Breaking Point

30

Dave Farkus could now see where he was running due to an unnatural, hellish light that filled the sky and illuminated the ground and penetrated the scrub trees they’d entered. The entire sky was fused orange and streaked with gray bands. Ash, like snow, filtered down through the air. He assumed it was dawn, but there was no way to tell because he couldn’t see the sun through the cover of smoke.

Butch Roberson no longer enforced the decorum he’d insisted on before the fire started and the three of them jogged abreast, zigzagging around trees and clumps of brush. Sweat poured down Farkus’s spine into his jeans, and his shirt clung to his back. It was worse for McLanahan, though, he noticed. McLanahan looked like he’d just stepped out of a shower fully clothed. His face was flushed red, and his breathing was ragged and forced.

Behind them was a roar of white noise. The temperature had risen, and it was getting warmer by the minute. The air itself was hot and acrid, and Farkus tried to filter it by holding his shirtsleeves up to his face while he ran.

His throat was raw from breathing in smoke-filled air, and his eyes watered. It was like standing in front of a campfire, filling his lungs with the smoke.

“Hold up,” Butch said, nearly out of breath himself. “Hold up.”

Farkus stopped and looked over to see Butch pulling a long knife out of a sheath and approaching him. Had he decided to do them in and proceed alone?

“Hold out your hands.”

Relieved, Farkus did as he was told.

Butch cut the zip ties free and turned to do the same for McLanahan, who now held his hands out.

Butch said, “You’re both free to go.”

“Go where?” McLanahan replied angrily.

“Anywhere you want.”

McLanahan gestured behind them. “There’s fire everywhere. Where do you expect us to go?”

“I’m sticking with you,” Farkus said to Butch. Butch nodded reluctantly.

He said, “I can’t guarantee your safety if you stay with me.”

“I’d rather take my chances with you than stay with Fatty.”

McLanahan reacted with anger and panic, and turned so he could look behind them, as if to find a path through the oncoming fire. He spat a curse and shook his head.

At that moment, less than a mile away, was a loud popping sound, followed by another.

“Is somebody shooting?” Farkus asked Butch.

“No,” Butch said, shaking his head. “Those are trees exploding. When the sap in the trees gets superheated, trees literally blow up.”

“Jesus,” Farkus said. “Exploding trees.”

“That’s going to be us if we don’t get moving,” McLanahan said. His eyes were wet and bloodshot, rimmed with red.

Butch unshouldered his pack and dug into it and emerged with a spare long-sleeved shirt. He used his knife to cut it into wide strips, then doused the strips with water from his Nalgene bottle.

“Tie these around your mouths,” he said. Then, to McLanahan: “Tie yours extra tight.”

“Are we still headed for the canyon?” Farkus asked as he covered his mouth with the cool, wet cloth and knotted it at the nape of his neck. It felt good.

Butch nodded. “I don’t think we have any choice but you can do whatever you want. I doubt the fire can jump the canyon, and I know Batista can’t. So if we can get there, we might have a chance to get out of this.”

Farkus nodded, ready to go.

“How in the hell are you going to get across?” McLanahan said.

Butch threaded his arms through his pack and buckled it back on.

“I guess we’ll find out,” he said.

“That’s bullshit,” McLanahan said. He looked over his shoulder at the oncoming fire. They couldn’t actually see leaping flames yet, but the air was getting hotter and exploding trees signaled the approach of the flames.

“I’m going to make my stand,” McLanahan said. “I’ll find a ditch, cover myself with dirt, and let it pass over the top of me.”

“Fine,” Butch said. “Suit yourself. Have you ever heard of the Mann Gulch fire in Montana?”

“The what?”

“That’s right, you’re from West Virginia,” Butch said. “In 1949, smoke jumpers got caught in a situation like this and thirteen died. Those that didn’t suffocate from the smoke tried to hunker down and ride it out like you were describing. They were baked like potatoes.”

At that moment, a long and heavily muscled mountain lion appeared out of nowhere and ran right through the three of them, threading silkily around their legs, and ran toward higher ground. Farkus was astounded.

“He didn’t even care we were here,” Farkus said.

“Okay,” McLanahan said to Butch. “I’ll go with you.”

“You can stay,” Butch said. “Mountain lions have to eat, too.”

“I’m going with you,” McLanahan said, defeated. “But no one knows how to get across. I can see us standing there on the edge as the fire comes straight at us.”

“I know that canyon has been crossed.”

“That’s Indian hokum,” McLanahan said. “Have you seen it?”

Farkus had, that time he was hunting with Butch. They’d stood on the rim and looked down. Butch had pointed out the knife-sharp walls, a terrifying distance from the rim to the narrow canyon floor, and virtually no breaks or cracks through the rocks to assure a crossing. The canyon was so steep and narrow that sunlight rarely shone on the surface of the Middle Fork. Butch said it cut through eight different archaeological strata before it hit the bottom.

“It’s been done,” Butch said, holding McLanahan’s eye. “Once by those Cheyenne back in the old days when the Pawnee closed in on their camp, and they did it at night. And Joe Pickett did it.”

McLanahan shook his head in disgust. “He claims he did it. He’s a pain in my ass, you know.”

“If Joe says he did it, he did it,” Butch said.

“And there he is,” Farkus said, doubting his eyes, as Joe appeared on horseback through a haze of smoke and rode right toward them.