Georgia sucked on the water hose of her CamelBak for a moment, taking in the view below her as she tried to catch her breath. The sun was shining, the wind was registering as slightly less than hurricane strength, and there were a few balls of white dotting the deep blue sky. All in all, it was as pretty as a postcard. She looked across the wide valley to the Goldfork Mountains – the craggy, snow-covered tips reaching for the brilliant sky – and bit her lower lip. They were taller than the hills she was climbing, and thus still had a fair bit of snow on them. Maybe it’d be enough to get them through the year…?

The farmers didn’t seem to think so, though, and neither did the state ag department. The official word put out by several farming organizations and the State of Idaho was that this was going to be a damn awful year to be a farmer (couched in more technical terms, of course). The credit union president had handed down the edict already – no large operating loans this growing season, period. Nobody was sure there’d be enough water to even get the crops to maturity, and farmers without crops…well, they were what you would call broke-ass farmers.

Not exactly prime lending targets.

Her breath was finally even again, and so she took off up the steep incline, keeping a close eye on the meandering trail. It consisted of packed dirt with roots and stones sticking up everywhere, which meant one misstep could result in a broken ankle or twisted knee. She was so far into the hills at this point, there wasn’t even a prayer of a cell phone signal; she’d lost that over an hour ago.

The trail switched back again and Georgia followed the curve, climbing ever upward. As she went, she started to go through her to-do list in her mind, but then mentally came to a screeching stop when she came up empty-handed. She didn’t have a to-do list, at least not today.

Honestly, it was a struggle to remember that it was actually a Wednesday, and not the weekend. The HR manager at the main branch had called over last week and had given her a stern talking to that she had too many vacation days piled up. She needed to take some time off, ASAP. In deference to the woman’s “request,” Georgia had put in for a vacation day today.

It still felt strange, though, and although she was enjoying her hike, a small part of her was glad that she’d only put in for one day. She could go back to work tomorrow and get some projects done then. Top of the list was the report on car loan defaults – if she didn’t get that turned in soon, the main branch would be on her ass about that, also.

She didn’t think that telling the head of the finance department that she’d been mandated to go on vacation by the head of the HR department would win her many brownie points.

She sighed. Someday, bureaucracy would be the death of her, she was just sure of it.

She spotted a movement out of the corner of her eye and she froze, her head whipping up. She was in bear country, and although she had bear spray on her, it was inside of her CamelBak. Not exactly convenient if a bear was about to charge at her.

But thank God, it wasn’t a bear – only a dog. A Dalmatian, actually, with a beautiful white coat and faded black spots all over. It had fluffy ears, not smooth ones like the other Dalmatians she’d seen, but damn, it was gorgeous anyway. It was skittering along the tree line, looking over its shoulder at her as it slunk from bush to bush.

“Hi, handsome,” she called out softly, holding out her hand and snapping her fingers. “What’s a good-lookin’ boy like you doing all the way up here? Where’s your owner?”

The dog disappeared behind a thick tree trunk and then stuck his nose out the other side, staring mournfully back at her.

“You’re a shy thing, aren’t you,” she said just above a whisper, trying to get closer to the dog without doing something stupid like stepping on a branch and sending him running off into the trees. “It’s okay, I won’t hurt you, I promise.” She made some kissy noises, feeling a little ridiculous as she did it, but she figured most animals liked that sound. At least, she assumed they did.

This dog seemed to be the exception, though. He had moved again and was now trying to hide behind a larger boulder, apparently going with the “If I can’t see you, you can’t see me” line of reasoning. Unfortunately for the dog, his hindquarters were sticking out for all to see.

Not exactly stealthy.

As she got closer, she could see that they were hindquarters that seemed to be shaking, with the tail tucked up tight between his legs. Her heart broke a little at the sight. What had happened to the poor thing?

She stopped and rummaged around in her bag to find her stash of beef jerky. It was supposed to be her afternoon snack on the way back down the hill, but nothing spoke to a dog’s heart like jerky, right? It had to work better than the kissy noises, anyway.

“Come here, boy,” she whispered as she crept closer, holding the jerky out. “Come here – you’ll like it, I promise!”

She could see his nose sticking out, wiggling in the strong breeze as he tried to weigh the promise of beef jerky against agreeing to get that close to Georgia to eat it.

“Who did this to you?” she whispered, moving ever so slowly towards the cowering dog. “And where is your owner? You have to have one – Dalmatians are too damn expensive to just be abandoned on the side of the road.” She didn’t know much about dogs, but even she knew that purebreds were costly. Not to mention that the dog had a collar on, although unfortunately there were no tags dangling from it. But a collar meant human ownership. So where was that human owner?

Just as she was almost to the boulder, she smelled it. Something…weird.

Well, not weird per se, not if it had been June, anyway. But she was smelling the distinct odor of a campfire, which…out here in the wilderness at the beginning of May?

Just…why?

It was still way too cold to camp at night out here, and most roads were closed until Memorial Day. She hadn’t expected to run into another soul on a weekday – not this far up, and certainly not at this time of the day.

But…her nose was quivering as much as the dog’s. That totally smelled like a campfire. Was someone out here roasting marshmallows?

She straightened up and left the dog behind for a moment to work her way further up the trail to another outlook over the valley. First I find a random-ass Dalmatian wandering around, scared to death of people, and now I’m smelling campfire smoke. This day is just getting weirder by the—

And that’s when she saw it.

A thick column of black smoke was rising into the sky from the pine forest below. Faintly, she could hear the pop and crackle of pine sap being boiled off by the heat, and through the trees, she spotted the occasional orange flame, dancing in the wind.

There was a wildfire raging through the forest.

Directly downhill from her.

More specifically, in between her and her car.

“Oh shit!” she gasped, unable to yell, her heart taking off as she tried to take it all in. A wildfire? In the beginning of May? Who’d ever heard of such a thing? Fire season shouldn’t be starting until this summer, at the absolute earliest. There were no wildfires in May. It was against the law…or…or something!

“Oh shit!” she got out again, this time as a strangled cry. That damn dog…she couldn’t leave it behind.

A Dalmatian out wandering in the wilderness and a wildfire roaring up through the forest.

Of course.

Her body wanted to go into flight mode and she felt the muscles tense up in her, readying to take off at a full sprint, but she fought the impulse. She could freak out later. She could panic and run in circles all she wanted, once she got home. Right here, right now, she couldn’t afford to. She had to think through the problem logically. It was a puzzle, a puzzle that had to be solved so she could live.

So a puzzle with life-and-death consequences. No pressure or anything.

She rolled her eyes at herself – sarcastic, even in the face of death – and forced her mind to go through her choices. There wasn’t a way to get down the hill, through that fire, and back to her car. Not gonna happen. She mentally tossed that choice out the window.

Staying where she was seemed like a pretty shitastic choice too, mostly because it appeared that choice would end in a fiery death. Not exactly the way she’d wanted to end her time here on earth. She mentally tossed that choice out the window.

Which really just left up the hill. She wasn’t going to be able to outrun a forest fire, though, especially because the undergrowth was thick and she’d have to stick to the path. The fire wouldn’t be forced to follow a switchback path up the hillside, though. Damn cheater…

And anyway, further up the trail were just more pine trees and underbrush and rocks – there wasn’t exactly a fire-free zone she could go hide in—

Hold on – rocks! Eagle’s Nest, of course!

It was a huge rocky cliff at the top of the hill with no vegetation around it. Ergo, nothing to burn. Ergo, the flames would pass on by.

Right?

That totally seemed like a valid plan to her, not in the least because she had literally no other choice.

She ran back down to the curve of the trail, and to the Dalmatian that was still cowering behind a boulder. Right where she’d left him.

“Come here, boy, we gotta go,” she whispered urgently as she held out the now slightly slick piece of jerky, moist from the sweat on the palms of her hands, the smell of smoke growing stronger. Or maybe it just seemed like it was growing stronger. For all she knew, it had turned back the other direction.

Or, it was still heading straight towards her.

It was a 50/50 chance at this point, and honestly, she wasn’t too enthralled with those odds. They were great odds when it came to winning a lottery; not such great odds when it came to surviving.

The dog crept forward slowly, its nose going a million miles an hour as it smelled the jerky. Come on, come on, come on…Finally, it snatched the jerky from her hand and started to retreat behind the boulder again.

“We gotta go!” Georgia hissed as she grabbed the dog’s collar, stopping it in its tracks. It whined, panicking, as she began pulling it up the trail behind her, the dog fighting her every step of the way.

Yeah, this was fun.

She worked her way up the trail, the smoke and smell from the fire growing stronger by the moment, and she realized her 50/50 shot at the flames going a different direction was rapidly dwindling before her eyes. Her heart was beating a million miles a minute, and she couldn’t seem to catch a full breath, but dammit all, she was almost there and she’d be safe – maybe – if she just hung on a little longer…

She burst out of the trees and shrubs, her heart pounding as she stared up at Eagle’s Nest. Years before, a pair of golden eagles had nested in the cliffs here, and the name stuck. There weren’t any eagles around anymore, but that was no reason to change the name.

She headed for the dead center of the rock face, figuring that this would get her the farthest away from any brush or anything burnable at all. The dog’s feet scrabbled on the rock underneath them as she pulled him along but she ignored his whimpers of protest. “It’s for your own good,” she informed him as she forced him forward.

That’s when she heard…a plane? A helicopter? What the hell?! She stopped for a moment, her hand firmly gripping the dog’s collar, as she squinted up into the sky. Sure enough, there was a helicopter flying overhead.

That was it, she’d officially seen it all. Even as her mind was trying to figure out why a helicopter was flying around, she was waving her free arm in the air, trying to catch its attention. They could swoop in and pick her up.

Okay, so maybe she’d watched too many movies, and that wasn’t actually possible, but dammit all, they had to help her somehow!

The blades of the helicopter only whipped the flames up higher, though, and then it peeled off and headed back out, its path lost in the haze of the smoke. Georgia’s shoulders slumped. She was by herself again. Well, her and a dog that was scared spitless of her.

So yeah, by herself.

She dragged the dog over to the rock face where she laid down, squishing herself up against its cool expanse, and pulled the dog up next to her, her arm slung over it, holding it tight against her.

Water!

Like an overturned turtle, she fought to get her backpack off, but finally, she pulled it up over her head, yanked on the zipper, and grabbed the bottle of water that she’d brought along as backup to the CamelBak water. She ripped the top off and began dousing herself and the dog liberally with it. Anything to keep sparks from catching fire on their hair or her clothing.

Sparks…Sparky…

“It’ll be okay,” she told Sparky as he shivered and spasmed next to her. She wasn’t sure if it was from fear of the fire or fear of being next to her, but it hurt her heart either way. “We’re gonna be all right,” she told him firmly. “No need to panic.”

She didn’t have time to pull the backpack apart and get the water pouch out so she could douse them with it also, so she just pulled it back over her head, trying to shield her face from the heat and flames that were roaring up the mountainside. It sounded like a train, barreling down the tracks towards her, and just like in a nightmare, she was trapped against this rock face, unable to escape, unable to move.

The next time the credit union insisted on her taking a vacation day, she was going to spend it in bed with a book. At least then she had a fairly good chance of living through the “vacation.”

That was, if she lived through this one.