Hotshots by Judith Van Gieson Page B

toes slammed into the fronts of my running shoes and were turning numb. It felt like the beginning of frostbite. To the north of us I could see an area where the fire had leaped the ridge and burned about a third of the way down, about as far down as we’d come. I began making narrow traverses to cut the steepness, wishing I had a pair of custom-made hotshot boots, remembering a pair of favorite ski boots. It would have been a challenge to ski this slope if I were in shape and if I still skied. When I skied we used to joke about making birch christies, grabbing a tree and swinging yourself around it when you got into trouble. I grabbed a juniper to catch my breath and got a handful of pine tar.
    The smell of smoke was stronger. The wind had returned with a vengeance. The afternoon updrafts were whipping the PJ into a jittery dance. The air seemed charged with nervous electricity. I came to a hump in the hill and there, as I’d always known someday it would be, was death staring me in the face. Hogue had seen it, and he turned toward me with the expression of stark terror you see on an unwrapped mummy. Death was behind him and it was the fire this time. Nothing false about the smoke we saw now. The smoke I’d been smelling hadn’t been an illusion or the ghost of fire past. A monstrous orange glow filled the drainage. I looked into it and saw bursts of dazzling yellow as trees candled out, fire within the blaze. How had it gotten so big so fast? I wondered. High winds and fuel buildup had to be the answer. The trees that had hidden it before were fueling it now. There was a sudden roar like an F-16 taking off, the hiss of Gambel oaks giving up their lives. The heat became intense and seemed to zap the fluids from my body. Fingers of flame explored the side ridges to the north and the south. Directly in front of us the fire blew up to the size of downtown. It was still a couple of city blocks away, but moving fast, a lot faster than I could even with a major pucker factor. For a moment I couldn’t move at all. I was an icicle in the face of the flames, frozen in place. My first thought was of the Kid. My second was of my house. My third was that I wanted to get the hell out of there.
    â€œRun,” Hogue screamed.
    â€œWhere?”
    â€œTo the black.”
    He turned and raced up the mountain, pursuing a course diagonal to the fire. I followed. If I’d had a pack I doubt I’d have had the time or wits to unload it. My instinct was to turn my back to the fire, go for distance, and run straight up, but fire, I knew, moves faster uphill than people can. I followed Hogue. The flames crackled and hissed below us. The fire was a hot, hungry dragon and we were its food. My shadow extended uphill and became a monster in the fire’s glow.
    The black had been visible from the side ridge, but here I couldn’t see it because of the trees. Until the trees in front of us burned up we couldn’t see how near we were to the black, and once that happened we’d be a part of the black ourselves. I had no way of pacing myself. I just ran as fast and hard as I could. I ran until I was gagging and coughing. I ran until whatever moisture I had left had sizzled out of me.
    The fire’s hot breath was scorching my back when I saw some black tree trunks ahead. Hogue dove into them and I followed, hoping this was real black, good black, black without the potential to reburn. The fire roared and made a run on our left, consuming the PJ with voracious appetite and speed. It nibbled at the edge of the black, but found nothing to feed on. It burned the PJ with an intense red heat, leaving behind a blinding cloud of smoke. I’d skied in a whiteout once where I couldn’t see my hands or feet, didn’t know if I was going up or down, didn’t know where anybody else on the slope was, and kept calling out so I wouldn’t bump into them. Hogue was in here somewhere, but I couldn’t hear or