Firestorm (3 page)

“Yeah, I
remember the bridge now that you mentioned it, and I remember
crossing it, but I don’t remember this surrounding. Sorry. It was
years when we were here, Meg.”

Ali stared at
the inlet and then looked at the trail in the direction we were
heading.

“Maybe we
should just keep going along for a bit. If there is a bridge it’ll
be up there somewhere. It’s not going to be right here where the
river is so wide.”

We agreed and
continued along the shaded, stony trail that eventually ran beside
a very long and terrain of dry grass and dead trees. My legs were
beginning to ache slightly from all the fast moving and my insides
were jumping all around with worry for Grandpa.

We kept
trekking for the next half hour or so and nothing struck either
Meagan or I with any familiarity until Brad read a sign posted on a
huge oak tree.

“Cypress
Outlook one mile ahead.”

I heard myself
gasp aloud as Meg shouted hurray.

“I remember
this sign, too.”

Brad was
concerned over finding Grandpa and he and Ali were both totally
focused on the search almost as he was their own grandfather. Yet,
Brad had a way of letting me know that no matter what priority
thing he was doing, my thoughts and feelings were always important.
He motioned for Ali to walk with Meagan and he picked up the pace
beside me.

He took hold of
my arm and stopped walking for a second.

“We’re going to
find your grandfather, Sarah. I don’t care what it takes, but I
won’t stop until we’ve found him.”

I stared into
Brad’s deep brown eyes and his passion was genuine and it almost
melted my heart. I wiped away the tears that I’d been trying to
hide and he cupped my face gently with his hands.

“We’ll find him
and get him home safely, I promise. But you’re not going to make me
have to rescue you on a bridge again, are you?”

He had a sense
of humor and knew just when to say the right thing to break the
tension. I smiled at him even though my insides churned like a meat
grinder. He took hold of my hand and looked ahead to where Ali and
Meagan were.

“Coming?”

When we reached
the lookout point we were all exhausted from running in the
unbearable dry heat, and we were relieved when we saw the water
pump that stood so boldly a few feet away from the benches. After a
short refreshing splash of cold water, Meagan began to shout with
excitement.

“This is it.
This is it. We are really close to the bridge. Remember, Sarah?
Remember when Grandpa took us down that path there and you saw that
snake and woke the whole forest?”

I looked where
she pointed and my chest pounded with excitement. I remembered
falling and screaming and I remembered that the bridge was only a
few minutes away. The guys grabbed their backpacks and we headed
down the narrow, treed path. A few minutes later we were at the
sway bridge and my insides jumped with excitement.

We surveyed our
surroundings for a second and then Brad grabbed my hand.

“Okay, I’ll go
first and if Sarah gets on right behind me this time, maybe I won’t
have to go looking for her.”

Ali moved his
cap back and forth and then rubbed Meagan’s arm.

“Sounds good,
and then Meg will go next and I’ll follow. Okay, let’s go.”

Crossing the
bridge was a lot easier than I remembered. It was about a hundred
feet long and made of solid metal with a steel mesh floor and
sides, unlike the rope bridge at Snake River where I was trapped by
mud and almost fell through the broken planks. The water was about
fifty feet below us and we were across in seconds.

When we got to
the other side, we jumped onto a trail that ran along the water’s
edge. Brad yelled as he pointed to the inlet.

“Look, there it
is. We can get to it along this trail, if you can call it that –
more like a sporadic path worn down by an animal.”

Brad led the
way and we followed him as we neared the opening to the inlet. It
wasn’t an easy path to travel along since it was very narrow and
ran close to the edge. Several times I slipped and almost fell down
into the water, so I had to slow down to keep my balance.

As the view of
the inlet became clearer, we all slowed down and searched for any
clues of Grandpa or his boat. There was nothing by the shore on the
far side except for a lot of trees and bushes so we agreed to
continue on until we were close enough to see everything
clearly.

It was at least
half an hour before we were able to get to the side where we
thought we might find Grandpa, but once we were there we couldn’t
see anything that would make us think we were even in the right
place. By then my chest was pounding with anticipation and aching
from finding nothing.

“Ali, is this
the location that you anticipated with your compass?”

“Well, all
things considered, this would seem to be a logical place to find
them, but we have to remember that maybe they didn’t even get this
far this time. His boat may have given him problems long before he
made it here or when he was leaving and got out there
somewhere.”

Ali’s words
pierced my ears with a suggestion that I’d never even thought of
before. Perhaps the boat did begin to sink way up stream and we
missed it completely. But Grandpa said he was used to the boat and
never had problems he couldn’t handle.

“Geez, now we
have to think like Grandpa would think. I wish we could know if
this was where he was fishing. It would make things easier for us
to track.”

Ali dropped his
backpack and hit Brad in the arm.

“Come on, let’s
check it out. You girls look around here for any clues and we’ll
run over there to that far side. Be back in bit.”

The guys took
off and disappeared behind some brush while Meagan and searched the
grounds and the water for some hint that Grandpa had been here.

“Sarah, let’s
get their backpacks and follow the guys. There’s nothing here and
there’s no sense in them running all the way back.”

We each flung a
backpack on our backs and combed the water and the ground with our
eyes as we walked along slowly. Just as I was feeling totally
unsuccessful, I spotted something on the ground about twenty feet
ahead of us.

“Meg, what’s
that?”

“What? What are
you looking at? I don’t see anything.”

“That baggie
over there. Do you see it? Maybe it’s theirs.”

I ran ahead of
Meagan and squatted down to look at the plastic bag.

“It looks
almost new, not like it’s been here for days or anything.”

Meagan picked
it up and sniffed the open side. Her eyes lit up and she
squealed.

“Tuna. Nana’s
tuna sandwiches. They were here. They ate their sandwiches and
dropped the baggie on the ground.”

I felt giddy
inside knowing that we were a step closer, but as I looked up at
the guys, they had stopped running and were staring into the
forest. We ran along the path around the inlet and a few minutes
later we had caught up with them and showed them the baggie that
we’d found.

Brad looked at
the bag and then nodded to Ali.

“Okay, so this
is a good sign. We know they were here and if what your grandfather
said is right, then they would have left here around 3:30 or so to
be home for four, and we know they called for help around 4:30. So,
that means that they didn’t get too far before they ran into
problems.”

Ali took the
backpack off of Meagan’s back and threw it on his own back and Brad
did the same and within seconds we were back on the brush trail
that ran along the water’s edge. Several minutes later I tripped
and fell and everyone stopped running when I yelped out loud.

Brad had been
running ahead with Ali and came back to brush the dirt of my
scratched leg.

“Looks a little
sore but I think you’ll make it. Can you stand on it?”

I stood up and
swallowed hard as the sting of the scratch began to grow with the
dirt and sweat that was dripping into it.

“Yeah, I’m
okay. Let’s find Grandpa and I’ll cry about this later.”

Brad rubbed my
arm.

“That’s my
girl.”

]I took a deep
breath and turned to continue along the path behind Ali when Meagan
screamed so sharply that it shot spikes of fear up my back. She was
ghostly white and shaking as the tears poured out of her eyes.

I turned to see
what she was pointing at and my breath caught in my chest. About
twenty feet in the water and lodged upside down in a maze of brush
was Grandpa’s boat.

I gasped for
air and held onto Meagan’s arm for support as I stared at the
half-sunken boat. Spikes of fear shot up and down my back as waves
of paranoia flooded my entire body. I couldn’t move. Flashbacks of
earlier summers with Meagan and I on that boat with Grandpa
suddenly filled my thoughts and my eyes welled up.

I remembered
the first time Grandpa took us on the boat. We sat out in the
middle of the lake and I was so nervous and terrified that we were
going to sink that I kept crying. I remember Grandpa laughing and
then speaking with his quiet, gentle voice as he promised us that
we were safe. At the time it seemed as if we were so far away, but
it was really only about twenty yards from the end of the dock by
their home.

He bought us
each our own fishing rod and then showed us how to hook these
horribly fat worms so that we could fish in the boat beside him.
Nana had just painted our fingernails with bright red nail polish
and Meagan was upset that the worms would ruin her nails. I didn’t
care so I watched Grandpa carefully and stuck my hands right in the
worm bucket so that I could get my own worm and hook it on. I
wanted to be as perfect as Grandpa so that I could catch a big fish
just like him.

Grandpa always
strapped the safety jackets unto us right after Nana had covered us
with greasy layers of sunscreen lotion. She never came on the boat
with us and missed out on lots of laughter as we sat for hours just
waiting for a hungry fish to come and bite onto our lines.

Meagan and I
usually only caught a few things like pop cans and snails, but
Grandpa always managed to catch some hefty sized fish and then toss
them into a huge metal bucket that sat in the middle of the boat.
When we were finished he’d bring the boat back to the dock and he
would hold his fish high in the air so proudly as we walked from
the dock to the house.

We’d watch
Grandpa gut and clean the fish, and then throw them in a huge cast
iron pan and fry them on the barbeque outside. I could never bring
myself to eat them, especially after seeing their eyes and knowing
that they used to be alive, so Nana would always have a peanut
butter sandwich waiting just for me. We’d sit outside and laugh and
fill Nana in on the day’s events. Every summer was the same and yet
each one was an adventure of its own that I waited for.

I stared at the
capsized boat through blurry eyes and tried to focus on the voice
that was yelling beside me.

“Sarah, come
on! We have to follow the guys. Come on!”

I looked at
Meagan and I could feel her tugging on my arm as she was yelling at
me, but it was as if my thoughts were moving in slow motion while
trying to speed ahead to the present moment. But as my eyes rested
on the boat once more, I was quickly brought back to the crisis at
hand.

Meagan was
still pulling on my arm and she had fear written all over face. I
realized that I had drifted back in time and I apologized to her
for it and then began to move slowly with my rubbery legs.

“That’s okay,
Sarah. But we have to hurry. The guys are down there already. Come
on.”

We made our way
through the weeds and dried shrubbery to the water where the guys
had stopped to yell for Grandpa and Don. Meagan and I joined in and
called for them, as well, but there was no answer.

Seconds later,
Brad threw his backpack on the ground and pulled his boots off.

“Come on, Ali.
Get the rope ready, I’m going in.”

Brad tied one
end of the rope around his waist and then climbed down into the
water and swam out to where the boat was lodged. He quickly
disappeared just in front of it and Meagan and I watched from the
edge as we continued anxiously to call out for Grandpa. Ali held on
to the other end of the rope and stood on the edge, ready to pull
Brad back when he surfaced.

My heart
pounded in anticipation as we waited anxiously and watched the
bubbles in the water. About half a minute later, Brad came back and
yelled something to Ali. Meagan and I edged down closer to
listen.

“Nothing.
There’s no one here.”

Brad swam back
to the bank and Ali helped him out of the water. He pulled off his
t-shirt and wrung it out as he talked.

“There’s a huge
hole on the bottom – like, I mean huge - but they’re gone. They
must have hit something and bailed before it sank.”

Meagan and I
hugged each other with joy when Brad said that because it meant
they were still alive. Ali looked around with his hands on his hips
while Brad pulled his socks and boots back on.

“Well, they’re
both old so how far can two old men go after sinking their boat and
swimming to safety? They called for help shortly after they set out
so my guess is that they called from the boat, grabbed their stuff
and swam to shore. So they can’t be that far away. Maybe up there
towards that clearing?”

As Meagan and I
looked in the direction that Ali was pointing, I saw the red sunset
spread majestically across the sky and my heart thumped inside my
chest.

“It’s going to
be dark soon. That sunset will only last another half hour or so
and it’ll start getting dark. We have to hurry.”