Chapter 10-4
688 Words
Laura had a front row seat and wished she’d stayed at the Lodge and had a drink with the guests. Several. Gotten good and stinking drunk.
Instead, she was stone cold sober, sitting and waiting. Krista had finally banished her to this boulder because she kept trying to approach the blaze in hopes of the impossible, spotting Johnny and Tim.
Not a hundred yards ahead of her, the Pacific Crest Trail disappeared into flame. Between her and the flames, the trees and grasses were dark red with heavy layers of retardant chemicals dropped by the helicopters. It should keep any flames from escaping in her direction.
She knew from experience that fifty yards into the flame, the level terrain took a sharp dip down into the narrow heart of the canyon.
Right now, the smokies were beginning an attack on the fire. They were on the far side of the fire, just downslope of the Pacific Crest Trail and this time they were getting close to the flames. Hadn’t Johnny told her it meant things were going wrong when that happened? She shoved that thought aside hard.
The smokies were felling trees away from the trail to either side as if driving a wedge sideways into the fire right down the trail. A hose team was coming up close behind.
One of the choppers came in low overhead and dropped a load of water, some of it splashing on the smokies they were so close to the fire. Instead of dousing the leading edge of the fire, which was further upslope, they were making a beeline into the flank of the conflagration. Another chopper followed, then another and another until all five had passed overhead and unloaded in rapid succession right in line with the trail.
Water. They weren’t dumping retardant to stop the spread of fire, they were dumping water to fight it directly.
The smokies followed the water-soaked trail right into the fire. They felled trees that still had burning branches here and there, and kept driving forward.
Less than five minutes later the line of choppers was back. Once again, the four smaller ones made successive water drops straight into the fire. Then the Firehawk roared in and dumped a massive load of the red retardant.
Some of it splattered on the ground crew, but most of it protected the drenched stretch of trail.
She could see what they were doing.
It was crazy. Johnny had told her that you flanked and headed off a fire. That you never went straight at the flames. Yet here they were cutting a path directly into the inferno.
It was Akbar the Great kind of crazy. It had to be him who thought this up.
Laura looked at their progress. If she were leading the crew, she wouldn’t dare take them much farther into the woods. This had to be it.
She wanted to hold her breath, but her heart was pounding so hard she could barely get enough air at this altitude. They were right at six thousand feet. Although she spent her days at this altitude, she slept thousands of feet lower.
This time when the helicopters made their run, the smokies didn’t drive further in. Instead they retreated back to their starting position not a hundred yards from her.
One by one the helicopters roared by, a bare hundred feet over her head, shot over the edge of the canyon and actually disappeared downward out of sight as they did their drops.
Now she did hold her breath until each chopper popped back into view at the far end of its run, deep inside the smoke, but turning aside before entering the massive main plume.
Just as she was doing, the smokies were craning their necks to watch down the newly visible portion of the Pacific Crest Trail.
Softly at first. Growing rapidly. A sound she knew as well as her own heartbeat. The earth pounding boom of seven horses moving up the hard trail at a full gallop.
Riding smoothly atop Mister Ed rode Akbar the Great.
And, hanging on for dear life in Mickey’s saddle, Two-Tall Tim brought up the rear.
- Writer
