The Icarus Effect Page 12

  “Just one of us could go for help,” Eamon offered, almost as if he’d been reading Lloyd’s mind.

  Lloyd shook his head. “Can’t do that. I’m not gonna leave anybody else behind.”

  “Mm.” Eamon scratched at the charred earth with his toe. “No tellin’ if NIFC knows where to look or not.”

  “I know. Look. You and me, we’re the only ones in this group with more than two years’ experience.” He tilted his head in the direction of the others. “Two of ‘em are rookies, two more can’t move on their own. Weston’s almost catatonic. Eddie’s gonna be lucky to keep that leg, if it gets infected. I have no idea how to set it, with the bone sticking out like that. We’re lucky we even stopped the bleeding. They’re all in shock, more or less, and better’n half of ‘em are looking to blame somebody for what happened.”

  “Yeah, I heard some of that grumbling, too.”

  Lloyd nodded. “So, if one of us leaves, the other is left here to deal with all the rest on his own. I don’t have a lot of confidence that if one of us bugs out, he’ll even be able to find his way back here before it’s really too late for some of them. If we’re gonna move, we need to move together, Eamon. Moving slow is better’n not moving at all.”

  “What if one of us takes the healthiest ones out, while the other waits here with the others?”

  “Those two rookies are the healthiest ones,” Lloyd said, shooting a glance first at Ben, then Chad. “Ben’s mentally checked out, and Chad’s almost hysterical tryin’ to start rumors that lay the blame on Ben. Even if they were both healthy, I’m betting those two can’t stand each other. They’d be at each other’s throats inside of a hundred yards from here.”

  “Then we split ‘em up,” Eamon said. “Look man, you said it yourself, there ain’t a whole lot we can do for the injured ones by ourselves. We need to go find help and get it back here as fast as possible. Only way that happens is one of us goes. And the best balance between getting help and keeping the peace is to take one of the rookies and one or two of the others out, and leave the other here with the rest.”

  Lloyd sighed. “Who goes, then?”

  “Your crew, brother. Your call.”

  “All right,” Lloyd looked around at the others, laying or sitting in exhausted groups of two or three. “You could hike my legs off, if we’re honest, but-”

  “But you have a better sense of direction,” Eamon finished the thought. “Fast doesn’t matter if you’re draggin’ slower folks behind you, anyway.”

  “Which means I go,” Lloyd said. “How many you want me to take?”

  “As many as can keep up,” Eamon said. “Better leave Ben here - his mind’s not right just yet.”

  “All right. I’ll take that Chad character with me. Cliff too.”

  “What about Jamie?” Eamon asked.

  “She’s not much better off than Ben.” Jamie and Hannah had quickly become friends after Hannah joined the crew. Hannah’s death had hit her particularly hard.

  “All right,” Eamon conceded. “Anybody else?”

  Lloyd shook his head. “The three of us oughta be able to make decent time, and if Chad gives me any trouble, I’ll have Cliff to help me set him straight. I think the rest should stay here with you.”

  “Ok, then.” Eamon got up to take the news to the others.

  “Just as well,” Chad said, glaring past Eamon at Ben. “Get me as far away from that sucker as possible!”

  Ben looked up momentarily, but didn’t make eye contact.

  “Yeah, you better look away,” Chad said, lowering his voice as if he wanted to look like he was making a threat, but didn’t want Ben to actually hear what he was saying.

  Eamon leaned down, bringing his face in close to block Chad’s line of sight. “You got a big mouth,” he whispered, pausing for several heartbeats to make Chad squirm. “Close it.”

  Chad averted his own gaze, suddenly pretending that his boot had come untied. Eamon straightened up. “Everybody else, listen up. Lloyd, Cliff and Chad are gonna go for help. The rest of us are gonna sit tight, right here, until they get back.”

  “I don’t wanna stay here with him!”

  Jamie was sitting on the ground with her arms wrapped around her knees, rocking slightly back and forth. She was glaring at the ground in front of her. Her face was a mass of tear-streaked filth.

  “What’re you talking about, Jamie?” Eamon asked. He was afraid he already knew the answer.

  Jamie’s eyes flicked briefly toward Ben and back again. “Him. He killed Hannah.”

  Ben looked up in slow disbelief, eyes welling.

  “C’mon, Jamie,” Eamon said. “That’s not -”

  “Don’t tell me!” Jamie shrieked, jumping up and pushing Eamon away. Her face was streaked with tears. “He left her! He was carrying her right before we got in our shelters. He must have got in his own shelter and left her to cover herself, and she died! She had a broken arm! She couldn’t hold her shelter closed by herself!”

  Ben was stunned. “I did help her! I tucked her shelter underneath her, and told her to stay under it!”

  “You shut up!” Jamie screamed. “Chad told me what you did! You coward!”

  “Me??” Now Ben was on his feet. “What did I do?”

  “You ran away!” Jamie said. “Chad and Ronnie tackled you and saved your life!”

  Ben shot Chad a murderous look. “You know that’s not what happened.”

  “And then Ronnie died trying to keep you from running again,” Jamie went on. “You killed both of them!”

  Ignoring her, Ben closed the distance to Chad in a hurry. Lloyd intercepted him, putting an arm across his chest as Ben strained to get in Chad’s face. “I ran away?” Ben asked, leaning across Lloyd’s arm. Chad tried to back up, but Ben kept after him.

  “Back off, Ben,” Lloyd said, trying to hold him back as Ben pushed his arm away.

  “Who ran away, Chad?” Ben shouted. Then he slapped Lloyd’s arm away and head-butted Chad on the bridge of the nose, knocking him down. “WHO RAN AWAY?!?”

  Lloyd and Eamon both grabbed Ben and dragged him back. “Easy, man,” Eamon said. “Take it easy.”

  “You stay put!” Lloyd shouted, pointing his finger in Ben’s face. He let go of Ben’s collar and stood back, glaring at him.

  “He’s lying,” Ben said through gritted teeth. “That’s what he does.”

  Lloyd ignored him. “We’re done here. Cliff, Chad, get your gear together. We’re leaving right now.”

  “What about me?” Jamie sounded panicked.

  Lloyd looked at her, then stared hard at Ben while he answered. “You can come, too. Best to keep you all separated.”

  “He’s lying,” Ben pleaded.

  “Let it go, brother,” Eamon muttered. He still had his arms wrapped around Ben’s chest, keeping him from lunging at Chad again, but all the fight had gone out of him. The anger drained out of Ben in a rush, replaced by an overpowering emptiness. He watched, helpless, as the four firefighters loaded up their gear and left. Chad glanced back once, flashing Ben a self-satisfied grin before disappearing into the darkness between the still-smoking trees.

  “You need a drink?”

  Ben looked up. Eamon was standing over him, a canteen held toward him in an outstretched hand. “Thanks. I get the feeling what’s in that canteen isn’t near strong enough, though.”

  Eamon grinned. “Probably not - but, still.”

  Ben accepted the canteen and allowed himself a sip. Eamon sat down next to him.

  “I didn’t run, Eamon.”

  “I wouldn’t blame you if you did, man,” Eamon said. “It’s hard for people to stay put in the middle of a blow-up. Nobody likes the idea of being burned alive. Sometimes the animal instinct just kicks in, and you bolt. That’s all.”

  Ben looked at him. “You believe him, too?”

  “Doesn’t matter what I believe,” Eamon said. “Look. You more than did your part. You volunteered to go down into that canyon, to hel
p people. You more than pulled your weight on the way back up, helping carry ‘em out. In my book, you can be forgiven a little panic in the face of what we went through.”

  “I did not panic.” Ben felt the anger building in him again like a storm. “Ronnie and I were the last ones to deploy our shelters. I helped Hannah into hers, and I made sure the edges were tucked under her. Then I got my shelter out. I was almost inside it when Ronnie hollered at me to grab Chad, ‘cuz he’d panicked and was running off.

  “I tackled Chad. I was trying to hold him down when Ronnie jumped on us both and covered us with my shelter. He wrapped us up, and then laid on top of us while the fire rolled over him.” Ben stood up. “You pulled him off of us afterward, Eamon. You saw it. I was on top of Chad, inside the shelter. If he’d tackled me, then how come he was on the bottom of the dog pile, with his ugly face in the dirt?” Ben dropped the canteen in Eamon’s lap, and walked away.

  Ben found a large stump near the edge of the clearing, and sagged down next to it. He’d never felt such an intense mix of anger, loss and betrayal in his entire life. Less than a week earlier, he’d been full of excitement and hope for what he’d thought were the first steps in a new life. Now, he felt like that life was ending - dying before it had a chance to do anybody any good.

  Where had he gone wrong? Hadn’t he always tried to be the good guy - to do the right thing? No, that isn’t entirely true, now, is it? he chided himself. How much of a good guy were you when you were ignoring your little brother? How about when you were disrespecting your dad? Not such an angel now, are you?

  Fingers of doubt stretched through his mind, threatening and clouding his memory of what exactly had happened during the blow-up. He’d made certain that Hannah was safe inside her shelter before opening his own. Didn’t I? He’d screamed at Ronnie to let them go, and get inside his shelter. Or did I?

  The more he thought about it, the less certain he was. Everything had happened so suddenly, now he couldn’t seem to be sure that he remembered how those things had happened. The memory of his failure to save Zach and his dad from the bear hung over him like an accusation, making it easier to blame himself for each successive loss, each shortcoming. Riding to Boise on MAFFS10 had felt like the beginning of a new life, but the subsequent crash and loss of the crew felt like just another damning argument against his deserving that new life.

  Then there was Ronnie.

  Then Hannah.

  How much of all of this is random, and how much of it is my fault?

  “I believe you.”

  Ben looked up, startled. He hadn’t noticed Eamon walking up. “What?”

  “I said, I believe you,” Eamon repeated.

  Ben narrowed his eyes, not sure what to expect. “Thanks… I think. What changed your mind?”

  Eamon inclined his head at the stump, eyebrows raised. Ben nodded, shuffling to one side to give him room to drop down next to him. They sat there a moment, leaning against the stump, watching the smoke and flames in the middle distance, shadows swirling and changing almost with a mind of their own.

  “I’ve only known you a couple days,” Eamon started. “Known Chad even less. It’s hard to get a read on people sometimes, when the only thing you know about ‘em is how they respond to danger. People act different sometimes, after things calm down. Sometimes, people who are most comfortable in a crisis are complete social morons afterward. Sometimes, they’re not. You just can’t tell. Sometimes, when all the chaos is over, and people get back to normal, they have a hard time dealing with normal, ya know?” He picked up a small rock and tossed it away. “But then again, some people are just dicks.”

  Ben looked at him like he’d just arrived from another planet. “What… are you even talking about?”

  “Jaime’s a nice girl,” Eamon said. “I was on a crew with her last year. She’s usually really mellow, easy-going. Just a nice person. But she’s also a little gullible. Add to that the stress of what we all went through, and you get a nice girl who’s more than a little freaked out, and willing to believe whatever explanation she hears first.”

  “An explanation that came from Chad, I’m guessing,” Ben said, his voice filled with resignation.

  “You guess right. You didn’t notice him walking with her between where the fire caught us and here, but I did. He was bending her ear pretty good.”

  Ben sighed. “And now she believes him.”

  “Like I said, some people are just dicks. Doesn’t take a rocket scientist to see Chad’s one of ‘em.” He picked up another rock, turned it over several times, then threw it away. “You’ve been sorta… well, out of it, since the blow-up. You never explained what happened, or tried to defend yourself until Jamie came out and accused you, so Chad’s story starts to look like truth to everybody else.”

  “So, I defend myself, and that makes me guilty?”

  “It’s your word against his,” Eamon said. “He got his word out before you did, and he found a willing audience in Jamie.”

  “But you saw!” Ben protested. “You saw I was holding him down, when you guys pulled the shelter off of us!”

  Eamon shook his head. “To be honest, man, all I remember of that moment was what Ronnie looked like. You see something like that, other details sorta fade into the background. Sorry.”

  Ben wiped a hand across his face. “But you said you believed me. Why, if you can’t remember what you saw?”

  “I guess I’m not as gullible as Jamie.”

  “Thank God for small favors,” Ben grumbled.

  “You might need to ask Him for some bigger favors, before this is over.”

  Ben looked at him. “Why?”

  “Because Lloyd’s a good person too, but he’s only slightly less gullible than Jamie. He’s got both of them to listen to for as long as it takes for them to find help, and then they’re gonna get back to NIFC way before we do. People there are gonna be asking a lot of questions…”

  “And Chad’ll be right there to make up a bunch of answers,” Ben said. He let his head drop back to lean against the stump. “I’m screwed.”

  8

  Non Bene Factum

  National Interagency Fire Center

  Boise, Idaho

  Two Days Later

  7:45 A.M.

  “Am I being accused of something?” Ben looked up and down the table, making eye contact with each of the six people seated on either side.

  “No one is accusing you of anything, Mr. Bennett.” The speaker was a severe-looking woman who reminded Ben of Cruella de Vil from 101 Dalmatians.

  “No?” he asked. “Judging by the phrasing of his questions, I’d have to disagree.” Ben nodded at a man seated across from Cruella. The man’s eyebrows were so thick it looked like he was wearing a furry visor. “Every question he’s asked me so far has carried an assumption of fact with it. He doesn’t ask me ‘what happened,’ he asks me ‘why did you do this,’ without even bothering to find out if I actually did it or not.”

  “Ben, they’re not trying to railroad you.” Carlos said. He was sitting next to The Eyebrow. Carlos didn’t look at Ben when he spoke; he just stared down at his interlaced fingers on the table in front of him and frowned.

  “From where I’m sitting, it sure looks like they are.”

  “Mr. Bennett,” Eyebrow snapped. “This inquest is an attempt to determine the facts of what occurred on the Observation Peak Fire earlier this week! You are being entirely uncooperative, and it is making it very difficult for us to arrive at a clear picture of what caused you to run from your emergency shelter -”

  “I told you before,” Ben said, cutting him off. “I. Did. Not. Run. Chad Turner ran. Ronnie Lundy saw him running and shouted at me to grab him.”

  “Lundy was an experienced firefighter,” Cruella said, dripping scorn. “Why would he ever rely on a rookie like you to save someone who was allegedly running away in that situation?”

  “Why is it that when we talk about Chad, we say he was ‘allegedly running
away’, but when we talk about me, there’s nothing ‘alleged’ about it?”

  “Perhaps the larger issue is why you refuse to answer our questions.” This came from a younger man with perfect teeth and an expensive suit, seated on the other side of The Eyebrow. “Perhaps you’re hiding something, after all.”

  “Perhaps you don’t have the first clue what the hell you’re talking about,” Ben said, lacing his own fingers on the table in front of him and glaring at the man.

  Carlos stood up. “Let’s take a brief recess, everyone. This is getting us nowhere at the moment.” Ben continued to glare at the toothy man in the suit. “Ben, come with me, please. Everybody, if you could all please be back here in fifteen minutes.” He came around the table, escorting Ben from the room.

  “You’re not helping yourself, Ben,” Carlos said as the door closed behind them.

  “You know, Carlos, you’re not helping me very much either, so I’m not sure why you care.” Ben stopped short as they came near the double glass doors leading outside. There on the lawn, talking to a blonde reporter with a cameraman behind her, was Chad. He had a broad smile plastered across his face. Ben couldn’t hear them, but their smiles spoke volumes.

  “How many times are they gonna interview him?”

  Carlos came back next to Ben and looked outside. Seeing Chad and the reporter, the air seemed to go out of him. “I don’t know,” he sighed. “Let’s go someplace where we don’t have to watch the latest installment.”

  Ben took a last angry look, then followed Carlos to his office.

  “Shut the door,” Carlos said, as he rounded his desk and sank into his chair. Ben pulled the door shut, but remained standing. Carlos looked up at him, his eyes bleak. “You need to answer their questions, Ben.”