7:23 P.M.
AS NATALIA WATCHED, WYATT scrambled up the steep hill. He was in the full sun, but down here, in the shadows by the water, the light was changing as the sun got lower in the sky. Long, slanted rays revealed that smoke was beginning to reach them. How long until the fire did?
To calm herself, she took a deep breath, regretting it when she tasted the smoke. Around her, the other people were gradually coalescing, all of them looking up, focused on Wyatt.
Before joining them, the guy who had passed them on the way in tossed the bottle cap he’d been carrying into the water. Natalia didn’t bother to hide her disgusted look. What a jerk! All those cargo pockets and he couldn’t be bothered to pack out a single bottle cap? The bottle it belonged to had probably been tossed into the bushes along the way here. He met her glare with narrowed eyes.
Now he challenged her. “Are you sure there’s a fire? I was just through there like a half hour ago and I didn’t see any fire.”
“Well, there’s one now.” She waved at the particles floating in the sunbeams. “You can see the smoke in the air.”
The girl in the flip-flops pointed at Wyatt. Her nails were painted purple. “So that’s your boyfriend up there?”
“Um, we work together at an ice cream shop in Portland.” Natalia gave the other girl a weak smile. “This was kind of our first date.”
“Some first date!” She rolled her eyes. “My name’s Beatriz.”
“Natalia.” She pointed up the hill. “And that’s Wyatt.”
With her thumb, Beatriz gestured back at the guy with the dog, who was standing a little apart from everyone. “My boyfriend, Marco. And the dog’s named Blue.” Knuckling the top of Blue’s head, Marco nodded at them. He was skinny with a mop of streaked blond hair. His shorts, with hacked-off legs of different lengths, had clearly once been jeans.
Everyone else introduced themselves. The older guy was Darryl, and his grandson was named Zion. AJ was the stocky guy in boots that looked as new as Natalia’s. Susan had an old-fashioned pack made of green canvas and gray curls peeking out from her sun hat. The jerk was the last one to give his name—Jason.
Wyatt was nearly at the top when suddenly his left foot slipped on some loose rocks. As Natalia gasped, he caught himself.
“He looks like he knows what he’s doing, honey,” Susan said.
Natalia wasn’t reassured. This was real life. If Wyatt fell, he could be badly hurt. Maybe even killed. If he broke his back or even a leg, how much could she really do with her first aid kit? The Red Cross class she took every summer was predicated on what to do in the few minutes you might have to wait for an ambulance.
Wyatt finally reached the top. He turned and waved. Even though he was a good ten feet from the edge, Natalia wished he would take a few more steps back. After pulling out his phone, he extended his arm and turned in a circle, squinting. He slowed, moved the phone toward him, frowned, stopped. Then he seemed to have found a small sweet spot. He began tapping on the screen, still at arm’s length.
Beatriz clapped. “He must have a signal!”
Gingerly, Wyatt tilted the phone so the speaker was closest to him. The rush of the falls made it impossible to hear anything he said. He listened with his head cocked, nodded a couple of times, and spoke very little. Finally, he turned in the direction of the parking lot, shading his eyes with his free hand. But when he tried to relay what he saw, it was clear from his frustrated expression and how he moved the phone that he had lost the signal.
After a few minutes of trying and failing to find it again, Wyatt pocketed the phone and started back. Before he was even halfway down, people were shouting questions.
“What did they say?” AJ yelled.
Darryl cupped his hands around his mouth. “When are they coming?”
Wyatt held up one hand to tell them to wait. Finally he reached the last big boulder. Rather than trying to climb down, he crouched and jumped, landing with bent knees.
“Okay, okay.” He held up both hands as more questions flew. “Just let me talk. 9-1-1 patched me through to the sheriff’s department. They already knew about the fire, but now they’re alerting the Forest Service that we’re here. They said we should wait for further instructions.”
“Wait? Is that such a good idea?” AJ gestured at the increasingly murky air. “It’s already getting smokier. What if the fire gets here before they do?”
“I took a look while I was up there,” Wyatt said. “It’s still maybe three-quarters of a mile away.”
“Could you see that couple who kept going?” Natalia asked. It was hard to breathe when she thought of Trask’s chubby hands clutched in his father’s hair.
He shook his head. “But there’s a lot of tree cover. And there are breaks in the fire. Maybe they found a way through.”
“If that fire gets a wind behind it,” Darryl said, “it’ll eat up that three-quarters of a mile before you know it.” His sunglasses made his expression unreadable, but his words made Zion press his face into his grandpa’s round belly.
Wyatt’s mouth twisted. “They said that one problem is that the best way out is already blocked by the Cougar Creek fire.”
“How are we supposed to get instructions, anyway?” Beatriz asked. “None of us can get a signal down here, and you barely got one up there.”
AJ pointed. “Look!”
Four helicopters appeared on the horizon. The three largest carried giant cloth buckets. One by one, they released their contents. Two were filled with what must have been fire retardant. It was the bright red of fresh blood. The third dropped what looked like water.
Three helicopters trying to put out the flames. Not the one Wyatt had thought might do the trick. But that was when they’d first spotted the fire. How far had it spread since? Would three be enough?
But maybe it didn’t even matter, because the fourth helicopter, the smallest and the only one without a bucket, was buzzing closer.
With the rest, Natalia jumped and cheered, shouted and waved. She wasn’t worried the pilot didn’t see them. It was just a way of channeling her anxiety. Soon they would be safe.
The chopper hovered directly above them. Leaves and even small sticks began to rise in the air, swirling in the wind created by the turning blades.
Beatriz wrinkled her nose. “Do you think it can hold all of us?” She had to raise her voice to be heard over the rotors.
“If not, Zion should be on the first trip out.” Darryl said. “And, Susan, maybe you, too.”
“But it’s getting dark,” AJ said. “Can that thing even land at night? What if it can only take one trip?”
Instead of landing, the helicopter began to lift higher. As the group fell into stunned silence, it started to fly away.
“Maybe they’re going back to get a bigger one,” Beatriz said. “So there’s room for all of us.”
A shiver danced across Natalia’s skin as she watched the helicopter grow smaller and smaller. She must have made some small sound of protest, because Wyatt whispered, “Are you okay?” in her ear.
She kept her voice low. “This was just supposed to be a day trip. I don’t want to get stuck here overnight.”
“I don’t think we will be.” Wyatt’s tone was matter-of-fact. Natalia thought he was trying to reassure her, until he added, “The thing is, up there I could see pretty far. And all I could see was fire. I think it’s too late for those helicopters to stop it. And that means we won’t be able to stay put. I’ve got a map and compass in my pack. I’m going to figure out how we can get out of here.”
All I could see was fire. Shock kept her from protesting.
Shrugging off his backpack, Wyatt rummaged through it until he found the map. He was tracing his finger over contour lines when Zion shouted and pointed. The small helicopter was coming back.
This time it dropped a weighted plastic bag. It landed on the other side of a small creek that fed the falls.
Barking, Blue ran toward it, with Marco splashing right behind. He picked up the bag and opened it. Inside was a rock and a piece of paper. While people shouted at him to read it, Natalia just watched his face. First his eyes narrowed, and then they went wide. He raised them from the note to the helicopter, which was again lifting up. Already flying away, without a single one of them on board.
“It says, ‘Fire spreading.’” Marco stopped to cough, then cleared his throat. “‘Extreme danger. Head to Sky Bridge.’”