Slow Apocalypse (46 page)

He heard a noise coming from the garage and at first he had no idea what it was. Then he realized it was Ranger, banging around in there. He heard a high-pitched whinny. Even if the human watchmen hadn’t smelled the fire yet, the horse had, and he didn’t like it one bit, being tied down in the dark.

Good Lord, what am I going to do about that?
he wondered.

Jenna exited the guesthouse first, followed by Karen and Addison. All three had been sleeping in their clothes.

“There’s a fire over the hill,” he said, making an effort to keep his voice calm and cool, to show none of the alarm he was feeling. All three of them looked to the north, where the orange light was already a lot brighter. The first writhing spire of flame had now been joined by three more.

“Ranger!” Addison cried. She started toward the garage, but Dave snagged her.

“Not yet, you don’t,” he said. “Listen, everyone. We should have time if we stay calm and don’t panic. We don’t know if that fire will be coming down this canyon, it might go down to the east, but if it does, the wind will blow it faster than we can run.”

“I’ve got to get Ranger down the hill, then!”

“No, first you’ve got to calm him down, and you’re not going in there until I can go with you. I don’t care what you say about being able to control him, you’ve never had to handle him when he’s got his wind up over a fire.”

She looked defiant, but said nothing.

“Jenna, Karen, gather up everything we need that we haven’t already packed.”

“Dad, we
have
to take care of Ranger. He’ll hurt himself.”

“We’re going to do that right now.”

He followed her toward the door leading into the garage. She was waiting there, hopping from one foot to the other. He was about to open the door when he heard another sound from far down the hill. It started as a low growl, then rapidly rose in pitch until it was a scream. He realized it was an old-fashioned hand-cranked siren. He thought he remembered something about someone’s finding one in their attic or basement, probably some shiny brass antique salvaged from a fire department.

“Dad-
dee
!” Addison cried, tugging at his arm. “We
have
to get my horse.
Now!
”

“Yes. Come on, and be careful.”

He turned the doorknob and entered the garage, Addison close behind him.

Ranger was rearing, but the rope holding him was short enough that he wasn’t able to rise very high. But he was pulling hard, and to Dave it looked as if he might just break free with a few more sharp tugs.

“Would he feel better if I opened the garage door?” he asked.

“I don’t
know
, Daddy. Let me just talk to him.”

Dave was reluctant, but he finally said okay.

“But you’ve got about five minutes to calm him down. No more.”

She nodded, and slowly approached her horse. She was talking to him. Dave caught the word “steady,” and that was about all. It was all in a low, soothing voice, like a mother cooing to her child. Baby talk, or maybe horse talk.

Still the steel horseshoes clattered on the concrete floor. Addison took a few careful steps toward Ranger, and Dave slowly eased his shotgun so the
barrel was pointing a little higher, and moved to one side so he could get a clear shot at the animal if it came to that.

Ranger’s hind legs suddenly slipped out from under him and he sat down hard on his rump. For a moment he was almost still, stunned or surprised. Addison hurried forward before Dave could say anything, and the next thing he knew she was holding his halter with one hand and had her arm around his neck.

“Addison, get away from him!”

“It’s okay, Daddy, I’ve got him.”

Then she was lifted almost off her feet as the horse got his back legs under him, tossing his head as he did so. She held on, and the horse dropped his head again, only to toss it once more. Addison’s weight seemed nothing at all to the powerful creature. She was up on tiptoe, the rubber soles of her shoes squeaking on the floor.

“Steady, Ranger, steady, boy. You calm down now.”

“Addison, you’re going to have to let him go.”

“I won’t, I won’t. Open the garage door, Daddy. He’s really got the wind up, I’ll have to walk him for a few minutes.”

“You’ve got three minutes left, honey. Then we cut him loose.”

He moved toward the garage door and lifted it.

“Hurry, Daddy!”

She had untied Ranger before he had the door entirely up. Now Dave was almost knocked off his feet as the horse charged past him. Addison was being dragged along. She was shouting at him now, and Dave turned to see that she finally got him turned. He was still breathing hard—Dave could hear the powerful snorting, as if he had just finished a race—but he began to trot in a circle. Maybe that familiar activity would calm him down. He couldn’t tell if it was working or not. But Addison continued to hold on, and the horse was no longer trying to buck.

That was the good news. The bad news was visible behind them, and it was very bad news indeed.

The entire ridge at the top of Doheny Drive was on fire. The flames were twisting in the wind, spiraling like hellish white-orange tornadoes. A million sparks and a thousand larger chunks of burning debris were being lifted into the air, where some of them burned out, but many were coming south, falling into the houses and streets and very dry trees below. He could actually hear the roar of the flames now.

Karen was pushing the gate back on its tracks. Jenna was throwing things into the back of the Escalade. Dave glanced again at his daughter and her horse, and the animal seemed calmer. He couldn’t say the same for himself.

“Never mind packing anything else!” Dave shouted at Jenna. “Help Karen get the gate open.” Jenna hurried to do as she was told.

“Dad, the trailer isn’t hooked up.”

Cursing his failure to have everything ready the night before, Dave took one more look at the approaching flames and then got into his vehicle. He started it up and began backing toward the hitch on the front of the trailer, shouting for Karen or Jenna or somebody to guide him. Karen hurried over.

“We don’t have time for this, Dave,” she said.

“I’ll give it one try,” he said. “That trailer’s half-full of things we’ll need. If we can get the horse in, that’s good. If we can’t…” He didn’t need to go on.

Karen said nothing, either. She went to the back of the Escalade.

His taillights illuminated Karen first in white, and then red when he pressed on the brakes. She motioned with her hands.
Back. Back, back, back.

“Cut it to the left,” she called out. He saw her looking at the trailer, then glancing at Addison and Ranger, still involved in a battle for dominance.

“Too much. Back to the right. Back…back…a little more…”

He eased his foot off the brake pedal, just a tad, letting the idling engine move the car toward the trailer. He fought the urge to get out and take a look himself. Karen knew what she was doing. He would just have to trust her.

She held her hand out suddenly, palm toward him.

“I don’t know if that’s good enough,” she called out. “Maybe you should pull forward a little bit and cut back.”

It’ll have to be good enough,
he thought, throwing it into
PARK
and getting out of the open door and hurrying around back.

The tongue of the trailer hitch was a good three inches away from the ball on his back bumper.

“Help me out here,” he told Karen. They both shoved on the trailer tongue. It moved an inch. They shoved again and it didn’t move at all.

“One more time,” he said.

“On three,” Karen said. Her face was red in the taillights, and covered with beads of sweat.

“One…two…”

On three Jenna appeared on the other side and pulled. The tongue touched the ball and slipped over it, but only partly.

“Hold on, ladies!” Dave shouted, and cranked the wheel quickly until the support post was off the ground.

“I’m losing it,” Karen grunted.

“Hang on one more second…”

He kicked the trailer tongue and it slipped down over the ball.

“Got it! See how Addie’s doing.” He didn’t look up as he locked the tongue over the ball. He got the tailgate of the trailer unlatched, and it crashed to the ground, which startled both Ranger and Addison.

Maybe the trailer was too crowded with all their other supplies and bales of hay. Maybe Ranger just didn’t want to be in an enclosed space with the world smelling of smoke, with the orange of the flames reflecting in his wild eyes. When Addison led him toward the rear he shied away from it like a racehorse refusing to enter the starting gate. Addison got him back under control, walked him in a circle with the horse shaking his head so violently she could barely hold on.

Once more she led him to the rear of the trailer, and this time he reared up, lifting his front legs two or three feet off the ground.

“One more try, Addison,” Dave said, solemnly.

“Daddy, I can get him in.”

“One more try,” he repeated. “Sorry, sweetie, that’s all you get.”

As his daughter brought the big horse around once more, patting his neck and speaking to him in a soothing tone, Dave looked to the east, toward the two stories of what used to be his house. There was orange light coming from behind it. From
behind
it, from the
east
, the direction of the only road out of here. In the brief time they had used hitching up the trailer, the fire had come down the hill.

He turned back in time to see Ranger once more refuse to enter the trailer. At the same time, a small burning branch fell from the sky and landed near the garage door in a shower of sparks and glowing coals.

“A firebrand!” Jenna shouted. That was a term Southern Californians knew better than most Americans, and when they used it they weren’t referring to a political agitator. When a firestorm got going, like the one currently charging over the hill above them, high winds blew burning debris up into the air. Some of it could be of considerable size.

Ranger shied away from it, momentarily jerking Addison off her feet as he spun wildly. She was dragged a few yards, but managed to get one foot under her, then the other, and continued to plead with the horse.

“That’s all the time we have,” Dave called to her. “You’re going to have to let the horse go.”

“Daddy, I know I can—”

“Addison, let go of the horse and get in the car,” Karen said.

“Mom…”

“Get in the goddam car, now!”

The girl held on for a moment longer, then let go of the rope. Ranger seemed confused for a moment, then bolted toward the open gate.

“Ranger!”
Addison screamed. Karen grabbed her daughter and held her firmly, because she was trying to follow her horse into the orange-tinted night.

“Mom, he’s going the wrong way!”

“He’ll figure it out,” Dave said. “He knows the way down, away from the fire. You rode him down and back just about every day, remember?”

Dave hoped it was true, but it was a fact that the stupid animal had raced to the west, where the street quickly curved and went up the hill.

“Now get in the car with no more argument.”

She didn’t say anything, but she didn’t move, and Karen had to pull her toward the open back door. Dave slammed the trailer ramp closed.

Karen happened to be on the driver’s side. She didn’t bother to go around and take her customary place in front. She shoved Addison in onto a pile of supplies they had heaped haphazardly in back, and Jenna slipped into the front seat.

“Go, go, go!” Karen called out as she slammed the door.

Dave moved the transmission into
DRIVE
and cautiously pressed on the accelerator. The trailer resisted him with a rusty squeak, and then the unwieldy combination began to roll toward the street. There was a loud scrape as the trailer tongue hit the asphalt and dug out a deep gouge. The scooters banged alarmingly against the side of the car, but the knots held. Then they were moving down the steep hill.

The first thing Dave noticed was that the orange light he had seen in the east was coming from two houses on the far side of Doheny, right in his path.

It was barely two hundred yards to the intersection. The houses themselves were not completely involved yet, but the foliage around them was going up like Roman candles, spouting sparks into the air.

“Hurry, Dave,” Karen called from the backseat. “Can we get by that?”

“It may blister the paint, but I think we’ll be okay. Roll up your windows.”

As he said that, a series of larger firebrands landed in the street in front of
him. He drove around the nearest one and was approaching the dirt ramp they had made over the deep gap in the pavement when he heard the clatter of hooves behind him. He glanced in the rearview mirror and saw Addison, who had never stopped looking out the back window, rise so quickly her head bumped the ceiling.

“Ranger! He’s coming! He’s coming down!”

Dave put on the brakes for a second and the horse dashed past him and was up and over the ramp in seconds. His tail was flying as he galloped straight toward the burning houses. Something uphill must have scared him even more than the fire.

Dave soon found out what that was. A low, brightly colored vehicle appeared behind him with a screech of tires as it came around the corner, and then he heard the high-pitched whine of an engine more suited to the racetrack than to urban-neighborhood streets. It went past him in a flash, a yellow Ferrari that was barely higher than the Escalade’s big tires.

The Italian plaything hit the ramp badly, and far too fast. For a moment it was airborne, then it hit the ground at an angle and roared up onto the curb on the north side of the street. There was a shower of sparks as the car, which had a ground clearance of only a few inches, scraped up onto the sidewalk. The driver somehow got it straightened out and back on the road. The engine was even louder, and Dave could see that most of the exhaust system had been left on the sidewalk.

“Who was that?” Karen asked.

“I have no idea. Hold on, everybody.”