Escape from Fire Mountain (2 page)

Nikki held her breath. No telling what they would do if they found her there as a witness.

One of the men suddenly looked in her direction. He had cold blue eyes and a pointed red beard. She tried to sink lower into the grass. The man began walking right at her. He
passed so close he almost stepped on her hand.

A horse whinnied. It was Goblin. He had somehow gotten loose and decided to join Nikki in the meadow.

The man with the red beard grabbed the horse's reins. “Someone's out here, Frank. They probably saw the whole thing.”

The man called Frank finished tying the ram's head and wiped the blood off his hands. “Quit worrying. It's just a loose horse. You've been jumpy all day.”

The bearded man scowled. “I'll quit worrying when we close down this operation. We've got too much at stake to get caught.”

“We're not going to get caught. No one lives in these mountains. There's one old hunting lodge and no people around for miles.”

“Then where did he come from?” Red Beard looked at the horse.

“Like I said, he got loose. Probably threw a greenhorn somewhere down in the valley. Give him a swat and send him on his way. We've got more important things to worry about.”

The bearded man tied the horse's reins together and hit him hard on the rear. Goblin jumped forward and raced through the trees.

“Don't just stand there,” Frank snarled. “Let's get this one back to camp and measure the horns. If it's as big as I think it is, we'll only need three more to fill our order.”

The two men climbed on the four-wheelers and drove away, leaving the animal's carcass lying in the grass.

Nikki waited until she could no longer hear their engines before she stood up. Her shoulders slumped. Goblin was nowhere in sight, and it was a good four miles back to the lodge.

Thunder rolled from the east, and lightning crashed behind it. The dark clouds had moved in while the poachers had kept her captive in the grass. Dime-size raindrops started falling.

Nikki shivered, pulled up her shirt collar, and ran.

Goblin was waiting patiently by the barn when Nikki got home. By the time she unsaddled him and made it to the house she was thoroughly drenched. Water ran off her hair and clothes and made puddles on the floor.

The lightning was worse now, striking every few minutes. Nikki looked out the narrow window next to the front door. Another flash popped near the barn, and the ground turned a ghostly white.

Nikki leaned against the wall to catch her breath, wondering what to do about the
poachers. “The sheriff,” she whispered out loud. Leaving a wet trail, she headed for the kitchen and picked up the phone.

It was dead.

“Oh great.” Nikki brushed a piece of long blond hair out of her eyes. She snapped her fingers. “The CB.” It didn't have great range, but it would be worth a try.

She ran to her dad's office and had just turned the doorknob when she heard the radio squelch. A garbled voice crackled through the static.

“… please anybody … fire … need help, over.” It was a child's voice, a boy's, but it shook with fear or pain. “Can you … me … near the bend in the river. Help us … over.”

Nikki stayed off the radio, waiting to hear a response, not wanting to interfere with an emergency. There was no answer.

“… lost … fire coming closer … anybody hear …”

Still no response.

Nikki picked up the handset.
I'll wait a
second longer
, she thought.
Maybe someone will call him
.

“We … help … sister's hurt … please …” The voice was torn by static.

Nikki listened intently, but there were no other transmissions. There would be no help for them.

“I can help you. I'll get you out.” Nikki found herself yelling into the microphone. “Can you hear me?”

Except for the buzz of static, the radio was silent.

They hadn't received her.

Nikki tried again. “Can you hold on? Can you tell me where you are? Over.”

“… white rocks … can any … help us …”

The speaker suddenly went dead, as if someone had unplugged the radio.

The poachers would have to wait. Nikki raced upstairs and checked her survival bag. It was always kept packed with dried food, extra clothing, and other gear so that when her father needed her on short notice, she
would be ready. She made an attempt to dry off, changed her clothes, and slipped into a raincoat.

By the time she got outside, the weather had begun to clear. The wind still whipped, but the brunt of the storm had moved on.

She started for the barn to resaddle Goblin but changed her mind.

A canoe would be faster.

The boy had described white rocks near a bend in the river. That could only be one place—Deadman's Drop.

The rapids.

Nikki ran to the boat shed and pulled a fiberglass canoe off the rack. She carried it on her shoulders to the water and then went back for paddles and a life vest.

She threw her survival pack in the middle, slid into the canoe, and pushed off.

As Nikki paddled down the rushing mountain river, she searched the horizon for a sign of the fire. Sure enough, a thin gray haze hung just over the top of one of the mountain ridges downriver. She thought she could smell the smoke.

Her dad had been called upon many times in the past to help fight fires in the area, and she had learned that lightning was usually the cause. She was hoping that there had been enough rainfall in that area to keep it from spreading too far. Nikki breathed a sigh of relief when she
thought about home. The lodge had just received a good soaking. It would be safe for the time being from spot fires.

A loud noise brought her attention back to the river.

She felt it more than heard it. From just ahead came a slow, constant thundering sound.

The first white water.

She reached it in seconds. This small set of rapids wasn't considered too difficult. Nikki had run them many times with her father. Together they had traveled the north fork of the river all the way to Harrison.

Once through, she straightened her back and dropped her knees to the floor of the canoe. Readjusting her grip on the paddle, she began looking ahead for rocks.

The frothing white water tumbled and was loud enough now to block out all other sound as it crashed over the large rocks and curled under in eddies.

The speed of the canoe increased, drawn by the current. The canoe seemed to hang on the edge of a rapid for a second.

Then it shot up.

Nikki could no longer see the river in front of the canoe. Water rolled and splashed over her. The hull grated on a rock. She screamed at herself for not seeing it sooner.

Despite her best efforts to stop it, the stern of the canoe started to turn. In a matter of seconds the small craft whipped around and plunged blindly backward.

She tried to push against passing boulders to turn it back, but the current was too strong.

Then it hit hard.

The canoe scraped its hull against a huge rock and lurched to a stop. A rip could fill the craft with water almost instantly. Nikki quickly inspected it for leaks. She ran her hands over the sides and up and down the bottom, feeling for even the tiniest tear. She found none.

“Okay.” Nikki used the paddle to push free from the snag and continued downstream. “Let's get it right this time.”

The water in front of her was calmer for the next mile or so. Occasionally the current tugged at her, but she guided the little canoe through with no more problems.

The smoke was easier to see now. It was boiling black from just beyond the next hill.

Nikki let the canoe drift close to shore. The river forked here, and Deadman's Drop would be coming up. She could take her chances and maybe get to the kids faster by trying the dangerous rapids, or she could pull the canoe out now and go overland.

“It won't be faster if I'm dead,” Nikki said out loud. She stepped out of the canoe onto the pebbly river bottom and pulled the craft up to the shore, then secured it to a tree with the bow rope.

Quickly she took off her life vest and shrugged out of the thin raincoat. Slinging the pack over her shoulder, she headed toward the smoke.

Nikki wished she had some way of knowing exactly where the boy and his sister were. Since he had mentioned the river, she decided the best thing to do was stay close to it. Maybe they would be waiting somewhere near the rapids.

It hadn't rained here. The brush along the
shore was dry and brittle. There would be nothing to slow the fire. It was free to burn in any direction it chose.

A tangled mass of clawing brush tore at her clothes. She worked through it as fast as she could, the sharp leaves drawing blood from her hands, When it got too thick, Nikki waded in the water to avoid it.

Around the next twist in the river, a wall of pale gray smoke—silhouetted in solid black— rose from the trees just a few hundred yards from her. The underside of the smoke was illuminated in an eerie reddish glow. For a moment she stood transfixed, fascinated in a way she couldn't explain.

Nikki shook her head and bolted blindly through the brush. A mixture of fear and uncertainty flooded over her. One thought ran through her mind: Find the children and make it back to the canoe before the fire cut her off.

She started shouting. “Hey! Are you there? Can you hear me?”

The smoke was a thick black cloud
sweeping toward her just ahead of the raging fire. An orange tint settled in the tops of the trees. Nikki tried not to look at it.

She would face the fire soon enough.

“Please, please let me find them,” Nikki prayed. She cupped her hands and yelled as loud as her voice could carry, “Where are you? I'm here to help. You have to answer me.”

After a few more yards Nikki stopped. She had gone as far as the shore would allow. There was a sheer drop of a hundred feet in front of her. Though she had never been down this fork, she knew exactly where she was.

Deadman's Drop.

The roar from the rapids drowned out her shouting. The air was hot, and pieces of soot flew around her.

Think!
Nikki tried desperately to concentrate.
If you were a frightened child trapped in a forest fire, what would you do?

She stood on the edge of the cliff and watched the crashing white water below.

A tiny hand reached up and touched her shoe.

Dropping to her knees, Nikki grabbed the hand and pulled a chubby little girl with dark brown curls and big black eyes to the top of the overhang. A boy about eight years old, with the same color eyes and lighter hair, dressed in jeans and a torn green T-shirt, climbed up behind her. He was carrying a toy walkie-talkie.

“What on earth …” Nikki stared.

The girl, who looked to be maybe four years old, was wearing a dirty pink jumper. Dried tears stained her cheeks. She sat in Nikki's lap
and hugged her hard. “Me and James thought nobody could hear us.”

“What are you two doing out here?”

The boy looked sheepish. “It was all an accident. We borrowed my grandpa's canoe, and it sorta got away from us.”