Daredevil’s Run

What about it, Alex?

And for some reason she was remembering that moment at The Corral, when he’d almost asked her to dance. Except he hadn’t said the words, not really. Had he? And even if he had, she wouldn’t have known what to say. Anyway, she’d hesitated and let the moment go by. And regretted it-she could admit that, now. She’d underestimated him then. What if-

It’s not the same! That was a stupid dance, dammit-this is life and death. If you make the wrong choice this time it’ll cost you a helluva lot more than a Corral burger.

Then…without even realizing she’d made her decision, she was bending over, giving the boat a shove, stepping over the side. “All right, then, let’s do it,” she said tersely.

With Sam and Matt helping, they pushed off from the riverbank and the boat caught the current.

Not much was said. Alex didn’t give her usual speech, reminding everyone of the commands, going over the safety rules. Sam and Matt had already taken up their positions in the bow, one on each side. It was Cory who was in the bottom of the boat, now, wedged in among the backpacks and sleeping bags to cushion him as much as possible. Alex climbed carefully around him to her seat up high on the back and took hold of the oars.

It was deceptively peaceful, at first, drifting on the river past stands of bull pine and sycamore, manzanita and chaparral and cottonwoods, and the great gray boulders scoured smooth and carved into fantastical shapes by rushing waters over uncounted millennia. But above them the sky roiled with billows of windblown smoke, and the sun seemed far away and inconsequential, only a glaring, brassy disk, like an old tarnished coin.

The wind blew stronger and hotter, a thermal wind now, fed by the fire as much as driving it. Ash rained down on the river and the boat and the people in it, and no one spoke of it. No one spoke at all.

I wonder, Alex thought, if they’re all as scared as I am. Are you afraid, Mattie? Or is this just another adventure for you? You used to love to dare the Devil.

At that moment, as if he felt her gaze, he turned his head and smiled at her. His beautiful smile, like the old Mattie. And in a gravelly voice that wouldn’t have been out of place in a biker’s bar, he began to bellow “The River,” the Garth Brooks song that had been running through her own head. She felt a kick under her ribs and a tightness in her throat that kept her from joining Sam and Cory when they chimed in on the chorus, but then the last lines of the second verse flashed into her mind and she had to laugh out loud. Dare to dance… How had he known what she was thinking?

The singers repeated the chorus with lusty enthusiasm, then let it die away. And in the quiet, they heard it-the rushing roaring sound that wasn’t wind.

Sam threw Alex a look that wasn’t quite alarm. “Good Lord-is that the falls I’m hearing?”

“I don’t think so,” said Matt. “Look…”

They all looked where he’d pointed with a tilt of his head, toward the timbered ridge that rose on the right bank of the river, no more than a quarter of a mile away. Sam spoke for all of them when she murmured, “Oh my God.”

Flames were shooting upward along the top of the ridge, tornadoes of fire, twisting, twirling, leaping and roaring like something alive. Like a monster, hungry, voracious…alive. As they watched, a bull pine on the downslope of the ridge exploded in flames. The monster gave a great roar as if in triumph as it devoured that tree and instantly bounded on to the next…and the next. Heading straight for them.

Alex was already down in the boat, tearing through the packed gear. “Here,” she yelled, “grab a sleeping bag. Dip it in the river.” She was putting her words into action, tossing a sleeping bag at Matt, who caught it and unrolled it over the side of the boat. “Get yourself covered. Everybody get down in the boat and cover up. Cover as much of the boat as you can!” She didn’t want to think about what would happen if one burning cinder hit the boat. Going over the falls in an oar boat was one thing; going over in wet suits and life jackets, especially with an injured man…that wasn’t an option she wanted to contemplate.

As she struggled to drag the sodden sleeping bags into the boat and get them wrung out enough to work with, Alex heard a new note above the demonic roaring of the fire-the metallic hum of aircraft engines. And now she could see the helicopter zooming toward them up the valley, its water bag swaying out behind as it banked into the path of the inferno. It dropped its load and swooped away into the distance, where she could see another chopper angling into position. They seemed so tiny, she thought, like sparrows circling the head of a dragon.

The image had barely formed in her mind when the beast let go a blast of fiery breath-searing heat, choking smoke and stinging ash-straight into their path. Fear, blacker and more suffocating than the smoke, enveloped her. Her mind stopped. The oars slipped from her hands as she lunged blindly for the side of the boat.

Then, from somewhere outside the terror, came a sound. A voice. Matt’s voice, yelling.

“Get down! Cover up! And paddle like hell if you can!”

And somehow she was gripping the oars once again, leaning into them with all her might and at the same time trying not to breathe. The boat galloped beneath her, gathering speed. The wet sleeping bag was heavy on her head and shoulders, and peering from under it like a terrified creature hiding beneath a rock, she saw the world disappear in a roiling billowing holocaust of smoke and flame.

“Don’t look!” Matt’s voice, like a raucous note of a blackbird’s call in the midst of a storm. “Keep your eyes on the water! Pull…pull!”

Alex focused on his voice, shut out everything else, listened only to that voice.

Her lungs screamed in agony, desperate for air. Her eyes streamed tears and her throat made whimpering sounds without breath. Oh God oh God don’t let me die like this not like this!

Then…just when she thought she could not make her arms and shoulders go one more pull on the oars, when her muscles seemed on the brink of total rebellion…the noise and heat and smoke were behind her. She could hear sounds again-the clatter of choppers, the rush of the river, grunts of effort, coughs and ragged breathing from the others in the boat. She threw back her head, shook off the wet sleeping bag as she gulped in air, as much as her lungs would hold. The oars went slack, and she slumped over, trembling.

Incredibly, someone-was it Matt? Sam?-began to laugh. Alex tried it, and discovered it felt good. Laughing and sobbing with the sheer joy of being alive, she looked up and found Matt’s eyes, found them gazing back at her, red- rimmed and burning, as if they still held pieces of the fire they’d come through. He wore a black mustache from the smoke and she knew she probably did, too. Yes, they all had them-Sam, holding the paddle with one hand and a death grip on her husband’s life vest with the other; Cory hunched over with one arm braced across his ribs and a grin on his face; and Matt, holding his paddle across his knees like a victorious gladiator.

Gazing at them, Alex felt chastened…humbled. And overwhelmed by a tremendous wave of…something-my God, was it love?-for each of them. Amazing, incredible, wonderful people, these three- they’d come through with flying colors, while she, on the other hand, had come within a breath of losing it. If it hadn’t been for Matt calling her back from the edge of panic…

“Don’t get too comfortable, guys,” Matt yelled in a voice reduced to a frog’s croak by the smoke and fire. “Hear that? That’s the falls. Comin’ up fast. Now listen up-when we get close, you want to make sure to keep the boat pointed straight ahead. Got it? Don’t let her slip sideways, or we’re all goin’ for a swim.”

He half expected Alex to say something, take back the lead, but she didn’t. In fact, she seemed awfully subdued, for Alex. Knowing her the way he did, he was pretty sure she was feeling bad about being scared when they were going through the fire. He knew she’d hate that she had been, because she liked to think of herself as up for anything. But brave as she was, she wasn’t a daredevil, not like he was.

Daredevil. He’d been called that, by Alex, and probably some others, too. So he supposed he must be. He knew he’d never felt so alive-well, not in a long time, anyway. Maybe he did need to skirt the edge of danger, walk the tightrope, meet the challenge in order to feel fully alive.

And if that was so, how had he managed all these years, being only half-alive? More important, how could he go back to being half-alive after this? The river’s roar was music to him. It sang through all his muscles and nerves and bones, and he felt he could dance its dance forever and never get tired.

He looked over his shoulder at Alex, and thought he’d never seen her look more beautiful, with her hair coming loose from its braid and her cheeks streaked with soot and tears. He wanted her to know how happy he was, being here on the river again, with her. He wanted her to be happy, too, having him with her again. But she looked haunted, not happy, and he saw ghosts of the terror that had been in her eyes as they were heading into the fire.

Remembering that, he realized it wasn’t the first time he’d seen that look in her eyes. He’d seen the same fear and panic staring down at him as he lay on his back on a rocky ledge, feeling nothing at all, no pain…nothing, and