Page 101 of Into the Fire

He pointed west, upslope, at a break where rock came down through the timber in a rough stairway.

“Go,” I said.

Hollis stood for one second with the binoculars still in his hand. Then he shouldered past Shep and led the group.

“Follow Hollis,” I said. “Teller, Ramirez, Shep. Move.”

At the base of the rock, Hollis stepped aside and put Dante in front. He dropped to the back of the line to sweep.

We moved fast without running. Running is how a tired man breaks an ankle a mile from anywhere that can help.

The rock stairway climbed in two steep sections with a narrow ledge between them. After that, the scramble was worse: loose scree rolled underfoot and brush thorns grabbed at our tools and pack straps. Smoke pooled in every dip.

Dante called out the obstacles as he went. “Log. Step on it, not over.” A few yards on, he told us, “Scree’s moving. Stay on the big rocks.” I passed each call over my shoulder and heard it go down the line.

I looked back when the climbing allowed, counting four behind me every time.

On the third count, I watched the fire reach the shoulder.

A run had caught in the timber below the shoulder we’d left and climbed into the green bordering it, moving faster than the wind. It crossed what I’d have called an hour of fuel in maybe four minutes. The runs that had been separate all afternoon had merged.

Teller looked back and saw it. He stared at the shoulder a moment. He said nothing and kept climbing.

Air attack called thirty seconds later. “Runs are linking on the benches, midslope. You want to be north of that.”

“We’re moving,” I said.

Ahead of me, Dante checked left. A shallow draw cut up through the broken slope. It would have been easier walking, but he didn’t take it.

“Not the draw,” he called back. “It’ll pull everything up it. We stay on the spine.”

“Off the draw,” I said, loudly, passing it down the line. “Spine. Nobody drops left.”

The spine carried us up through the deadfall onto a stretch of open ground. For the first time since the shoulder, I could see more than five yards.

Dante stopped and read the slope above us. I held the crew where the rock gave them footing. Dante’s hand pressed flat against his hip once and dropped away.

“Higher,” he said, and pointed at a shelf of broken rock. “We go over the top of it, not through it.”

I turned to relay the message and caught the shoulder in the corner of my eye. Fire overran it in one long pull. It was the spot Hollis had said it would hold. I’d agreed with him.

Dante was already climbing toward the shelf. The way over it was a cut in the rock. The cut gave us two options to climb: a ramp of loose debris that looked fast and a slab of solid stone that looked slow. Dante put his hand on the stone.

“This side. The other one’s a conveyor belt back down.”

We went up the slab one man at a time, tools slung, using hands where needed. I counted the heads behind me. Hollis was last, his helmet rising out of the smoke.

Above the cut, the slope eased enough for us to cross it. I was halfway through relaying Dante’s comments about the next stretch when heat struck the right side of my face and neck. The fire was still below us, but the runs had linked, and the heat coming off them drove us uphill. Nobody gave the order. We all moved away from it, leaving the line we’d meant to follow.

“Above the brush line,” Dante called. “Heat’s finding the light stuff.”

Then the smoke took our sight. A large column bent over the slope and settled over us. Our visibility was less than five yards. The smoke was thicker than what we’d climbed through, gritty enough that I could taste ash between my teeth.

“Close it up,” I called. “Keep the man ahead of you in sight. If you lose him, say so.”

Dante slowed and read the ground under his boots. He relayed it back to me in pieces, and I fed it down the line.

Air attack called. “Silvertip, we’ve lost you under the smoke.”