RUNAWAY TWINS and RUNAWAY TWINS IN ALASKA: BOXED SET (25 page)

They had spent more time than they should at the origin point of the fire, trying everything they could think of to put it out—but nothing worked. They stomped on it, threw dirt, even beat on it furiously with their jackets, but to no avail. In fact their efforts seemed to serve only to spread the conflagration.

So they changed gears and took off running to try their best to save their lives. With one ill-considered action, they had revised their list of challenges. Escaping from the murderers was still a top priority, but it had been surpassed by the need not to be burned alive.

There was now enough smoke behind them to alert a fleet of helicopters but there were none overhead and by the time one turned to investigate the blaze, the whole mountain would be burning. Hardly a helpful beacon.

Rachel's lungs had already absorbed far too much smoke, and she knew her two companions were suffering similarly. The canopy was acting as a bowl to retain the smoke, heat, and flames; and they all urgently needed to find an open meadow and its clean, fresh air.

Janie lapsed into a coughing fit, and though both Rachel and Justin were coughing as well, they stopped to assist her. Justin hurriedly tore a bandana from the bottom of his flannel shirt and used it as a face mask for Janie. It helped and she regained control.

Before continuing their race for life, Justin reminded them to watch the floor of the forest, to be careful where they placed their feet…as best they could. A sprained or broken ankle in these circumstances could mean death.

Rachel didn't share the fact that she still felt the effects of the powerful drug the killers had given her. There was no need to alarm the others; they had enough on their minds and any additional distraction might cause them to make a fatal mistake. But she was aware that neither her mind nor her body was functioning at a hundred percent. She hoped the sustained pumping of her heart and lungs would rid her of the last vestiges of the drug's influence. She needed to be operating at full capacity to be an integral part of the team. She took a gulp of air that contained far too much smoke, coughed and raised her head from the detritus toward a bright light that was streaming through the southwest wall of the forest. Could it be? Were they coming to a clearing or at least a more lightly wooded area? She turned to Janie and Justin and they both had hopeful looks on their faces.

They burst through the trees and into a small glade that promised to offer respite from the smoke if not from the advancing wildfire. It was a little more than an acre in size and was dotted with Sitka spruce trees and a number of blueberry shrubs. In the middle of the clearing stood a brackish pond about a fourth the size of the glade itself.

Rachel spotted the floating carcass of muskrat and noted that the surface of the pond appeared to move in jerking yellow waves. She couldn't quite figure out what she was seeing until she realized there were thousands of mosquitoes and other insects hovering above the water. If she'd ever seen a more repulsive lake, she couldn't remember when.

"Don't drink," Justin called out. "Wait for a free-flowing stream."

"Don't worry," said Rachel.

"Let's go on," Janie suggested.

Justin spun around. "Go where? The fire and smoke are all around us now. Look at the woods. We might be running straight into the flames."

"Will we be safe here?" Janie asked.

Justin shrugged. "These spruce trees will probably catch fire…and they'll turn into widowmakers."

Rachel and Janie looked puzzled.

"A widowmaker is a heavy tree that burns and crashes—makes a firefighter's wife a widow. The bushes and shrubs will go up, too. It could get real hot in here."

He sat down on a large rock, and the twins sat beside him. "Let me think," he said. "No sense in continuing to run if we don't know which way to go…and I don't know."

Rachel smiled at Janie. "Remember the Cheshire cat?"

Janie grinned and quoted, " 'I'm wondering if you could help me find my way?' 'Well, that depends on where you want to get to.' 'Oh, it really doesn't matter, as long as…' 'Then it really doesn't matter which way you go.' "

They both giggled and Justin laughed in spite of himself. "I thought I was escaping with fourteen-year-olds, not little kids."

Rachel said, "What better time to act silly…when you don't know whether you're going to live or die."

Rachel widened her smile, but as she lifted her eyes toward the encroaching smoke that now seemed to surround the little glade on all sides, she realized she wasn't quite as amused as she tried to sound.

Montana Mike and Idaho Joe
fought each other for the lead in their frantic effort to retrace their path through the burning woods as they tried to find open ground. It was a conflict that almost cost Mike his life, for well before they reached the grassy hills they heard an explosion in the canopy and looked up to see a giant western hemlock crashing down on them. Joe was in the rear so he was able to dive to safety; but the widowmaker passed within inches of Mike's head, causing him to stumble backwards and fall near the flaming limbs.

"Too close!" he cried, rolling to the side and jumping to his feet. "Way too close."

But Joe had already regained the lead and was out of ear shot.

When they broke free of the forest, they continued back the way they'd come for several miles before they felt safe enough to stop and rest.

"Open country again," said Joe. "The wildfire won't be able to follow us here. Too big a jump to the next stand of trees."

Mike nodded. "What about the kids?"

"They may be trapped in there."

"That doesn't get us any money."

Joe scowled. "You know, before the fire I was thinking about their trail. They started east, then south, and toward the end, southwest—almost like they're moving back to the Yuktapah River."

"Maybe to the outfitters' camp to steal one of our canoes and head for Fairbanks."

"My thoughts exactly," said Joe. "They might be dead but they might make it through. Why don't we head home and wait for them to show up. They showed up before…might do us a favor again."

21
No Way Out

The heat in the glade
was growing intense. The three interns were still sitting on the rock overlooking the black and yellow pond. The fire had now jumped to the tops of the Sitka spruce, and the shrubs, bushes, and detritus were starting to burn.

Janie wondered if their hesitation and reluctance to run might be a fatal mistake. It was true they had no idea which direction was safe, if any, but at least they would be doing something, not sitting around waiting to roast. As it was they were inside an oven and the door was closing. She scooted down off the rock and shouted above the roar of the wind and the fire, "Let's get out of here!"

Rachel hopped down as well and seemed ready to join her sister in a blind dash across the glade and into the forest.

But Justin didn't follow suit. He climbed off the rock and gazed at the surrounding forest and the foul pond. He motioned for the girls to come closer. When they were huddled together with him he spoke. "No, no, no, no!"

The twins waited.

"To run is to die," he said.

Janie knew this was not the time to argue but she couldn't help herself. "To stay is to die."

"Maybe not," he said, "not if we go into the pond…to the middle, soak our jackets, put them over our heads, make a fort."

"And hope one of those spruce trees doesn't fall on us," said Janie.

Rachel stepped to the edge of the water. "In there—with the dead muskrat, the mosquitoes and God knows what else? We'd die from the plague."

Justin shook his head. "Do you two trust me?"

Both nodded without hesitation.

"Then off with our jackets and into the water—now! Before it's too late."

No sooner had they waded to the center of the pond, the twins gagging all the way, then the trunk of a large spruce snapped and the massive tree plummeted to earth near the spot where they entered the water.

"I see why they call them widowmakers," said Janie.

Justin indicated they should follow his lead, and he lowered himself into the slime. He then made certain his jacket was waterlogged and pulled it over his head. After moving as close to him as they were able, the twins mimicked everything he had done. And when they covered their heads with their jackets, they found they'd created the fort he described. They inched even closer, and Janie felt Justin's body between hers and Rachel's. "So you got your wish after all," she told him.

"What's that?"

"For Rachel and I to make a Justin sandwich."

He laughed but coughed as he did so to eject as much smoke as possible from his lungs.

The fire raged overhead and the pond grew warmer and warmer until Janie thought it might boil. What a way to go, like a lobster or a frog, too dumb to know what was about to happen to him. They should've run through the forest. Might've had a chance.

Another spruce fell to the ground, and Janie said under the jackets, "A giant is out there throwing spears at us."

"Keep your heads," said Justin. "Don't panic. Wait it out—it's our best bet."

At that moment a fire-engulfed shrub blowing in the wind landed squarely on top of them; and they all screamed and rose out of the water to expel the intruder. They then sank down again and yanked their jackets back over their heads.

The lessening of the background noise was the first hint that the fire had passed over them.

Janie said softly, "Quieter. What's up?"

Justin stuck his head out. "Too much smoke." He coughed uncontrollably. "Can't see, can't tell. He brought his head back inside and added, "Let's wait a while longer. Even if the fire danger is over, we can still choke on the smoke. Let the wind blow it away."

Janie squeezed his hand underwater. Though she had not rebelled overtly, she was aware she'd been disloyal in her mind. Time to let him know she was wrong and he was right. He was the one who'd been raised as a survivalist and she shouldn't have doubted him. "You always figure things out, Justin," she said.

He returned her squeeze. "Not always. Besides, we're not home free yet."

Rachel leaned over. "Hope the wildfire caught the kidnappers flat-footed. Like to find their charred bodies on the trail."

"Not going back that way," said Justin. "We'll go down and around to the Yuktapah, follow it to the Barnes and Bilboa camp. See if we can commandeer a canoe."

By now the fire had died completely in the small glade and the smoke remained only in rising wisps.

They removed their jackets from their heads and stood in the slime. Rachel swatted the bugs crawling on her neck and arms and examined the goop covering her flannel shirt and jeans. "I don't even want to know what's in my hair," she said. "I think I prefer the wildfire to this."

"The flames and smoke seem to be racing to the northwest," said Justin.

Janie found a leech on her neck. "Yeesh!" she yelled. "Do you see any more—quick, tell me!"

Justin and Rachel shook their heads.

"We can wash off in the Yuktapah or one of its tributaries," said Justin. "We'll get clean."

"We're alive," said Rachel. "To be honest, I'm surprised."

"Not me," said Justin. "There's always a way out."

Rex Carlson banked the Bell
407 and zoomed up and away from the smoke and the flames. "The fire can't progress much farther," he said. "Open country on all sides. Must be an inferno inside those woods, but it'll soon die a natural death."

"Hope the kids aren't down there," said Martha.

"No reason they would be," said Rex. "Too far away from the natural escape routes. They'll be somewhere close to the Yuktapah River," he said.

"If they didn't die in the earthquake or the eruption," Martha said.

He nodded. "Yes, there's that."

22
Roadblock

The teenagers were delighted
to find a swift-flowing creek, and they splashed and played like children as they washed off the remnants of the polluted pond. Soap would have been wonderful but since they had none they did their best to scour their clothes and their bodies with sand from the bottom of the creek—paying particular attention to their jackets which seemed to have collected every creature under two inches long in the northern woods.

Justin shouted from a clear-water pool behind a large rock where he had gone to scrub his naked body. "You girls dressed?"

They, too, had cleansed themselves down to their bare skin and they had now pulled on their clothes. "We're ready," Janie answered.

When they all stood on the bank, Rachel said, shivering, "Was so anxious to get clean, I forgot how cold the water was."

Justin shrugged. "We'll warm as we dry. Better get rolling—got a long way to go. We won't get back today so we'll have to make camp tonight."

He stared down the long green slope and thought of his father and uncle who had died on a similar Alaskan slope when a mountain of snow crashed down on them. He wondered what they would think of how he had tried to apply the survival skills they had taught him. He was fairly certain they wouldn't approve of his starting a forest fire but they might have understood. He missed both of them—terribly, and wished they were still in his life; but he was also a realist and would continue to do the best he could.

He looked at his two friends. He couldn't ask for better companions. It wouldn't be correct to say they had taken the place of his father and uncle; but they had certainly forged their own place in his life and were as much a part of him now as if they were his own sisters.

Rachel caught his eye. "What?" she asked.

"My mind is miles away," he said.

She smiled.

He also thought of Big Bertha and little Umbriago and wondered if he'd ever see them again, and he wondered if Little Bertha would ever be able to rejoin her mother and brother. Few things would make Justin happier than to see his special sow and her two spring cubs together again before it came time for them to den up in November or December. He knew Janie was right about Bertha having tasted human blood and about how the rangers would insist she be destroyed, but he refused to dwell on the thought. His dreams of the future did not include such a scenario.