Fire Read online

  Sylvia, I’m coming for you.

  He started hiking. A half-hour later, he came upon a house where he wasn’t expecting one. The scorched walls still stood, but there was extensive damage. There was also a man there, going through the remains.

  “Hey,” James called.

  The man looked up. “Where did you come from?”

  “I was going to ask you the same thing! Do you live here? Did you ride out the fire here?” He hoped it wasn’t a looter.

  “I have a concrete building.” He pointed to a small building, hardly bigger than a shed, also scorched by the fire.

  Not a looter. “God. It must have been terrifying. Are you okay? Do you need water, or food? I have some stuff in my pack.”

  “Food,” the man said, as if it were a novel concept he was considering for the first time. “Yeah, I guess I should eat some food.”

  James walked over and offered his hand, introducing himself. “I lost my house in Pinedrops.”

  “I’m Egan. I think mine is totaled.”

  James put down his pack and pulled out two bottles of water, an apple, and two energy bars. He handed them over. “Did your car survive?”

  The man pointed to a hulk of a car, burned. “No tires.”

  “Did they melt?”

  “Exploded. Just about pissed myself when they did.”

  “Were you alone here?”

  “Yeah. You obviously got out in time.”

  “I was at work. But my wife is missing. That’s why I’m out here, hunting for her.”

  “Oh, wow. I’m sorry. I was afraid you were a looter. I mean, my eye has been on that crowbar the whole time.”

  “Sorry about that.” James looked down at it, lying across his pack on the ground. It had been in his right hand when he called to the man. “I had forgotten it was even there.”

  “On a good day, I probably could have taken you, even with that.” The man’s face twitched with some unidentifiable emotion. “But it’s not a good day.” He lifted a bottle of water and drank it down, then closed his eyes and sighed. “That’s good.”

  “Try an energy bar. If you haven’t eaten since the fire....” James didn’t know how to finish that. “Have you been without water that long?”

  “No, I had some with me, a gallon jug. Finished it last night though.”

  “Let me take you out of here.” He wanted to keep looking for Sylvia, but he couldn’t leave this man here alone.

  “I don’t know whether to go or not. I want to find everything I can of value before I go. I was going to hike up to the road and hitch a ride. But I don’t know where to go.”

  “Okay, just—” James debated, his own needs battling with what he could see were Egan’s more immediate needs. “Look, I’m hunting for my wife. Let’s do this. I’ll hike an hour more up the road. Then I’ll turn around and come back for you, and I’ll help you carry whatever you have found to save back to my car. There’s a shelter up in North San Juan. I’ll take you there.”

  “I don’t think I’d be so good in a shelter. I’m pretty much a loner.”

  James looked around. One house in the middle of nowhere, more than a mile from the nearest paved road. No other houses in sight. “Yeah, I can see you must be. But when you get to the shelter, they’ll have phones. You can call someone. Or they’ll help you find an apartment or something.”

  “If I could find my ATM card, I’d have money. But I didn’t grab my wallet, you know? I was spraying down my house, and I’d filled a gallon jug with water to drink while I was. I hung out too long, and the fire was coming, I could hear it, and then it was there, and I only had the jug and what’s on my back. I ducked into the concrete building and hoped it wouldn’t cook me in there.” He sniffed himself. “I guess I’m pretty ripe-smelling by now.”

  “I just bought a bunch of clothes. You’re taller than I am, but I’ll give you a fresh T-shirt when we get to my car.”

  “That’s awful nice of you.”

  “Hey, we’re in this together. I lost everything. You lost nearly everything.” He put his pack back on. “I’ll be back in no more than two hours. Maybe less.”

  “Okay. Thanks.”

  James hiked on, thinking about the man Egan from time to time. If he was a loner and had no friends, how would he get through this? Did he work? Somehow, he didn’t imagine the man did. James had friends, and a job, and his parents. As bad as he felt for himself, he felt even worse for this guy. A ride and a T-shirt were the least he could do for him. He hated to slow his search for Sylvia, but it would only slow him by an hour or so, not stop him. He’d go back out hunting once he had Egan at the shelter.

  As he hiked, he found no sign of Sylvia or her car, and no sign anyone had driven in here during or after the fire. He’d have expected fire trucks to have come through, but it didn’t seem they had. The important thing was, no Sylvia. No sign of Sylvia. No hint she or anyone had been down this road. He checked the time and decided to turn around before the hour was up.

  He’d take this Egan guy back to the shelter, take a break and eat his last energy bar and apple, and look to the north of Pinedrops next. In a few days, if Sylvia was still missing, he’d come back here with a saw and get rid of the downed tree, which might be cooled by then, and drive farther in than he could walk. Walmart had saws too. If he’d have been thinking better, he would have grabbed one this morning.

  With a sigh, he turned around and marched back.

  Egan was sitting with a pile of belongings. “I don’t have anything to carry them in.”

  “I have a couple of Walmart bags. One here in my pack for trash. A few more in the car.”

  He perked up. “That’d be fine.”

  “Good thing I didn’t throw them away.”

  “Hey, thanks again for the food. Now that I’ve eaten it, I’m thinking better than I was.”

  James looked at his things, a pitiful accumulation of belongings, some scorched. “I see you saved some pictures.”

  “Yeah, though I don’t even want most of them,” the man said. He picked one up and said, “My wedding picture. I’m divorced.” The thing was scorched along one corner and showed a much younger Egan and a pretty, chubby girl who could have been sixteen.

  “You were young.”

  “Twenty-one and eighteen. Way too young to be married. No surprise it didn’t work.”

  “Let me put some of that in my pack. I’ll help you carry the rest.”

  Egan looked at his pile of belongings. “Nah. You know, none of this is important. None of it will help me survive. I did find a pair of shorts though.” He pointed at himself.

  “You changed.”

  “These were kicked into the corner of a closet. My dresser burned, and these survived. They stink of smoke, like everything, but otherwise they seem to be clean.”

  “Great, and with a T-shirt of mine, you’ll be presentable. The shelter seemed to have extra clothes anyway.”

  Egan grabbed just one thing, a statuette of something. Maybe a trophy. “If someone comes along and steals everything else, I might regret leaving this.”

  “I doubt anyone will come along.” Nor did he think they’d steal the pitiful collection sitting there. An old radio with an antenna. Some dishes. A salt and pepper shaker. No, none of that was pawnable. “You didn’t have a computer or TV or a safe?”

  “No. Nothing really to put in the safe. Computer was old, and the TV is destroyed by the fire.”

  “Then I think your things are safe. Besides, who comes down this road?”

  “Ranger sometimes.”

  “You can trust them, I think.” James cringed when he realized what he’d done. “Though I busted through the gate, so you might get more visitors than normal until they repair it.”

  Egan pulled out a key ring. “I had a key.”

  “The posts were burned. It wasn’t very hard to knock one down. But we can drag the gate back so it looks just as closed as it was.”

  “Are they wood? The posts? I
never noticed.”

  “Yeah. You’d think they’d be metal.”

  “I bet they will be from now on.”

  They hiked together back to the car, and James got out a new T-shirt. He gave Egan an empty Walmart bag for his dirty shirt, and Egan changed. It was a short drive back to the Red Cross shelter, and James dropped him off.

  They shook hands again. “Good luck finding your wife.”

  “Good luck to you too.”

  James checked his phone. Messages had come in, and texts had come in. His mother-in-law was at the hotel. He called her. “Are you in the room?”

  “I’m at the desk. They won’t let me in.”

  “Let me call them. Ask them for their direct line.” He had a conversation with the desk clerk, explaining the situation and asking her to let Francine into the room.

  She was reluctant. “It’s against policy.”

  “I’m sure your policies weren’t made for a natural disaster aftermath. That’s my mother-in-law. Her daughter—my wife—is still missing. Things are hard enough for her right now without forcing her to sit in a hotel lobby all day. Please let her in.”

  “How do I know you’re you?”

  He told her his room number. “And this is the phone number you have on file for me.”

  “If you can describe what’s in your room accurately. Your belongings, I mean.”

  “Nothing.”

  “What do you mean, nothing?”

  He hated bureaucratic bullshit at the best of times, and this was not the best of times. He barely held on to his temper. “I mean, everything I owned burned to a crisp. Including maybe my wife. Everything I now own I just bought in the past twenty-four hours, and it’s all in the car with me.” He sighed. “Look in the room. You’ll see there’s nothing. So there’s nothing that harmless old lady can steal, right? Take an impression of her credit card if you’re worried she’ll steal your crappy TV.”

  “There’s no reason to be snippy.”

  “You have your house burn down and see how cheerful you are. Live in terror your mother or kid or husband is dead for two days. Try that on for size. Please,” he said, getting control of his anger. “Just let her in the room.”

  “You’ll be held responsible for any damage she does.”

  “That’s great. Thank you so much.” Bitch.

  He called his mother-in-law back and told her it was all arranged for her to get into the room. He told her he had no news about Sylvia and listened to a couple of useless suggestions. He called his boss, who had called earlier, and apologized for not keeping in better touch.

  “Have you found your wife?”

  “No.”

  “They say there are only three missing now. On the news, I mean. We’re all glued to it. Everybody here sends you their very best wishes.”

  “Thank them for me, would you?”

  “You take as long off as you want. You have emergency days, vacation days, lots built up. If you need to take personal days to do everything you’re going to have to do, we’ll work it out. Really. Don’t worry about stuff like that.”

  One of the benefits of Sylvia having been too busy to take so much as a long weekend off. Extra vacation days built up. “Thanks. I mean that. It’s one more thing I don’t have to worry about, losing my job, or having no income. I own nothing right now, and so I’ll need income.”

  “No, don’t worry. You’re good.”

  They clicked off, James hoping that his boss’s good will lasted a while. He imagined there’d be lots of times he needed a half-day off, insurance hassles and so on. House-hunting. Contractors, if they rebuilt.

  Memorial service.

  No, stop that. Don’t give up hope. Hope costs you nothing.

  He needed a break. He couldn’t afford to take one, but he needed one. He knew he’d think more clearly if he had lunch and sat for a time. There was a café up here, The Ridge. He drove to it, grabbed an outdoor table, ordered a smoothie and a bagel with cream cheese, and sent a couple of texts to others who had called or texted him this morning.

  Around him, people were talking about the fire. One person at a table next to him had a computer open that he could see the screen of. They were looking at the same map he’d been using to check the extent of the fire. “Excuse me,” he said to the person.

  They didn’t look up.

  He stood and tapped their shoulder. “Hi, I’m James. I lost my house in the fire.”

  The person gasped. “Oh, I’m so sorry!”

  “Thanks. Can you tell me what the story is? I’ve been out of touch all morning. Do they have it contained yet?”

  “Fourteen dead, three missing, Eight-five percent contained. The CalFire guy said in an interview he thought they’d have it out tonight, for sure.”

  “Thanks.” James turned to go back to his table. His food wouldn’t be there—the staff here tended to mosey rather than rush—but the computer person said, “Was it bad?”

  James thought for a moment, but then noticed the eager face. He really didn’t want to be this person’s entertainment and regretted admitting that he’d been touched by the fire. “Yes. And sorry, but I can’t talk about it yet.”

  “Oh, I understand,” they said, obviously disappointed.

  He returned to his table and got busy with his phone, feeling the pair of curious eyes still on him. He ignored them. He tapped out messages to everybody, even people he was irritated had contacted him after over a year of total silence. They were probably trying to be kind, and if not, if they were just like the person with the computer staring at him with gossip-hungry eyes, he would be polite anyway. He didn’t mention Sylvia to those types. Just said, House burned down. I’m fine. Busy. Thanks for asking. More later, and he moved on to the next message and did the same. The second time, he copied the message, and from there on, it was matter of pasting the text and hitting “send.”

  His smoothie and bagel came, and he ate automatically. The bagel tasted like nothing at all, but he was pretty sure that was his fault, not the bagel’s. The smoothie got through to his weary senses. Sweet, pleasant, almost soothing. At least physically it was. Parts of him could not be soothed. Not until he found Sylvia, one way or the other.

  Truth was, with every passing hour, the hope dwindled that he’d find her alive.

  Chapter 27

  The phone rang. It was Sylvia’s mother, so he answered. “Any news?” she asked.

  “No. I’ll call you back in a second, when I get some privacy.”

  He left a tip and went back out to his car. He got in and called Francine back. “I think I eliminated one area where she might have been. I’ll look in a new place this afternoon.”

  “James, tell me you still have hope.”

  “Of course I do.” He made himself sound more optimistic than he felt.

  “What’ll I do if she’s gone?”

  “You’ll be devastated, but you’ll go on. But try not to think about it, okay? Just take one hour at a time.”

  “It’s driving me crazy not being able to do anything.”

  “I know. I wish I could give you something to do. Maybe check in with the sheriff every hour? I doubt it’ll make them work any faster, but it won’t hurt either for them to know several people want to find her, not just me. I’ll give you that number.” He read it off. “They think my last name is her last name, if that comes up.”

  “Doesn’t that bother you?”

  “No. Why would it?” He didn’t understand that generation very well when it came to sexual politics. His mother-in-law had had five last names over her life. Wasn’t that a hassle to change all those forms all the time? He had no doubt Sylvia got called by his last name occasionally. Seemed fair that people called him by hers. Anyway. “I’ll call you if I get any news. And when I’m headed back there.”

  “Maybe I could come up and help you.”

  She wasn’t the hiking type. “I don’t want you to have to see this.”

  “It’s on the TV. And that
other fire, the one in wine country.”

  No smell-o-vision though. No shell-shocked survivors being right next to you. James had a strange disconnect, he knew. Okay, he was one of them, technically, one of the survivors. But somehow, it hurt to see the ones who had seen the smoke and flames. Yesterday in the shelter had been hard. He hadn’t offered to go in again today when he’d dropped that Egan guy off. But he supposed he should when he was done with his search. Maybe someone new there had seen Sylvia.

  “We’ll talk soon,” he said. “Stay put. Sylvia has her phone, we know that much, and I left her a message. So she knows I have a room there. She could show up before I do.”

  “Do you really think so?”

  No. He’d given up on the thought that she was fine, and mobile, and would show up looking like she had the last time he’d seen her, turning away from him that morning two hundred years ago. No, not that long ago. Just felt like that long. “Yes,” he lied. “I think she might.”

  That afternoon, he drove around the area north of Pinedrops. There were a lot of little forest roads up here, and old trails. It was gold mining country, a sort of offshoot of the main gold rush, a second, lesser area with gold that had been found in the early 1850s. He’d once found the ghost of the flume on a hike, and he’d seen plenty of the environmental damage that placer mining had left. The old roads and horse trails were nearly covered by scrub vegetation now after more than a hundred years, but a few had been kept open, either by the government, by game, or by ATVers.

  He didn’t like ATVs. They hurt the landscape and were a source of noise pollution. So when he hiked, he usually hiked where they didn’t go. He could use one of their trails today, though, he thought, as he navigated around the little paths. He had to get out to hike several times when roads narrowed too much to take his car, and he didn’t cover half the area he had hoped he would.

  He did cross paths once with official rescuers, who questioned him sternly. They didn’t want disaster groupies or looters trying to get into Pinedrops.

  But he explained who he was, showed ID, and said his wife was among the last of the missing. That gained their sympathy. “I couldn’t do nothing. If she’s out here, I want to find her.”