Edge of the Heat (Westwood Harbor Corruption) (14 page)

7 days, that's a week. 7 days. 7 days. 7 days.
Emma chanted inside her head. It had been 7 days since she had sent the letter to Craig, and she hadn't heard from him. She saw him on a call twice in those 7 days, but both times they had been too busy to talk, and both times he hadn't gotten close enough to her for a glance or a smile, seemingly on purpose. She was getting desperate. So desperate in fact, that she had just volunteered to work the Crystal Creek Wildfire in order to get her mind off things. Wildfires were back-breaking work with no room for error, and they could go on for weeks. She knew from experience that if she made it home anytime in the next few days or weeks to sleep, she would drop into bed so exhausted she wouldn't even dream.

She was driving the big red tanker truck out to the first firebreak - almost an hour drive from Westwood Harbor, but it took closer to two hours in this monster. The water alone that she was hauling probab
ly weighed 14,000 pounds. As the road got smaller and more like a switchback, her thoughts of Craig were pushed to the back of her mind as she wrestled with the big truck. She was glad to see them go.

She'd been able to see the smoke for the entire drive,
and smell it for 30 miles, but now the road on both sides of her was blackened and still smoking. She was close.

She found her unit and unloaded, putting on her gear. It was early morning, and the air was still breathable - the fire still low and light. Th
e bulk of the fire would be here in 8 hours or less, and they were going to try to widen this firebreak and save some homes in a small subdivision on the other side of the road.

Emma got her orders and headed out with her partners. They burned brush, dug o
ut roots and small trees, and followed the bulldozers, picking up what they missed. By 3 p.m. Emma was exhausted. By 8 p.m. she was falling down on her feet. So far so good though, the fire had come to the edge but hadn't hopped the firebreak yet. They just hoped it was wide enough.

A nighttime crew came in to relieve them. Emma was relieved to head home for the night; they would need the tanker truck full again in the morning. She drove slowly, eyes heavy, mind still. She watched the underbrush on the sout
h side of her truck, looking for where the fire ended. Found it - she noted the mile marker and tried to call it in but had no response. She stopped the truck, both to rest and to try to reach the scene commander again. Sometimes the radio worked better when the truck was still.

She had driven about three miles. She turned off the engine and looked at the stars. Man it was gorgeous out here. It seemed she could see the entire milky way.

"CCF, FF 238," she called, still looking up at the stars. Nothing. That's OK, she could wait another couple of minutes. If she didn't hear anything by then she would try dispatch.

Emma held her breath, and stretched her head towards the woods. Was that a scream she heard?

The fire was close, but she couldn't see any burning where she was. She wondered if there was a house back there. She got out with her flashlight to investigate.

There, that was definitely a scream.
She got her gear on, wondering if she would find a human, or if that was an animal terrified enough to sound like a person.

"CCF 24, FF 238," she called for the scene commander on the radio again. No answer still.

Damnit, was she in a dip?

She switched frequencies, hoping to get central dispatch. "PAP-65, FF 238," she called.

"Standing by," came the reply.

"I am
in Vehicle 42, approximately a tenth of a mile west of mile marker 436, and I am hearing screaming in the woods on the south side. I am heading in to investigate. I am unable to contact CCF 24."

"Do you have a partner FF 238?"

"Negative."

"10-4, will cont
act Scene Commander for you. Stand by."

Emma put the handset down and walked into the woods, carrying a pickaxe. She knew it was possible that she would be told to stand down until someone could reach her on the next transmission, so she made sure she wasn
't there to hear it. Lives could be in danger. She had to help if she could.

She didn't hear any more noises, but tried to head in the general direction where it had been coming from. She was counting her paces, and had walked for about 1/3 of a mile due s
outh, tying strips of orange tape to trees every 20 feet, so she could be followed. There wasn't a lot of underbrush here, so going was easy. The smoke smell was stronger though, and she saw a glow up ahead. There. Another rough scream. Damn, she was about 80% sure that was an animal. If she were 100% sure she might have turned back. Not because animals weren't worth saving, but because if she got in trouble, other firefighters would be sent in to save
her
, and that was dangerous at night.
Dangerous all the time, but worse at night.
If a person got hurt because she was saving a wild boar she would never forgive herself.

Until she was sure though, she had to keep going. "Hello?" she called. "Anyone there?"

Nothing.

Then something. "Help!"

Faint, but definitely human. Oh man, that voice sounded tortured. She picked up her pace.

"Hello, I can hear you, where are you?" she called out.

Silence. Damn.

Ahead she saw what looked like a small building. The fire looked close. Within 100 feet of it she could tell it was
a hunter's shack. Rough walls painted camouflage, only about the size of a large bathroom. The door was standing open. She approached carefully and shined her flashlight in, but there was nothing.

"Hello, where are you?" She called again to the south.

Faintly, she heard a cough. She started off in the direction of it. More southwest than due south. She tied a piece of orange tape and then another only 5 feet away to show her change in direction.

The fire was getting closer, the smoke was getting stronger,
and the woods were getting hotter. She picked up her pace, hoping to get to the person before the fire swallowed him or her.

Another hunter's shack, this one smaller. She swept it with her flashlight. There, on the bare ground, a man. She could see the wet
glint of exposed bone in his thigh from here. "I'm here, I'll get you out of here, what happened?" she said in one breath, falling to her knees and grabbing her bag.

He was unconscious. But she had found him! She said a short prayer of thanks and positio
ned her flashlight so she could see and opened her bag. She had a small aid kit with her. It wasn't standard wildfire gear, but she always packed and carried one on any special operation. No splints but plenty of bandages. She ran outside and gathered up some sticks she could use to splint his leg, dropping the two smoldering ones she found. Damn! The fire was right there. She could hear the crackle and whoosh of it. Her heart thumped hard in her chest and her forehead went icy cold, despite the sweat on her brow. She had to get this man out of here within 10 minutes or less or they were toast.

With the sticks and two ace bandages she had him splinted up in less than 2 minutes. She was glad to cover the bone. It ran through her mind that she hadn't even che
cked to see if he was still alive. Her eyes went to his face and her fingers to his neck. He opened his eyes and locked on to hers. "Water," he whispered. She unholstered the bottle from her belt and held it to his lips. He drank greedily.

"I'm going to g
et you out of here. It's going to hurt when I move you, but we have to go fast. The fire is close."

He searched her eyes, then nodded.

She swept the flashlight over him and estimated his height at 6 feet and his weight at 250 pounds. Damn. She was only about 150 pounds.

"I have to build a travois. It's a kind of sled. It will take me 5 minutes. Stay here. Can you hold the bottle?"

He held out his hand. It shook. She gave him the bottle and ran outside with her gear, searching the ground.

There were no stic
ks long enough to do the job. She eyed the trees closest to her for branches low and thin enough that she could break them.

That one would work. It's lowest branch was about 4 feet above her head, and only an inch thick. She ran to it and jumped with all h
er strength, missing by inches. Damn. She circled below it and looked for another. Not seeing any she decided to try again. This time she dropped her belt to the ground first.

She backed up farther and jumped, catching hold with both hands. The branch crac
ked immediately and she fell to the ground. The stick was about 10 feet long - it would have to do. Now to find another. She picked up her belt and pickaxe and started looking.

She walked towards the fire three feet and got lucky. A small tree, barely more
than a sapling, already bending at an angle, but close to 10 feet long. She thrust her weight against it and it gave, falling mostly over. She put her foot on it and chopped the base with her pickaxe until it was free.

She ran back to the building with he
r two sticks. Her world had narrowed to the job and she was barely aware of the fire eating the brush within a few feet to her left. The sweat poured off of her.

She needed one more stick - actually she needed 4 or 5 more sticks but she only had time for o
ne more stick. She prayed the night stayed calm. Just one tiny gust of wind towards her and the fire would be upon them. She coughed at the smoke burning her lungs. She pulled up her kerchief over her mouth and set to work.

She found one more stick about 4
feet long and positioned her sticks: the two long ones parallel to each other and about 3 feet apart with the third stick crossing them near one end. She had duct tape and she got it out quickly, willing her hands to work faster.

A spark jumped onto her
sleeve and she smelled fabric burning. Her sleeve was on fire! She beat it out absentmindedly with her other hand and wrapped tape around where the sticks connected, over and over.

She felt a sharp pain in her head and smelled hair burning. Damn. She beat
her head with her hand and looked around wildly. The fire had her surrounded. It was everywhere. The roof of the hunting shack was smoking.

She worked faster, winding the tape around the junctions. She had to be able to move this man far and fast.

There! That had to be good enough. She grabbed all of her ace bandages and wrapped them loosely around the sticks making a platform or bed between the parallel sticks.

This had to work. The skin on her neck was blistering from the heat. She tied knots and went
over it all one more time with duct tape at the same time as she dug a circle in the brush around her with her booted foot, trying to keep the fire off of her. She said a prayer to God.
Please help us find our way and make it out before we burn. Amen.

She
dragged her sled into the shack and found the man unconscious again, her water spilled on the ground. She positioned the sled to one side of him and got on the other side. She pulled the clothing at his shoulder and hip towards her, lifting his back off the ground. He was heavy, but she was desperate. He felt like a feather.

She pulled the sled under him and laid him down on it. No time to be gentle. The walls were smoking now, and the roof was actually burning. Time to get out of here.

Emma didn't have room to turn the sled around so she had to drag it by the wrong end.
Please God, Please God,
she chanted in her head.

She got it fully out, and ran around to the front, stepping inside the one stick she had taped to the two others, praying that everything w
ould hold. She lifted her end and started forward, pawing her feet into the ground like a mule.

Yes! Everything was holding together. They were moving. Now which way? She looked back the way she had come. Fire. But everywhere she looked there was fire! Her
only hope was to head towards the road, not further into the forest and not parallel to the road. They would have to go through the fire and hopefully come out the other side.

She dragged him through the fire. It was slow going. Her boots protected her fe
et. She wondered if duct tape was flammable. She looked back and saw everything looked good, for now. He was still unconscious, but he wasn't sliding off the sled and he wasn't on fire, so that was as good as she could have hoped for.

Fire pushed in from a
ll sides, even above them. He let out a yelp and she looked backwards. A burning branch had fallen on his face. She slapped it off with one hand, still moving. Her lungs were burning. A wracking cough hit her, but still she pushed the sled. They were dead if she stopped.

The air cooled a bit. She sucked in great lung-fulls of fresher air. She looked around - the fire was still pressing in on them from all sides, but she thought it looked darker up ahead. Yes! They were going to make it!

She dug in harder and pulled them faster. He groaned from the back. She looked and his legs were dragging on the ground. She would have to stop soon and pull him up higher on the sled.