Chapter 9-1
685 Words
Chapter 9
Laura had everybody dismount. It had taken almost fifteen minutes for the drone to find them from when she’d first placed the call. Fifteen more and she’d have a bunch of tourists bucked to the ground.
“Okay everybody, listen up.” Laura wished Johnny had explained what was going on now, but he hadn’t. And his voice had done its dead calm, soothing thing that he did so well. And, quite frankly, that was really, really freaking her out at the moment. But the tourists didn’t know that.
Johnny was being very smart.
As usual.
“We’re going to wait here for a bit.”
“It’s getting kind of smoky.” “Aren’t we going back to the Lodge?” “Can we—”
She raised her hands to stop all of the questions. She took a deep breath and pulled out her best trail-guide-serious tone, rather than the trail-guide-upbeat one she’d been attempting to maintain.
“We have been asked by a team of wildland firefighters to remain in our current position. Did anyone notice the small drone that flew overhead?”
Some had. Some hadn’t.
“They have a much better idea of what’s going around us that we possibly could. They’re the very best.”
It was the pre-med student daughter who put it together first. “This isn’t some campfire that we’re smelling? This is a…” she swallowed hard and then whispered it, “…a forest fire?”
The tension in the group ratcheted up about ten levels.
“I’d say that’s a real possibility.” So this is how Johnny did it. She could feel the change inside herself. Over the years she’d dealt with injuries, frostbite, hunger, snakebites, and a hundred other emergencies. She’d never dealt with a forest fire. Yet she’d found a place inside her that could remain the calm center no matter what she was feeling.
That’s how Johnny fought forest fires no matter how he’d been feeling over the last month. And that’s how he’d gone so long without speaking to her. His fear was locked tightly deep inside and—at least to everyone else in the world—he appeared calm and in control.
It wasn’t a lesson she particularly wanted to have at the moment, but for now she’d latch onto it and hope she was alive in the morning to figure out how to help.
“What we’re going to do is remain calm.”
“Remain calm?!” One of the newlyweds was not impressed with the idea. Gus, one of the guys.
“Yes. For two reasons. One is that if we panic, then the horses will panic. In this terrain that would be very dangerous for the horses and possibly for us as well.” Zigzag Canyon led up between steep rocky walls until it hit the Zigzag Glacier. Any horse attempting to climb off the trail was bound to break a leg. And heading down the canyon… Well, she’d wager that wasn’t a good idea at the moment or Johnny wouldn’t have been so worried.
“The second reason,” she said in as calm a voice as possible, “is that the person who told us to stay put is the very best smokejumper in the business. His own team calls him Akbar the Great because he really is that great against fire. I would trust his advice over anyone’s on the planet.”
That did the job. At least for now. The group was calming down.
Laura glanced at the thin strip of blue showing above the trees, then quickly turned her attention back to the circle of expectant faces hoping none of them looked up.
“Now what we have to do is keep the horses calm, because they don’t understand why we’re merely standing here when they think we should be running. I want everyone to take out those Timberline Lodge t-shirts I handed out this morning. I’ll get you new ones. Tuck them into the top of the horses’ bridles so that it covers their eyes and most of their nose, but not their nostrils.”
“What they can’t see won’t hurt them?” The mom found her sense of humor. Laura could hug the woman.
“Right.” She considered tying the horses together into a train, but decided against it. If they did have to run for it and one was injured, Laura didn’t want to risk losing all the others.
She did her best to keep the group busy at tending the horses so that she wouldn’t have to think too much.
When no one was watching, she stole another glance skyward. Her thin strip of blue hope high above the trees was turning ash and smoke gray.
- Writer
