Trees blur by, the light going out of the sky. The clouds overcome me. How fast am I going? Have I slowed down? The radio comes alive: there’s chatter about the wind, a containment line jumped. Will there be rain? Or only wind and lightning? There’s no panic; they are professionals; there is protocol.
I turn off the highway onto Forest Service Road 76 as the rain pelts the windshield and pounds the roof. Thunder breaks over the car. I keep driving, slowly. There’s a low murmur from the radio, but I don’t recognize the voices — it’s not Carey. He’s not looking for me, yet.
I’m halfway there, picturing my phone in its solar charger, on the window by the side door, the sunniest window, and the smallest one. The one with the little sun-catcher in the sill that sends a stained-glass flare across the floor at midday. I’m so close, crawling through the storm at twenty miles per hour. Then the rain ceases and the clouds charge on to the east, to Idaho. I’m approaching the next road, the one that heads straight to the cabin, and there are orange and red lights flashing. I don’t want them to see me — whoever they are — because they’ll tell me to turn back, so I step on the gas and hurtle on up the highway to find the spot Carey showed me, the Forest Service road that circled back along the river and met at the other side of the cabin, near the Cougar Lake trailhead.
I’m flying down the road, and the mist is rising off the pavement as the sun comes out again. All the green wet leaves gleam. I open the window to let in the air, to inhale the petrichor. And I do. I take in a lungful before the wind shifts, and I smell the smoke again. It smells so close, but I hear nothing. Nothing in the woods nearby. Nothing on the radio. I keep on the road, weaving up and down the heaves in the old asphalt, farther into the woods. I watch the odometer, looking for the seventh mile past the first turnoff — I think it was seven miles — but seven miles pass and I cross a bridge over the east fork of the river. I think I’ve missed it when I just see the brown painted Forest Service Road 821 sign, half hidden behind some bushes. I slam on the brakes and pull onto the one-lane road.
Trees lean over the cracked and pit-marked asphalt that winds through the pines, up and down, away from the river. I am sure the road is heading east, but the cabin is east-southeast. The windows are down, and I can’t hear the river anymore. Mist and smoke collide at bends in the road. I am doubting what I remember — about the road, about the phone. When the road takes a sharp turn to the southeast, I relax. I feel a stillness, feeling the breeze through the car, the occasional bursts of sunlight through the darkened forest, listening for the river.
I speed up as the road straightens, and I crest a small hill. I let off the gas to coast down the hill when I think I hear the river to my right, a rushing through the trees, a sound I might hear in my dreams. But a swift river, a strong river, with rapids and waterfalls. The haze is thick as the hill bottoms out, and I see the shape coming out of the woods only after I’ve hit it, slamming into its thick brown body as I feel my own volley against the steering wheel as the car comes to a shuddering stop, and I hear the body slide off the hood and onto the pavement. It’s been only seconds and I can’t see anything, but there’s another crash from the right and the car is pitched sideways in the road. There’s a careening bellow coming from outside the car. Then hooves. I hear them before I open my eyes. When I do, a familiar prickle of light pierces my eye sockets. I blink and groan. There’s lightning again, then it’s gone and the after-lights dance in front of me, inside the car. There’s blood on the windshield and on my face. I gasp for breath. There’s an acrid smell. Elk are clambering out of the woods at a clip, up the ditch and across the road and into the woods on the other side. A few backtrack to avoid the fallen, the one I’ve hit, still alive, but broken, unable to lift its body. The one that ran into the passenger door stands, stunned, staring through the window at me before it drunkenly trots off into the trees after the others. Their woolly, angular bodies keep coming, harrowing through the tree trunks at a clip, pounding and scuffing at the ground like the trees themselves uprooted and fleeing. It’s a cow-calf herd; the antlers on the young bulls are small velvety nubs. They are wet from fording the river, dripping and steaming. My blood thunders along with their movement, the whole herd of them. I’m shaking and laughing, tears filling my eyes and running down my face. There must be a hundred of them. They keep coming and coming, calling to each other. The car idles and coughs and dies. I watch them go, gripping and ungripping the steering wheel, keeping still. They trundle off into the trees, smoke in their wake.
Legs quaking, I step out of the car, brace myself against the side of it to keep steady, and breathe. The windshield is cracked. The hood has a deep metal rift running all the way down to the grill and bumper. Clumps of gray and brown fur and bloody hide cling to the broken metal. The engine sputters; steam escapes through the dents.
The elk on the road has stopped struggling to get up and follow the herd. There’s a gash in her side, giant ribs protruding. One of her front legs is broken and bent beneath her. She’s nodding her head and breathing heavily, like she’s in labor. I breathe along with her, approaching slowly. Her large eye tracks me, and she makes a high mewling sound. There’s an answer to the call, not far off in the trees. She has a calf. The calf always responds to its mother’s call. I search the trees for it and finally see her small head. I can still hear the mewls and chirps of the cows, fading up the mountain.
“Go!” I say to it. “Go with your herd!” But she locks eyes with me and doesn’t move.
Her mother calls to her, and I know she’s telling her to follow the rest. I can hear her pleading.
I approach the beast from behind, speaking softly. I want her to know I’m coming.
“I’m so sorry,” I say. “I’m so, so.”
Her eye rolls around wildly. She’s at least five hundred pounds, and taller than I, if she were standing. If she were to summon some last surge of power, bolt, drag herself from the road to protect her calf, she could kill me with one hind kick to the skull. She could cave my chest, plow open my ribs like I did hers. I kneel behind her head, and she stops calling to her calf, sensing me there. But she becomes very still. She’s paralyzed, by terror, by instinct, in the presence of an animal more dangerous than she. She blinks every few seconds, lets out short huffs of breath. I reach out a hand to the back of her head, between her ears. She’s so warm, her fur so dense.
“I didn’t mean to do this,” I tell her. “There’s something wrong with me.” I stroke her head, talking to her while her calf looks on. She’s blinking less now, her chest rises and falls, but she’s close. She’s so close to the end. Her calf calls, but she can’t respond — there’s a brief moment of awareness in her eyes as she recognizes her child, alone, separated from the herd — but she cannot move, and she doesn’t respond. Her eyes water, her gaze settles on something in the near distance, something above me in the air. I look but there’s nothing there, not even a bird, just the orange glow of the clouds, the black smoke. I run my hand down the back of her neck where the brown-gray fur curves down her chest. Her waning pulse reaches my palm. My hands are slick with her blood. I lie down next to her, resting my head on her, my ear below hers, the wild smell of her so strong I can taste it, like iron and wood and shit, on my tongue, in the back of my throat. I’m breathing with her, still.
“Why did I have to run toward the fire?” I’m asking her.