Page 204 of Her Reluctant Hero
When the hard-hatted child stumbled again, he swung her into his arms. The weight of two children weighed him down, strained his muscles, exhausted him. He couldn’t go much farther like this. He shouted for the counselor to take the other girl who had been wrapped up in his fire shelter, slowed only until she took the child before he started running again.
They burst out of the trees but had no time to rejoice. The fire blazed at their heels and moved fast. If the branch ignited the floor fuels, they couldn’t outrun it. He veered east, back toward the fire camp. The plan had been to hike around the flank of the fire to the black area already destroyed by fire, presumably fuel free. The thing was, he wasn’t sure where the flank was, if the fire had moved faster around the camp than through it.
His crew had left no clue about which way they’d gone. He’d feel better if they were here where he could keep an eye on them. He just had to trust in his training of them to keep them safe.
Then he saw it, the fire racing uphill between them and the fire camp. He slowed for a moment, reasoned out the next step and turned down the hill. If the fire burned fast enough, it would leave a gap so they could escape through to the black.
“Cooper!” Peyton shouted, alarm in her voice.
He whirled and saw her framed by fire that had left the trees to pursue them. His heart slammed against his ribs and he fought the urge to go and drag her up the hill. He couldn’t lose time.
He swung back uphill and set the child in his arms down, pushing her ahead of him. “Run!” he shouted, and pointed the direction they’d been heading. “That way.”
He shoved the counselor after the kids and reached back for Peyton’s hand, then pushed her ahead of him, putting himself between them and the fire. The slope was treacherous, with granite and scrub brush jutting out, and they couldn’t gain much speed. Peyton set down the child she carried, but held her arm firmly. Ahead of him, one of the girls in the fire shirt stumbled and cut her shin on a stub of a juniper bush. The counselor knelt beside the crying child and tried to staunch the bleeding.
Gabe stopped, while every instinct screamed at him to keep moving. He wasn’t getting out of this one by running. He yanked his map out of his back pocket and spun Peyton around to spread it out on her back, dragging his finger over it as he scanned.
“What are you doing?” she asked. Her urgency to escape made her whole body quiver.
“What’d I tell you about questioning people who know more than you?” he demanded. “We can’t outrun this thing.”
He felt her shudder, but didn’t hear a trace of fear in her voice. “So what are we going to do?”
“I remember seeing something on the map. There! Caves.”
“Caves?” she echoed.
He slapped the map back in some semblance of its former shape, already moving again, pulling her sleeve to urge her along. “Ed Pulaski kept his crew alive in a mining shaft during a blowup. It won’t be comfortable, but we won’t be running.” He scanned the alien landscape. “Now if I can just get a fix where they’re at—”
“I know where they are,” the counselor said, looking up at them.
“Can we get there from here?” Gabe asked.
She nodded once and took the lead. “Follow me.”
The black ground boiled, fire pushing up through the brush and leaves it had already devoured to feed anew. The smoke was low and heavy and caught in Peyton’s throat. She couldn’t stop coughing.
The terror lodged in her chest didn’t help her catch her breath. Every step strained her thighs, shot throbbing pain up from her blistered feet. Smoke choked her with every wheeze, and the sweat rolling over her skin felt on the verge of boiling. She could think of nothing but water, yet didn’t dare stop to reach for it. Stopping meant death. So she bit back whimpers of fear, tears of pain and trudged on, dragging one child and helping the counselor shepherd the others.
Gabe moved tirelessly, though he should have been exhausted. In addition to his pack, he carried the child with the injured leg. He wasn’t wearing his helmet or fire shirt, so the embers snowing down on them burned his skin. He didn’t so much as twitch. He was either too focused or too scared, and she doubted it was the latter. Men like Gabe Cooper didn’t feel fear.
“There!” the counselor cried, and Peyton saw the outcropping of rocks through the smoke.
Peyton stalled for a moment. These weren’t caves like she expected, open mouthed and welcoming, like on Yogi Bear cartoons. These were more like crawl spaces. Crawl spaces underground.
She caught Gabe’s arm. “The kids are going to be scared going down there.”
He leveled a look at her. “The kids? Or you?”
She kept her gaze on the narrow opening. “I won’t lie. It does not look like a good time.”
He glanced over his shoulder. “Better than out here.”
“How do you know we can get back out again?” Her voice rose in panic. They could be stuck down there. Buried. God.
“We’ll get out.” He shrugged off his pack. “I’ll go in first and you pass the girls in to me.”
“And the packs?”
