. Then they drove off for the middle of nowhere. They’d made it all the way into the deep South Dakota Badlands, taking their time wandering along the most remote roads they could find. Along the way, they saw awesome rodeos, climbed spectacular mountains, and met tons of great people. On their return trip, they drove the van right down by this beautiful crystal-clear creek in the middle of Idaho and spent the day swimming, relaxing, and talking about the future.

  That night, Ben had said they shouldn’t risk a campfire, but Chris built it right next to the stream, and he kept a bucket of water handy if a spark popped out and started the brush ablaze. Plus he had the tire iron from the van to use as a rake to beat down any fires.

  Now, after sleeping late and enjoying one more swim, it was time for the two old friends to roll along, toward the end of their years together, and the start of the journey of the rest of their lives.

  “The fire burned all night and no harm done. Down to just hot coals now,” Chris said. “See? Nothing to worry about.”

  Ben pointed to a column of smoke rising in the south. “There’s plenty to worry about. People aren’t even supposed to have fires in the summer. Make sure you get it all completely out.”

  Chris held his water bucket up in salute. “No problem.” He slowly poured the water from the bucket all around their little fire ring, steam hissing and rising with smoke in a little plume.

  When they both saw that their fire was extinguished just as surely as all their other campfires on their adventure had been, they packed their trash and belongings into the van, fired up the engine and music from a special road-trip playlist Ben had made, and rolled off down the highway, heading north toward whatever else they might find.

  The firepit remained, sizzling under the hot sun. A sparrow flitted upon a stone on the edge of the circle, chirped, pooped, and flew away. The ashes, washed nearly black by the water from the boys’ bucket, slowly brightened to a dark gray, and in the bright sun gradually turned white. An orange glow returned along the underside of the remains of half a log, and a whisp of smoke curled up into the air. The wind blew and more orange blared bright in the remains of the hot wood.

  The creek gurgled by and the wind blew and a chipmunk skittered over the rocks searching for seeds for his next meal. Hours passed, and the hot log popped, throwing a red-hot chunk of wood into the tall grass nearby.

  The grass did not darken gradually. There was hardly any time for the hot ember to smolder. The wind blew, and fire burst out in the grass, flames climbing the stalks and spreading across the ground, a white-orange ring around a black circle. Pine cones caught and burned just as fast. A bed of pine needles twisted and blackened as the fire raced across them. And within minutes, the fire devoured a large bush, before clambering up into the branches of a pine overhead, and from that pine to the one growing close by. The wind gusted, and the fire roared and spread, releasing its smoke into the air along with a chorus of other blazes across the region. The grasses and undergrowth were high and thick, and the summer had been so very dry, and the fire burned hot, and very, very hungry.

  CHAPTER 9

  “I don’t want to sound like I’m complaining. For real,” said Kelton. He pulled the bottom of his T-shirt up to wipe his sweaty face. Walking on the hard hot pavement in the late afternoon August heat, coupled with the smoke hovering thicker and thicker in the air, punished all of them. “And I know the short answer is basically ‘really far,’ but how far are we going? What’s our plan here? I know eventually this road curves way around the mountains and heads south again.”

  “He has a point,” Annette said. Of course, the most important consideration, at first, was to simply get away from the fire. Who cared about a plan when it was a desperate question of survival? It was still a desperate question of survival. “Obviously we need to keep moving, but it’s not like we can walk all the way north to Coeur D’Alene or something.”

  “There’s going to be a bus,” Swann said.

  “What are you talking about?” Hunter licked his lips, then took a long pull from his drinking tube.

  “We’re going to find a bus,” Swann said. “A real nice one. With a fridge inside it packed with ice water and soda.”

  “And air-conditioning,” Annette added. To get out of this heat, even for a few minutes. To be able to rest without the constant twist of fear deep inside her, to relax and let others take care of everything. “Kelton’s right to ask. Where does this end? How do we get out of this?”

  Hunter stopped. He leaned over, exhausted, with his hands on his knees. He made a little whimper sound, almost like he was crying. Was he about to collapse?

  Without thinking, Annette put her arm over his shoulders. “Hey, you’re OK.”

  “No, I’m not,” Hunter said quietly. “We’re not. And however we get out of this, it’s not this way.” He pointed to the north.

  Annette’s legs nearly gave out. She wanted to drop to the pavement in despair. “Oh no.” This couldn’t be real. Up ahead, another thick column of dark smoke rose into the sky. “It’s not . . . maybe it’s just a cloud.” She turned around on the road, saw the smoke to the south, and spun back to the north. More smoke. Mountains to the east and west.

  “We’re trapped?” Swann whispered. “Are we trapped? I mean, what do we do? Where do we go?”

  “It’s OK,” Kelton tried to reassure her. “We’ll be all right.”

  Annette watched the smoke in the north. Standing in the blindingly bright sunlight, it was hard to tell, but she could have sworn she saw a flash, a spark. And above a line of trees, an orange glow. “Is that . . . Look—” Annette pointed toward the glow. “Is that fire? Right there with those trees on that ridge?”

  Swann did a kind of stutter step, like she wanted to run, but didn’t know which direction. “What do we do?” There was panic in her voice, a loss of control Annette had never witnessed in her before. This was ultra-cool Swann Siddiq. Now there were tears in her wild wide eyes. “Where do we go?”

  “Fire to the south,” Yumi said. “Fire to the north. That just leaves two directions.”

  Annette thought about it. “Doesn’t east basically lead into endless wilderness?” Yumi nodded. Annette shrugged. “Then we go west.”

  “What?” McKenzie said, pointing. McKenzie’s hair had always been perfect, in the latest fashion, while Annette’s own had always been a frizzy mess. Now McKenzie’s perfect straight golden hair was a tangled sweat-soaked, dust-crusted nightmare. She sounded as fried as she looked. “Over those mountains?”

  Yumi pulled out and unfolded the map. “If we go west, we’ll eventually run into Highway 95. That’s a more important road. It may still be open.”

  “Right. This fire can’t be everywhere.” Hunter tapped the paper in Yumi’s hand. “Thank God we found a good map with contour lines to mark elevation. A basic road map would just show this area all green.”

  Kelton traced his finger along part of the map. “Where the lines are close together means the slope is steeper. Some of these areas the lines are practically touching. That’s a cliff.”

  “The lines are farther apart at that place you’re touching,” Swann said.

  “And it’s not so far from where we are,” Yumi said. She handed the map to Hunter and took out her compass. “Maybe . . .” She pointed the compass north. “If I had a protractor, I could figure out . . . our exact heading. Which, OK.” She was talking mostly to herself, checking the compass, then looking at the map. “If I’m right about where we are on the map right now, and with the compass I can keep our direction consistent. It won’t be super-exact because of the difference between north on the map and magnetic north.”

  “How could there be more than one north?” Morgan asked.

  Yumi ignored her. “We’ll have to do the best we can navigating by terrain features and rough compass bearing. But I think I can get us up this ravine where the slope isn’t as steep. That will get us over one high ridge. Then down through this little valley, and up again over a second ridge, and we can follow this stream, Hazard Creek, as it flows all the way down here near highway 95.”

  Kelton squinted as he peered at the map. “Well, how do you know it flows to the west?”

  Mason shook his head. Swann pressed her fist to her mouth, trying to hide her laughter. Yumi just stared at the guy. “Kel, do you think the water in the creek is flowing up the mountain?”

  The guy’s cheeks flared red. “Oh yeah. Duh. Sorry.”

  Mason patted his shoulder. “Don’t worry about it.”

  Morgan hadn’t been helping much to figure out their route, but she glanced at the map. “But how far is that?”

  “It’s far.” Yumi nodded. “And there’s a lot of up and down the mountains. But the straight-line distance isn’t much farther than it is from where we are now along this road back to McCall.”

  “Plus there’s no fire on this route through the mountains,” Swann said.

  “Not that we know of,” Morgan replied. Nobody said anything to that.

  “We’re running out of options,” Annette said. “It’s this or nothing.”

  The group slid down the gravelly shoulder off the road, moving west through brown weeds and shrubs. A lot of the terrain surrounding this road was swampy wetlands most of the year. The winter had been very snowy, so the spring runoff from the mountains had been heavy and these lowland areas off the road had flourished with green life. But, after a few cold rain showers early in March, there had been only one or two light sprinkles, not even enough to wet the highway. All eight of them crunched through a dry flat, hurrying toward the high western ridge.

 

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