Rescued By The Firefighter

Two of the team had moved one hose to the far right of the fire and were advancing toward the center from the west, where a slight night breeze had originated.

Two others were hosing from the opposite direction.

An EMT crew and their ambulance had arrived. He spotted Maisie off to the side and behind the wildfire engine.

Joy leaped into her face as she saw them. She threw her hands in the air and then clamped them down on top of her head. “Beatrice! Eli!”

Maisie raced toward them.

The EMT crew got there first with a stretcher and oxygen.

“Thanks, guys,” Rand said to the EMT crew as he lowered both Beatrice and Eli onto the stretcher. He looked down at Beatrice. “You’ll be okay now. These guys are the top gun.”

He noticed that she never let go of Eli, and the little boy clung to her like a monkey.

To the EMT, he said, “Possible broken ankle or foot. Burns on her back.”

“We’ll check it out,” the taller of the EMTs said and immediately started to take off Beatrice’s shoe.

“You’ll be fine,” Rand assured her again.

Her blue eyes were wide as she looked up at him pleadingly.

“What is it?”

“Chris. He’s still in there.”

Rand nodded, taking off his glove. “I know, Bee.” He touched her face where a black mark slashed her cheek. The black soot smeared his fingertips.

Rand stood, and as he did she reached out and took his hand. She had a surprisingly strong grip. “What?” he asked.

“Just...thank you. Now, go.”

Rand dropped her hand and raced away, wondering if the tear he’d seen was gratitude or smoke in Beatrice’s eye.

CHAPTER FOUR (#u059e642b-8be6-52fd-9d9f-0953725a7dc4)

“CHRIS!”

Rand ran into the forest, the flames dying around him as the fire crew blasted water through the trees. He pushed through the piles of smoldering pine nettles and over the downed limb that had almost killed Beatrice, Eli and him.

As a firefighter the smell of wet earth always gave Rand hope. But would he find the boy in time? Did he even want to be found?

“Chris!” he yelled into the shock of burned and blackened trees, denuded of foliage and standing like spikes against the night sky. “Chris!”

Kids were strange ducks in Rand’s book. Most of them could outsmart the majority of adults. Granted, he didn’t hang with philosophers and academics, but his family and friends were no dummies. Kids, however, were open to all possibilities and concepts. That’s why a lost kid was so hard to find. They didn’t sit still. They didn’t follow patterns that “thinking” adults would take. They relied on base animal instincts. When trapped, they bolted for freedom. When cornered, they would outsmart their prey or vanish. They bucked rules, ignored safety measures and took risks.

He guessed that Chris had used plenty of animal instincts to avoid Rand’s search thus far. With the blaze petering out, Chris could circle around, exit through an unburned area and get back to camp. Of course, that scenario assumed Chris wanted to return to camp. But what if he didn’t? What if he was a runner? A kid who felt so displaced in his life that all he wanted was to skip over these tough years and wake up when he was much older. Rand had seen that kind of kid.

Sometimes they were arsonists.

Rand had fought fires from the Upper Peninsula of Michigan to Idaho to California. He knew exactly the kind of conditions that it took for Mother Nature to burn. But there had been no thunderstorms here in Indian Lake. No lightning bolts. And not quite enough heat to spark spontaneous combustion. No, this was a fire started by human hands. Rand would bet his reputation on it.

And if he was right, Chris had all the more reason to stay clear.

Rand had one shot at bringing out Chris. He had to take it.

“Chris! I know you can hear me. It’s safe now. Eli is safe.”

Rand kept going, toward the most burned section of forest. It was his guess that it had been near here where the fire started.

“Chris!”

“Do—do you promise?” The young voice traveled down from the sky to Rand.

Rand turned on his boot and looked up. To his right was a tall, wide pine tree that had been burned on the bottom, but halfway up the tree, the limbs were unscathed. Huddled between two enormous lush pine limbs was a boy. Rand couldn’t see his face in the dark. But he could feel his fear.

“Yes, I promise your brother is safe with Miss Beatrice at the camp.”

“I don’t believe you,” he sniffed.

“It’s true.”

“How did they get out? I barely got up here myself before it all exploded.”

Now the boy was crying and the sobs caught in his throat, restricting his words.

“The trees did explode,” Rand said, careful to keep his words calm.

“It was scary. Really bad.”

“But you were brave. You climbed that tree all by yourself.”

“I’ve been climbing stuff all my life.”

“I’ll bet you have. Let me guess. Windows? Fire escapes? Rooftops, maybe?”

“Yeah.”

“I was kinda like that, too. I’m still climbing ladders. Ropes. That kind of stuff.” Rand paused as he heard the dissipating sound of the hoses. The crew was winding down. “The fire is under control. You come down.”

Silence.

Chris coughed and then hacked. Rand guessed the kid had inhaled his share of smoke tonight.

“There are paramedics here who need to help you. The smoke—”

“I know all about smoke,” Chris interrupted. “Okay?”