ONE
Indian Lake, Indiana July
THE SUMMER NIGHT sounds of chirping tree frogs and cicadas drifted through the open screen window of Beatrice Wilcox’s sixty-year-old log cabin. Loving the wildlife melodies, she closed her eyes, her weary body spent from a long day with ten rowdy, sometimes frustratingly taciturn children and preteens.
But running this camp was her dream. She wanted to create a summer idyll for kids who faced challenges in their young lives, as she had when she’d been a camper herself as a child.
But how to pay for it? Worrying over money often kept her awake at night. Tonight being no exception.
She kicked the old patchwork quilt off her body. Then she flung her forearm over her brow. She was still wide awake.
Breathing a sigh, she sniffed the air. And froze. Then sniffed again.
“It...can’t be.”
Curling through the screen was pungent smoke. Not the smoke from a cigarette or cigar, or the acrid, bitter smoke from a country farmer burning garbage. This was clean smoke. The kind from burning vegetation.
Beatrice bolted upright in her bed, her eyes wide. She tossed aside the sheets and swung her legs to the rag rug she’d made herself that covered the painted concrete floor.
“No!”
Going to the window, she cranked the casement window open wide. The smell of smoke was unmistakable. “Not a fire. Not now. Not ever!”
Spinning around, she shoved her feet into her sneakers and grabbed her cell phone off the varnished tree-stump table.
“Please don’t let it be one of the cabins. Or the kitchen!” She raced out to her front porch, the wood screen door banging behind her. The yellow “bug” light on the front porch did a good job of keeping the mosquitoes and flies away, but unfortuntely gave little illumination. She leaned over the wide log railing that extended down the four steps to the gravel path that served as her sidewalk.
The camp consisted of ten sturdy small log cabins, with five on either side of the main dining hall and activities center. Up the hill at the end of the five cabins was a larger cabin that housed the male counselors, though right now there was only the one. Beatrice’s cabin was on the left side after the five girls’ cabins and a larger cabin for the female counselors.
Her eyes scoured the little cabins and the main hall. She saw nothing amiss.
Walking farther down the path, she stopped abruptly as a crimson glow illuminated the side of her face. She turned toward the forest that stretched for acres across the country road. “Oh, no!”
Forest fire.
The summer had been hot and dry with barely a sprinkle of rain in the past month. The Weather Channel had said it was the driest summer in Indian Lake history. This was Southern California weather, not northern Indiana weather. July was known for heat in Indiana, and even soared over one hundred degrees, but seldom did the region get this dry. In recent weeks, the corn was withering on the stalks. The leaves of the soybean crops were already turning golden six weeks ahead of normal.
She punched in 911 on her phone.
“What is your emergency?” the dispatcher asked.
“Fire! I’m at Indian Lake Youth Camp. Up Highway Thirty-Five. There’s fire in the woods across the road. It’s been so dry, I’m afraid the fire could move fast and head right for us.”
She looked around and saw the light in Maisie and Cindy’s cabin switch on. Cindy had just turned twenty-two, and though a year younger than Maisie, she possessed a child’s boundless energy. She was pulling a light sweatshirt over her head as she rushed out onto her porch.
Beatrice beckoned to Cindy, who started running toward her, her sneakers digging into the gravel with purpose.
Cindy’s streaked blond hair was clipped up on her head into a thick spike, making her look just like Cindy Lou Who from the Grinch cartoon. There was nothing comical about the fear in Cindy’s face, however. She pointed to the fire. “This is a nightmare.”
“It is,” Beatrice replied, still listening to the dispatcher.
“The units have been sent. They’re on their way,” the dispatcher said.
“Thank you,” Beatrice said and hung up while simultaneously grabbing Cindy’s arm. Cindy was shaking.
“Cindy, look at me. This is no time to panic. We have to get the kids up and dressed. Then you and Bruce need to take them to St. Mark’s.”
“St. Mark’s?” Cindy’s voice cracked.
“Yes. You remember, right?” Beatrice asked firmly. Beatrice knew she could do this.
But Beatrice was their leader. She was responsible for these children. Their lives might depend on her tonight.
More than the danger the fire posed to her beloved camp, it was the children she cared about. Each child was a gift to her. She took special care to learn their needs and idiosyncrasies, their fears and their delights.
When misgivings about money turned to dark moments, when she wondered why she’d placed all her dreams into this black hole of continual and costly restoration, she reminded herself it was for the kids, whom she cared about as if they were family.
“Cindy...”
“St. Mark’s! I remember. Father Michael offered his activity hall in case of any emergency.” Cindy brushed a lock of her hair away from her cheek. “This definitely qualifies.”
“Yes, it does, Cindy. Wake up Bruce. Believe me, it takes a bomb to get that guy up. You and Bruce wake up the boys. Maisie and I will take the girls’ cabins. Get everyone to the dining hall first, then hustle them into the SUVs and drive them into town.”
“What about you?”
“I have to stay here. It’s my camp. Now, go!”
As Cindy raced off to Bruce’s cabin, Beatrice waved to Maisie.
Maisie had put on jeans, sneakers and a light hooded pullover. She held up her cell phone as she ran toward Beatrice. “I’ll get the girls.”
While Cindy was all emotion, hugging the kids, giving them encouragement, Maisie was the organized, Excel-sheet-minded counselor who kept the kids in line. She also helped order the food and had their consumption quantities down to the number of tiny boxes of raisins and bars of soap they would need each month.
“Yes. Good thing I filled up the SUVs’ gas tanks yesterday. We are good to go,” Beatrice replied as they went to the first girls’ cabin.
Jessica and Susan Kettering were two sisters from Chicago whose parents were in Europe for work. The girls were living at the camp for a month, and Beatrice had gotten to know them well.
The girls, ages six and eight, both had amblyopia, or lazy eye. They refused to wear their eye patches on corresponding eyes at the same time. Thus, Jessica’s patch was on her right eye
