Up Close and Dangerous (Page 51)

“What do we need to do?”

“First, we fix a place as sheltered from the wind as we can manage, and make a fire ring with rocks. Then we find some dry wood to use as kindling. Probably some of the smaller pieces you stuck into the shelter to fill in gaps will have dried a little by now. I doubt we’ll find anything any drier. If you’ll do that, I’ll start scraping some inside bark from these trees.”

The wind was a problem; it swirled through the mountains, meaning there really wasn’t a sheltered area. Finally, frustrated, she opened up her suitcases and stood them on end, lining them up and making a rough hook shape in front of their shelter. It was an imperfect solution, at best, because the suitcases couldn’t be so close to the fire that they caught on fire, so they afforded only partial protection from the swirling wind.

She cleared snow out of the enclosed area, then Cam used the screwdriver from the tool kit to drive into the frozen earth, over and over, breaking it up. He used the claw of the hammer to dig out the loosened dirt. The fire pit was only a few inches deep when he hit rock, but it would have to do.

There was a plethora of loose rocks for lining the bed of the pit. Cam gathered them while Bailey looked for dry wood. As he’d predicted, the driest that she found came from their shelter. Every time she pulled a stick from its place, she blocked the space that was left with a new branch she broke from a tree. They still had to sleep in that shelter one more night, so she wanted it as snug as possible.

Using his knife, Cam peeled a section of outer bark from one of the trees, then scraped the inner bark until he had a double handful of what looked like the makings of a bird’s nest. Carefully he laid out the fire with the scraped bark and some rolled-up pieces of paper torn from her notebook, the kindling on top of that, then some bigger pieces of wood on top of the kindling. “It’s green wood so it isn’t going to burn all that hot, but the good news is it won’t burn fast, either,” he said. If they could get it to burn at all, she thought, but left that unsaid.

If the battery worked, they had to have some means of getting the flame from the plane to the waiting fire pit. The wind was unceasing, which meant he couldn’t just roll up a sheet of paper, catch it on fire, and walk it over to the pit. Bailey emptied all their first-aid supplies from the olive drab metal box and gave it to him. Using the handy screwdriver again, he punched holes in one end of the box, lined the bottom with some of the dirt from where he’d dug the fire pit, then stripped some of the needles from one of the evergreen trees and put them on top of the dirt. He rolled up another sheet of paper, then cut off a strip of gauze and loosely stuffed that inside the roll of paper.

Bailey watched silently. They had stopped talking during the past half hour, because the preparations were simply too important. Having a fire was too important. She felt almost giddy at the thought.

All that was left was the wire. He completely stripped the insulation from a short piece, then bared both ends of two much longer pieces. Then he quickly connected one end of each of the longer pieces to the short piece, twisting the bright copper wires together.

They approached the plane side by side. She held the box, he had the wiring.

“If this works, when the paper ignites, close the lid and take the box to the fire,” he instructed. “I’ll have to unhook the wires from the battery so we don’t waste any of the power; we might have to do this again. Rolling the paper up will slow down the burn, you’ll have plenty of time to get it to the fire. Go ahead and start the fire.”

She nodded. Her heart was pounding so hard she felt almost sick. Please work, she prayed silently. They needed this so much.

She stood beside him, holding one of the insulated wires positioned so the uninsulated wire was touching the tip of the roll of paper. Cam had to actually wedge himself between one of the trees and the wreckage, a foot or so off the ground, so he could reach the battery with both hands and connect the long wires, one to the positive terminal and one to the negative. When he was finished he remained in position, his sharp eyes trained on the first-aid box in Bailey’s hands.

She tried not to shake as she held the naked wire to the paper. “How long will it take?”

“Give it a few minutes.”

She felt as if they gave it an hour. Time crawled as they stared in an agony of anticipation at the paper, waiting to see a wisp of smoke, a scorch mark, praying for something to happen.

“Please, please, please,” she chanted under her breath. Nothing was happening. She closed her eyes because she couldn’t bear to watch any longer. Maybe if she didn’t watch the paper would start smoking. It was a childish hope, a silly thought, as if her watching would prevent it from happening.

“Bailey!” Cam’s voice was sharp.

Startled, she opened her eyes. The first thing she saw was the thin, delicate twirl of smoke, as transparent as a mirage. It snaked upward almost hesitantly, to be snatched by the wind. Gingerly she shifted her position just a little, bringing the box closer to the protection of her body.

A brown scorch mark began growing on the paper, spread to the piece of gauze tucked inside. A bright, tiny flame began licking at the gauze. The edges of the paper caught, began to curl.

“Go,” said Cam, and she carefully closed the lid so it was almost shut, then wheeled and hurried to the fire pit. Kneeling beside the squat pyramid of kindling, paper, and wood, she gingerly opened the box, trying as best she could to shield the fragile flame. The roll of paper was half consumed.

Carefully she eased the roll out of the box, inserting the burning end into the nest of scraped bark and paper in the center of the stack.