Breaking Point

32

Joe could feel heat on his back when they reached the southern rim of Savage Run Canyon. The wind had kicked up, blowing from the northwest, and supercharged the wall of oncoming fire behind them. Occasionally, an ember carried by the wind blew across his vision and one had landed on his shoulder, burning a hole in the fabric. He’d slapped at it as if it were a wasp.

The air was so hot it burned his lungs to breathe it, and each breath seemed hollow, devoid of oxygen. The smoke was thick and he felt more than saw the opening of the canyon ahead of him, and stopped short. Farkus bumped into him because he was apparently walking with his eyes shut.

“Don’t do that,” Joe warned.

“Sorry.”

An arched eyebrow of prickly juniper rimmed the canyon, the foliage biting into the rocky soil and holding on for dear life. It made it hard to tell where the real edge of the canyon began.

Joe looked up and was surprised to find out that at eye level he couldn’t even see the opposite rim of the canyon because of the smoke. Only when he ducked and trained his eyes down could he vaguely make out the opposing wall. The sheer cliff face was as vertical and slick as he remembered it in his nightmares, and he could see no sign of the passage.

“How far?” Butch Roberson croaked, his voice thick with mucus.

“I don’t know,” Joe said over his shoulder.

Because he couldn’t see farther than thirty feet, he didn’t know if he was even in the vicinity of the old switchback trail he’d once found. He tried to conjure up a clear memory and convinced himself that he’d need to walk west, not east, along the edge of the rim to find it. The wrong choice, he knew, could be fatal.

The problem with moving parallel to the rim of the canyon was that the fire would no longer be pushing them from the back, but from the side. The only way to escape as the flames closed in on them would be to jump and plunge into the void. There was no way he would do that. Even if he somehow avoided bouncing off the canyon wall on the way down, the impact of hitting the surface of the shallow river would kill him.

It had been ten years since he’d made the crossing. At that time, he was with an environmental terrorist named Stewie Woods and Woods’s girlfriend, Britney Earthshare. They were being pursued by a couple of aging hit men, and the only place to escape them was to cross the canyon. Joe had heard of the legend of the crossing. Supposedly, a band of Cheyenne Indians-mainly women and children because the warriors were hunting in another part of the mountains-defied certain death and made the crossing in the middle of the night before a murderous group of Pawnee closed in on them. No one knew if the Cheyenne knew about the location of the crossing before they were forced to find it, or whether it had been pure crazy luck. But most of the Cheyenne made it across, leaving tepee poles, travois, and a few broken bodies along the descent. Joe had originally found the location of the crossing because he discovered an ancient Cheyenne child’s doll made of leather and fur that had been discarded. The doll was displayed in his home.

Now he wished he’d left the doll where he found it so he’d have some idea where the trailhead was located.

More burning embers, like fireflies, floated through the air. The roar of the fire was so loud it was difficult to hear anything else.

He remembered Stewie had blundered over an outcropping of rock hidden in the brush, and had nearly fallen to his death in the canyon. The rock-if he’d gone the right direction and could find it again-would indicate the mouth of the trailhead to the Cheyenne Crossing. In the intervening years, the brush had become even taller and thicker than before.

Joe felt panic start to set in. He hoped it wouldn’t turn into mindless shock, and he shook his head to clear it while he walked. His left shoulder, side, and leg were hot from the proximity of the flames. His skin tingled with it, and he tried to maintain a stride where he could avoid letting the hot fabric touch his flesh.

“Oh God, oh God, oh God,” McLanahan moaned. “We’re going to die in the worst way.”

“I always thought freezing would be worse,” Farkus said, his voice muffled through the wet cloth over his mouth.

Butch said nothing but kept prodding McLanahan along ahead of him whenever the ex-sheriff stopped to rest. He couldn’t get air, either.

Joe dragged his right boot through the edge of the juniper, hoping to bump up against the hidden rock.

As he’d done before when he found himself in a similar situation, he thought of his family. Marybeth had no idea where he was, or what was happening. She was likely at home, watching with horror as smoke billowed from the mountains that filled their front room window. There was likely no real information yet about where the fire started, how it started, or who was caught within it, because it took a while for official spokesmen to get organized to give statements. And it had all happened so fast.

Joe saw the faces of Sheridan, Lucy, and April all turned toward the fire from different vantage points; Sheridan as she drove her truck toward Saddlestring wearing her waitress uniform to go to work at the Burg-O-Pardner, April scowling beside her in her cowgirl outfit, Lucy-and Hannah-bookending Marybeth in the front room. All their faces turned his direction but not knowing it.

He wondered how far the fire had spread north. Was it burning the face off Wolf Mountain, which was the closest to their home? Had it advanced into the river cottonwoods of the Twelve Sleep Valley? Was it racing toward Saddlestring itself?

McLanahan screamed, and Joe turned to find him hopping up and down. An ember had lit on his back, and his shirt was on fire. Butch slapped at the flames while McLanahan danced away, Butch yelling at McLanahan to stop moving. Farkus looked on as if paralyzed.

Joe ducked around Farkus and threw himself at McLanahan and rode him down to the ground, where he landed on his side. Both Joe and Butch flipped the ex-sheriff to his belly and threw handfuls of dirt on McLanahan’s back. As the man writhed, they whacked at the flames with open hands until the fire was out. The flesh on the ex-sheriff’s back was wet crimson, and large yellow blisters were blooming. The tatters of his shirt were scorched black.

As McLanahan moaned beneath them, Butch looked up with a red-eyed squint and said, “Joe, I hope we’re getting close.”

Because the firestorm created its own ecosystem, occasionally the wind reversed for a few seconds. When it did, the air cleared and the intensity of the heat was reduced, and Joe could see ahead along the rim.

After McLanahan had staggered to his feet again, his face a mask of pain, the wind stopped blowing for a moment. Joe cautiously pushed through the juniper to peer into the canyon itself. The palms of his hands stung on contact with the brush because he’d burned them slapping out the fire on McLanahan’s back. But he managed to part the branches and poke his head through them. He wanted to drink in and remember every feature of the canyon before the smoke came roiling back.

When he looked straight down, he could see the river, which looked like a twisted thin strip of sheet metal in the shadow of the canyon floor. How cool it must be down there, he thought.

And when he looked ahead a quarter-mile upriver from where he stood, he could see a number of tepee poles scattered haphazardly along the side of the cliff. They looked like silver toothpicks because of their age, and they were still there ten years later, just as they’d been there for the previous hundred and fifty years. He’d chosen the right direction.

“Found it!” he hollered back.

“The trailhead?” Butch asked hoarsely.

“Yup.”

“Thank God.”

Joe said, “There’s still the ‘getting down’ part.”

As if to highlight his statement, the wind whirled around them and resumed blowing south and the flames roared toward them, advancing by jumps from tree to tree.

Within five minutes, the toe of Joe’s boot thumped against the rock he’d been looking for. It had been completely obscured by the juniper bush. Edging toward the abyss, Joe parted the brush until he could locate the two-foot ledge just over the rim. He recalled Stewie standing on the ledge after he’d tripped on the rock.

Only half the ledge was there-a one-foot-by-two-foot outcropping. The other half had fallen away. That would make it difficult to lower themselves down the face of the wall to where the trail actually began.

“Oh, man,” Joe said.

“Hurry, hurry,” McLanahan cried in full panic.

Joe looked back and saw why. The fire was less than ten feet behind them, and tendrils of it were shooting across the ground toward them, igniting pine needles and tufts of dried grass.

“Listen to me,” he said, trying to stay calm. Three sets of bloodshot eyes bored into him from masked, soot-blackened faces.

“There’s a flat rock down here no bigger than the top of a stepladder. You’ll need to use it to lower yourself off the edge to the trail below. Stay tight to the side of the wall, because the trail isn’t any wider than a foot or so. Drop down to that trail and keep your balance. Got that?”

Nods. Scared-but-frantic nods.

“I’ll go first,” Joe said. “I’ll try to steady each of you when you lower yourself down. Don’t panic, and don’t start thrashing around or you might take both of us over. Okay?”

“Just fucking hurry,” McLanahan said through his mask. Joe could tell his teeth were clenched as he said it.

“How far is the drop to the trail?” Butch asked.

“Seven feet or so, if I remember,” Joe said. “But it will seem farther when you’re dropping through the air.”

“Sweet Jesus,” Farkus moaned.

Joe grimaced as he lowered himself on the shelf to grasp the ledge. His legs and back weren’t as flexible as they’d been ten years before. Even if he dropped safely to the trail cut into the canyon wall, he had no idea if stretches of it-like the ledge itself-had dropped away. He tried to not even think of what it would be like for the four of them to be isolated on the trail itself with no way to get down, their only other choice being to try and work their way back to the top and burn to death.

He turned to face the wall and reached down on either side to grasp the sharp edge of the rock, and backed off until he dropped and was suspended. While he hung in the air, he looked down his shirtfront to confirm the trail was still there below him. It was. Joe said a prayer and let go.

The soles of his boots hit the surface of the trail with a heavy thump, and his knees screamed from the impact. He didn’t remember that from ten years before. Far below, he heard something smack against the rocks, and he realized the phone had fallen out of his jeans from the jump. He wouldn’t be able to call Marybeth for a while, and he cursed.

“Hurry!” McLanahan shouted.

“Okay,” he shouted up. Because of his angle, he couldn’t see the other three above him. “You can come on. The trail is here, and I’m standing on it. Come one at a time so I can help steady you and guide you down when you let go.”

A few seconds later, Joe recognized Farkus’s Vibram-soled work boots dangling above him. Even though the fire was roaring and snapping on top, Joe could hear Farkus mewling with fear.

“It’s okay,” Joe said, reaching up until he could grasp the back of Farkus’s belt. “You can let go.”

“Sweet Jesus,” Farkus cried, still hanging.

“Let go,” Joe shouted.

Farkus dropped and landed clumsily on the trail, and Joe kept a grip on the belt so the man wouldn’t lose his balance and plunge into the canyon.

With Farkus now standing and hugging the wall, Joe shinnied carefully around him. He could feel Farkus trembling.

“Move a few feet down the trail so I have some room to work,” Joe said to him. Then to McLanahan and Butch: “Next!”

“We’re burning up here,” Butch’s voice croaked.

“Then hurry,” Joe replied.

He looked up in time to catch a small rock that bounced off his cheekbone from the shelf above. Then, more quickly than he could react, the entire bulk of Kyle McLanahan flew silently by and vanished into the canyon below.

Joe had seen just a flash of the ex-sheriff’s face as the man plunged past him feetfirst. McLanahan’s expression wasn’t terror-he simply looked annoyed that he’d lost his footing. It happened so quickly Joe hadn’t even had the chance to reach out for him, although if he had, the weight and momentum of the body would have likely taken him down with it.

As he processed what he’d just seen, Joe heard a heavy impact far below that sounded like a bag of ice being dropped on a sidewalk.

“What just happened?” he yelled up at Butch.

“The stupid son of a bitch missed the shelf when he stepped down,” Butch said. “I tried to grab him, but he was gone.”

Joe shook his head to clear it, then said, “Okay, now you, Butch.”

“Here I come.”

Joe tapped on Butch’s ankles to assure him he was there. The fabric of Butch’s clothing was smoking from heat. Then, like he’d done with Farkus, Joe grasped Butch by the belt and steadied him down to the trail. Joe noted that Butch had left his rifle behind, although he still had a pistol shoved into his waistband.

Joe again had Farkus mash himself against the cliff wall while he shouldered around behind him.

“Is he dead?” Farkus asked.

“Probably.”

“Too many damned donuts,” Farkus said, shaking his head.

Hugging the wall, Joe sidestepped down along the narrow trail, calling out hazards such as a break in the trail or loose rocks. Farkus followed, then Butch.

After the first switchback, the trail widened and they were able to square their shoulders and hike down it slowly. Joe kept one hand on the canyon wall at all times. In case he slipped on loose earth, he wanted to fall into the wall and not plunge into the canyon like McLanahan had.

As they descended, the roar of the fire muted, but the sky above was still smudged with smoke. Joe could see no glimpse of blue in it. The light filtering through the smoke cast everything with a dirty yellow tint.

He had never gotten along with McLanahan from the beginning, but Joe felt no sense of relief from what had just happened. He doubted he would ever forget that look of utter annoyance on the ex-sheriff’s face as he flew by.

Joe measured their progress by studying the opposite wall of the canyon as they descended. They were barely halfway down after twenty minutes of trekking. He could make out the trail on the other side as it switchbacked up the wall, although lengths of it looked overgrown by brush.

“I’m looking forward to getting into that cold water,” Butch said with a tight mouth. He was obviously in pain because of the intense heat he’d endured waiting on top for Farkus and McLanahan to lower themselves to the trail. Heat blisters rose everywhere his skin had been exposed.

Joe grunted. He was pleased the trail wasn’t broken, but there was still a long way to go.

They found McLanahan’s body plastered facedown on an outstretched boulder just below the trail. He was absolutely dead. His arms and legs were splayed out as if he were trying to make a snow angel, but his body was oddly misshapen. There was very little blood, but Joe didn’t doubt that most of his bones had been broken on impact. The ex-sheriff’s head sagged toward the downhill side of the boulder like a water balloon propped on a sloping table.

“At least it was quick,” Joe said, removing his hat for a moment. Butch did the same.

“Just for the record,” Butch said, “I didn’t push him, in case anyone was wondering.”

“I wasn’t,” Joe said.

“Not that I’d blame you,” Farkus said. “After all, he did come up here to kill you.”

“If I wanted to kill him, he’d already have been dead,” Butch said.

“Poor fat idiot,” said Farkus. “He should have stayed back in West Virginia.”

Joe hated to leave McLanahan’s body splayed out like that. It wouldn’t take long for the local scavengers-rodents, ravens, even the bald eagles that nested in the canyon-to locate and feed on the remains.

“We’ve got to try and take the body with us,” Joe said.

“How?” Butch asked.

“I’m not sure.”

“Leave it, I say,” Farkus said flatly.

Instead, Joe and Butch flattened out on the narrow trail and reached down to the body, each grasping an ankle.

Joe said, “One-two-three. .” and they heaved.

McLanahan’s body was heavy, though, and severely broken. Joe realized to his horror he was pulling on the leg but it was elongating and narrowing as he did so because the bones were broken inside and the trunk of the body wasn’t lifting. Joe grunted and pulled and so did Butch, but all they managed to do was upset the equilibrium of the body until it slipped over the side of the boulder toward the river below.

“Let go!” Joe shouted, so they wouldn’t be carried down with it.

The body thumped against another rock outcropping on the way down, and cartwheeled into the river with a booming splash.

Joe gathered himself up. He was winded and couldn’t shake the sensation he’d had when the leg stretched.

“That probably wasn’t my best idea,” he said.

Butch simply nodded in agreement.

“Oh, no,” Butch said in a whisper a few minutes after they’d dropped McLanahan’s body. Joe turned to him to find out the source of his concern.

Butch stood rigid on the trail, looking straight up.

Joe followed his gaze.

Twists of orange flame-fire whirls-could be seen darting over the rim of the canyon where the trailhead began. Like snake’s tongues, they shot out into the opening and snapped back.

“The wind must really be whipping up there,” Joe said.

As he spoke, flaming embers crossed the slice of sky above them from the south rim to the north. A moment later, the brush on the northern rim ignited with a flash.

“It jumped the canyon,” Joe said.

“How are we gonna get out of here?” Farkus wondered aloud.