24. The Last Two
The Last Two
“That’s enough. Pack it.”
Jay lowered his camera as another stock trailer pulled away from the barn.
The ranch had gone from preparation to departure almost at once: engines starting across the yard, doors slamming, vehicles already staged toward the road moving in a rough sequence.
The precautions that had seemed excessive an hour earlier were now saving minutes nobody knew how to measure.
Eli stopped recording without arguing about the light or the sequence still unfolding near the loading area. He removed the memory card and passed it to Priya, who sealed it inside a labeled case beneath her jacket.
“Camera bodies with us,” she said. “Everything else is loaded.”
Jay nodded. “Go.”
Priya looked past him toward Rain and Red, still saddled beside the barn. “You’re coming with us?”
“Harris and I have to load the last two. We’ll follow.”
Her gaze returned to his face. “Then actually follow.”
“Yes, Mom.”
The expression she gave him stopped the joke before it could help.
“Sorry. Stress response.”
“I know.” Priya tightened her grip around the card case. “Just… leave when you say you’re leaving.”
Jay had offered versions of I’ll be right behind you before and turned them into another interview, another shot, another hour of usable light. This time he held her gaze. “We load the horses and go. That’s it.”
“All right.” She turned toward Eli. “Truck. Now.”
Jay watched the production vehicle disappear down the ranch road before turning back toward the barn.
Across the yard, Harris stood beside Della’s car while Evan secured the smaller stock trailer. Jay could not hear every word over the engines and wind, but Della’s posture supplied most of the conversation.
“You go now,” Harris told her.
“And you?”
“Right behind you.”
Apparently everyone who loved Harris had learned that those three words required independent verification.
“Not eventually,” Della said. “And you call me yourself. You do not make Evan call because you’re busy.”
“Ma.”
“I know you.”
Harris’s face softened. “I’ll call.”
Della touched his cheek, brief and firm, before getting into the car. Harris closed the door and stood there until she joined the line of vehicles leaving the yard.
Evan came over as her taillights vanished beyond the cottonwoods. He caught Harris’s shoulder once, hard enough to register without becoming a farewell. “You’re behind me.”
“Yup,” Harris replied, clasping his brother’s arm briefly.
A minute later, every vehicle except Harris’s had left.
For once, the plan really was simple. They were the last two people on the ranch because they had the last two horses. No additional work remained. No one needed rescuing. There was no final gate Harris had to close or piece of machinery worth risking a life to save.
Jay led Red toward the trailer. The gelding hesitated at the ramp, his body tight beneath Jay’s hand, but walked in when asked again. Rain stopped at the bottom while wind lifted her mane and carried another wave of smoke through the yard. Harris put one hand against her neck.
“Come on, girl.”
She followed him inside. Harris closed the divider, secured both horses, then checked the latches, tires, hitch, safety chains, and doors before walking the rig once more and looking toward the ranch.
Jay followed his gaze.
The silence was wrong. The place had never been truly quiet during the months Jay lived there.
Even before dawn, horses shifted in stalls, kitchen staff arrived, a truck crossed the yard, or one of the twins called for somebody from the lodge steps.
Now the corrals stood empty, barn doors remained open, hoses lay across the grass, and the lodge windows reflected the smoke-dimmed sky without anyone moving behind them.
It looked like a set after the people had left, except Jay knew what every empty space meant now: Della’s kitchen, the concrete where the girls drew horses in chalk, his room above the corrals, the path through the cottonwoods to Harris’s cabin.
“That’s everybody,” Jay called softly.
Harris nodded. “Everybody.”
They got into the truck. Jay checked the time as Harris started the engine. “Priya’s going to kill me if we don’t catch up to them.”
“She’ll have to get in line.”
For approximately four minutes, the evacuation worked exactly as intended.
Then Harris slowed at the lower bend.
Smoke sat low across the road ahead, darker and denser than the haze hiding the mountains. Wind flattened it against the ground and drove it through the drainage in fast, shifting sheets.
The radio cracked beside Harris.
“County Road Six is closed south of the bridge. Repeat, County Six is closed. Spot fire crossed the road. All units clear the drainage.”
Harris’s hand tightened on the wheel.
Jay looked at him. “That’s us?”
“Yup.”
They rounded the next bend and saw why.
Orange fire moved through the grass beyond the junction, low and fast beneath the wind. Smoke swallowed sections of the road entirely, and somewhere inside it a tree came down with a sound Jay felt more than heard.
Harris braked. The trailer pushed against the truck before settling, and Rain kicked once inside, hard enough for Jay to feel through the frame.
For several seconds Harris stared through the windshield, measuring what remained visible—the road, the smoke, the width of the turn, whatever margin might still exist between them and the fire.
Jay knew that look now. Harris wasn’t ignoring the order. He was testing it against the physical evidence, searching for an option.
Apparently there wasn’t one.
Harris reached for the radio. “East access still open?”
Static answered first, then a voice Jay didn’t recognize.
“Negative. Crews pulled out of that drainage fifteen minutes ago.”
Cold settled beneath Jay’s ribs. Priya’s vehicle couldn’t have been much farther ahead when the road closed.
Harris put the truck into reverse.
“Where are we going?” Jay asked.
“Back.”
“To the ranch?”
“For now.”
Rain kicked again while Harris backed carefully until he had enough room to turn the truck and trailer.
Jay looked through the rear window at the road disappearing beneath smoke. “That was open ten minutes ago.”
“Yup.”
“How does a road disappear in ten minutes?”
“Wind.”
Harris drove faster on the return.
* * *
The ranch appeared again through the windshield. This time it did not look evacuated. It looked cut off.
Harris pulled beside the barn and was out before the engine fully stopped. “Checking the east road.”
“The deputy said command pulled out.”
“I heard him. Need to see it.”
There was no point arguing. The deputy had given Harris information; Harris needed the land to confirm it before he abandoned their second exit.
They left the horses next to the trailer and took the truck down the eastern service road.
Fencing flashed past on either side as the land dropped toward the drainage.
The stock road eventually met a Forest Service route and, several miles beyond that, another county road.
Under ordinary conditions it was rough but usable.
Ordinary conditions had vanished sometime in the past half hour.
Jay had traveled the first section before. He barely recognized it now. Smoke had settled into the lowest ground, swallowing the drainage so completely that the road ended inside a dark gray wall. Trees became uncertain shadows, appearing for seconds before the wind covered them again.
Harris stopped with the engine running and stared ahead. At first, his eyes searched for a route through. Then they stopped searching and began confirming that none existed.
Eventually, he shifted into reverse.
“How bad?” Jay asked.
Harris kept his attention on the mirrors while backing along the narrow road.
“Harris.”
His jaw tightened. “Bad.”
Jay went still. Harris never said bad. Equipment was worn or about to become expensive. Weather was coming in. A horse was unsound. A situation required attention. Bad meant the useful distinctions had run out.
By the time they reached the barn again, ash moved across the yard in pale flecks. Harris shut off the engine but stayed behind the wheel, looking first at the trailer and then toward the mountains north of the ranch.
Jay followed his attention to North Ridge.
They had ridden through that country together weeks earlier: the spring, the old homestead, the lookout, and the line cabin. Beyond the ridge, an old Forest Service road descended through the eastern drainage. It was rough, but it was the only direction not already blocked.
“No,” Jay said.
Harris looked over. “No what?”
“You’re making the face.”
“What face?”
“The one where you’re about to say something extremely cowboy.”
Harris got out and began untying the horses from the side of the trailer. “We’re ridin’ out.”
Jay stared at him. “There it is.”
Jay looked from the horses to North Ridge. “How far?”
“Other side of the ridge. Forest Service road drops into the next drainage. If the fire hasn’t crossed it, we get out east.”
Jay caught the qualification. “If.”
Harris met his eyes. “Yup.”
No reassurance followed. They had one possible route, and it might already be gone.
Harris took a handheld radio and first-aid pouch from behind the truck seat. Jay found two bottles of water and put one in each saddlebag.
“That’s all the water?”
“Yup.”
“Comforting.”
“We’re not camping.”
The Forest Service road was only a few miles beyond the ridge.
If it remained open, they would be descending before dark.
There was no reason to load the horses for a longer trip, and no useful way to prepare for every route closing around them.
Harris’s reasoning had no room for what happened if the road was gone because there was nothing they could do with that possibility except ride toward it.
He handed Jay a flashlight. “Pocket.”
Jay put it away and checked his phone. No service. His final message to Priya remained unsent beneath the warning symbol.
Road blocked. Going east. We’re okay.
Jay stared at the warning symbol. “Romy is going to murder me when she hears about this.”
Harris looked over. “She the one who hates my windows?”
Jay looked at him. “You remember that?”
“She the one?”
“Romy has interests beyond destroying other people’s satisfaction with their homes.”
“Wouldn’t know it.”
Jay almost smiled. For half a second, the exchange felt almost ordinary.
But they were here. They were not okay. They were still capable of doing something, which was not the same condition at all.
Jay reached automatically for the smallest camera: four pounds, weather-sealed, enough battery for two hours. The ranch under smoke. Harris riding away from everything he knew without knowing what would remain when he returned. There might never be footage like it again.
Harris looked at the camera and then at him. “You serious?”
“It weighs four pounds.”
“So does more water.”
“We don’t have more water.”
“Then it weighs more than nothing.”
Jay stood there, offended by the fact that this remained an objectively excellent point. “This is upsetting on several levels.”
“Navarro.”
“Fine.”
He placed the camera on the truck seat. For once, leaving it behind was not an ethical decision.
There was nobody present to exploit and no crew member whose safety had to come before the shot.
This was survival measured in weight, balance, speed, and the use of both hands.
The camera was not useful, and usefulness was the only standard left.
By the time they mounted, smoke had begun erasing the ranch. The lodge and barns were dull shapes beneath a stained sky, and the truck and trailer stood abandoned beside the barn because the roads no longer permitted their use.
Harris sat on Rain without moving. His attention traveled across the yard: the house beyond the lodge, the barns, his cabin behind the cottonwoods, Nell’s handwriting still inside an office, four generations of work distributed across roofs and fences nobody could defend now.
Jay could not know exactly what Harris saw, but the hand holding the reins had tightened.
He did not ask Harris to explain the look. There was no answer that would improve the next few minutes.
Finally, Harris turned Rain toward the north trail. “You ready?”
Jay adjusted his grip on Red’s reins and looked at the ridge rising through the smoke. “No.”
Harris glanced back.
Jay drew one breath as deeply as the air allowed. “Go.”
They rode north.