So she was on her own, Annabel told herself. Whether she lived or died depended entirely on her. And she wasn't ready to give up.
She walked forward to the Jeep and retrieved her Pulaski and an asbestos fire blanket, both of which had been tossed out of the vehicle during the crash. She looked around until she thought she had herself oriented, then started trotting briskly toward the mouth of the canyon—at least, she hoped that was where she was headed.
Exhaustion and smoke quickly took their tolls on her. She had to dodge around areas of the fire, which meant she could never go more than fifty yards or so in a straight line. Weaving back and forth as she was, she had a hard time knowing if she was still going in the right direction. She had her mask over her nose and mouth to block out some of the smoke, but it couldn't filter all of the noxious stuff.
Suddenly, there were nothing but flames in front of her. The various patches of fire had finally all joined together in this spot, stretching from one side of the canyon to the other. Annabel came to a stop and stared at the massive blaze, feeling her heart sink as she did so. She knew now she wouldn't be able to make it to the mouth of the canyon. Her only hope would be to find someplace to hide from the flames.
She turned to her left, knowing that the results of whatever she did now were pretty much up to the workings of fate. For several minutes, she ran parallel to the wall of flame. At least the wind was blowing it away from her, she thought. But there were fires in the other direction, too, and they were coming closer to her with each passing second. Eventually they would hem her in, and there would be no place to run.
She realized she was going up a hill; at first she hadn't even noticed the slope. In the light of the fire, she saw that the hillside was covered with wildflowers, flowers whose fragile beauty would soon be consumed by the hungry flames.
It was then she noticed the dark opening in the side of the hill.
Annabel angled toward it, recognizing it for what it was: the mouth of a cave. If it was big enough for her to get inside, and deep enough that the worst of the heat wouldn't penetrate to the far end of it, she might be able to ride out the fire there. That was just about her only chance.
The opening was narrow, less than a yard wide, and only a couple of feet high. Annabel knelt in front of it and thrust the Pulaski inside as far as she could reach. It occurred to her that there might be a bear or some other wild animal denned up in there, in which case the cave's occupant probably wouldn't want to share. But she encountered nothing except empty air with the Pulaski, and when she moved it back and forth she could tell that the cave widened a bit as it went deeper into the hillside.
That was encouraging. Annabel turned around so that she could back into the hole. Pushing herself along with her elbows and toes, she scooted backward into the cave. When she was completely inside, she opened up the fire blanket and spread it over the opening. That would help keep out more of the heat.
The blanket also cut out the light from the flames, leaving Annabel in utter darkness. She fought down the fear that began to well up inside her. Still, she could sense the walls of the cave pressing in all around her, and she experienced a moment of panic.
"Funny," she muttered. "I never knew I was claustrophobic."
With an effort of will, she conquered her fears and kept moving backward in the cave. Checking from side to side with the Pulaski, she discovered that it did indeed grow larger, until it was about five feet wide and the ceiling had risen another foot. Annabel remembered a phrase from her childhood: snug as a bug in a rug. She felt no bigger than a bug, surrounded as she was by such tremendous forces of nature.
The air around her grew cooler as she retreated into the cave. It smelled of rich earth rather than acrid smoke, and several deep breaths of it seemed to soothe Annabel's tortured lungs. When the soles of her boots hit the back wall of the cave, she estimated that she was at least twenty feet inside the hill. That might be enough, she told herself hopefully. At least she had a chance to survive now. The worst of the fire would have passed her by in an hour, and she knew there was enough air in the cave to last that long.
She could still hear the roaring of the flames, and it grew louder as the conflagration reached the hillside and swept over it. Annabel squeezed her eyes shut and tried not to cry. Those wildflowers, she knew, were nothing but charred wisps of ash by now. She dug her fingers into the soft earth of the cave floor as the heat grew worse.
It was bad, but not unbearable. Time seemed to stretch out, and as unbelievable as it would seem to her later, Annabel actually dozed off for a short time.