We rattled down the road in the dark, with only the glow of the fire on the hills behind us for light. Mr Zelle was going slow, despite the growing feeling of urgency. It was good that he did. We weren’t the only living things attempting to escape the flames. There were deer on the road, running blindly, and probably other animals, too. The air was full of the discordant voices of crows, flying in the dark.
It was hard to breathe and to see. The smoke was so thick you could almost feel it and it was full of ashes and sometimes even embers that stung when they struck us. Jessie and I had our hands full with the goats—they didn’t like being in the truck and the fire frightened them even more than it scared us. Mrs Calzada stayed beside Mr Samov, keeping the goats away from him. The poor man seemed to have passed out. There was no way to tell if it was from the pain of his broken leg, the exhaustion of escaping from the fire, or some other injury. After what felt like ages we finally reached the coast. There were people there, including a group of firefighters, gathered by the side of the road. They were covered in ash and looked exhausted, but they were able to radio to the casualty station up the road at the courthouse for the ambulance. Lucky for us, it was able to come right away.
Roosevelt Highway was closed. The fire had spread from Las Flores Canyon, five miles away, all the way to our canyon with lightning speed and it was also burning deep into the backcountry. The fire warden was wrangling all of the military personnel, firemen, sheriff’s deputies and volunteers he could find to fight the fire, but there wasn’t much anyone could do. They were mostly worried about getting people to safety and trying to save some of the houses. The firefighters told us they were there to stop the fire from jumping the highway, so it wouldn’t burn the houses at the Malibu Colony.
It didn’t take long for the ambulance to come. The fire crew helped lift Mr Samov out of the truck and onto a stretcher. They wanted Jesse and me to go, too, but neither of us wanted to leave Mrs Calzada and the animals, and Mr Calzada and Jacob were here somewhere, too. In the end, Mr Zelle volunteered to accompany Mr Samov. He said he would try to contact Aunt Maddie and Jessie’s family from the casualty station, and would stay with Mr Samov. The rest of us would find Mr Calzada and Jacob and the horses. We still had a truck full of goats to unload. The sun was coming up by the time we got ourselves sorted out. It didn’t give much light. The sky was black with smoke, and the sunlight was dim and orange. It looked like the end of the world.
We left the truck—and the goats—parked on the ocean side of the highway and scrambled down onto the beach. There were lots of animals there: horses, ponies, dogs, and cattle. I saw a great horned owl resting on the sand, ruffled and disoriented, and there were deer down by the creek, frightened from the activity on the beach, but even more scared of the fire up in the canyon. There were other people, too. Some were working to secure the livestock, others were administering water and first aid to new arrivals, a few simply stood and stared at the burning mountains, like people in a trance.
We found Mr Calzada and Jacob with the horses. They hurried over as soon as they saw us. They were both covered in soot and ashes, but they assured everyone that they weren’t hurt. Mr Calzada kissed his wife, and then hugged Jessie and me. Mrs Calzada explained what had happened to us, but she spoke so quickly that I had trouble following what she said in Spanish, except for catching our names.
With Mr Calzada’s help, we got the goats out of the truck and secured in an improvised pen he and Jacob had put together out of driftwood and baling wire. The goats didn’t like it much, but at least they were safe. Mouse did not like being on the beach either, but we tucked his carrier into the shelter of an improvised tent Jacob made from more driftwood and a canvas tarp from the truck so it would be shaded and protected at least a little bit from the wind. I told Yuki to stay with Mouse. He grumbled a bit but obeyed.
When the goats, the cat, and the dog were secure, I went over to say hello to the horses, petting noses and stroking manes. I was surprised how glad I felt to see them. They were my family now, I realized, just like Aunt Maddie, and Mr and Mrs Calzada, and Mr Zelle, and Jessie, and Jacob, too.
“The goat pen and the tent are really clever,” I told Jacob. “How did you find all the material in the dark?”
He shrugged but looked pleased.
“I got used to building shelters out of driftwood when I was on my own,” he said. “It gave me something to do when I was surf fishing, and it helped keep the wind and the sun off me. The Coast Guard guys found the bailing wire for us and a wire cutter. After that, it was easy. There was a lot of driftwood by the creek. Have you heard from Miss Ellis? “ he asked. “Does she know what’s happening?”
I shook my head. “The phone line was down. Mr Zelle said he’d try to get a message out from the casualty station. He’s going there with Mr Samov, who hurt his leg.”
Jacob nodded. “I guess all we can do is wait. You asked what the Dust Bowl was like,” he said, his face gray with ashes and exhaustion. “It was sort of like this, but instead of smoke it was just dust.”
“It’s not going to be like that this time, you’ll see.” I said it to comfort both of us, but the scene in front of us looked uncomfortably like the end of the world.
Waiting was one of the hardest things I’d ever done. I’d forgotten to wind my watch, but it didn’t matter. Time didn’t seem to move the way it usually does. The minutes crawled by and day wasn’t that different from night. The sun was a pallid red disc in a black sky, and the light it gave was weak and dull. It made everything look like a scene from an old fashioned sepia print photograph. Eventually, the wind died. Huge ashes began to drift down like snowflakes. Some of them were leaves, burned white and skeletal by the fire. They lay on the sand, perfect and silvery, but turned to dust at the slightest touch.
I watched them fall until I felt my eyes closing. I wouldn’t have thought I could sleep with everything going on, but I was suddenly exhausted. I sat down next to Jessie in front of the makeshift tent sheltering Mouse and Yuki and made a pillow for myself out of sand. I was asleep almost as soon as I lay down.
When I woke up, Aunt Maddie was there. I don’t think I’d ever been so glad to see anyone in my whole life.
She hugged me and Jessie and Jacob, too, who was embarrassed but pleased, and then Mr and Mrs Calzada. She also went to greet all the animals.
“We had to leave the chickens,” Mr Calzada apologized. “We left the coop open so they could get out.”
“You managed to get everyone else to safety,” Aunt Maddie replied. “Even the goats. I can’t thank you enough!”
“How did you get here?” I asked. “They told us the highway was closed.”
“It is,” she said. “The fire burned right down to the road at Coal Canyon. It looked as black as its name when I passed it. I set out from the hotel as soon as it was light. The fire lit up the whole sky. I could see it from my hotel window. I drove as far as they would let me, abandoned my car by the side of the road, and started to walk. When I reached the casualty station I heard all about Mr Samov. He was taken to the hospital as soon as the ambulance could get through. Mr Zelle is still there at the station, helping the Red Cross volunteers. I hitched a ride out here with a truck full of firefighters.”
She had brought sandwiches with her from the station. It was enough to share with the other refugees, although no one got very much. We ate the food with water from the five gallon jugs Mr Calzada kept in the truck for emergencies. The sandwiches were soggy and the water warm and slightly metallic, but it tasted good to me. Yuki liked it, too. He shared my sandwich and Jessie’s, too.
After that, we went back to waiting, but it wasn’t so bad now that Aunt Maddie was here. She came over and sat with Jessie and Yuki and me.
“I didn’t know what to take,” I told my aunt. “I brought your manuscript, the one you’ve been working on, and the pictures from your desk, and this.” I unpinned the brooch from my pocket and handed it to her.
She hugged me. “Thank you, James. I would have hated to lose any of those things, but especially this one.”
“What kind of animal is it?” I asked, as she pinned it onto her lapel.
“It’s a mink,” she said.
“Why a mink?” I asked.
Aunt Maddie laughed. “Because I didn’t want one,” she said. “It was a gift from a friend, long ago. We had worked together on a film—this was back in the silent movie days when I was just starting out. It was an important project for both of us. If it did well it might mean great things. If it flopped, well. Hollywood is a topsy-turvy place—one minute you’re up on top of the world, the next, back down at the bottom. We both needed it to be a success.”
“Was it?” Jessie wanted to know.
“Was it what?”
“Was it a success?”
“It was, and it had a grand debut at a famous movie palace. My friend and I went to the opening together, dressed in our finest. He was resplendent in rented tailcoats. I had a beautiful dress of wine-colored velvet, but my friend was shocked that I was wearing a wool wrap instead of a fur coat.
“If the film is a success, I’m buying you a mink coat,” he told me.
“But I don’t want a mink coat,” I told him.
“I thought every girl wants mink,” he protested.
“Not this girl,” I said. “Minks need their coats far more than I do.”
“He laughed at me and the matter was forgotten, or so I thought. The movie was a hit. My friend was offered an even bigger project in New York, this time, and then another in England. He left almost at once and was away for a long time.”
“I also landed another screenwriting assignment, and then another, and another. I had forgotten all about the mink when a package arrived a year later. It was postmarked from Zurich, Switzerland. It contained the pin, and a note that said, ‘a mink for the girl who refused a mink coat.’”
She looked at the pin and smiled. The mink’s fierce diamond eyes glittered. “I wear the mink whenever I need courage, or conviction, or when I need to be reminded to take chances and speak my mind. It’s been a lucky talisman for me for a long time. Thank you for saving it for me, James.”
“But what happened to your friend?” Jessie wanted to know. She was never happy with “happily ever after.” She always wanted to know the rest of the story.
“He went on to have a very successful career in film. So did I,” Aunt Maddie said. “We are still friends and always will be, although he lives far away now. I can’t tell you the end of the story, because I’m still living it.”
The press arrived not long after that. They took pictures of everything and everyone, even the goats. Jacob told them about leading the horses down to the beach in the dark, and Jessie described splinting Mr Samov’s broken leg, but I didn’t have anything to tell them, except how grateful I was that we had all survived.
The newsmen brought news with them. They told us about how one of the volunteers serving as a fire warden had lost her house but had helped all of her neighbors get away safely and about a firefighter who lost a finger and another who stepped on an underground wasp nest and was badly stung. We heard about a movie actor named Richard Dix who had stayed on his ranch to try to save his animals, and that his ranch had been completely surrounded by flames and no one knew what had happened.
“He was my neighbor when I lived in the Malibu Colony,” Aunt Maddie told Jessie and me. “I haven’t seen him in years. He had Scottie dogs and an English setter back then, and a pet rooster that used to come inside the house and sit on the top of the kitchen cupboard. He always loved his animals and he will make sure they are safe, don’t worry. He’s been through fires before.”
The wind changed in the late afternoon, blowing cooler air off the sea. We spent the night on the beach. The grownups took turns watching. No one got much sleep. Every time I fell asleep I woke with a start, fearing that the horses were loose or that the fire had crossed the road.
It was a lot cooler in the morning. There was no sign of fire now, only a dull pall of smoke cloaking hills burned bare and black.
Mr Calzada spent the night helping the fire fighters. He came back just after sunrise with good news. The ranch had weathered the firestorm. It was still standing. There were trees down on the road and power poles, too. The power was out, so they weren’t dangerous, but there was no way to drive over them. We left the truck and walked in. We took the beach trail. Aunt Maddie held Mouse’s carrier. Mr Calzada and Jacob led the horses. Jessie and I herded the goats, with Yuki at our heels. Mrs Calzada brought up the rear.
It was a strange journey, like a dream, a bad one. The fire had burned everything. The land on either side of the creek was bare. The whole scene looked like a black and white photograph. Black and gray and ashy white.
There was gritty ash underfoot and a horrible smell of dead smoke, like all the ashtrays in the world. The big row of eucalyptus trees by the road had burned, and so had the beautiful sycamores by the creek, but the ranch buildings were all still standing. The flowers in front of the Calzadas’ cottage were strangely bright, so were the oranges on the trees in the orchard—patches of vivid color in a gray landscape.
Somehow, everything had survived. I felt my eyes fill with tears and busied myself with the goats. We were all exhausted but there was a lot of work to do.
The day went on and on. Jacob, Jessie, and I got the animals back in the stable and fed them. We left their halters on in case we had to leave again in a hurry. The chickens were in their coop, just as if nothing had happened. They had all come home to roost, or perhaps they had never left. They were smart, those chickens. We fed them and secured the door.
Inside the house everything was still there, exactly as we left it. I was surprised to find that the piano was still in tune. It seemed like we had been gone for a long time. There was a thick layer of ash, gritty and gray, on every surface.
We all camped out in the main house that night. We cooked dinner on Aunt Maddie’s camping stove. There was no electricity, and no one felt like lighting a fire. The ranch had its own well. The electric pump wasn’t working but there was an old hand pump in the garden that didn’t depend on electricity, so we had water.
I fell asleep after dinner, but the Calzadas and Aunt Maddie were up most of the night, looking for hotspots—the places where the fire still smoldered—and watching for flare ups.
I woke early and slipped outside. Something was moving in the predawn dusk. There, on the lawn by the ghostly skeletons of the burned sycamore trees, were the deer, dozens of them. They heard the door latch and my sudden intake of breath. Ears twitched, heads turned, and in one graceful movement the herd slipped out of sight, vanishing back up into the canyon.
I felt as if I had seen something mythical, like unicorns. It was a good omen, I thought. It had to be. Things really were going to be OK.
