Chapter Fifteen
Peyton’s heart sank as she washed adrift in the smoke, abandoned. She hadn’t really considered he’d leave her behind, not after jumping out of an airplane, but if he couldn’t save both of them, he should save himself. Her muscles screamed with relief when she slowed down. She wouldn’t be able to get going again.
She was going to die on this mountain. It was over. She couldn’t fight anymore. It wouldn’t be so bad, right? Just one breath of superheated air and it would be over. No more pain, no more loneliness.
No more Gabe. She squeezed her eyes shut and vowed not to think about what might have been.
Gabe reappeared through the smoke and shoved his fire shelter at her. Hope flared as she shook out the thin rectangle of foil-looking fabric. Then he reached into his pack and pulled out a fusee. Holding her eyes with his, he lit the flare.
She jolted backwards. Was he insane? All they needed up here was another fire. When he bent to light the grass in front of them, she thought he’d gone over the edge. The dry grass blackened and curled as the flames devoured it greedily. Now they were surrounded by fire—no escape. Was this some crazy suicide? Was he determined to die in flames?
He turned away to watch his infant fire race uphill, growing larger, faster. Then he kicked at the ash left behind, took the shelter from her and placed it in the burned out area, holding the flap open.
“Peyton,” he said to draw her attention. “Did you train on this?”
She nodded blindly, vaguely recalling that the shelters looked like burritos, and sat on the floor of the shelter. Her whole body sore, she rolled onto her stomach, clutching at the slippery fabric beneath her. It would all be over soon and she might not feel anything again. As she stretched out, understanding began to dawn in her fatigued mind. He’d created a burned-out area for them in the hopes the fire would go around them, unable to find fuel where they lay.
He looked down at her, stretched on the silver fabric because she trusted him to save her life. He prayed he didn’t fail her. He rolled into the fire shelter with her and covered her body with his, buried his face in her shoulder, and secured the fire shelter around them. He couldn’t allow smoke to creep in, or flames that might ignite their hair or skin, or the superheated gases that would sear their lungs.
Beneath him, Peyton whimpered and shuddered. Gabe prayed this would work. The shelter wouldn’t stand up to direct flame, but his little fire should have created enough of a break so the fire would separate and go around them, chasing the dry grass and brush feeding it.
Peyton was panicking, tremors racing through her body. He feared she might get up and try to run. So he would keep her with him. It would be unbearably hot inside the tiny tent the firefighters called a “Shake and Bake”, but they would survive. If he didn’t, please God, let his body give Peyton enough protection to keep her alive.
The roar of the fire was tremendous, so loud Peyton could barely hear Gabe’s breath rushing in her ear, his heart pounding, or her own. The heat made it feel like her flesh was melting from her bones. The air was so dry it hurt to breathe, and sweat drenched her whole body.
She couldn’t stand it. The fire was right over them and the shelter acted like an oven, holding the heat in. The weight of Gabe’s body only increased the temperature of her own. Her heart pounded against her ribs and her nerves were making it impossible to stay still. The waiting to die, waiting for the fire to overtake them, was devastating, and she couldn’t nurture the smallest grain of hope she’d live through this. She’d never be a mother, never be a wife again, a lover. They would die together in this shelter, a terrible thought when they’d only begun to find what life was again.
Every nerve in her body screamed for her to run. She had to get out of here, now. She was suffocating. She started kicking and clawing, trying to get free of this tinfoil roasting them alive.
“No.” Gabe shifted his weight, pinning her arms and legs. “Peyton, hold still.”
“I can’t breathe!” she cried. He was crushing her into the hard, hot ground and she was going to die, choked to death because her lungs wouldn’t expand.
“Just a little longer,” he soothed, his hands steady on her wrists as he held them. “Trust me. Trust me.”
Whimpering, she snorted in soot and dirt, trying not to cough. The soles of her feet burned— were her boots melting?
Gabe’s body tensed over hers and he was seized by a fit of coughing. He tried to muffle it against her shoulder but couldn’t. His dry racking cough pierced through the sound of the fire.
But when Gabe’s cough subsided, the fire no longer sounded like it was on top of them.
“Wait, wait,” Gabe urged. Could that be hope in his voice? Had he been as scared as she was, or had he always known he could get them out?
They lay there, face down, for what may have been hours, too tired, too scared to talk, to do anything but lie there and breathe and thank God they were alive. Only when she no longer heard the fire did her pulse stop racing. She was impatient to get out of the shelter, get to her feet, but silently Gabe held her still.
Finally he slid his hand through the opening of the shelter, felt the ground outside. Apparently satisfied, he pulled the shelter over his head and sat up.
The air still shimmered with heat and every breath Peyton took seared her nose and throat, burned in her chest. She wiped dirt and soot from her eyes. She winced as she lifted her arms above her head. Her skin felt tight, like she had a bad sunburn. No telling how bad it was, with her body covered with soot.
“Where are the others?” She perused the remaining forest, the stripped trees, the blackened ground, the cracked rocks.
The grass where Peyton had been standing when the fire came up.
There was no sign of any other shelters through the clearing smoke. Had the others been ahead of them or behind them? How could they have outrun the fire?
He stood slowly, stiffly, and reached to help her to her feet. “I don’t know.”
“We have to find them.”
“We have to get you back to safety,” he countered.
“No.” Tears filled her eyes. “We can’t go back until we’re sure they’re all right.”
He dusted off some of the soot from her face, cupped her cheek in his hand. The indecision in his eyes was so out of character. “I can’t risk you.”
She reached up and clutched his hand, determined to make him understand. “If you take me to camp, then try to come back up, it will be too late for them.”
Gabe weighed his options, not taking his eyes off her. He felt like hell after the jump, after the time in the shelter. But she was staring at him like he was a hero, like he was invincible. As far as she was concerned, he was.
He reached for his radio, then snatched his hand away from the super-heated plastic that burned through his glove. The flames raced up the mountain, and the other firefighters were on the other side of those flames. He had to find out how much longer until they could expect the slurry. They’d been under the shelter for some time, waiting for the air to cool, so it shouldn’t be long before it arrived.
If it was longer than fifteen minutes, they might as well forget it. Jen would be a widow. He had to find Doug for her.
“Come on.” He let go of Peyton, trusting she’d follow him. With renewed energy he charged up the hill. He unhooked his radio from his belt and tossed it from hand to hand until he could bear to press the button. Since they were higher on the mountain, he should be able to reach camp.
“Jen! Damn it, Jen!” he shouted into the radio, the button scorching his thumb.
“Gabe, did you find them?” she asked through the interference. Either their position or the damage to his radio created poor reception. “I can’t get through to Doug.”
Oh damn. Not a good sign. But he had to tell her. “Found Peyton, lost Doug.”
“What do you mean?”
“Peyton and I deployed. When we got out of the shelter we didn’t see the rest of the crew.”
Silence. Long, painful silence. Gabe’s gut cramped, knowing what she was thinking, what she was feeling. He’d been there just a few hours before, helpless, so far away.
“Gabe, you can’t let him—”
“I’m going after him, but we’re going to need the slurry,” he said, not wanting to hear his ex-wife express fear for her husband. The father of her child.
“ETA’s forty-five minutes. Where do you want it?”
Gabe clenched his jaw. Forty-five minutes would be too late. She was better off not knowing. “Just get him up here as quick as you can. Have him go up the ridge, drop maybe two hundred and fifty feet below that. He’ll see the fire, no doubt about it.”
“What are we going to do?” Peyton asked, panting along behind him as he clipped the radio back to his belt and strode uphill. “That’s not going to be fast enough, is it?”
He glanced at her. “Nope.”
“So we can’t do anything?”
“We don’t have tools, Peyton,” he said, exasperated. “What do you want me to do?”
“We can’t leave without knowing.”
Damn, had she always been this stubborn, or was he just too tired to deal?
“It’s safe now, the fire has moved past us.”
“Haven’t I taught you anything? It’s never safe out here.”
“You know what I mean.” She shook her hands out to her sides as if eager to get moving. “We have to find them.”
Everything hurt, inside and out. She had to be suffering too, but here she stood in front of him demanding he be her hero. Goddamnit. Of course, if he had an uncooked brain cell in his head, he’d tell her she was nuts. They had to get back to camp and recuperate from their ordeal, not put themselves at more risk running all over the mountainside searching for a handful of smokejumpers who could be burned to a crisp. He couldn’t breathe exactly right, and the muscles in his legs felt weak. He couldn’t run from another fire.
But he was not in any shape for another recovery mission. So he took her arm and headed up the slope. “Stay with me.”
This was a mistake, Peyton realized. Gabe wasn’t up for this. He was struggling to stay on his feet as they hiked, and now and then he swerved into her path, bumping into her. She suspected his grip on her arm was not entirely for her benefit. She hadn’t seen him slouch before. He must be exhausted. Coughs racked his body. He bent double and spat. They were alone up here. What would she do if he collapsed? Yes, she had trained as an EMT, but they had nothing up here. Nothing.
She stopped and he turned to her, impatience overcoming his pain. “We have to go back.”
“Are you hurt?” he asked immediately.
“I’m worried about you.”
“I’m fine. Just too much smoke.” He started forward again. “Wish we had our packs. I could use some water. Maybe one of those guys up there still has his supplies.”
“I suppose I’ll be docked for losing two packs in a week,” she said, trying to lighten the mood.
He slid her a look. “What did you find that pissed her off?” He waved his hand at the black ground, the stripped trees.
How did he know? The same way he knew she was here? She’d find out the whole story later. Right now his glower prompted her to just answer the question. “A glove, way too small to be Doug’s.”
He laughed, a horrible, rough sound that dissolved into coughing. Again, Peyton wished for water to help him. He shook his head. “Goddamn her. Did she say why?”
Could she tell him? Could she tell him the reason those people died was because of him? How would he react?
His radio beeped and he pressed the button with a sigh.
“Gabe, do you see them?” Jen’s voice was a squawk, and it was impossible to gauge her emotion. Still, Peyton could only imagine what she was feeling, out of contact with her husband, miles away from where he could be dying.
“No. What’s the word on the slurry?”
“He’s on...way. You should see him...minute. Where...drop?” Her voice faded in and out with the poor reception.
Apparently, Gabe was able to decipher her message. “About two hundred yards east of the ridge moving up the mountain. He should be able to see—”
“...sees them! He sees them!” Jen’s voice rang out clearly. “They’re alive, running!”
Just then the sound of a motor vibrated toward them and a plane emerged from the smoke, dropping lower. They were close enough to hear the cargo bay open, to see the rich pink of the slurry against the gray smoke, to hear the splat as it hit the ground.
Three figures moved through the smoke, down the mountain toward them. The smokejumpers were laughing, sliding in the slurry, their posture telegraphing their relief. One of them raised a hand in greeting. Doug, Peyton realized. Gabe must have realized it at the same time, because he lifted his radio to his mouth.
“All present and accounted for, Madame IC,” he said, then dropped to all fours, his body twisted with coughing spasms.
Peyton fell to her knees beside him and wrapped her arms around him, panic seizing her, wondering how he’d made it so far only to collapse now. He’d been more worried about the smokejumpers than he’d wanted to admit. As the coughs stole his breath, she was uncertain of how to help him without any supplies. She looked up the slope to see none of the firefighters had their packs. They must have abandoned them as she and Gabe had, to move faster.
“Jesus,” Doug wheezed, hands on his knees, spraying black spittle. “Jesus, we were almost toast.” He blinked at Gabe, who dropped back onto his butt. “How could you be behind us and not be barbecued?”
Lovely imagery. “We deployed.”
She exchanged a glance with Doug, who took Gabe’s radio. “Jen, we need a medevac chopper up here.”
“...you okay?” Jen asked.
“We’re great. Gabe took in too much smoke. We need to get him treated. And we lost our gear, so some water would be great too.”
“...done,” she said. “I love you.”
Peyton’s attention was diverted from the conversation when Gabe reached over and squeezed her thigh, unable to speak for a time, struggling for breath.
Finally he said, “Are you okay?”
She gave a little laugh. Of course he would be more worried about her than himself. Damn hero. “I’m fine.”
Doug dropped the radio back on Gabe’s lap. “The chopper should be here in about ten.”
Gabe waved him off. “I can make it. Is everyone else all right?”
“Everyone’s good. You can’t make it, and you won’t. You’re going down in the chopper.”
“Going down is what worries me,” Gabe said wryly. “Send Peyton back. Kim hit her in the head with her Pulaski.”
“Still trying to be boss,” Peyton chided and rolled her eyes at Doug, who hid a grin.
“Peyton will be just fine,” Doug said. “The chopper’s bringing us water, then we’re out of here. You’re on your own.”
Gabe opened his mouth to say something, but instead coughed until Peyton feared he’d crack a rib.
“Damn it, where are they?” Doug scanned the sky.
God, it hurt to see Gabe in pain, out of control. It hurt even more because his helplessness had to make him crazy, especially in front of Doug. Though she doubted he’d happily show her any weakness.
Above them a helicopter soared by, looped back to hover about twenty feet from where Gabe lay. The rotors kicked up dust and ash and Peyton leaned forward to shield Gabe with her body. Doug covered his face with a bandana and ran toward the helicopter, leaned in to shout something at the pilot before he turned and gestured for Peyton.
“Come on.” She helped Gabe to his feet. He leaned heavily on her and she staggered under his weight. The dust in the air sent him coughing again, halting their progress.
One of the helicopter crew ran out to help her, took most of Gabe’s weight and dragged him to the chopper before dumping him in the back.
“Have you got room for me?” she yelled at the pilot, after inspecting the cramped interior.
Before the pilot could answer, Gabe gripped her wrist. “She’s coming with us,” he choked out. He glowered at Peyton then. “If I have to do this, so do you.”
“Big baby,” she muttered and crawled in beside him. “I’m Mr. Big Hot Shot,” she mocked. “I’m not afraid to fight fires but I’m afraid to fly.”
“I heard that,” he said.
“Good.” She sought in vain for a seat belt beneath her, instead settling for a death grip on the bar beside her head.
The crewman handed bottled water back to them and Peyton released the bar to lean forward. “We need to get an oxygen mask on him.”
“No. We don’t,” Gabe contradicted.
“He inhaled a lot of smoke out there.”
“It can wait. Damn it, Peyton, I hate those masks.” Another round of coughing had Peyton exchanging a glance with the crewman. The man handed her a portable tank and a mask with a pointed look.
“As long as you put it on him.” The crewman laughed.
Gabe tried to look fierce as Peyton slipped the mask on his face.
“Oh, I’m scared,” she said.
He yanked the mask off, struggling not to cough.
“Gabe,” she scolded.
“Peyton,” he echoed, holding her eyes for a long minute before his drifted shut. “You did good out there. Real good.” And then he passed out.