Henry hadn’t said ten words since he’d gotten off the phone with Claire. He was white-knuckling the steering wheel, taking the curves fast, his aviator sunglasses reflecting the road. There was no traffic to impede them now. They passed Big Charlie’s gas station and continued farther up, snaking through the Doug firs, siren wailing.
The trees were getting taller, the sky a skinny river above their heads. Dark shadows dappled the road. The ice had melted.
They cleared a curve and saw a Forest Service roadblock up ahead. It was Susan’s first glimpse of the fire. An orange wall of flame formed a squiggle along the back of one of the tree-thick ridges ahead of them. Beige smoke blocked out the whole eastern sky.
“Jesus,” she said.
Henry pulled up to the roadblock. The westbound lane was still open to let through the stragglers fleeing the fire, but the east-bound lane was blocked with sawhorses. A big sign read ROAD CLOSED DUE TO FIRE.
A park ranger with a ponytail walked up to the car. He wore a standard-issue brimmed ranger hat and a wet bandana tied around his nose and mouth. “You have to turn back,” he said to Henry, motioning back down the mountain.
Henry pointed to the siren on the hood. “Portland PD,” he said.
“Have you come to arrest the fire?” the ranger asked.
“I need to get to a timber road near the Metolius,” Henry said.
The ranger shook his head. “Fire’s too close to the road. It’s closed. You can go around.”
“Can’t,” Henry said. “I need to get through now. I think Gretchen Lowell’s up there. With Archie Sheridan.”
The ranger lifted his chin and surveyed the fiery hillside. For a second Susan wondered if Henry might just drive through the roadblock.
But he didn’t have to. “If the fire overtakes your car,” the ranger said, “stay in your vehicle. Lie on the floor and cover your head and face. Breathe shallow breaths through your nose. If you have to get out of the car don’t run uphill from the fire.”
Susan leaned forward so she could speak across Henry. “Why?” she asked.
The ranger took his handkerchief off and wiped the back of his neck with it. “Because heat rises,” he said, “and the fire will outrun you.”
He motioned to one of the other rangers to move the sawhorses so the Crown Vic could pass.
“Now go,” he said. “If the fire jumps the road get the hell out of there.”
Henry looked at Susan. She knew what he was thinking. “No,” she said, crossing her arms and facing straight ahead. “I’m staying with you.”
There were wildflowers along the highway; great fields of pink and purple carpeted the north shoulder where the hillside rose at a one-hundred-twenty-degree angle of rocky outcroppings. Susan had put her boots on and had her feet on the floor so she could lean forward and watch the smoke, a plume so huge it looked like a mountain. The road was eerily quiet. They had gone several miles and passed only a few yellow Forest Service trucks. Henry had the light and siren on and no one in the trucks had given them a second look. They had other things on their minds. The Doug firs were giving way to ponderosa pines. Just beyond the next hill, Susan could see two planes dropping red fire retardant. The red retardant looked like blood hemorrhaging from the planes’ split bellies.
A doe lay dead on the side of the road.
A bullet-riddled sign marked a SNO-PARK.
The smoke was thick enough now that Henry snapped on the headlights.
Susan glanced down at her cell phone. She’d been on roam for the last few miles. Now she didn’t have any signal at all. “I’ve lost service,” she said.
“Me, too,” Henry said.
Susan felt a cramping in her stomach that seemed a lot like fear.
It started to rain. Henry turned on the windshield wipers and the raindrops smeared gray along the glass. It wasn’t rain.
“What is it?” asked Susan.
“Did I ever tell you the story of how I ended up married to a Lummi Indian princess?” Henry asked.
“It’s not rain,” she said.
Henry accelerated. “It’s ash,” he said.
Susan rolled up her window. She did it quickly, putting her whole arm into it. The ash fell from the sky like snow, covering the car and the road with a fine gray dust.
The highway curved and opened up as they cleared the hump of the pass. The road began its descent into forest as far as the eye could see, half of it on fire, the sky orange with it, a weird psychedelic sunset.
“How much farther?” Susan asked. Her eyes burned from the smoke. It was getting thicker, so Henry had to slow down to stay on the road.
“Five miles,” Henry said.