When she awoke, it was with a jolt, as if something had shifted around her. Her head jerked up and she gasped, blinking in the darkness. Her heart was pounding. She could hear it like a drumbeat in her brain.
It took a moment before she realized that she could hear her pulse so clearly because the sound of the fire was gone. No more roaring, no crackling and popping and trees exploding in the heat. The heat was gone from the cave, too. In fact, the air was cool, almost chilly.
And when Annabel looked toward the mouth of the cave, she could see light seeping around the edges of the fire blanket. Not the reddish glare of flames, but the warm, rich glow of sunlight.
Had she slept until morning? That was hard to believe, but it was the only sensible explanation. That meant her fellow smoke-jumpers were probably out there in the canyon, searching for her. They had probably given up hope that she had survived the blaze, but they wouldn't leave one of their own behind. They would recover her body, no matter how long it took.
They were going to be surprised when she turned up alive, Annabel thought with a tired smile. She started crawling toward the mouth of the cave.
She expected to smell smoke and ashes as she approached the entrance, but instead there was a sweet fragrance in the air. Annabel frowned. She would have sworn that the fire had swept over this hillside, but perhaps it had been spared after all. She had seen some odd things happen in the middle of forest fires, such as little spots that were surrounded by devastation somehow remaining untouched by the flames. Maybe that was what had happened here.
But nothing in her experience had prepared Annabel for the sight that met her eyes when she reached out, took hold of the fire blanket, and pulled it aside.
Brilliant, early morning sunlight flooded in around her.
Annabel flinched from it, squinting her eyes against the brightness. She blinked rapidly as her vision adjusted to the light, then levered herself forward on her elbows so that she could stick her head out of the cave mouth.
Instead of being surrounded by the grayness of ashes and death, everywhere around her was the vividness of life.
The trees were green and tall, the grass thick and lush. Annabel gasped as she looked at the carpet of wildflowers on the hillside. Swaying back and forth in the sweet-smelling breeze that brushed them, they formed a rainbow of colors.
For a moment, as she stared at the verdant beauty all around her, Annabel thought she was hallucinating. Then she thought wildly that she had died, and this was heaven.
But she could feel the dirt under her fingers and the warmth of the sunshine and the breeze on her face. She knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that she was alive.
But. . . but how was it possible? How could she be seeing what she was seeing? The night before, nearly all of Mitchell Canyon had been consumed by fire. It was impossible that the next morning it could be so . . . so pristine, untouched by the flames.
Annabel closed her eyes again, and kept them shut for a long moment. When she opened them, she saw the same things she had earlier. The trees, the grass, the flowers . . . and birds, sitting in the trees and singing, as squirrels darted from branch to branch.
Reaching behind her in the cave, Annabel felt around until her hand fell on the radio. She took it with her as she crawled out of the cave, but left her Pulaski, fire blanket. and mask inside. Shakily, she climbed to her feet and tried the radio.
Nothing, not even static. She tried calling, "Earl? Captain McPhee? Anybody?" but there was no response. It was dead. With a grimace of disgust, Annabel turned and pitched it lightly back into the cave.
"Well, she told herself, no matter what the explanation was for the impossible unburned condition of the terrain around her, one thing was certain. . .. She was going to have to walk out of the canyon. There was no other way. She turned around, surveying her surroundings, and had no trouble locating Mount Diablo. With that landmark to go by, she was able to approximate the direction in which the fire road lay. She started toward it, and she had gone about a hundred yards before she remembered that she had left everything inside the cave. She hesitated, debating whether to go back and retrieve the gear, then decided against it. She was filthy and exhausted. She could always come back for the stuff later.
After a little while, she reached the place where she remembered having crashed the Jeep. From what little she recalled of the chaos from the night before, the spot looked familiar. But the Jeep wasn't there, and there was no sign of a wreck of any sort. Obviously, she had gotten turned around, Annabel told herself. Considering the circumstances, that would have been easy enough to do.