Playing with Fire, Page 2

  Thirty feet behind the dog was the college-age couple it belonged to—the tall, skinny white guy in cutoffs, with the leash draped around his neck like a scarf, and the Hispanic girl in flip-flops, a blue-and-white beach towel draped over her bare shoulders. Behind them was an African American man with graying hair. He was holding the hand of a lighter-skinned boy who looked about eight.

  Wyatt stepped into the middle of the path and raised his hands. “Hey, guys—I’m sorry, but we can’t get out this way. There’s a fire about a half mile back.”

  “What? A forest fire?” The older man wrapped one arm around the boy. He pulled him close, ignoring the kid’s attempts to squirm away.

  “Really?” The girl’s eyes went wide.

  “Blue!” Her boyfriend patted his thigh, and the dog came to his side. He snapped on the leash.

  Wyatt pointed the way they had come. “We’re not fire experts, but we figured we’d be safest by the water. If I climb up above the falls, I think I might be able to get cell service. Then I could ask 9-1-1 what to do.”

  This time there wasn’t any argument or discussion, just a hurried push to get back to where they had started. When they reached Basin Falls, there were only three people left. The sweaty white guy was finishing up the last of his Gatorade. An older white woman wearing a tan sun hat and an old-fashioned pack was sitting on a boulder, watching the falls. And the dark-haired guy who had passed them on their way out was facing toward the trail, staring up at the sky. None of them were near each other.

  “Hey! People! Listen up!” Wyatt waved his arms, but it was difficult to compete with the sight and sound of falling water.

  Natalia slid off her backpack and found the gear she had bought at REI. She pulled out the cord holding a bright orange whistle and put it to her lips. Even over the rush of the waterfall, the sound was piercing. The other people’s heads turned.

  Wyatt put his hands around his mouth and shouted. “Hey, you guys, there’s a fire blocking the trail.” He pointed at the top of the falls. “I’m going to get up higher and see if I can get cell service.”

  He headed toward a faint line of trampled brush that led to the top of the falls. Natalia followed, her stomach twisting. At the bottom of the slope was a sign bolted to a tree. The top had the word “NO” in big white letters on a red background. In full, it read, “No cliff jumping or diving into Basin Falls. Three people have died trying. $500 fine.”

  “Do you really think it’s safe to go up there?” she asked as he scrambled up on a boulder.

  He looked over his shoulder. “Don’t worry. I have no plans to try diving. Want to come up with me?”

  “I’ll just slow you down,” Natalia said, which was true but not the truth. She was afraid of heights. “Just promise you’ll be careful.”

  “Of course. But don’t worry, I’ll be fine.” Wyatt started to clamber up the rocky hillside. Her heart in her mouth, Natalia watched him go.

  CHAPTER 4

  EXTREME DANGER

  7:23 P.M.

  AS NATALIA WATCHED, WYATT scrambled up the steep hill. He was in the full sun, but down here, in the shadows by the water, the light was changing as the sun got lower in the sky. Long, slanted rays revealed that smoke was beginning to reach them. How long until the fire did?

  To calm herself, she took a deep breath, regretting it when she tasted the smoke. Around her, the other people were gradually coalescing, all of them looking up, focused on Wyatt.

  Before joining them, the guy who had passed them on the way in tossed the bottle cap he’d been carrying into the water. Natalia didn’t bother to hide her disgusted look. What a jerk! All those cargo pockets and he couldn’t be bothered to pack out a single bottle cap? The bottle it belonged to had probably been tossed into the bushes along the way here. He met her glare with narrowed eyes.

  Now he challenged her. “Are you sure there’s a fire? I was just through there like a half hour ago and I didn’t see any fire.”

  “Well, there’s one now.” She waved at the particles floating in the sunbeams. “You can see the smoke in the air.”

  The girl in the flip-flops pointed at Wyatt. Her nails were painted purple. “So that’s your boyfriend up there?”

  “Um, we work together at an ice cream shop in Portland.” Natalia gave the other girl a weak smile. “This was kind of our first date.”

  “Some first date!” She rolled her eyes. “My name’s Beatriz.”

  “Natalia.” She pointed up the hill. “And that’s Wyatt.”

  With her thumb, Beatriz gestured back at the guy with the dog, who was standing a little apart from everyone. “My boyfriend, Marco. And the dog’s named Blue.” Knuckling the top of Blue’s head, Marco nodded at them. He was skinny with a mop of streaked blond hair. His shorts, with hacked-off legs of different lengths, had clearly once been jeans.

  Everyone else introduced themselves. The older guy was Darryl, and his grandson was named Zion. AJ was the stocky guy in boots that looked as new as Natalia’s. Susan had an old-fashioned pack made of green canvas and gray curls peeking out from her sun hat. The jerk was the last one to give his name—Jason.

  Wyatt was nearly at the top when suddenly his left foot slipped on some loose rocks. As Natalia gasped, he caught himself.

  “He looks like he knows what he’s doing, honey,” Susan said.

  Natalia wasn’t reassured. This was real life. If Wyatt fell, he could be badly hurt. Maybe even killed. If he broke his back or even a leg, how much could she really do with her first aid kit? The Red Cross class she took every summer was predicated on what to do in the few minutes you might have to wait for an ambulance.

  Wyatt finally reached the top. He turned and waved. Even though he was a good ten feet from the edge, Natalia wished he would take a few more steps back. After pulling out his phone, he extended his arm and turned in a circle, squinting. He slowed, moved the phone toward him, frowned, stopped. Then he seemed to have found a small sweet spot. He began tapping on the screen, still at arm’s length.

  Beatriz clapped. “He must have a signal!”

  Gingerly, Wyatt tilted the phone so the speaker was closest to him. The rush of the falls made it impossible to hear anything he said. He listened with his head cocked, nodded a couple of times, and spoke very little. Finally, he turned in the direction of the parking lot, shading his eyes with his free hand. But when he tried to relay what he saw, it was clear from his frustrated expression and how he moved the phone that he had lost the signal.

  After a few minutes of trying and failing to find it again, Wyatt pocketed the phone and started back. Before he was even halfway down, people were shouting questions.

  “What did they say?” AJ yelled.

  Darryl cupped his hands around his mouth. “When are they coming?”

  Wyatt held up one hand to tell them to wait. Finally he reached the last big boulder. Rather than trying to climb down, he crouched and jumped, landing with bent knees.

  “Okay, okay.” He held up both hands as more questions flew. “Just let me talk. 9-1-1 patched me through to the sheriff’s department. They already knew about the fire, but now they’re alerting the Forest Service that we’re here. They said we should wait for further instructions.”

  “Wait? Is that such a good idea?” AJ gestured at the increasingly murky air. “It’s already getting smokier. What if the fire gets here before they do?”

  “I took a look while I was up there,” Wyatt said. “It’s still maybe three-quarters of a mile away.”

  “Could you see that couple who kept going?” Natalia asked. It was hard to breathe when she thought of Trask’s chubby hands clutched in his father’s hair.

  He shook his head. “But there’s a lot of tree cover. And there are breaks in the fire. Maybe they found a way through.”

  “If that fire gets a wind behind it,” Darryl said, “it’ll eat up that three-quarters of a mile before you know it.” His sunglasses made his expression unreadable, but his words made Zion
press his face into his grandpa’s round belly.

  Wyatt’s mouth twisted. “They said that one problem is that the best way out is already blocked by the Cougar Creek fire.”

  “How are we supposed to get instructions, anyway?” Beatriz asked. “None of us can get a signal down here, and you barely got one up there.”

  AJ pointed. “Look!”

  Four helicopters appeared on the horizon. The three largest carried giant cloth buckets. One by one, they released their contents. Two were filled with what must have been fire retardant. It was the bright red of fresh blood. The third dropped what looked like water.

  Three helicopters trying to put out the flames. Not the one Wyatt had thought might do the trick. But that was when they’d first spotted the fire. How far had it spread since? Would three be enough?

  But maybe it didn’t even matter, because the fourth helicopter, the smallest and the only one without a bucket, was buzzing closer.

  With the rest, Natalia jumped and cheered, shouted and waved. She wasn’t worried the pilot didn’t see them. It was just a way of channeling her anxiety. Soon they would be safe.

  The chopper hovered directly above them. Leaves and even small sticks began to rise in the air, swirling in the wind created by the turning blades.

  Beatriz wrinkled her nose. “Do you think it can hold all of us?” She had to raise her voice to be heard over the rotors.

  “If not, Zion should be on the first trip out.” Darryl said. “And, Susan, maybe you, too.”

  “But it’s getting dark,” AJ said. “Can that thing even land at night? What if it can only take one trip?”

  Instead of landing, the helicopter began to lift higher. As the group fell into stunned silence, it started to fly away.

  “Maybe they’re going back to get a bigger one,” Beatriz said. “So there’s room for all of us.”

  A shiver danced across Natalia’s skin as she watched the helicopter grow smaller and smaller. She must have made some small sound of protest, because Wyatt whispered, “Are you okay?” in her ear.

  She kept her voice low. “This was just supposed to be a day trip. I don’t want to get stuck here overnight.”

  “I don’t think we will be.” Wyatt’s tone was matter-of-fact. Natalia thought he was trying to reassure her, until he added, “The thing is, up there I could see pretty far. And all I could see was fire. I think it’s too late for those helicopters to stop it. And that means we won’t be able to stay put. I’ve got a map and compass in my pack. I’m going to figure out how we can get out of here.”

  All I could see was fire. Shock kept her from protesting.

  Shrugging off his backpack, Wyatt rummaged through it until he found the map. He was tracing his finger over contour lines when Zion shouted and pointed. The small helicopter was coming back.

  This time it dropped a weighted plastic bag. It landed on the other side of a small creek that fed the falls.

  Barking, Blue ran toward it, with Marco splashing right behind. He picked up the bag and opened it. Inside was a rock and a piece of paper. While people shouted at him to read it, Natalia just watched his face. First his eyes narrowed, and then they went wide. He raised them from the note to the helicopter, which was again lifting up. Already flying away, without a single one of them on board.

  “It says, ‘Fire spreading.’” Marco stopped to cough, then cleared his throat. “‘Extreme danger. Head to Sky Bridge.’”

  CHAPTER 5

  BLACKENED LACE

  7:56 P.M.

  EXTREME DANGER.    THEY WERE trapped. How many dreams had Natalia had about that very situation? But those dreams were always about being confined in a house, flames blocking an exit. This wasn’t a matter of finding another door or breaking out a window. If the fire kept rolling forward, consuming everything it its path, was there even a way out?

  Her pulse a thrum in her throat, Natalia looked down the trail. The air was definitely thicker, but she didn’t see any flames. Yet.

  “Sky Bridge?” Susan’s brows drew together, but then her expression cleared. “Really? That’s where I was going.”

  “How far away is that?” AJ adjusted his pack, briefly exposing his hairy belly.

  Wyatt looked up from his map. “A couple of miles.”

  But this was trail miles. Natalia guessed it would probably take an hour to get there.

  “And then what?” Darryl’s sunglasses reflected twin orange disks of the sun, low on the horizon. “There’s a town? A road?”

  “Sky Bridge is just a wooden footbridge over a slot canyon,” Wyatt said. “The trail splits on the other side. There’s no roads or towns for a long ways. Just forest.”

  Marco put his arm around Beatriz. “Maybe they’re going to have a ranger meet us there to lead us out.”

  “Hey,” Darryl called out, looking up the trail. “Where are you going?”

  Jason was already fifty feet away. He spoke over his shoulder. “I’m not going to keep sitting around here waiting for the fire to catch up with us.”

  “Does he mean we’re going to get burned up?” Zion asked in a high voice.

  “Of course not.” Natalia joined the chorus responding with varying degrees of conviction. Just last week, she had read about a family who died when a fast-moving California wildfire trapped them in their own home. After wrapping themselves in wet blankets they had sheltered in the bathtub, but the fire hadn’t cared. Natalia had had to use every trick Dr. Paris had taught her to stop obsessing about their last moments.

  “Hang on, Jason,” Wyatt said. “It will be safer if we stay together as a group.”

  “Listen to Mr. Boy Scout,” Jason scoffed. But he stopped walking.

  “Actually, I’m an Eagle Scout.” Wyatt shrugged on his pack. He still held his map, now folded. “But Jason’s right. We do need to leave. We should try to cover as much distance as possible while we still have daylight. And since there’s a good chance we’re going to still be hiking after it gets dark, everyone should try to preserve cell phone battery power for the flashlights.”

  Filled with nervous energy, the group fell into a long, straggling line, with Jason in the lead and Wyatt bringing up the rear. Despite what Wyatt had said, Natalia didn’t think they were really a group at all. They were just nine people with nothing in common except bad luck. Most of them weren’t even prepared for a longer hike.

  Jason only had on tennis shoes and wasn’t carrying a pack. Behind Jason were Marco and Beatriz. Marco had unclipped Blue’s leash and draped it around his neck, but the dog stayed close, his nose occasionally bumping the back of Marco’s knees. Marco wore Tevas and a small day pack, while Beatriz carried only a water bottle and the striped beach towel. Her heels kept sliding out of her flip-flops. Marco had one hand under her elbow, trying to steady her. His other hand now held a blue inhaler, which he took a puff from.

  Next was Susan. Judging by her old-fashioned pack, she had plenty of hiking experience, but she was also well past retirement age. Still, aided by trekking poles, she was moving steadily.

  Behind Susan was Zion. He was towing Darryl by the hand, commenting on every rock and root. Neither one of them was wearing a pack.

  AJ was right in front of Natalia, close enough she could hear his labored breathing. But he had a good-sized pack on his back.

  They’d gone only a couple of hundred yards up the trail when a shout came from behind them. It was a woman’s voice. “Wait! Stop! Help us!”

  A bolt of adrenaline ran up Natalia’s spine. Already knowing it had to be bad, she turned. It was the couple with the toddler, the ones who had insisted on seeing the fire for themselves. But now the child carrier holding Trask was on his mom’s slight back, bending her nearly double. The toddler’s face was wet with tears, sweat, and snot.

  Stumbling in their wake was the husband. Half his light blue shirt was gone. The remaining edges looked like blackened lace. The exposed skin of his upper left arm and chest was shiny and red.

  H
e had been burned.

  CHAPTER 6

  WHAT IF IT WAS YOU?

  8:08 P.M.

  AT THE SIGHT OF his burns, Natalia’s vision went blurry. Blood roared in her ears.

  “Oh my God.” Susan put her hand to her chest. “What happened?”

  “What do you think happened?” Jason snorted as Darryl tried to turn Zion’s face away. “Dude got burned.”

  “You were right,” the dad said to Wyatt. “We couldn’t get through. I got too close, looking for a way out. A spark landed on my T-shirt. I tried to beat it out.” He raised his right hand. The palm was bright red, dotted with yellow.

  Natalia didn’t have to imagine his agony. She knew. And she also knew she should be helping him, but she couldn’t seem to move. Her head filled with static.

  “Okay.” Wyatt sucked in a breath. “Are you the only one who was hurt?” He looked at the wife and Trask.

  “Just me, thank God.” The burned man sat down heavily on a boulder.

  “I have some first aid training,” Wyatt said. “Can I help you?”

  When the other man nodded, Wyatt said in an artificially calm voice, “My name’s Wyatt. What’s your name? I already know your little guy is named Trask.” As he spoke, he pulled a battered first aid kit from his backpack and pulled on a pair of blue gloves.

  “Ryan. And my wife is Lisa.”

  “First we have to cool the burns down,” Wyatt said. “I’m going to need a clean cloth, like a T-shirt or bandanna, and some clean water.”

  “On it,” Marco said.

  Lisa was standing with her hands braced on her knees, panting from the combined weight of her kid and her worry.

  Natalia forced herself to move. Not away from the burned man, but toward him. The Red Cross training, practiced year after year, began to kick in.

  She leaned down and murmured to Wyatt, “Do you need help? I’m Red Cross certified.” Could he hear the quaver in her voice?