Page 9 of Mountain Captive

“Danny said he got a call from the sheriff that one of the spotters in a plane flying over the fire saw a group of tents in a clearing and called it in,” Caleb said. “Cell phone coverage is spotty to nonexistent back in here, so they might not have realized the fire had even started.”

“No missing all this smoke,” Eldon said. “Anyone with any sense would know to get out of Dodge by now.”

The Jeep stopped again, this time in the middle of the road. Ryan halted the truck, too, and everyone piled out. Smoke stung Rand’s eyes, and the scent of burning wood hung heavy in the air. “There’s active flames ahead,” Tony said. “We can’t go any further or we risk getting trapped. We need to turn around.”

“What about the other campers?” Carrie asked. “The driver of the car said there were others.”

Danny glanced over his shoulder. Smoke obscured the road ahead, though occasional orange flares illuminated burning trees. “We don’t know who or how many are in there,” he said. “We can’t put our own lives at risk. That doesn’t help anyone.”

Rand wanted to volunteer to go ahead on foot to scout the situation. But then what? He could end up injured or trapped, and the other volunteers might feel obligated to go in after him. But he hated this feeling of helplessness and defeat.

“Hello? Help! Oh, please help!”

They turned toward the sound as a woman stumbled down the road toward them. She was almost bent double beneath what Rand thought at first was a large pack but turned out to be a child wrapped in a sleeping bag, clinging to her back. As they rushed toward her, other figures emerged from the smoke—more women, half a dozen children and a single man, all carrying supplies and bundles of clothing, bedding, and who knew what else.

The lone man brought up the rear of the group. He had a blanket roll on his back and a large wooden box in his arms. “The truck broke down, and we had to walk,” he said, his words cut short by a fit of coughing.

Rand stared at the collection of women and children—some with soot on their faces, holes from sparks burned in their clothing—and thought of the men in the two cars. They had left women and children towalkout of a fire?

He flinched at a crack like a gunshot, then realized it was a tree not thirty yards away, bursting into flame. “We have to get out of here,” Danny said. He took the nearest woman’s arm. “Into the vehicles. Drop whatever you’re carrying and get in. You’ll have to sit on laps, on the floorboards—wherever you can fit.”

Another woman spoke up. “That isn’t necessary.” She seemed a little taller than the others, but maybe it was only that she stood straighter and looked them in the eye when she spoke. “We will carry our possessions and walk out.”

“You can’t walk fast enough to stay ahead of the fire,” Danny said.

“We have divine protection.”

The words snapped Rand’s patience. “Get in the trucks now!” he shouted. He picked up the closest child and shoved them into the back seat of the truck.

Caleb and Ryan reached for other children. Eldon picked up a woman and deposited her in the front passenger seat. Others began relieving the stranded campers of their burdens and leading them to the vehicles. They seemed to come out of their trance then. The man and several of the women and older children crowded into the back of the truck.

“What about our things?” one of the women wailed.

“We don’t have room for them,” Tony said.

She began to cry. Others were already weeping, children screaming.

“Is there anyone else?” Danny asked. He had to raise his voice above the din . “Any stragglers we should wait for?”

“No.” The man shook his head. “No one.”

Rand hoped the man was telling the truth. The flames were near enough he could feel the heat now, smoke so heavy he could no longer make out the road, the roar of the fire so loud they had to shout to be heard. A hot wind swirled around them, sparks stinging bare skin and smoldering on clothing. They didn’t have time to search for anyone who might have been left behind.

Somehow, they managed to turn the vehicles and head back down the road, forced by poor visibility to creep along yet driving as fast as they dared in order to escape the flames. Everyone was coughing now, everyone’s eyes streaming tears.

They slowed to steer around a burning tree that had fallen on the side of the road, and the weight in the back of the truck shifted. The wailing rose in pitch, and Rand looked back to see that the man had jumped from the truck and was running down the road, back in the direction they had come. He had his hand on the door, about to open it, when Caleb gripped his arm. “Let him go. We have to save the rest.”

Rand forced his body to relax and nodded. Even if he had wanted, he couldn’t have exited the vehicle. He was held down by a child on each thigh, a boy and a girl, who were about nine or ten. They sat stiffly and wouldn’t meet his gaze, hands clenched in front of them, eyes downcast. Obviously, they were terrified. Traumatized. Maybe that explained why they weren’t acting like any children he had ever met.

After what felt like the longest ride of his life but was probably only half an hour, they arrived at the staging area on the picnic grounds at the turnoff for the county road. Paramedics, the sheriff and his deputies, and other volunteers surrounded the Beast and the truck, someone taking charge of each of the campers as they emerged. “We found them trying to walk out of the fire,” Danny explained to the sheriff.

Sheriff Travis Walker was a tall man in his midthirties, with dark hair and eyes, a sharply pressed khaki uniform, and a grim expression on his face. “Any idea what a bunch of women and children were doing camping back in there with no transportation?” he asked.

“There was a man with them,” Ryan said. “He bailed out of the truck and ran back in the direction of the camp not long after we set out.”

“There were six other men, in two vehicles,” Tony said. “We passed them on the way out. They told us they had left the others—” he nodded at the women and children “—to pack up the camp and follow.”

The sheriff’s frown deepened. “We’ll question them later, find out what’s going on.”

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