The chopper must be getting closer, she thought, but the hairs at the back of her neck prickled. Raising the stick above her head, she crashed down the path toward a small clearing where the chopper spotter would have a better chance of seeing her. She clambered up a rocky ravine so steep she had to use her hands to pull herself up, but she dared not let go of her flag.
Kelly’s breath rushed between clenched teeth when she reached the summit of the ravine. Using a sapling aspen, she pulled herself up, then jumped to her feet. She raised her flag—and froze. Less than ten yards away, yellow flames plowed through a thicket of juniper, the sap popping and sizzling like hot oil in a pan. Shock made her gasp. Terror burned a path through her body. Her flight instinct kicked in, but she held her ground. Panic threatened, but she held it off by sheer force of will.
She stared at the flames, and wondered if she could make it back to the stream before it overcame her and burned her alive.
The ATV bounced wildly over tree roots and rocks the size of bowling balls. Buzz knew better than to push the vehicle over the rough terrain at such a dangerous speed, but it was fear driving him now. Fear that he wouldn’t be able to find her. Fear that he wouldn’t reach her in time. Fear that she would meet the same terrible end as her father and brother.
He prayed that she’d realized just how perilously close she was to the leading edge of the fire and taken flight. While he knew she couldn’t outrun the fire, distance would buy her time. Kelly was smart; she knew this land almost as well as he did. But without a compass or communication gear—or even the sky to guide her—it would be easy for her to get disoriented. Buzz had seen it happen even to veteran firefighters.
The ATV lurched. Cursing, he cut the wheel hard to the right and kicked down on the gas. The small vehicle cornered on two wheels, bucked over a fallen log, then grabbed the trail and tore up a steep path as if it were a living creature and on the run from the fire itself. Branches tore at his helmet and jacket. The larger branches bruised, but he barely felt the pain. He should reach the pick-up point soon. Just over the next rise.
Buzz spotted the fire a hundred yards before reaching the site. Flames had engulfed the pick-up point and now shot twenty feet into the air. He could feel the heat coming at him, the hot, stinking breath of the devil himself.
“Kelly!”
Ramming the ATV into Park, he jumped out and ran toward the flames. There was no sign of their camp. The tent had burned. The pit he’d dug for the fire was obscured by flames and smoke.
“Kelly! Answer me, damn it!”
Buzz didn’t scare easily, and he never panicked. Fourteen years with the Denver PD had taught him the importance of keeping a cool head. His work as the team leader of RMSAR reinforced that belief. It was a rule he lived by. One he never broke. But as he stumbled back to the vehicle, he felt both emotions stabbing into him, cutting him as surely as any knife.
Back on the ATV, he gripped the steering wheel and stared at the fire, felt another emotion unfurl deep in his chest. He refused to believe the fire had taken her. Refused to believe that her life force could simply cease to exist. He could still feel the pulse of her. Like the warm flow of blood through his veins. She was alive; he knew it. He felt her as strongly as he felt the heat of the fire on his face.
Desperation hammered at him as he turned the vehicle around and started back down the path. Cursing with one breath, praying with the next, he pushed the ATV as hard as he dared. A thousand thoughts rushed through his mind. He talked to God, bargained with Him, made promises and confessions and meant every word of both.
Buzz told himself he could live without Kelly in his life. What he couldn’t live with was not having her in this world. Kelly made the world a better place. She would give his son a wholesome, secure home filled with love and all the things he couldn’t give.
He was so caught up in his thoughts that he didn’t see the jut of rock until the ATV was upon it. The left front wheel hit it hard. The momentum sent the front end of the vehicle straight up, then over onto its side. Buzz hit the ground hard on his left shoulder. He heard bone crack. Pain zinged through his brain like a shock of electricity as he rolled.