Firewolf

“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.

Chapter Three

“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. In only minutes he had gathered from the truck exactly what they needed to survive.

“How do you know all this? How do you have one of these things?” Hotshot, she remembered. Walking twenty miles to deploy, he’d said. She needed to get one of these Jiffy Pop thingies. “You fight wildfires,” she said, more to herself than to him.

“Yes.”

“Dylan?”

“Hmm?”

She wished she could look at him, see his handsome face, those dark eyes and the clean line of his jaw, but he was so close that his nose was pressed to her ear and he lay half across her.

“Can you...talk to me? You know? Take my mind off...”

“What about?”

“Tell me about yourself.”

“Well, I told you my name. I’m from the Turquoise Canyon Apache tribe. We are Tonto Apache. I live up there on the reservation between Antelope Lake and Darabee in the mountains.”

His voice was like a song with a lyrical quality that calmed her. She felt the panic easing away as he continued.

“If I met you there I would say to you, ‘Hello, I am Bear, born of Butterfly, and my father’s name is Jonathan Tehauno. My mother’s name is Dorothy Florez. They named me Dylan.’ It’s more important there to know your parents and clans. Your name comes after all that or sometimes not at all. So when I say, ‘Bear, born of Butterfly,’ you know my father’s clan is Bear and my mother’s clan is Butterfly.”

“I live in Phoenix. I am Wrangler, born of Theron and Lupe. My mother’s name was Cortez.”

He chuckled and she felt herself smile.

“Tell me more.” She felt herself relaxing, her weary muscles twitching from the tension that now eased away into the hot earth.

“I live in the community of Koun’nde in tribal housing. My friends make fun of me because my home has so many books.”

She chuckled because she had stopped reading the minute she realized no one could make her do anything.

“I own a truck, nearly, and have five horses in the community herd. Well, I did own a truck.” He sighed and then coughed. After a moment he kept talking, his breath cool against her face. “I like to ride. I’ve won some endurance races on horses and on foot. After high school, I joined the US Marines. I was honorably discharged after two tours. Decided not to reenlist. I missed home. It’s cool up on the mountain. Not like down here in Flagstaff or over in the Sandbox. That’s what we called Iraq.”

His voice hummed in her ear, a deep, resonant song. She closed her watering eyes.

“Let’s see. I’m a member of a medicine society, the Turquoise Guardians. We dance at festivals and perform ceremonies. I sing in a drum circle.”

She didn’t know what any of that meant, but she wanted him to keep talking.

“The people say I have a good voice.”

Meadow agreed with that, though she had not heard him sing. She wanted to ask him, but it was so hard for her just to breathe, she didn’t have the heart.

“I’ve been trying to get some of my friends to join me in August to go up to Rapid City for the Indian Relay Races. We’d need four good horses and a four-man team. One rider and each horse runs one mile with the same rider.”

She tried to picture that, one man leaping from one horse to another.

“I keep telling Jack that he was born to be a catcher and Ray and Carter could hold the mounts. I’d like to ride, but if they’re faster I’d let them go, instead. Only now Carter’s in witness protection. So we need a fourth. I suggested Carter’s brother Kurt. He’s smaller but strong. Jack said he’d think about it. Jack Bear Den is a detective on our tribal police. His brother Carter and my friend Ray Strong are hotshots. Turquoise Canyon Hotshots. That’s us. Kurt Bear Den is a paramedic with the air ambulance. I’ve been a hotshot since I came home but it’s only six months, the fire season. So I need more work. I was supposed to meet Cheney Williams.”

Her eyes popped open. “I know him.”

“You do?”

“He works with my dad. He’s a financial guy for the documentaries. Contracts, I think. Something. I’m not really sure. He’s around a lot.” Meadow felt a rumble in Dylan’s chest, like a growl.

“I was told that he’s an attorney in environmental law. Working to stop that house.”

“You haven’t met him?”

“No. My shaman recommended me.”

She lifted her chin. It was easier to breathe. “Was he up there?”

The rough stubble on his chin brushed her temple. “Probably. He was meeting me there.”

“Do you think he got out?”

Silence was her answer.

“Who would do this?”

His body tensed. “I’m planning to find that out.”

“The whole ridge exploded. The rocks were flying everywhere. I can’t believe they didn’t hit me.” She told him everything. About how she was filming and the red fireball and the house collapsing and the trees ablaze.

“You filmed the whole thing?”

“Yes.”

“Why were you here today?”

“I’ve been here several times during the construction. My father sent me. He has a shooting schedule.” She didn’t say that her dad hadn’t used any of the footage she’d shot. That she was beginning to think her assignment was a snipe hunt, designed to be rid of her, keep her busy and out of the clubs. That last headline had embarrassed them. Too much attention, her mother had said.

Too much was better than none at all, she thought, and she lowered her head.

“Your father sent you here. Today.”

She didn’t like the way he said that.

“Well, he couldn’t have known this would happen.”

His silence was her only answer. Meadow frowned. She didn’t like that silence. There was something sinister and judgmental about it.

“My father is a saint. He’s spent his whole life raising awareness of really important issues with his films.”

Still no reply.

“What are you implying?” she asked.

“Heck of a coincidence.”

“I could say the same for you.”

“Yes. That occurred to me,” he said.

The hairs on her neck lifted. She felt the need to fill the silence.

“Lucky you were here,” she said.

“Yeah.” There was a long pause. “Lucky.”

“You saved my life.”

“Not yet, I haven’t.” He moved again, trying his radio and getting nothing but static. He slipped the antenna out from under the fire shield and tried again. This time he got through to someone and she heard him give their position and ask for assistance. He also asked them to contact Detective Jack Bear Den on Turquoise Canyon Reservation.

He retracted the radio antenna inside the shield and she saw the black plastic tip had melted.

“I guess my car and Wi-Fi antenna is toast.”

“You have internet out here?”

“I did. I was streaming my footage.”

“You captured the explosion and streamed it...where?”

“My social media. Vine, Snapchat, Instagram. I also have YouTube, Facebook and Google+ and send footage to my remote server.”

He went very still. “So anyone could see what you shot.”

“Yes. That’s the point.”

“So you don’t need to make it out of here alive for someone to see what you saw.”

The hairs on her neck now began to tingle.

“What are you saying?”

“I think you and I were sent here to die.”

Chapter Four

Dylan tried to put the pieces together. He didn’t know if he was injured. During the worst of the burn-over he’d felt as if the skin on his back had burned. He knew from his training that it was not uncommon for a deployed hotshot to suffer burns. But the shelters worked. And theirs had worked. They were alive and the worst had passed. The worst of the firestorm. But now he wondered if by sending a distress call he had alerted whoever had sent them that they had survived. Radio channels were easy to monitor. If his hunch was right, they needed to get out of here before help arrived because the worst of the firestorm might still be out there.

The vehicles would be useless. He’d heard the tires blow and both gas tanks explode. His poor truck. He didn’t even own it yet. Meadow would likely have a new Audi by morning.

If they lived that long.

Help was coming, but so too were the ones who had set that explosive. Dylan was sure.

“Tell me what’s happening,” she demanded.

Was she one of them? A WOLF or a BEAR? WOLF, Wilderness of Land Forever, was the less radicalized arm of the eco-extremists, who destroyed property but only if it did not jeopardize human life. BEAR made no such allowances. The FBI thought her father was a member of BEAR, perhaps the head of the eco-extremist group. Jack had told him that. But they hadn’t proved it—not yet.

Had she been sent here as a sacrificial lamb, to die for the cause as a martyr?

He remembered that look when she’d asked him if he was digging their grave. She’d been ready.

“Did you come here to die?”

“What?” she said. She made a scoffing sound and then gave a halfhearted laugh.

Dylan felt his upper arm tingle. Not because of the heat outside the shelter but because of the tattoo he had gotten after joining Tribal Thunder, the warrior sect of his medicine society. His shaman had suggested each new member have a spirit animal to help guide them. It was Ray Strong’s idea to have them branded on their skin. Dylan’s spirit animal was bobcat, and his tattoo was the track of the bobcat on a medicine shield, beneath which hung five eagle feathers. He loved having a cat as his guide but did not appreciate the reason. His shaman said Dylan was too overt and needed to be aware that not all things operated on the surface. Bobcat would help him see what was hidden and give him a quality he lacked—stealth.

Dylan had a reputation for being where he was supposed to be and doing what was expected, more than was expected. He wasn’t reckless like Ray Strong or suspicious like Jack Bear Den or a natural leader like Jack’s twin brother, Carter. He was predictable and he followed the rules. He was the conscience of the group. Was that so bad?

This woman beneath him was not what she seemed. A shadow figure. Appearing one thing while being another or existing on two planes at the same time. A woman with two faces. He felt it and Bobcat warned him to be cautious.

“Have you heard of an organization called WOLF, or one called BEAR?” he asked, and then kicked himself for the overt question. But how would he know the answer if he could not ask?

BEAR was much worse. Bringing Earth Apocalyptic Restoration. That group was eco-terrorists. They’d orchestrated the mass shooting at the Lilac Copper Mine to cover the long-term theft of mining supplies and then paid a member of his tribe to kill the gunman of the mass murder, breaking the link between the gunman and those who sent him.

“WOLF? Yes. They burned that Jeep outfit in Sedona. Right? Some kind of activist opposed to overdevelopment of the land. Can hardly blame them. Damn red Hummers rolling all over the fragile ecosystem.” Her mouth dropped open. She must have inhaled some of the sand on her face because she coughed and spit. Then she turned, trying to glance back at him. They were so close he could feel every muscle in her back tense. So close he could press his lips to her temple.

“You think they did this?” she asked.

He did not reply, but he could almost hear her mind working.

“But the fire. They must have known that would cause a fire. And they don’t destroy the land. They protect it. And the explosion. That was like something from a movie.”

“Or a mine,” Dylan said.

“Lilac.”

There had been no mention of the loss of mining supplies from the Lilac mine in the media. Yet she had made the connection with the speed of a lightning strike. Mines had explosives, blasting cord and everything you needed to do exactly what they had just both witnessed.

He swallowed as he accepted the confirmation. Why did he think she could not be one of them? Because she was pretty or pampered or seemingly suffering from a terminal case of affluenza? Bobcat would see through all that. Bobcat would proceed slowly without moving a single blade of grass.

Her father, Theron Wrangler, was the one person the FBI had successfully linked to BEAR because Amber Kitcheyan, an employee at Lilac and the only survivor, had heard that name spoken the day before the shooting. Dylan’s friend Carter Bear Den had rescued her and the FBI now had both of them in protective custody.

This woman was Theron’s daughter and she’d captured the explosion on film, then streamed it live. He thought of the suicide bombers in the Middle East. Had she planted those explosives?

“We have to get out of here,” Dylan said.

“I’m all for that.”

He glanced up at the holes in his fire shelter—the required equipment he had purchased a year ago and never expected to need. His crew was too careful, too experienced and too smart to be trapped by the living, breathing monster of a wildfire.

He dragged the camel pack from beneath his knees and drank, then offered Meadow a drink. Some deployed men suffered from dehydration, and, unable to leave the shelter as their bodies had lost too much vital fluids, they died. He was lucky to have had the seconds he needed to grab the water pouch.

Dylan thought about his truck and the sturdy utility box made of a polymer and likely now a melted lump of plastic. All his equipment and the water—gone.

He resisted the urge to lift the shelter as he estimated the temperature inside had reached over two hundred degrees and was now falling. Every rock and stone beneath them radiated heat like the bricks in a pizza oven.

“Couldn’t it have been a gas explosion?” she asked.

“No gas lines.”

“Welding tanks, for construction?”

“Maybe.” Let her think that. He’d seen gas tanks explode on training videos. They were impressive but could not melt steel and bring down a 4500-square-foot home.

Dylan debated what to do. If he stayed, it gave whoever picked up his radio transmission time to get to them.

What would his friend Ray Strong do? Ray was the crazy one, or he had been until he met Morgan Hooke and became responsible for a woman and her child. Ray had changed. Perhaps his spirit animal, eagle, had really helped him see clearly and act, not on impulse, but with clarity and purpose.

Jack Bear Den would tell Dylan to be careful. To act on the assumption that the worst was coming and to be ready.

Jack’s twin, Carter Bear Den, would tell Dylan to be ready to fight what came. Carter’s tattoo was a bear track. Bears were strong. Carter had needed that strength to leave his tribe and go with the woman he loved. What would Carter do? He’d been their captain for the Turquoise Canyon Hotshots, a job Dylan assumed when Carter left them in February. They would be deploying without him today. He was sure. Who would be leading them now?

Dylan had joined the Turquoise Canyon Hotshots after his discharge. He had four full seasons fighting wildfire and two months and three fires as captain. But none like this. Back then fighting wildfire had been exciting. He had felt immortal. But his tours of duty in Iraq had shown him that none of them were and, lately, he had felt the weight of being the leader of his team. His decisions meant the life or death of members of his crew and he found himself questioning his ability to lead.

He held the shelter, feeling the time race by with the wind. If he was right and they stayed here too long, someone would come to finish what the fire had started. If they left too early, the heat would burn their lungs, saving the team from BEAR the trouble of killing them.

* * *

“HOW MUCH LONGER?” asked Meadow.

The sand and grit stuck to her damp skin. She’d never been so thirsty and she was beginning to feel dizzy.

“A few minutes more.” He glanced at her. “Why don’t you tell me about yourself? Pass the time.” And get to know the enemy beside him. Bobcat would be pleased.

“Well, okay. I’m Meadow. My mom’s nickname for me is Dodo, if that’s any hint. You know, like the bird? I’m the last of six children. The oops baby. My next oldest sister, Katrina, is seven years my senior. My oldest brother, Phillip, is the CEO of PAN. My three sisters, Connie, short for Consuelo, Rosalie, Katrina, and my other brother, Miguel, are all professionals with promising careers.” She had started to use air quotes but then dropped her hands back to the hot earth and the tripod.

Being so much younger sometimes made her feel like she was an only child with six parents.

“I’m closest to Katrina. She looked out for me when she could, or she used to before...you know, when I was a kid.”

And when Meadow was home, which wasn’t often.

“Your name isn’t Spanish,” said Dylan.

“What? No, it isn’t.”

“The others are, and your mother, Lupe.”

She’d never really thought of that before.

“Anyway. Phillip is a CEO. Miguel is a doctor. So is Connie, Consuelo. Rosalie is an attorney and Kat has a business degree from Berkeley, undergrad and a law degree from...” She tapped her chin. “I forget where... Anyway, just passed the bar. They all went to private school here. Me, too, for a while. I got kicked out. I also got kicked out of schools in Westchester, Greenwich, Boston and Vermont.”

“That’s a lot of schools.”

“What can I say? I’m good at what I do.”

“So you cause trouble. Make a big fuss so everyone notices you.”

“That’s it.” Only they didn’t. Not often.

But getting sent home was the one sure way to get her father’s attention.

“Oh, and colleges, too. I went to NYU for film. My dad made a contribution because my grades, well... I tried to be a chip off the old block. But my brothers have that gig all tied up. So I went to Berkeley for economics and then UCLA for marine biology.”

“How’d you do?”

“I got mostly A’s on the tests I took. Problem was I didn’t take enough of them. I had trouble getting to class.”

“Failed out?”

“Every time.”

“But all A’s. You’re smart.”

“If I was smart, would I be lying under an Apache hotshot in the middle of a wildfire?”

“Good point.”

“Maybe I’ll go back to school. They have some in Hawaii. I could learn to surf.”

“How old are you?”

“Twenty-six, but I’ll be twenty-seven next month. Just in time to join the 27 Club.”

“What’s that?”

She turned to stare at him in disbelief. “You got to get off your mountain. Get your brain out of the smoke.”