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Show rl Go Love/210 Beyond, the fire catches its breath, you can hear tree bark pop and burn From then on it's katy-bar the door. Renee and Lara cram into the front seat with one lab at their feet. I shove Venus in back with the remainder of our ramshackle gear. The thing is, we stay cool, don't miss a beat. Not even Lara Above, someone directs us over a loud speaker, the blades whipping dirt and pine needles We aren't even breathing hard, here in the valley of the shadow of death. Our heart rates, I'm convinced, are not elevated. I turn the key and the engine catches, engage the clutch and downshift to first. The helicopter barks unintelligible words above us. Up the one road out, fire-a red tsunami. I drive straight into it, this quiet place, thinking this is it, here she is, she's here for us now. The road out is two narrow lanes, fairly straight, though there is one stretch with a hard S-turn, a steep switchback. We're the very last. The helicopter flie straight above us. Our windows are down. Roaring to our left, the fire is near enough to have sucked the oxygen, and therefore sound, from the air. We're driving into an actual vacuum. They'll name it Mustang, after the ridge where it ignited. We enter the fire's inner-sanctum-pure silence. On our faces is s writ the memory of ages, what has ever destroyed and preserved our kind Here is death everlasting, and here was the path to life. I don't think all this, but I feel it, and I know that I'm neither the first nor the last to think such thoughts. The fire charges me, it wires me in and I feel t deeply human and love myself and my wife and my daughter in our dying moments. I remember, as if from another life, that I've strapped our propane tank, the one from the grill at home, on top of the Pathfinder. And in this way we drive into the flame. My hands turn white. There is a single moment when I'm certain that it is over, Renee's hand on mine now, how she reaches back at the same time and touches Lara's face. I push the button |