The Wildfire Season Read online

  ‘What do you want?’

  Now that it has his attention, the bird serenades him with an unsettling medley of its trademark noises: the old-lady squawk, the strangled gasp, the dripping faucet.

  ‘Who are you?’ Miles shouts at it, and realizes that this is the question he wanted the answer to in the first place.

  The raven laughs.

  Miles bends to pick up a handful of stones to throw at it, no matter if one of them shatters his windshield or not. But when he raises his head again and takes aim, the raven is gone.

  ‘So you can fly now, can you?’ Miles calls out into the trees. ‘Well, you should have flown up that hill when you had the chance. You hear me? You should have fucking flown like the rest of them!’

  He’s breathing so hard the smoke chokes him. Behind him, he can feel the first colours of dawn spilling over the hills.

  On his way back to the truck Miles tells himself he will try the radio again or make another attempt at sleep, although he knows he will only sit there waiting for the crew to return, keeping watch for Mr Raven in the pines.

  He awakens in darkness unmistakable for night. Starless and close, a density he has never felt from any sky. There is also a weight on his chest that makes it difficult to breathe. He wonders if he is having a heart attack. Then he realizes that the heaviness is not on his chest alone but on all of his body. You don’t feel a heart attack in your legs, do you? Your forehead? Your balls?

  Wade tries to move and confirms his initial impression that he cannot. Prevented not just from getting to his feet but from lifting a knee, a finger. The recognition of his paralysis forces a cry from his throat. It comes out little more than a squeak. When he inhales, he tastes not air but earth and stone.

  The bear has buried him alive.

  He remembers lying twisted on the avalanche slide after the sow struck him. Her head swinging. When unconsciousness drifted closer he had welcomed it.

  She had taken his arm in her teeth, dragged him over the shale and into the trees. The throbbing above his left wrist tells him this. Not far from where they started, he thinks, but it could also be miles. He doesn’t recall her digging up the forest and piling it on top of him, but this is what happened. Margot had told him how they do it. It’s how bears build a food cache. And in time she will return to feed on what she has stored.

  He tries moving again and this time manages to unsettle some of the smaller rocks over his face. It sends a cascade of dirt into his mouth.

  He sobs for a time, but it is something that occurs only at the perimeter of his sensations, like the pain in his arm. The longer he stretches the moments between blacking out, the stronger he feels.

  She should have buried him deeper.

  Chapter 17

  In the salt-and-pepper haze that counts for dawn on a fire site, Miles leaves the truck to walk back the half mile to the Comeback. Or rather, the half mile from where it was the night before. Today, it doesn’t take nearly so long for him to find it. Less than a hundred yards from where he had fallen to his knees at the sound of the raven’s screech, stubby flames gnaw at the pine saplings.

  Miles instantly calculates its rate of growth over the last twenty-four hours and concludes a worstcase scenario and then some. The Comeback has gone from five acres to five hundred over a quiet, cool, nearly windless evening. As for today, already a hot breeze lifts sand off the road and throws yellow fistfuls after the smoke. If the fire was fast yesterday, the next few hours are going to be another matter altogether.

  Miles runs back to the truck and radioes in to the fire office in Whitehorse. At first, the dispatcher assumes she’s misunderstood his estimates.

  ‘It was an initial attack, Rank 3 situation at eighteen hundred hours yesterday, correct?’ she says. Ally’s her name. New this season. Miles summons the ounce of patience left available to him and uses it up in his next two words.

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘Now it’s a Rank 5?’

  ‘It’s quick, all right. And you’re not too slow yourself.’

  ‘Once more,’ Ally goes on as though she hadn’t heard his last remark. Miles can hear her scratching and rescratching notes on her Priority Report Sheet. ‘You’re telling me you’ve got an uncontrolled wildfire within fifteen kilometres of significant values?’

  ‘If by significant values you mean two hundred and forty human beings and a whack of perfectly good mobile homes, you’re reading me right.’

  ‘Cause of fire?’

  ‘What difference does it make?’

  ‘Procedure requires a combustion source query in order—’

  ‘Let’s call it undetermined.’

  There’s a silence from the dispatcher, and Miles assumes she’s filling in another blank on the page. But then she says, ‘Meteorological doesn’t have you down for any lightning strikes.’

  ‘You always believe weather forecasters?’

  ‘This isn’t forecast. It’s what we’ve already recorded. Lightning-free in your immediate area for the past two weeks.’

  ‘I sat through a storm in Tower 28 the day before yesterday.’

  ‘But that’s sixty kilometres from this fire’s point of origin.’

  ‘Lightning had to have started this.’

  ‘But it didn’t. And there’s no campgrounds or cabins anywhere nearby. I’m looking at the topographical right now.’

  ‘Good for you.’

  ‘I need to ask. Could this be a firestarter situation?’

  ‘Could be.’

  ‘It’s just that the fire’s progress is so accelerated, it’s consistent with—’

  ‘Look, put down whatever you want as the cause.’

  ‘I’m going to red-flag this file, you know. For recommended investigation.’

  ‘You can stick red flags anywhere you’d like, Ally,’ he says, his voice rising a menacing degree. ‘Just get me some help.’

  While he waits for the aerial report, Miles tries once more to get Margot on the radio. There’s nothing on her frequency but a strange new interference he guesses to be the fire, or maybe the clouds he’s noticed gathering to the southwest. Next he calls in to town and tells King to wake the team and bring them in, but to wait until they hear from him before coming out to the site. What Miles doesn’t tell him is that he has a feeling that this fire is already past the initial attack stage, and that their suppression efforts are about to turn the page into search and rescue.

  Within eighty minutes of his air request to Whitehorse, Miles receives word of the spotter’s report. Even he is surprised by how far the Comeback has travelled through the night. Worse, it has decided to choose the most threatening directions to run in. Having cut away from the truck, the fire has now laid a quarter-mile wall of flames across the Robert Campbell Highway, the only road in or out of Ross River. The only other possible route for evacuation would be the Pelly, but even if every powerboat in Faro and Carmacks were sent upriver right now, it would take ten days for them to carry a couple hundred people out. What Miles also knows is that the current is far too strong and the water, even in July, is too cold to act as a safe zone. There is only a single option remaining. An air evacuation using the three Bell 206Bs Whitehorse can get their hands on.

  ‘Nothing but 6Bs?’ Miles asks Ally. ‘They only seat four, maybe five. It’s going to take forever to get everybody out.’

  ‘It’s what we’ve got,’ she says plainly, and he’s forced to admit that, given the half-dozen other established wildfires that resources have been assigned to in the Territory, not to mention British Columbia, Washington, Oregon and California, there’s no doubt she’s telling the truth.

  She outlines Whitehorse Overhead’s plans to establish a base camp on the other side of the St Cyrs, the closest flat area south of the mountains, the fire and where he is now. Miles knows the valley well. A broad table of green through which the Lapie River runs north and joins the Pelly, accessible only by the single gravel lane of the unmaintained Canol Road coming up a
hundred and twenty miles from Johnson’s Crossing. No significant values anywhere close by, except for moose and some of the most striking scenery the tourists never get to see. Along the fast-moving Lapie sprout three almost identical teardrop lakes that bulge out from its course like grapes along a vine. If required, air tankers could use any of them as an ‘oasis,’ a water source for scooping buckets up to drop around the town. Miles has to agree that it’s a good place to situate an evacuation camp. It’s also the closest you can get to town without being north of the range, an area that will soon be considered too high risk. If the fire races south toward the base, the hills’ crest should at least slow it down, as the wind along ridgetops tends to soothe the flames for a time as they wonder which direction to go in next. For the next day or two, the Lapie valley should be safe. Everything north of the mountains, on the other hand, is dry tinder standing in the path of a firestorm.

  ‘Have you called an air-vac on all the towers?’ Miles asks Ally when he reaches her again on the radio.

  ‘The ones we can get to.’

  ‘What about Ruby Ritter’s?’

  ‘We haven’t had contact with Mount Locken since last night. And when we did a fly-over this morning, it was gone.’

  ‘What do you mean, gone?’

  ‘The tower,’ Ally says. ‘The fire got there before we could.’

  Miles switches off the radio. He sees Crazy Ruby losing her grip on the ladder on her way down into the smoke. He sees her burned before she had the chance to wake up. But when Miles tries to summon a glimpse of Ruby alive, nothing comes to him.

  He checks his watch. Quarter to seven. He’d hoped it was later. Before he looked he’d closed his eyes and willed time to jump ahead an hour, as it sometimes does when you’re not thinking about it. When he opens them, however, the second hand is shuffling round the dial at its usual pace. He turns the keys in the ignition to illuminate the dashboard clock. Eight minutes earlier than his watch. Alex and Rachel probably aren’t even awake yet, let alone on the road. Including them, this brings the number of evacuees to 242.

  Make that 244. He’d almost forgotten the Baders. Why the hell isn’t Margot answering him? Not that it matters now. Whether she is being stubborn by leaving the radio off or ignoring him as some kind of punishment, or if they’ve already been caught in the fire, it amounts to the same thing. With the air-vac scheduled to get underway soon, if they don’t start back to town immediately there’s a good chance they’ll be left behind.

  There’s no more fighting this fire, not today or the next day or the next. It’s all about getting out of its way. And Miles is the closest to it at the moment. He knows the area well without even glancing at the map. The job of locating Margot, Wade, Tom and the Baders logically falls to him. Within hours, the fire is going to have the Tintina Trench all to itself, and he’s going to be the last one to look under the bed before closing the door.

  ‘Is it as big as they’re saying it is?’ Mungo asks when Miles radioes in to the fire office.

  ‘The spotter flew over it twenty minutes ago, so I’d say it’s even bigger now.’

  ‘What crawled up its ass and died?’

  ‘Maybe some fires wake up on the wrong side of the bed the same way we do.’

  ‘I’m a married man. No need to say another thing about that.’

  Miles likes this man. He briefly considers telling him this. Mungo has been his only real friend for the last five years and Miles has never even called him that to his face. He’s been all the usual things that prevent a man from making the most basic pronouncements: too proud, too stupid, too asleep. All Miles can hope is that Mungo knows without him saying so, because, of course, he’s not about to start now.

  He tells Mungo about Ruby’s tower going down, and for a moment neither of them say anything. When Mungo speaks next, Miles can hear the effort the man brings to keeping his voice from pitching into a desperate register.

  ‘Tom’s out there too.’

  ‘Margot will bring him in. And if she needs any help, I’m going to find her.’

  ‘I wish it was me going after them.’

  ‘We’ve all got jobs to do. Which brings me to a favour I need to ask. I want you to bring Alex in.’

  ‘Not a problem.’

  ‘Try my place first.’

  As he waits, Miles watches the smoke rub against the truck’s windshield like fur. He puts his hand against the glass and feels the heat like sunlight, though the sky and all but the closest trees are shrouded by billows of grey. He should drive ahead a little farther to give himself a wider buffer zone but he doesn’t want to lose the radio reception. This is what he tells himself. But there is something about having the growing fire at his back that excites him. It makes it his.

  It’s the third time he hears his name that he realizes that Alex has not been conjured by his imagination but is actually speaking to him.

  ‘Miles?’

  ‘You’re still there,’ he says, failing to hide his disappointment.

  ‘We were going to leave after breakfast, but the road’s closed.’

  ‘It’s going to be all right.’

  ‘The sky’s gone dark. It’s all orange and yellow and black.’

  ‘Like Halloween,’ he says foolishly, though it’s true.

  ‘There’s so much of it.’

  ‘They’re bringing choppers in to take you out.’

  ‘When are you coming back?’

  ‘I have to find Margot and Wade and the hunting party first.’

  ‘Why you?’

  ‘Because I’m already here.’

  ‘But how long are—?’

  ‘Not long, sweetheart.’

  It’s the pause they both leave after Alex’s almost inaudible gasp that allows his mind to catch up with his tongue. Sweetheart? It wasn’t an endearment he remembered using back in the days when he could speak them. Baby. Darlin’. Honey. And the home-made ones—embarrassing if heard in any ear but theirs—that came so naturally and assumed so many names. Little chicken. Pickle. Sweet feet. But never sweetheart. One word so commonly thrown about that it was near impossible for a man of his vintage to speak without irony. But he’d done it. He’d called Alex sweetheart and he’d never been more sincere.

  ‘I’ll come back for you,’ he says.

  ‘Please. You don’t—’

  ‘For both of you. I promise.’

  There’s a silence between them that feels more intimate to Miles than anything they shared together the night before last in his bed.

  ‘Miles?’

  ‘I’m here.’

  ‘I’m going to go now.’

  ‘Okay. Right.’

  ‘So. This is Alex. Over.’

  ‘Roger that, Alex. Hey. You don’t have to use that radio—’

  ‘Miles?’

  ‘Mungo?’

  ‘She gave it back to me, boss.’

  ‘So she did.’

  ‘You have anything else you want for—?’

  ‘No. I better start moving.’

  ‘It’s a good idea.’

  He tells Mungo to make sure he gets the two of them on one of the first air-vacs out. He tries to hold on to the certainty that it won’t come to that, that he won’t be long, but it’s already slipping away. This fire looks like it has the speed to spread over the whole Trench within the next twelve hours, which is the least amount of time he figures he’ll need to find Margot and the others. He’ll just have to be faster than that. To get the hunting party out, yes. But also himself. To make it back in time to be lifted up and carried to the two faces awaiting him on the other side of the blue hills.

  There are so few buildings in Ross River and so much uninhabited, unnamed, unowned wilderness surrounding it, that it’s surprising how much difficulty the fire team have in deciding where to establish the helicopters’ landing site. The school parking lot? More than big enough, but the flagpole in the centre would have to be removed, and nobody can think of an easy way of cutting through six inc
hes of steel to fell it (although Crookedhead James suggests driving Bonnie’s old Chevy into it, ‘you know, like at the demolition derby,’ the proposal gets little airtime). The grassy acre by the riverbank? Flat, but with muddy patches so soft they suck the boots off your feet. The Welcome Inn’s courtyard? Too tight. And besides, the pissing cherub would be impossible to move without a crane.

  Although it is located at the edge of town and its home-run fence has been obscured by overgrowths of toadflax weaving through the chain link—so close it could make things a bit tricky if the fire ever ends up making it this far—they determine the softball diamond to be the best place to act as helipad. In the end, this is Mungo’s decision. With Miles out in the bush searching for the hunting party, the organization of the air-vac falls to the attack crew’s second-in-command, or Mr Capoose as Crookedhead calls him, once, before the older man levels a glare his way that lets it be known that he will stand for no more fooling, however mild.

  Once the helicopter site has been established, King and Jerry set to work spraypainting a giant H in the outfield and erecting an orange windsock over the visitors’ dugout. Mungo next assigns Terry Gray with driving around town and knocking on doors to wake everybody up. Within the quarter-hour people begin to spill out of their homes, squinting at their neighbours who have done the same, as though to confirm that they alone aren’t the victims of an officially sanctioned prank.

  ‘You in charge of this whole town now?’ one of the bolder men shouts at Terry.

  ‘Mungo’s giving the evacuation orders.’

  ‘Where’s Miles?’

  ‘Mungo’s the chief now, and that’s all you need to know.’

  Everyone looks to each other to see who will be the first to make a crack about Mungo Capoose—or any of the Ross River fire team—being in charge of anything, but nobody tries it. The stink of burning pine tells them how serious this is. Under the circumstances, they’ll sooner listen to Mungo than be the last ones in line for the free whirlybird rides.