Chapter Forty Five
FORTY-FIVE
At first you think it’s in your dreams. It reminds you of the soft murmur of the bus’s engine on the freeway when you first left for this trip.
But when your eyes fully open to a sunrise just as pink as that first one, you are not on a bus.
And you do not appear to be dead. You are sitting right where you nodded off, and the sound you hear is not coming from below you; it’s coming from above.
Somewhere above the blackened trees. You shield your eyes against the new morning sun and look up into the sky.
The smoke has thinned, and only a light haze hangs in the air.
The noise grows louder, until it sounds less like a hum and more like the box fan you used to keep in your window as a child.
You haven’t even looked at the others yet.
You just keep your eyes to the sky, and when you see a white-and-yellow blur slip slowly into focus, you wonder if you are really awake after all.
It has two propellers and long rectangular wings, and it is buzzing lazily through the sky.
It’s an aircraft, but one you’ve never seen before—some kind of firefighting plane if you had to guess—and it is not that far from you.
You stumble to your feet, and you immediately start shouting and waving your arms before you even really know what you’re doing.
You follow beneath it as far as you can through the destroyed woods, even climbing up a small hill to watch as it dives down like a raptor and releases what must be at least a thousand gallons of water into the air from its tank.
Then it ascends again, makes a tight turn, and disappears off into the distance.
“NO!” you shout. “NO! COME BACK! WE’RE HERE!”
You’re not sure how long you’re shouting, but eventually you’re interrupted by a voice from down the hill.
“Case, what the hell is going on?”
When you look down, you see Diana standing with a hand shielding her eyes.
She looks genuinely concerned about you.
You motion for her to come up, but by the time she gets there, and you start rambling about what you saw, the plane is long gone.
Still, you have her stand quietly and listen in case she can still hear its engine.
“Are you sure you haven’t lost it?” she asks.
She puts a hand on your side, and for the first time in a while, you don’t feel the urge to slip away.
“I’m not sure,” you say. “It’s a possibility, but I think it was real. It looked really real. And it was dumping water on the fire, which means it’s likely to come back.”
Fran and Will find their way to you and grumble as they climb the hill.
“What is it?” asks Will.
“Case hallucinated a plane,” says Diana. “But on the off chance it’s real, we need to figure out a way to signal to it.”
The two of them stare back and forth from you to Diana. Their eyes are red rimmed, and it’s hard to say what they think of all this.
“Okay,” says Will. “What do we do?”
Will looks back down the hill to the burnt-out forest, and the resting body of his friend.
“Damn, man,” he says, “Troy would know. There’s probably a stupid Anarchist Vagabond episode about it.”
Everyone quiets for a minute. Will is still looking at Troy, and he seems like he’s going to cry. Somehow, he pulls himself together.
“Hey. The plane could come back soon,” you say. “So what do they do in movies?”
The answers come quickly, without much thought.
Send an SOS message (not possible; no radio).
Build a fire for smoke signals (not the best strategy when everything else is on fire).
Spell out HELP in rocks and branches (not bad, but there isn’t an open space nearby).
Scream and wave your arms (already tried).
It’s starting to look bleak, when suddenly Fran stares at something, and then walks over to Diana.
She reaches for her pants, and without speaking, rips the belt out of Diana’s belt loops.
“Fran!” says Diana. “What are you doing?”
Fran holds the belt buckle to the light.
It’s made of metal, and she toys with it in her hands.
You can’t really tell what she’s doing until she steps into an opening between the dead trees and angles it a certain way.
Then suddenly there’s a small bead of light reflecting on her shirt.
You remember playing a similar game with your dad’s digital watch when you were a kid, making the reflected light bounce around the ceiling like a spaceship.
“Okay, look,” says Fran. “I don’t know if this will work, but maybe we can send a flash or something.”
“Will the light go all the way up there?”
“I don’t know,” she says. “Maybe?”
She holds the buckle to her eye and aims it at the top of a burnt tree. It takes her maybe five minutes or so to get the light to land on the spot she wants, but it’s barely visible.
“We need something shinier,” says Fran.
She hands the belt back to Diana. From a distance, the hum comes again, and this time, you’re not the only one who hears it.
“Oh my god,” says Diana, cupping her right ear. “It’s real.”
“Are you sure the buckle doesn’t work, Fran?” asks Will.
“I’m sure,” she says.
“Maybe we can try screaming again,” you say. “And jumping around because…”
“WAIT!” yells Will. “Wait a second.”
He pauses only for a moment, and then he takes off faster than you’ve seen him move in days.
It’s like one last shuttle run. Only this time, he doesn’t freeze or lose his cool.
And you watch as he cautiously approaches Troy’s body.
He’s saying something to Troy, but you can’t hear what it is.
You only see him reach into the pocket of Troy’s pants and remove something.
It takes you a minute to figure out what it is, but when he finally holds it aloft, you could almost cry.
The collapsible whisk.
The one your mother packed you. The one Troy wielded like an Arthurian sword.
When it hits the sun, the light reflects off the stainless steel of its handle and lingers in your vision like a lens flare from a camera.
Will reaches down and puts a hand on Troy’s chest. He holds it there and says something else.
Then he runs back to you, whisking at the air around him.
“He still had it?” you say.
“I knew he would,” says Will. “Dude wouldn’t let go of that thing, remember?”
“What did you say to him?” asks Fran.
Will runs a hand through his hair.
“I told him I’d bring it right back,” he says. “And that his friends wouldn’t let him down.”
You all nod. But the sound of the engine is getting closer, and if you want to give this a real try, you need to find some room to get the light through the trees.
Against all instincts, you start to run north where the fire was moving.
It’s the path this plane is likely to take.
Will passes the whisk to Fran like a baton, and she cups it perfectly.
You move through the desiccated forest like a herd of gazelles, using inexplicable energy to jump fallen trees and rocks.
Until finally, you stand at the bottom of a small rocky cliff.
It looms above you. The top looks treeless, and you know in your soul that it’s the perfect spot to try the signal.
“Jesus,” says Fran. “I can’t climb that.”
You look back at Diana and Will, and they both stare at the almost-sheer face. It’s not a mountain. But it’s mountainlike. And strength is running low.
“Give me the whisk,” you say. “And tell me what to do.”
Fran hands it to you faster than you thought she would, and you stuff it in your pocket. Then she breaks it down for you. She talks fast, but you catch the gist: Hold it to your eye. Try to aim it.
“How will I know if it’s aimed right?” you say.
“You won’t, really,” says Fran. “You just have to try your best.”
Before you can think carefully about any of this, you reach out and grab at the wall of the cliff.
You find a foothold, and you pull yourself a few feet in the air.
It’s just like climbing up on the garage, you tell yourself.
But you’re already shaking. So you close your eyes, and in your head you start a conversation with the one person you knew who wasn’t afraid of heights.
Maybe, you think, he won’t want to see you.
But maybe, he won’t be able to resist doing what he once did best: helping you through a tough situation.
Sean, you say. I don’t know if this is a good time, or if you even forgive me, but I need you.
You look above you, and there seems to be another hold to reach for; you just don’t know where you’re going to put your feet. The engine sound is getting closer, and you’ve barely made a start.
I have to climb this cliff. But as you might remember, I’m not so good with heights.
You close your eyes and reach for the rock. You grip it with your palm, which still has some numbness. Then you move a boot up and press it against the rock. The rubber holds.
How did you do this so many times? Jumping. Diving. You were never afraid.
The plane is not yet above you, but it’s making the fan noise again. The one that signals it’s getting closer. You can’t bring yourself to look up, afraid you’ll lose your footing. So again, you reach, and this time, you find a stray root to grab on to. When you grip it, it holds.
Do you remember that time when we were kids, running through the backyards of the neighborhood, playing Capture the Flag? You climbed this tall chain-link fence and left me below. I was too scared to climb up.
You have to look down to make sure your foot is on an edge. Somehow, you’re already ten feet in the air. Your stomach lurches. You want to let go and just drop. You wouldn’t hurt yourself too badly yet.
I was little. Maybe six. I tried not to cry. And I looked up at you balanced on the very top. You looked so brave, surveying the neighborhood like it was your kingdom.
You decide not to drop. There isn’t another hold directly above you, so you have to pull yourself sideways a little.
This is when your foot first slips. Your stomach lurches, and you’re sure you’re done for, but then it catches again, and you manage to pull yourself to the side.
Your friends are shouting things below, but you can’t hear them.
All you can hear now is your own heartbeat.
You looked down and saw me crying. And then you told me that I could do it if I just went slow and held on really tight to the links.
The next grip is easier, and there’s a sizable shelf to put your feet on. It’s over halfway, but it’s also too high to allow you to jump down. You have to finish it now, or there’s no good way to get to safety. You look up, and you know the plane is going to appear any minute.
I started climbing, just a rung at a time, like you said, wedging my shoes in the links. I made it halfway up, and then I just froze.
Some shouting from below cuts through your fugue. You wonder if it means that the plane has finally appeared. You don’t look, though. Instead you stop for a second to get a breath.
I was going to die. It felt like I was leaving my body. And I knew suddenly that things were going to be harder for me. I had my eyes closed, and you told me to open them. When I did, I saw you next to me.
“You can’t go down,” you said.
You can’t go down.
“You have to go up and over.”
You reach up for the next hold. It’s so small that only your fingertips can grip it.
But you grab on anyway, and you pull your foot almost as high as your hand.
You use all your remaining strength to push off with your foot.
When you launch up, you don’t stop. You grab the next edge, and with one more pull, your hand reaches the top of the cliff.
You pull yourself all the way up just as the thrumming of the engine is at its loudest. Miraculously, the plane hasn’t passed directly over you yet. So you take out the whisk and hold it to your eye.
You locate the reflection.
You fiddle with the handle until you see the reflection bouncing off your shoe.
You aim toward your target.
The plane will be over you in seconds, but you know you need to create the signal before that happens, so you tilt the handle up, and you see the light hit the top of a tree.
You keep tilting, and then, you have no idea where it is, or if it’s going to meet the eye of the person who doesn’t know they are your last chance at help.
The only thing you can do is let the light hit you and try, however briefly, to throw a little of it back.
For a moment, it was just you and me at the top of the fence. There were people below, but they seemed so far away.
Below, at the bottom of the small cliff, your friends are cheering for you.
They don’t know if it worked, just like you don’t.
But they know you made it in time to try, and for a few seconds, that’s enough.
The plane dumps another massive amount of water on what you assume is a fire still raging.
You watch it. And when it turns around, it looks so close you could touch it.
You try the signal again, watching it inch through the sky.
You can’t hear anything but its engine. Your friends have gone silent.
“See you on the other side,” you said to me, just before you dropped.
You all watch as the plane starts its journey back for more water, moving in a straight line toward whatever lake is supplying it. Then you continue to watch as it turns slightly off its route, just a little, then a little more, until, gradually, you see it turning back toward the fire.
Back toward you.
“See you,” I said.