about him, erupting into flames. It was July, over a hundred degrees today, and the ground was as dry and thirsty as it had been all year. Perfect conditions for a wildfire. But this was not one wildfire—it was hundreds. Burning debris landed and ignited as if fueled by a propellant. The flames traveled as fast as he did. Faster, because the wind raced down the mountain, pushing the growing wall of flames that licked at the trunks of the piñon pines. Once it hit the crowns of the trees it would take off. There was nothing to stop it. His only chance was to get ahead of it and stay there.
* * *
MEADOW GAPED AS the top of the ridge exploded like an erupting volcano. With her camera still running, she stood in the road, paralyzed by what she witnessed. The house that had broken the ridgeline collapsed, falling in fiery wreckage into the gap below. The steel skeleton vanished amid tails of smoke that flew into the sky like launching rockets.
Dylan.
He was up there. Her impulse was to flee, but the urge to reach him tugged against her survival instinct.
The rockets of fire flew over her head, and she turned to watch them land, each a meteor impacting the earth. The vibrations from the explosion reached her, tipping her camera and making her sidestep to keep from falling beside it. She lifted the running GoPro and held it, collapsing the tripod as she panned, capturing the flaming rock touching down and igniting infernos to her right and left, knowing the HDMI video interface and antenna in her car compressed the video data before sending it to the live feed.
The desert bloomed orange as it burned. She turned back to the ridge, seeing the smoke billowing up to the sun. Beneath the yellow smoke came a wall of fire and the cracking, popping sound of burning. A hot wind rushed at her, burning her skin. She felt as if she stood in an oven. She had to get out of here. Meadow turned in a circle and saw flames on all sides. The smoke was so thick she began to choke. Should she try to drive through the flames?
How had the falling rock and fire missed her? She stood in the road as she realized everyone had been right. She wasn’t going to see thirty.
Had she gotten out? Dylan wondered as he barely managed to navigate his truck along the thin ribbon of gravel to the bottom of the ridge and onto the straight stretch that led to Meadow.
He prayed that she had, but the fear in his heart and the flames already crowning in the pines warned him she was in danger. He listened to his instincts, slowed his speed, fighting against the urge to accelerate. Moving faster than he could see could cause him to crash the truck or to hit Meadow. He was close to her position now. He knew it. Where was she?
He saw her Audi parked exactly where it had been—only now the wall of fire to his left glimmered off the mirror surface of the black paint reflecting the approaching flames. Soon the paint would melt, along with every bit of plastic. The inferno was close to jumping the road. Dylan hit the brakes, sending gravel spraying from his rear tires.
“Meadow!” he shouted as he threw open the door. “Meadow!”
The blaze was loud now, sounding like a locomotive. His eyes burned as he swept the ground for any sight of her. Then he saw a flash of white. She was running. Strong legs pumping as she darted from behind her car and then in front of his truck. In one hand she held her camera by the folded, compressed tripod. She reached the passenger side, and his arms went around her instinctively as he pulled her into the truck and set them in motion again.
Not here, he thought. There was too much fuel. Too much energy for the flames to consume in the surrounding pines.
“There’s no way out,” she shouted.
He knew that. He knew they were trapped. It was not a question of if but when the fire would catch them.
Not here. Not yet.
He glanced behind them. The fire glowed red in the rearview. So close now. Ahead there was only smoke and the orange flames that raced along on either side of the road. Finally he saw it. The black earth he had been searching for. The fire had already burned the easy fuel there. He glanced back. How long did he have? A few minutes. He needed more earth, more black earth between him and what chased them. He needed a place to survive the burn-over.
He went as far as he could, hoping, praying it was far enough. Knowing if he went any farther he would not have the moments he needed to prepare.
Dylan hit the brakes.
“What are you doing?” yelled Meadow. “Go! Go!”
He reached across the gap between them and dragged her out of the truck by her wrist. She didn’t fight him, just locked her jaw and allowed him to pull her behind him. He grabbed his rake and thrust it at her. She clutched it in her free hand, the other still gripping her camera. Then he seized his pack and Pulaski ax from the utility storage box in his truck bed. No time to talk. No room for the bottles of water he always carried. He glanced about as he judged the wind and the flames, wishing the crowns of the trees had already burned. Then he rushed them off the embankment to the black earth. The road would help break the flames, but the truck... Were they far enough to be clear of the gas tanks? He tugged her along, running into the smoking black soil that crunched beneath his construction boots. Choosing his spot because he was out of time, he went to work with the ax breaking the soil, tearing away the burned vegetation by the roots, digging a trench. The ground was so hot. He’d never thought he’d have to deploy his fire shelter. After all the training films and practice and all the fires he had fought, Dylan really had believed that he could control the situation, stay ahead of the fire line and always have a viable escape plan. Yet, here he was.
“What are you doing?” she yelled.
The roar was louder and the hot wind rushed past them.
“Rake that away!” he yelled.
He broke more soil, digging deeper and glancing at the approaching wall of flame.
She pushed the tripod down the front of her shirt before using the fire rake to pull away the roots and brush he cleared with the ax.
“A grave?” she asked.
He paused to stare at her. She looked back with a calm that terrified him because he saw that she was ready to die.
“Fire shelter,” he called.
Her brows lifted and he could not tell if she was relieved or disappointed.
No time now.
“That comes off.” He tugged at her shirt.
“What?”
“Polyester. It melts.” He dragged the shirt over her head. She dropped the rake. The camera tumbled free, and she stooped to her knees to snatch it up again and yelped at the contact of her bare knee with the smoking ground. He went for his pack, grabbing the flame-retardant shirt he wore to fight fires and tugged it on. It would be his back between the shelter and the flames.
“This, too?” She lifted the edge of the flimsy scrap of fabric that was her skirt.
He nodded and dropped the camel pack in the ditch, then took his gloves and radio, but nothing else. He’d never heard of two people deploying in a shelter that was designed for one.
