At some point in the endless night, more smoke and ash than ever began to swirl around us, and I caught myself thinking that we might not make it. Without stopping, we wet shirts, scarves, whatever we had, and tied them around our noses and mouths.
The fire roared and thundered its way past us on the north, singeing our hair and clothing, making breathing a terrible effort. The babies woke up and screamed in fear and pain, then choked and almost brought me down. Tori, crying herself with their pain and her own, held on to them and would not let them struggle out of the carriage.
I thought we would die. I believed there was no way for us to survive this sea of fire, hot wind, smoke, and ash. I saw people— strangers— fall, and we left them lying on the highway, waiting to burn. I stopped looking back. In the roar of the fire, I could not hear whether they screamed. I could see the babies before Natividad threw wet rags over them. I knew they were screaming. Then I couldn’t see them, and it was a blessing.
We began to run out of water.
There was nothing to do except keep going or burn.
The terrible, deafening noise of the fire increased, then lessened, and again, increased, then lessened.
It seemed that the fire went north away from the road, then whipped back down toward us.
It teased like a living, malevolent thing, intent on causing pain and terror. It drove us before it like dogs chasing a rabbit. Yet it didn’t eat us. It could have, but it didn’t.
In the end, the worst of it roared off to the northwest.
Firestorm, Bankole called it later. Yes. Like a tornado of fire, roaring around, just missing us, playing with us, then letting us live.
We could not rest. There was still fire. Little fires that could grow into big ones, smoke, blinding and choking smoke… . No rest.
But we could slow down. We could emerge from the worst of the smoke and ash, and escape the lash of hot winds. We could pause by the side of the road for a moment, and gag in peace. There was a lot of gagging. Coughing and gagging and crying muddy tracks onto our faces. It was incredible. We were going to survive. We were still alive and together-scorched and miserable, in great need of water, but alive. We were going to make it.
Later, when we dared, we went off the road, unloaded my pack from Bankole’s cart, and dug out his extra water bottle. He dug it out. He’d told us he had it when he could have kept it for himself.
“We’ll reach Clear Lake sometime tomorrow,” I said.
“Early tomorrow, I think. I don’t know how far we’ve come or where we are now, so I can only guess that we’ll get there early. But it is there waiting for us tomorrow.”
People grunted or coughed and downed swallows from Bankole’s extra bottle. The kids had to be prevented from guzzling too much water. As it was, Dominic choked and began to cry again.
We camped where we were, within sight of the road.
Two of us had to stay awake on watch. I volunteered for first watch because I was in too much pain to sleep. I got my gun back from Natividad, checked to see that she had reloaded it— she had— and looked around for a partner.
“I’ll watch with you, ” Grayson Mora said.
That surprised me. I would have preferred someone who knew how to use a gun— someone I would trust with a gun.
“I’m not going to be able to sleep until you do,” he said. “It’s that simple. So let’s both put our pain to good use.”
I looked at Emery and the two girls to see whether they’d heard, but they seemed to be already asleep.
“All right.” I said. “We’ve got to watch for strangers and fire. Give me a yell if you see anything unusual.”
“Give me a gun,” he said. “If anybody comes close, I can at least use it to scare them.”
In the dark, sure. “No gun,” I said. “Not yet. You don’t know enough yet.”
He stared at me for several seconds, then went over to Bankole. He turned his back to me as he spoke to Bankole. “Look, you know I need a gun to do any guarding in a place like this. She doesn’t know how it is. She thinks she does, but she doesn’t.”
Bankole shrugged. “If you can’t do it, man, go to sleep. One of us will take the watch with her.”
“Shit,” Mora made the word long and nasty. “Shiiit.
First time I saw her, I knew she was a man. Just didn’t know she was the only man here.”
Absolute silence.
Doe Mora saved the situation to the degree that it could be saved. At that moment she stepped up behind her father and tapped him on the back. He spun around, more than ready to fight, spun with such speed and fury that the little girl squealed and jumped back.
“What the hell are you doing up!” he shouted. “What do you want!”
Frightened, the little girl just stared at him. After a moment, she extended her hand, offering a pomegranate. “Zahra said we could have this,” she whispered. “Would you cut it?”
Good thinking, Zahra! I didn’t turn to look at her, but I was aware of her watching. By now, everyone still awake was watching.
“Everyone’s tired and everyone’s hurting,” I told him.
“Everyone, not just you. But we’ve managed to keep ourselves alive by working together and by not doing or
