Page 60 of Until We Come Home

“My mom used to say it to me every time something bad was on TV, and then she’d say not to just look for the helpers, but be one.” I shrug. “I guess it just lodged itself in my head.”

That used to be the sole drive behind it. But Mia wasn't totally off the mark when she called me out on the dock. Ever since Lindsey died, I've definitely used the job as a shield, hurling myself straight into everybody else's emergencies so I don't have to deal with my own head.

It wasn't always like that, though. There was a time when I loved the work for what it was, before I started chasing fire just to outrun the ghosts.

“I just hope I keep getting better at it,” Ollie says, quieter now. “I know I’ve made my share of mistakes this season with all the learning curves.”

I drag my attention back to Ollie. “You’re doing just fine, kid. Trust me, I was a hell of a lot worse on my first rotation. I threw up behind the engine on my very first working fire, then stood up too fast and banged my head on the open compartment door.”

“Really?” Ollie asks, his eyes going wide.

“A hundred percent. And James over there wasn’t much smoother.”

“Hey now!” James calls out over his shoulder with a laugh. “Shots fired in the back row!”

I laugh, turning back to Ollie. “Only Rebecca here was born flawless. She’s tough as nails.”

Rebecca doesn’t turn around, but I catch her smirk in the side mirror. “And don’t you boys forget it.”

The cab settles back into a light chatter, all of us trying to keep the mood easy as the sky darkens overhead and the looming ridge line draws closer.

Rebecca leads our crew through the heavy smoke, her radio crackling as she coordinates with Barnes and the local district crews fighting to keep the flames from taking another line of ridge trees. The heat radiates off the brush, the air thick and choking as the fire threatens to leap the road again.

The wind picks up out of nowhere, driving red embers into the dry grass, and it feels like trying to stamp out a hundred spot fires at once. The other four engines are strung out along the road behind us, each with their own stretch of houses to protect.

Ollie’s on the pump panel keeping our water flowing, while Callum and James muscle a second hose line into position along a fence. We pour everything we have into it, wetting down roofs and yards, dragging propane tanks out into the open, fighting for every foot of ground.

Level 3 evacuations have been up for the entire valley since this morning. The sheriff’s deputies are spread across three roads, so Rebecca makes the call to sweep ours on the way out, every driveway, following up on a report of an old rancher at the far end who hasn’t come out. The whole canyon is turning into an inferno. Everyone needs to be gone, right now.

The county road is two lanes of cracked asphalt with a ditch on either side and ranch fences running along it, hay fields gone the color of cardboard, and the ridge above us on the left smoking from end to end.

The fire itself is up over the top. I can hear it when I roll the window down, a steady sound like a highway a long way off, and the ash comes down through the smoke like dirty snow and sticks to the windshield. There’s something about the roar of a wildfire that gets into your chest, a deep sound you feel more than hear, and it doesn’t matter how many of them you’ve worked.

It never stops feeling like the end of the world.

The rig stops at every driveway with a car in it. Callum and Ollie go up and knock, and I sit in the back seat with the window down and the engine idling, watching the ridge. Most people are already loading when we get to them.

The smoke on the road is bad enough now that Rebecca tells each of them to fall in behind us, and she’ll lead them out to the highway where the deputies have a checkpoint. By the turnaround there are eleven cars in the line behind the engine, and the sun is a red smear now, and the sound off the ridge is louder than it was an hour ago. Rebecca twists around in the officer’s seat every few minutes to say the same thing. Keep moving. Keep them closed up. Don’t let the gap open.

The rancher is three driveways from the highway end. His place sits back from the road, a white house and a red barn and a steel horse trailer hitched to a flatbed in the yard, and he’s standing in the middle of his driveway with his hands on his hips while Callum talks to him. James pulls the rig in behind the flatbed and Rebecca and I climb out.

“He won’t go,” Callum says, when we get to them. “Four horses in the barn. He’s not leaving without them.”

I glance out toward the ridge where heavy gray smoke rolls over the pine trees, my gear weighing on my shoulders, the air shimmering with the heat of the advancing fire. From inside the wooden barn, the horses let out high, panicked whinnies, kicking at the stalls. The old rancher stands firm in the driveway, stubborn to the bone despite the panic visible in his eyes.

“They’re not stock, they’re my horses,” the rancher says. He’s sixty-something, lean, sunburned, with a bandana over his face against the smoke. “I’m not leaving them to that. I’ll load them up, but it’s going to take a minute with them spooked like this. Go ahead without me. I’ll follow behind when I can.”

I look over at Callum, and he just drags a hand down his face.

“Screw it,” I tell Callum, stepping closer. “I'm going to stay and help him load the horses, then guide him down the road behind the convoy.”

“I don’t know, man,” Callum says, wiping a smear of soot and sweat off his forehead. “I want to save the animals too, but if they won’t load, we cut the latches and turn them loose. I really don’t like the idea of leaving you back here alone.”

“He's not going to leave them, and there's no way in hell I'm leaving him and the horses here to burn,” I say, handing him my evacuation sheet. “Take the rig and go. I'll stay on the radio and follow you out.”

“That isn’t your decision to make.” Rebecca’s voice cuts in from behind us.

She’s made her way up from the rig with her radio held in one hand, taking in the rancher, the barn, the smoking ridge, and the rising wind driving ash straight across the dry pasture, processing the whole picture in a split second.