Chapter 8 #2
“No,” he said. “I’ve been trying to get through to her all morning, but she isn’t picking up. It’s so fucking annoying. It’s so typical.”
“So you don’t know if she got out yet?” I said.
“I have no fucking idea,” he said. “They’re evacuating the lodge right now, I’ve heard that much. Apparently, they’re dropping people at the gas station at Detroit Lake. But I’m not sure if she’s with them or not.”
“I wonder why she isn’t calling or picking up,” I said.
“Her phone is always dead,” he said. “Or maybe she’s still up there, out of range.”
“She could use someone else’s phone if she wanted to,” I said.
“You’d think so,” he said. “I’m sure it’s pretty chaotic wherever she is right now. I guess that’s an excuse.”
“Is there anyone else to call?” I said.
“I tried a few people in her group,” he said. “But she’s not with them. Some of them are already driving home. They got away from the lodge an hour ago.”
“I drove up to Salem yesterday afternoon,” I said, half-truthfully. “I had some errands to do. So I’m actually not that far from Detroit Lake right now. I could go and see if she’s waiting at that gas station.”
“You don’t have to do that, Arthur,” Phil said. “I’m sure she’s fine. She almost never picks up. It doesn’t mean anything.”
We spent a little longer going back and forth, Phil trying to dissuade me from driving into the fire zone, me offering to go again and again, and in the end, he gave up.
The road would be closed down soon, we agreed, and it seemed imperative that someone get to the gas station as quickly as possible.
So, minutes later, still damp from the stream, I was back in the car, driving the road I’d just driven, hoping to find Sarah sitting on her luggage in the parking lot of a gas station waiting for someone to fetch her.
Within five miles, the smoke hit. It was like a soft wall approaching, and then, silently, it was all around me.
The whole world went yellow, and the surrounding landscape disappeared in a hot, brackish haze.
I had my windows up, but the campfire smell was already in the car, stoking a deep, animal fear.
My primate nerve endings started screaming to get away, to turn around and get to clean air, but I ignored them and kept going.
As I headed deeper into the cloud, I spotted cars streaming in the opposite direction, in full evacuation mode.
They appeared dimly and disappeared quickly, filled with boxes and clothes pressed to the windows, or loads of garden equipment, or loose bedding.
Some seemed well-organized, as if the drivers had practiced for this event, go-bags ready, while others were a mess.
I saw a masked woman riding in the open trunk of a Toyota.
I saw a RAV4 full of goats. Even the most disorganized drivers were smarter than me, though, traveling in the wrong direction.
I tried calling Sarah every few minutes but got nothing.
Please, I thought, let her be at the gas station.
Please, let her phone just be dead. And please, for that matter, let me be able to make it there at all.
Driving through the yellow soup, I kept assuming I’d be stopped by some authority, but mile after mile there were no barricades, no flashing signs.
I pressed onward, skirting Detroit Dam, or so I imagined, as I could only see the silhouettes of the trees along the shoreline, and, at last, rounded the lake’s edge to the gas station.
But when I got there, no one was waiting.
The parking lot was empty. The gas station was closed.
I called Phil and told him what I was seeing.
“What?” he said. “That’s where the sheriff said people were supposed to be.”
“Well, no one’s here,” I said.
“Goddammit,” he said. “Why isn’t she calling back? This is what happens all the time. Her phone is useless.”
“Maybe she didn’t get down from the lodge yet,” I said.
“Goddammit,” he said again, “I’m still three hours away.”
“I don’t know what to do now,” I said. The smoke was so thick I couldn’t see the road twenty yards in the distance. The smell was filling my clothes, coating my hair. My eyes were burning.
“You’ve done everything you can, Arthur,” Phil said. “There’s nothing else you can do right now. You should come home. I’ll be there soon. This is my job. I’ll find her.”
We hung up. The smoke was thick and inert.
I got out of the car and peered into the yellowness.
No cars were on the road anymore. Beyond this point, I knew, the cell signal crumbled.
I took a shirt from my backpack and dampened it with water from the gas station spigot and wrapped it around my neck and lower face the best I could.
I ignored the evacuation alerts on my phone and called Sarah’s number one last time, going straight to voice mail. I called Phil.
“Yeah,” he said.
“I’m going up,” I said. “I wanted someone to know.”
The last handful of miles were very slow going.
The road I’d floated down only hours before was clogged with smoke, peppered with smoldering firebrands blown in from the main fire.
When the road turned to dirt I had to inch along at blind-slug speed.
I was feeling my way, catching glimpses of raw fire in the duff beyond the shoulder, hoping there was enough oxygen out there to keep the engine running.
Somehow, I burrowed my way back to the parking lot, which was now almost empty.
The few remaining cars were so coated in ash they looked like they’d been abandoned years before.
I cracked my door and climbed into the sludge, and it was then I first heard the fire.
The sound was enormous, voracious, like a rumbling train in the not-so-far distance.
The volume of trees being consumed on the mountain was insane.
On the edge of the lot, a van was idling, the headlights making pale yellow globes in the smoke.
A few people were packing the cargo hold, while others were frantically dragging what they could from the cabins.
One woman was standing perfectly still, consoling a younger woman who seemed to be hyperventilating.
When a guy in a damp bandanna came lurching by, dragging a cart with a single piece of luggage in it, I stopped him.
We had to yell over the ongoing detonation of the fire to hear each other.
“Hey!” I said. “I’m looking for Sarah Weber! Do you know her?”
“No!” he said.
“So she isn’t with your group?!”
“No!”
“Are there still people at the lodge?!”
“I don’t know!” he said. “I don’t think so! But good luck!”
And he pushed past me to the van, where he flung his luggage into the open cargo hold and climbed into the flapping doors. He was smart. He wasn’t waiting.
I made my way into the neighborhood of guest cabins, all of which appeared abandoned.
I found Sarah’s cabin and opened the door to discover all her things still there.
Her toiletry bag was on the narrow wall shelf and her clothes were strewn on the unmade bed.
Her sandals were in the middle of the floor.
She might have left it all in the rush to get out or she might have left everything for some other reason. There was no telling.
I walked out and spotted a group of people near the bathroom.
One of them was her team leader, whatever his name was, and my heart leapt.
He seemed to be shepherding the remainder of his flock to the waiting van, and although none of them were Sarah, my whole body flashed with hope.
Her group, at least some remnant, was still here, terrified but intact.
“Hey!” I said. “I’m looking for Sarah Weber! Is she still with you guys?”
“Are you her husband?!” the team leader said.
“No!” I said. “But I need to find her! Do you know where she is?!”
“I don’t know!” he said. “We’ve been looking for her, too! She took a hike this morning! And we haven’t seen her since then! The fire came on so fast! We’ve been trying to get word to her husband! But we don’t have any coverage!”
“Where have you looked?!” I said.
“Someone saw her going up a trail!” he said. “She had her backpack on! And a sleeping bag! We went as far up as we could! But we can’t wait any longer! I’m sorry! We have to go!”
“What trail?” I said, as he started to the parking lot with his people.
“Mountain View!” he said, and pointed in the direction of a trailhead near the cabins. “That’s all we know! We’ll call her husband as soon as we have a signal!”
And he rushed off, eaten by smoke.
I stumbled over to the trailhead and tried to peer into the haze.
The world disappeared five feet beyond the sign, swallowed in yellow ooze.
I took a few steps, but I couldn’t convince myself it was a good idea, the sound of the fire was so thunderous, the smoke so thick.
I was hovering there on the threshold, debating my next move, when a shadow emerged from the parking lot area.
Quickly, it gained shape and mass, and resolved into a striding man in a plastic gas mask, his forehead black with grime.
“Hey!” the man said, spotting me. “Don’t go up there! That’s where the fire is!”
“I think someone’s up there!” I said.
“They’re gonna have to wait!” he said.
“For how long, do you think?!” I said.
“Until the wind shifts!” he said.
“When will that be?!” I said.
“Fuck if I know!” he said. “If you’re going to wait, and you want to make yourself useful, you can follow me! We need hands!”
The guy barreled down the trail, heading toward the main lodge.
I wasn’t sure what else to do, so I followed him.
He was moving fast, fluxing in and out of visibility, but I kept his shadow in sight, adrenaline making my limbs light.
My mind had already detached from my body, and was floating a few feet above me, polarized by fear.
Only two hours ago I’d been swimming in a beautiful mountain stream.
It turned out heaven and hell are only one tiny step apart.