the wind they were both dead. He dropped to his knees, already tugging the fire shelter from the nylon sheath.
“That looks like a Jiffy Pop bag,” she said.
“Come!” he roared.
She dropped before him and he enveloped her, forcing her down to the earth and into the shallow ditch he had made. The roar grew louder, like a jet engine that went on and on.
He got the shelter over them and used the hand straps to tug the edges about them. His feet slid inside the elastic and he braced, holding himself up on his elbows.
“It’s hot,” she called, wriggling. “The ground—it’s too hot. I’m burning.”
“Stay still.” It was hotter outside, he knew. Five hundred degrees and rising, he thought, his training providing him the information.
“This isn’t going to stop it. It’s thin as one of those emergency blankets.”
Except this was two-ply. A silicon layer and the reflective outer foil.
“We’ll cook alive!” she yelled.
It was possible. Not all deployed wildfire fighters survived. But mostly they died from the heated gases that scorched their lungs until they could not breathe.
“Stick your face in the dirt and take shallow breaths,” he shouted in her ear to be heard above the roar. The explosion that shook them told him that his truck tires had blown. The gas tank would be next. Flying debris could rip the shelter. If that happened, they would die here.
The fire shield now seemed a living thing that he had to wrestle to hold down about them. The heat intensified until he felt as if the skin on his back burned. Every time the shelter touched him, it seared. He kept his elbows pinned and punched at the shelter, creating an air space. Each breath scalded his lungs. He took shallow sips of air and held them as long as possible, hoping the next breath would not be his last.
* * *
MEADOW FELT THE weight of him pressing down upon her. He was so big and the ground so hot. She couldn’t breathe.
“We have to get out,” she yelled, not knowing if he heard her. The air in her next breath was so hot she choked. He pushed her head down to the ground.
“Dig!” he ordered.
She held the neck of the tripod and used the collapsed legs to dig, making a hole, and then she released her GoPro to cup her hands over her face to inhale. How could he even breathe? The air above her head was even hotter. He needed to get his face down by hers.
She dug faster, using her hands now, her acrylic nails raking soft sand as she burrowed like a ground squirrel. “You, too!”
She gasped at the intake of hot air into her throat.
He wriggled forward, his cheek now beside hers, his nose and lips pressing into her cupped hands. She could feel his shallow breath. Their skin was hot and damp where their cheeks met.
From somewhere outside the balloon shelter came an explosion. She flinched.
“Gas tank,” he shouted, clarifying what had just blown up.
The roaring went on and the shield fluttered and bucked, reminding her of the slack sail on a sailboat.
Ready about, her father would call, and the boom would swing over her head. As the smallest and quickest, she was allowed to scramble up to the foredeck to tie off the lines and drop the buoy between the ship and the dock.
Something stung her chest. She clawed at her bra.
“Burning,” she cried.
Dylan lifted, released the back fastening as she tugged it clear.
“Metal heats up,” he shouted in her ear. “Buttons, rivets.”
Underwire, she thought. The thing was so hot, like a brand against her flesh. She wondered if she had burned her skin. If she could just lift the edge of the cover and get some air. But he held it down with his forearms and legs. She reached for the shelter and he grabbed her wrist, forcing it to the hot, black earth.
“I need to breathe!” she shouted.
He said nothing. Just held her down along with the tinfoil roaster bag that was cooking them alive. It was an oven. Hotter than an oven. She pressed her face back in the dirt and tried to breathe through the fingers of her free hand. The rings were heating. She tugged at her captured hand. He resisted.
“My rings. Burning!”
He released her and she jerked off her silver, gold and platinum rings and pushed them away.
Beams of red light shone down in narrow shafts through the cover. She glanced up. There were holes in the shelter. She pointed and felt him nod.
“It will be all right,” he said. “It will still work.”
Had the roaring decreased? She wasn’t sure.
“How you doing?” he asked.
She could hear him now. He wasn’t shouting.
“I don’t want to die,” she whispered. The words came as a surprise to her. Yesterday there was nothing she’d wanted to do. Nowhere she’d wanted to go. And now she just wanted to see the sky again. Dive into cold water. Inhale the scent of peonies.
“We’re both going to live.” He brushed his cheek against hers. “I’ll keep you safe, Meadow. It won’t get you.”
She closed her eyes and struggled to control the ball of pain that tried to escape her throat as a sob. She failed. Here she had thought there was only a thin veil of foil between her and the fire. But it wasn’t so. Dylan stood between her and the flames. He protected her with his body and his promise, and she loved him for it.
“How long do we have to stay in here?”
He shifted, letting his hip slide to the ground, taking some of his weight from her. “A while. Have to be sure it’s past us.”
“How will you know?”
“The sound. The roar is fading. The heat and the color. It’s orange now. See?”
She lifted her head to the pinholes and saw the light that had been pink and then red like the flashing light of a fire engine were now the orange of glowing coals. The sky shouldn’t be that color. Never, ever. She let her head fall back to the breathing hole.
He stuck something against her face.
“Drink,” he ordered.
It was a tube. She put it in her mouth and swallowed. Water—hot, stale and welcome. She drank until he took the hose from her. How much water had she lost in this tinfoil tent?
She marveled at him.
