Read Wildfire! Online

Authors: Elizabeth Starr Hill

Wildfire! (3 page)

BOOK: Wildfire!
11.03Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads
Together Ben and Elliot returned to their families. Ben flung himself down on the blanket near Goomby. She had spread out jugs of lemonade and sodas and more food. All over the park, people began eating and drinking again.
Mrs. Lorton had been holding the pup. Now she handed him back to Elliot. “I think he's hungry.”
Elliot nodded absently. He gave the pup some meat loaf.
The band concert began. The sky was turning rosy gold with sunset. The music was tuneful and
familiar. People hummed the old songs. It was a peaceful time of day, but not for Ben. He felt more and more nervous.
The Yankee Doodle Dandies started “The Stars and Stripes Forever.” This was always the last number in the concert.
Ben jumped up and murmured to Goomby, “Be back soon.” She nodded, and he sprinted away, carrying an empty Coke bottle with him. He could feel Elliot watching him, waiting for the concert to end.
At the truck, he looked back to be sure nobody could see him. The parking lot was a fair distance from the picnic area, with trees and bushes in between. The sun was setting, and smoke dulled the air. Anyway, nobody was near enough to catch a clear view of him.
He heard applause at the finish of the concert. Ben knew most people would stay for a while, enjoying the last of the day. Someone began strumming a guitar.
He got the box of fireworks and some matches from the pickup. The box was pretty big, but not
too heavy. Still holding the empty Coke bottle, Ben balanced the box against his chest and lugged it to the path leading to the lake, at the far end of the park.
The tall trees of the forest loomed around the lake. Many of their needles had turned brown in the drought. Ben took the box to the rock where he and Grandpa had set off fireworks the year before—when there had been plenty of rain and no worries about fire.
Ben glanced at the tinder-dry forest, then put his own worries and hesitation out of his mind. Lucy and Jimmy and the others were running along the path toward him, with Elliot close behind. The pup was running loose around Elliot's ankles.
“Welcome to the Fourth of July show!” Ben called. He wrenched the top off the box and took out a rocket. Then, aware again of the nearness of the pines, he hesitated.
“Let's get started,” Lucy said.
“It's not dark yet,” Jimmy Kyler objected. “Anyway, I don't think we should be doing this.”
“
Come on,
before everybody chickens out,” Lucy urged Ben.
Elliot strolled up. “Maybe Ben's the chicken.” He smiled coolly.
“Who, me?” Quickly Ben took out a rocket. “This is it! Get ready!” He stuck the rocket's long balsa-wood tail into the Coke bottle and set the bottle in the sand. Now the rocket's black nose was pointed to the sky, slightly over the lake.
Ben's hands were sweating. They shook a little as he lit a match and ignited the fuse in the tail. He shouted, “Stay back, everybody!”
They all knew it was dangerous to get near the rocket once that fuse was lit. The puppy barked, confused, following first one person, then another. The fuse burned up to the rocket's red body, the part that was filled with explosives. When it reached it, the rocket shot into the air in a high arc. It made a shattering noise and burst into a shower of colored floating sparks. They drifted toward the water, and toward the towering pines.
The puppy yelped in terror and rushed away, running for shelter in the forest.
Ben yelled, “Come back!” But the dog was gone, out of sight.
Elliot said, “Hey! That was great!” He moved toward the box. “How about some more, Ben?”
Suddenly the fun was over for Ben. He could hear the puppy, yelping still. He slammed the box shut and said to Elliot, “You better get your dog! He went into the woods!”
“Oh.” Elliot looked around, then groaned. “How am I supposed to find him in there?”
Ben didn't answer. He plunged in among the trees. “Here, boy,” he called. He wished the dog had a name. “Come back, fella!”
Behind him, one of the kids said, “I need to get back to my folks.”
“Me, too,” Lucy Johnson decided.
They began to disperse.
“Hey, Ben, wait for me!” Elliot called. He blundered toward Ben through the pines as the terrified little dog scampered ahead.
“Do you know where we're going?” Elliot gasped after a few minutes.
“No,” Ben admitted. He had never been in this part of the forest before. He seldom roamed in the woods, even near his own house. Much of the ground was rough, littered with fallen sticks and branches from past hurricanes, and overgrown with vines and scrub palmettos.
They could hear the headlong flight of the puppy ahead. Finally they glimpsed him and trailed him deeper into the woods.
Sunset faded from the sky. A weird misty dusk
blanketed the forest. The boys ran on and on, first this way, then that. At every twist and turn they could see the pale form of the puppy, scrambling, small and desperate, far ahead of them.
“It'll be dark soon.” Ben heard the fear in Elliot's voice.
“I know that.”
After a while the puppy slowed down. For a few moments Ben thought they were gaining on him. Then the dog spotted an armadillo and dashed sidewise after it, barking. With surprising speed, the armadillo raced off through the fallen palm fronds. The puppy, following in this new direction, went after it.
Ben and Elliot groaned. The pup was farther away from them than ever. But he couldn't reach the armadillo. At last he faltered and gave up.
“Good boy! Come here!” Ben called. He clapped his hands.
The pup looked in his direction.
“That's it! Come on!” Ben called.
Exasperated, Elliot echoed, “Here!
Now
, you dumb dog!”
The pup took several steps toward them. Then his attention seemed to be diverted. He looked away. After a minute Ben saw what the dog saw. About forty feet away, a group of wild pigs were rooting in a clearing. The last light of day shone down through the break in the trees and illumined them plainly.
Ben had always known that huge pigs lived in the woods, but he had seen them only a few times. They moved around mostly at night, hunting for food. They were about three feet tall at the shoulder and large-bodied, with dark bristly hair and sharp tusks. The boars—the males—guarded the group, and Ben knew they could be ferocious, especially when protecting their young.
And among the other pigs were two young piglets.
Curious, the pup moved nearer the group. One boar separated from the others and grunted warningly. It trotted a few steps toward the puppy. Obviously this boar was ready to defend the whole group against danger. It was the largest of them all, its tusks glimmering like curved knives.
The dog barked, sounding a little scared now.
“Oh, no,” Elliot moaned under his breath.
The pig grunted again and trotted nearer.
This sent the pup into a frenzy of barking. He made a short rush at the boar. He stopped before getting too near. But the pig came after him, snorting and grunting angrily.
At last the pup got scared enough to turn and head for Ben, away from the boar. The boar kept coming. The pup was right in his path, and in front of the pup were Elliot and Ben.
Elliot panicked. He ran, stumbling in the near-dark, getting away.
Ben stood his ground, badly frightened. Then he raced toward the pup. The enraged boar was getting closer by the moment.
Before the furious pig could reach them, Ben managed an extra burst of speed and scooped up the quivering puppy. Holding the dog in his arms, he reversed direction, trying to choose a way that offered the best chance of escape.
Outside the clearing, dusk was darkening to night. It was hard to see much of anything. Ben knew the best thing he could do would be to climb a tree, but none of those around him had low-enough branches to give him a foothold. And climbing with the puppy in his arms would be almost impossible anyhow.
The pig snorted. It was only a few yards away now. And Ben knew that it was capable of tearing them both to pieces.
He had to take cover. Desperately Ben scanned the small visible space around him. He could make out a clump of scrub palmetto nearby, its stunted clusters of short trunks and fronds forming dense bunches of foliage. Holding tight to the puppy, Ben dived into it and burrowed until he and the pup were out of sight.
His heart pounded. He felt as if his chest might burst.
The pup whimpered softly, then quieted.
Ben waited. The boar was right outside the palmettos.
He heard its harsh, angry breathing. But it did not charge the dense foliage.
Ben waited. He knew the boar was still there, and he didn't dare move.
Then there were new sounds. It was as though a strange mood was overtaking the forest. The woodland creatures were stirring. Ben heard a wide rustle of squirrels and armadillos through the underbrush, and a quiet but hasty slither of snakes.
He peeked out between palmetto fronds. The boar was not far from him, but its gaze was set in another direction.
Ben looked that way. A glow had appeared in the woods. The boar snuffled, lifted its head, and sniffed the air.
Ben smelled it, too. It was a faint new wave of smoke.
A river of fright seemed to rush through his stomach. The glow brightened against the sky. Then flickers of orange and red light showed through the trees.
Ben recognized them with horror.
Flames.
There was a new fire in the forest.
He remembered sparks from the exploded rocket drifting over the trees. This was just what people had feared might happen, what the whole town had been warned about—the reason fireworks had been banned.
The boar snorted and tossed its head. It trotted back to its group and began rounding them up.
A deer crashed through the woods, escaping from the fire. The puppy trembled and tried to hide his head against Ben's chest.
Holding him, Ben clambered out of the palmettos. He sensed the alarm of all the forest creatures. Darting lizards raced up trees, then down again, then off to fallen logs. A great horned owl hooted overhead and flapped away.
“Ben!” Elliot's frantic voice called from somewhere. “Help me!”
“Where are you?” Ben shouted. “I can't see you.”
“I don't know where I am,” Elliot answered in a despairing wail. “Help me! I hurt my leg!”
They exchanged a few more shouts. Finally Ben found Elliot lying on the ground beside a fallen log. “What happened?” he asked.
“I jumped over the log and landed on that thing.” Elliot gestured to a low spiny yucca called Spanish bayonet. Its long, rigid leaves were as sharp as swords. “Cut me up so bad—” Elliot extended his leg so Ben could see it.
The leg was gashed in several places and trickling blood.
Ben had run into Spanish bayonet himself a few times. He knew how painful the stabs were, but they were not deep.
“The bleeding'll stop pretty soon.” Ben clutched the puppy against his chest with one hand and extended the other to Elliot. The drift of smoke made him cough. “Here, get up.”
He thought Elliot would be pleased to see the pup safe, but he didn't seem to care. “The woods are on fire, aren't they?” Elliot's voice was a thin thread of fear.
“Yes. We've got to move. It's coming this way.”
“How do you know?” Elliot asked. He looked terrified.
“The animals know.
Get up
.” He pulled Elliot upright.
As Elliot saw the flames more clearly, his voice rose in panic. “What if the whole forest burns?”
“We just have to keep ahead of the fire.” Ben spoke as calmly as he could. He supported Elliot and pulled him forward.
They climbed over tangled vines and fallen logs, traveling slowly but steadily—toward where, or what, they had no idea. The smoke made both of them cough and burned their eyes. The puppy whimpered.
They heard the distant sound of sirens. “It's the fire engines from Carville!” Ben said.
Elliot asked, “They'll put it out right away, won't they?”
Ben knew it could take a while to control a wildfire. “They'll sure try.”
From the sound of the engines and the look of the flames, he figured the fire was less than three miles away, and the park was about three miles from where he lived. So he and Elliot must have traveled roughly parallel to the road. Ben realized they could actually be at some point near his home by now.
The thought filled him with a surge of strength. He remembered they had circled again and again, so he didn't know whether the bungalow would be to the right or the left of them, or how far into the woods they were. Or how to get out.
But at least he had hope now.
Elliot seemed to feel the same way. He put out more effort, using his bad leg as much as he could. Although they didn't know which way to go, they were at least getting farther from the fire. It seemed better than just standing still.
Ben strained his eyes, trying to see a familiar tree or other landmark through the darkness.
But he couldn't make out anything recognizable.
The sirens stopped. The boys told each other the firefighters were working now.
This thought cheered them for a while. They
coughed and battled on, through tangled vines and piercing spiny plants and dried-up ferns.
But as time went by, the boys' spirits sagged. The forest was very quiet, a lonely unknown vastness. Animals seemed to have gone to some distant secret place. No birds sang.
The boys were lost. Lost.
BOOK: Wildfire!
11.03Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

Other books

Magic Rises by Andrews, Ilona
Whiteout by Ken Follett
Callie's Cowboy by Karen Leabo
The Road Home by Patrick E. Craig