A Time to Mend (29 page)
She looked up at Ben.
He kissed her forehead.
God is God. God is God. God is good.
“Well. Hallelu—” Her breath released only syllables before Ben’s shirt was soaking up her tears.
Her home? Her grandmother’s woven rug. The chair her father made. Her mother-in-law’s china. The old buffet and shelves and antiques handed down by Ben’s ancestors. His beloved barn and workshop.
The parking lot? Claire’s car with the photos? Her babies at every stage, infancy to teens . . .
Oh, Lord! I can’t. I can’t sing praise. How do You expect me to—
The horror consumed even her thoughts.
A
charcoal grayness seeped into the area. Only this subtle absence of midnight black suggested dawn had arrived.
Jenna stood next to the car, her arm entwined with her dad’s, grateful for Kevin’s foresight to bring winter coats for them all, a thermos of coffee, and travel mugs. Still, she shivered. Kevin, Erik, and Danny stomped their feet and huddled together. Their breath frosted the air. Such extremes in the desert climate.
But no one wanted to sit in the warm car and be removed even one step further from the situation. Even Erik didn’t linger with the group of journalists who got fewer updates than her family did. The firefighter named Noel informed them frequently of the latest—which hadn’t meant a thing, really.
Max had calmed to the point of being an automaton. Jenna wondered if he was in shock. Maybe she should find a medic to look at him.
Noel approached again. She felt her dad stiffen and heard his ragged breathing.
The fireman stopped near Erik. “The helicopters are out now. They’ll survey the area. They’ll head to the Hideaway property first.” He turned and walked away.
No one said anything. They understood that this was it.
The Rolando Bluff Fire was already being referred to as one of the worst. Over a hundred fifty thousand acres had burned so far, fifteen hundred homes. Three people had died. The Santa Anas spread it. When those winds stopped blowing, “they”—those faceless people in the know—had said it was basically over. Said it would be contained soon. Santa Reina was on nobody’s radar.
Then the wind gusted from the ocean. A second fire erupted and met the first. Either a third one complicated the whole picture, or flames had simply jumped to encircle people who could not be alerted.
The fire shouldn’t have gone the way it did, advancing miles and miles from the origin and into places fueled only by scraggly mes-quite and sagebrush and piñon pine. Even the hills surrounding the Hideaway supported little vegetation. The mountains beyond were all
rock.
What was there to burn?
Erratic winds came and went and came again, tearing apart all predictions of what they would do. Communities were caught off guard. Residents of housing developments. Rural dwellers. Ranchers. The Hacienda Hideaway . . .
The ancestral homestead was old and austere, but a cherished piece of living history for Jenna. She remembered the first time she’d read H. H. Jackson’s novel
Ramona
. The fictional hacienda and grounds leaped off the pages. Jenna knew the place. Her grandparents owned it! Her imagination took flight. The Beaumonts were the Morenos, the fictional family who lived in the house.
The book sealed her love for literature and energized her ambi-tions for teaching it. She was twelve at the time.
But now . . . Now she couldn’t give a flying fig about the fate of the Hacienda Hideaway.
The minutes dragged. Jenna had no idea how many. There was an eerie, ashy feel in the air beneath a yellow sky overcast with some-thing other than its normal clouds. All the lights around the encamp-ment stayed lit.
The cameraman from Erik’s station found their little group standing by her dad’s car. She watched her brother talk with him. Erik’s impudence had been totally wiped from his demeanor. His expressive eyebrows didn’t budge. Scrunched lips replaced his easy smile. The camera guy left, disgust written all over his demeanor.
Erik stepped nearer Danny. “He wanted to make us the morning news. I told him where he could store his camera.”
Noel, their fireman of few words-slash-personal liaison, strode toward them again. Danny told Jenna that at first he had been chat-tier. That was before their dad nearly bit off his head. Now his face remained passive.
“The helicopters made their first pass over the property. The fire is smoldering, but it’s out. The house is standing. Nothing else, though. Burned outbuildings, vehicles. No one has been spotted. We should be able to move in on the ground later this morning. Meanwhile, the copters will pass over again, soon as they check on some other areas.”
Jenna wondered if they’d send someone besides Noel if the news really meant anything.
M
om!” Lexi’s hollow voice drifted down through the tunnel. “Come on!”
Claire crossed her arms at her waist and tried to smile.
Eddie chuckled. “You know, the worst really is over.”
They knelt on their haunches under the low ceiling. Only the two of them remained inside the gold mine. Directly in front of them was the entrance to the narrow passageway that led up and out. The light from Eddie’s helmet flickered.
He said, “After what you just went through, you’re able to conquer anything.”
“Not that.” She dipped her head toward the tunnel and winced at the vivid image of being squeezed on all sides, of tumbling into a dark void, where little girls cried alone in basements.
“Claire, you can. You’re not alone. I’ll come behind you. Chad’s at the other end. He’ll crawl in to meet you. Trust me. I said I wouldn’t leave you.”
She gazed into his eyes, nearly lost in the shadows.
“You already faced this memory, remember? And you won.” He tugged at her arms until she uncrossed them, and then he held her hands. “You won.”
“Mom!” Lexi called again. “I’m waiting for those chocolate chip cookies you promised to bake!”
Eddie laughed. “Let’s go.” He guided her, helping her duck her head into the opening. “Chad! We’re coming.”
A voice called back, “I’m here! It’s me, Claire.”
Ben.
“Come on, honey. Let’s go home. Stretch out your hand, and I’ll grab it.”
Her father-in-law waited for her at the other end.
She lay flat in the dirt, her forearms pressed against it. “Eddie?”
“I’m here.”
She felt his hand on her leg.
“Go ahead.”
She inched along like a worm. Eddie kept up a steady stream of talk behind her. Lexi sang loudly, “Well, I stuck my head in a little skunk’s hole, and the little skunk said, ‘Well, bless my soul!’”
At last she felt the tips of Ben’s fingers.
She focused on the men who stayed with her. She focused on her daughter’s silly singing. She focused on the other voice. “You can do it, Claire!”
And then she was lying facedown in ash, and someone was help-ing her to her feet.
T
he forced chatter had been all for her. Once Ben released Claire from his bear hug and the cheers died, all talk ceased. She immediately saw the reason for their somber faces.
The landscape before them was not the one they’d traversed the previous night. If someone told her she’d been transported to the moon, she would have believed them.
Maybe they had, after all, died. Evidently every other form of life had.
A sickly yellow light emanated from the sky. Something heavier than clouds filled the atmosphere. It was so thick it swallowed all sound. No birds chirped. No insects thrummed.
Where they stood was a steep incline. The stones they’d climbed up and over last night and the ground beneath were black. Where she should have seen trees in the distance, she saw giant broken match-sticks and wisps of smoke.
Eddie crouched in front of the entrance and inspected it.
A wave of nausea rolled through Claire. The opening was, liter-ally, a small, square hole hewn impossibly out of rock on the hillside. Last night she hadn’t been able to appreciate the full effect in the shadowy light of lanterns—else she never would have crawled into it. How the firemen in their gear and the knapsacks had fit through, she had no idea.
Eddie traced the wood slats that framed it. They were charred. “It came close.”
Chad chuckled. “That’s the understatement of the century.”
Indio whispered, “Oh my.”
Horror engulfed Claire. Its weight pressed at her like giant hands on her shoulders. She sank onto the nearest rock, propped her face against her hands, and burst into tears.
T
hey’ve been spotted.” Noel, the fire department’s spokesman, said nothing more. He just stood there.
Max pushed himself away from the car and moved. He made it all of three steps before Kevin threw an arm across his chest.
Max had no voice left to object, but he swore to himself if that moron Noel did not finish what he’d come to say, he would knock him to the ground and get him in a choke hold and keep him there until he guaranteed the kid would never speak again.
“The helicopter can’t set down near them yet. Ground’s too steep and rocky. But they’re walking in the general direction of the house. So.” He smiled. “Great news, huh?”
Max wrestled against Kevin’s arm.
Erik said, “Maybe. Who exactly is ‘they’?”
“Oh yeah.” Noel shook his head. “Sorry. Uh, seven people.”
“Seven?” Max’s three kids cried in unison.
“Three are obviously firefighters. We’re sure they’re the guys we were missing.”
Kevin tightened his hold around Max.
“And,” Noel said quickly, seeing Max’s movement, “and an older couple, tall man with white hair, a short woman, hair braid. A skinny woman with long hair, carrying a cat, and a woman with shorter hair. And a dog was with them. Probably a golden retriever. They all waved. I mean, the people did.”
For one long moment, nobody said anything.
Then the laughter and tears and shouts and hugs began.
Relief flooded through Max, as strong as a physical sensation. It gushed, shoving out the weight of despair that had nearly suffocated him through the awful black hours. Light and warmth exploded in his being, and he could not contain the joy.
Joy?
No doubt. That was it. His family was safe.
He leaped into the air like a jackrabbit.
Sudden compassion for Noel filled him. The guy was his new best friend. He bounded over to him, grasped his head between his hands, and planted a kiss on his cheek. “I’m gonna write you into my will!”
A
t long last, hours after emerging from the mine, the survivors neared the hacienda, speechless and exhausted beyond measure.
Claire wondered again if she had died. She couldn’t remember much of the hike except the conscious effort it took to put one foot in front of another and then to do it all over again. And again. And again.
They’d lived through the fire, but the blackened earth and yellow sky nagged at her. Death hovered all around.
She remembered reaching Ben’s truck. Nobody said a word. They all just gazed at the twisted hunk of metal that had carried them most of the way to safety the previous night.
Now and then a helicopter whirred overhead, tracking their progress. Once it seemed about to land. It only stirred up a windstorm of ash that swept particles into their eyes and made them cough more.
“Oh . . .” Lexi groaned.
Everyone slowed. Claire looked to where Lexi pointed. The park-ing area lay directly before them. There were three burned-out vehicles: the tractor and her and Lexi’s cars. Thinking of the treasures she’d packed in her trunk and backseat, she reached out and slipped her hand into Indio’s.
They moved on. Moments later the house came into view. It still stood. Black streaks marred the white walls, but it still stood.
It just didn’t have any windows.
Indio moaned.
Eddie spoke. “We’ll go in first.”
Ben heaved a breath.
Claire said, “We’re right behind you.”
His soft smile poured courage into her. Whatever lay ahead, she and her family were not alone.
T
he shocks hit her in waves, one scene after another battering at her psyche.
Charred, twisted, melted, unidentifiable things. Glass, draperies, and blinds gone. Ash where rugs had lain. Buckled floors. The inner courtyard devoid of flowers and plants, furnished with chunks of burnt wicker.
She ached for her in-laws as they surveyed shadowy room after room. Ben and Indio seemed to shrink before her very eyes. The life they’d known for nearly sixty years had vanished overnight.
She cried with them as they realized one loss after another. It seemed they had felt total devastation at the sight of her car, with its contents of photos and mementos obviously destroyed. But the pain now deepened beyond measure.
Alone in the courtyard, Claire hugged herself. Why had this happened? What was the point? Ben and Indio did not deserve this. Something besides the physical had been eradicated. The sense of history was gone . . . of the first Beaumonts forging a home in the wilderness . . . of the generations that followed—good and bad, but still an unbroken thread that held the spirit of the place together.
“Hallelujah!” Indio’s shout came from the kitchen.
Claire rushed inside.
At the far end of the room, her in-laws stood near the blown-out window, silhouetted in the strange light that wasn’t exactly natural light.
Indio laughed, her hands raised in the air. “God is so good. Take a look at this!”
Ben hooted. “Ain’t that something?”
Claire walked toward them and followed their gaze to the side wall.
Indio’s wall of crosses was completely intact . . . as was the small table alongside it . . . as was the book atop the table.
Ben reverently lifted the thick, old family Bible with both hands and whispered, “Ain’t that something.”
Tears now streaming down her face, Indio covered her mouth and whispered, “The Lord giveth and the Lord taketh. Blessed be His name. His Word is all we need.”
Claire wiped her eyes. They would grieve the losses, but in the end they would still trust.
