The San Gabriel Mountains were tinder-dry, and in the midst of their pyromaniacal exertions Christina and River had ignited some forest debris. A breeze blew light and steady through the grove, and already the hungry flames were marching downwind, devouring leaves and sticks and acorns. A spark drifted to a pile of pruned cannabis waste. The pile lit swiftly and poured marijuana-scented smoke into the air.
As the fire grew, so did the cracking and snapping of its flames. Christina grabbed River’s arm and dragged her toward the trees upwind of the blaze. Unwillingly she cried out in pain when she tried to support River’s injured side. To protect her hands, she thrust her arm under River’s and lifted with her whole body instead of just her hands.
The commotion awakened the guard. He leaped to his feet and shouted. Christina expected to hear pursuit, even shots in their direction, but the man ran the opposite way. She glanced back and saw the fire crawling up a manzanita shrub adjacent to the tent, each newly ignited leaf flaring like a flashbulb as it burned and went out. He’s going to save his buddies, she thought. Perversely, she was relieved to know they wouldn’t be killed in their sleep.
“Let go!” River said.
They were secluded under the cover of darkness in the trees, and Christina noticed at last that River wasn’t hopping on one leg.
“I’m fine,” River said, gently extricating herself from her cousin’s supportive arm.
“Your ankle?”
“I faked it,” River said, grinning a little. “Thought it might be useful for them to think I was crippled.”
“Damn it, River! If I had known you could walk on your own I wouldn’t have fried my hands so I could help you.”
The grin vanished. “Oh, Chrissy, I’m sorry. I assumed you had some plan to try to get the box back.”
Ah, the box!
The flames were spreading with alarming speed. Shouts rang from the tent as sparks rained down on its canvas roof and the fabric began to smolder.
“You weren’t going to leave without the cure, were you?”
“I was, to save you,” she said. “How could I run away, if you couldn’t follow?”
River’s eyes glistened. “We can run together, but we can’t leave it here to be destroyed.”
Teardrop and his two henchmen emerged from the tent, hollering obscenities. They carried their guns and what looked like bottles. Christina didn’t see the distinctive white and orange box in their hands. The roof of the tent ignited.
“Turn around,” Christina ordered. She went to work on the knot securing River’s wrists. The touch of the rough twine on her singed fingers burned, but she ignored it and struggled to untie the string. It was odd how the worst burns on her wrists, the areas that made her feel faint to look at, hurt the least.
In the distance, the drug gang fanned out away from the tent.
“Got it,” she declared, and River wriggled her hands out of the bonds. The twine fell to the ground.
“They’re out of the tent,” Christina said. “If Teardrop left the tubes in the Styrofoam, they should be okay for a few minutes yet.”
As if to hasten her decision, flames now licked the tent’s walls.
“I’ll go get the box. You stay here.”
She didn’t wait for an answer but scurried off toward the tent, taking care to stay several yards back from the clearing.
Smoke stung her eyes as she approached the fire, which was spilling over the ground like floodwater from a broken dam. Automatically she raised a hand to rub her eyes but cringed when she remembered her tattered palms.
She tracked Skinny Bad Guy #1, the guard who fell asleep on the job, moving into the cannabis field with his brother #2. Bad Guy #3, who’d rushed out of the tent in his underwear, had raced off in what she thought was the direction of the truck trail.
Unfortunately, she had no idea where Teardrop was.
The thickening smoke made her cough, and she dropped to her knees to escape some of it. She wasn’t worried about being heard; the noise of the fire was loud enough to muffle the sound of her movement. The light cast by the flames was a bigger problem. Crawling was her best bet, but she couldn’t use her hands and had to waddle as low to the ground as her legs could manage.
The tent stood only seconds away from her. It was thoroughly on fire now. Christina identified the side with the entrance flap. The entrance was tall, a walk in-walk out design, and she prayed it wasn’t zipped. She was marshaling her courage to dash into the burning structure when she saw Teardrop coming her way.
He jogged toward the tent with one hand on his rifle and the other carrying a satchel or money bag of some kind. He didn’t appear to see her yet.
Shit. As soon as she made her move into the clearing, he would see her. The thick Styrofoam was a good insulator but it wouldn’t protect the samples forever. If she didn’t get that box out of the tent soon, Dr. Chen’s cure for the petroplague and the fuel-making E. coli would be lost.
As Teardrop approached, a flaming limb dropped from a tree and narrowly missed him. He hesitated, perhaps wondering if whatever he sought from the tent was worth the risk. Then a loud noise—like a woman screaming—drew his attention. He took off at a run in the direction of the sound, which happened to be away from the fire—and the tent.
Last chance, Christina thought. She grabbed a stick and dashed for the entrance flap.
Out in the open the smoke was somewhat thinner, and in the brilliant light of the burning canvas, she could see well. Using the stick, she pried open the flap as wide as it would go. Then, holding her breath and steeling herself to the heat, she ducked inside.
Fire. Inside the tent was an inferno. The exposed skin on her face howled in protest at the heat. Flames rolled up the walls like waterfalls in reverse. Her eyes burned, she wanted to close them. But she had to find the box.
Two sets of bunk bed cots defined the small space. Wool Army blankets lay rumpled on the beds. Christina snatched one and wrapped it around her head and face for protection, searching desperately for the white and orange box. She found it in an untidy pile of snack packages and beer cans, not yet aflame. Seconds later, using her covered head as a battering ram, she burst out of the tent into the relative coolness of the burning forest.
With the precious package in her arms, she was running toward where she’d left River when she remembered the scream. A woman’s scream. It now dawned on her that the scream had come from this direction.
“River!”
Where was she? Where was Teardrop?
Frantically plunging through the semi-darkness, Christina literally collided with the answer. The box was knocked from her hands and she squealed in pain, then delight, when she recognized her cousin.
“River—” she began.
“Shut up and run,” River said, grabbing the box and sprinting into the trees.
Christina ran. She didn’t know where they were going or what was happening behind them, but she followed River without question. The crack of gunshots rang out over the din of the fire, and she heard a man yell, “Puta!”
River led her at top speed with no sign of a limp. A tree trunk splintered as they passed: a bullet had torn into the wood. He’s close, Christina thought. Additional shots followed. River led them closer to the forest fire, aiming straight for a wall of flames. What the hell is she doing?
The temperature increased and Christina wanted to stop, to turn, but River kept going. They both coughed from the smoke; Christina covered her nose and mouth with the blanket. Just a few yards from the flames, River paused, looking for something. She found it, and plunged through a gap where it was safe—barely—to pass through. More gunshots chased them, but now hidden from Teardrop by the blaze, River changed direction.
Unexpectedly, the box tumbled from River’s grasp. Christina, only two steps behind, picked it up, and they ran side by side into the wilderness. Whenever an obstacle appeared, like a brush thicket, a boulder, or a small hill, they detoured to put it between them and the route back to the pot farm. Gradually, the fire receded behind them and the air cleared. Christina no longer heard shots or sounds of pursuit. But the young women ran and ran, slackening their pace as they grew tired and the fear which propelled them diminished.
Her muscles were starved for oxygen. Christina had to slow to a walk.
“I think we’re in the clear,” she said, panting. “God, my hands hurt.”
She went to give the box to her cousin to carry, when in the dim light she noticed that River was clutching her left arm to her chest.
“Are you okay?”
River sank to the ground, shaking her head no. Frightened, Christina came around and saw blood dripping from the fingers of River’s right hand, which was pressed against the left arm, covering something.
“What is it?” Christina said. “Show me.”
Gently, Christina peeled back the protective hand with her own gory mess of a mitt. Muscle and bone poked from River’s torn sleeve, soaked in a pulsing stream of arterial blood. She’d been shot.