Page 51 of Smoke Season

She wrenched open her truck door and leaped into forward motion, any intention to check out the situation at the Fallows property taking a back seat to preserving her own place. Douse the roof, she told herself. Mow the field. She wouldn’t waste time attempting the latter, not if she hoped to somehow connect with Mel, but she made her way blindly to the only spigot she’d already installed next to her herb and vegetable garden and cranked the water on. Squinting into the bright demarcation between flame and cloud, she directed the hose onto her roof and sprayed full blast.

Lightning.

Just as Mel had feared. And only two seconds later came the answering rumble of thunder. She craned her neck to scan the sky, but where she should have seen the quick, telltale flash, she glimpsed only a brief, dull glow of white light.

Which meant one thing.

“Shit,” Lewis said, confirming her fears. He threw his gloves to the ground in frustration and fear and probably half a dozen other emotions he couldn’t name. “Are you fucking kidding me right now?” he asked in the direction of the sky.

“What?” Ryan asked hollowly from the water station, his Dixie cup pausing halfway to his lips.

Sly answered him. “We’re in for that firestorm, kid.”

Ryan’s jaw dropped, though Deklan didn’t even lift his head from where he’d been sitting, uncharacteristically quiet, in the background. Mel waved him over, offering him a wet Buff for his head.

“Because of those pyro-whatever clouds?” Ryan asked. “What does that mean?”

“It means this motherfucker has just created its own wind system,” Lewis said, bending and swiping his gloves back out of the dirt.

“Which will produce more lightning, which in turn could set additional fires,” Mel added flatly. The desperate roller coaster of events in the Wonderland pocket, followed by the sharp drop of horror upon realizing just how close she’d come to losing a crew member, let alone her professional reputation, left her every bit as wrung out, emotionally and physically, as Deklan.

And the hits just kept coming. This weather system would almost certainly generate stronger winds, which would only fan the fires and make them hotter, though she saw no point in saying so. But because Ryan still looked lost, she added, “Nature hates a vacuum.” She looked out over the untouched forest to the northeast. “Empty spaces don’t stay empty for long.”

They all seemed to take a moment of silence as if by mutual agreement, or simply shell-shocked numbness, and more than one of them jumped when one of the vehicle radios crackled to life. “Trailblazers to Carbon Rural 1, come in.”

One of the hand crews. Lewis answered, but they were all privy to the update transferred over the airwaves.

The horriblepopMel had heard over an hour ago from the road? It had been the sound of a back swell. The fire that had been steadily consuming its way west down the river corridor had doubled back on itself in a sudden shift of wind, and like a sucking tide, it now gained volume as it licked its way right back in the direction it had come.

“Could this shitty day get any worse?” Lewis growled.

It seemed it could. Lacking fuel in the acreage it had just consumed, the hotshot crew reported, the fire slowed briefly where the blackened forest floor still glowed orange, but had quickly found new ground, where it now threatened, impossible though it seemed, the Outlaw’s southern bank. Closer to all the crisscrossing Forest Service roads and homesteads in the Wild and Scenic section between here and town.Home to True. Please,Mel thought again.Don’t let her be at the Outsider.

It was already her fault Deklan had been placed in danger, and it would be her fault if True was out here somewhere, exposed to this fire that was now out of control. Mel longed to confirm her location, but there was no time to dig her personal cell phone out of her pack. No time to process what she should do next, no time for anything.

“We’re at mayday level here in the Wild and Scenic,” the Trailblazer rep told them.

In other words, give up the ghost. The various interagency and independent ground-pounder crews loaded up all around Mel in a mad scramble, sirens on a low pulse, lights already flashing. Their orders: beat the blaze back to town to join the hand crews in holding the line.So much for going on the offense.Everyone was behind the curve now. It wasn’t just Mel chasing the tail end of an agenda that had run away from her.

The orders for her own Carbon Rural team came in from White, though on the shared radio line instead of to Mel’s walkie directly: retreat and oversee search and rescue in doubling the efforts on evacs and traffic control.

Such as it was. Mel knew firsthand: the sight of flames plus an all-out evac order almost always equaled large-scale panic, even in a community used to brushing ash off their cars every morning of every August. She rallied to carry out the order, only to see Deklan still by the water dispenser, trying to refill his bottle. His movements were at half speed, his fingers clumsy. Still in shock.

“Hey, Lew?” she called out, startling when he answered from directly behind her. “We need to assign Deklan a ride out of the field to be checked out by a medic.”

Lewis nodded. “He can come with us.”

“Us? What do you mean?” Mel had been partnered with Sly on the way out. Lewis had his own vehicle.

Lewis shifted uncomfortably, clearly anxious to get moving and to not have this confrontation, but he looked her in the eye as he said, “White is taking you off active duty.”

“What? Right now?”

Lewis looked apologetic, but also resolute. “Effective immediately.”

Panic seized Mel. She expected fallout following her rogue actions; she deserved nothing less. She knew she would be made accountable, and even welcomed the chance to do so, with an incident report back at the station. Hell, with a full investigation if Hernandez ordered it, when this was all over. Butnow?

She still needed to be out here. She needed to be sure True was safe.

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