Lucy in her SUV and Paula at home watched as the Nissan disappeared into the smoke cloud, as if falling into a fire pit.
They let out a piercing scream.
A moment later a police car disappeared into the smoke.
Visibility was poor, but Angelina could make out the road. Neil yelled out, “STOP THE CAR! That’s enough! STOP!”
Angelina did as she was told, bringing the vehicle to a skidding stop with the passenger side facing back the way they had come. A police car came to a stop approximately fifty feet behind them, its blue and red lights cutting through the smoke and dancing off everything.
“Thank you,” he said with some relief, his trembling hands clutching the seat and side door.
“This is actually about the right spot,” she said, looking off the side of the road and through the smoke at the trees nearby. She twisted open a water bottle that was sitting in the cup holder and splashed it over her shirt. She released her seat belt and turning around she told Sam he was about to get wet and splashed him as well.
“What are you doing?” Neil asked incredulously. “Let’s turn ourselves into those cops behind us there and get off this mountain.”
She saw she had lost him. She had gone mad, he thought and he was utterly heartbroken by it. Tears were in his eyes as he watched the girl he thought he knew act in ways he couldn’t at all comprehend.
“We will,” she said, trying to reassure him. “I have to do one thing and we will come right back and this is all over, okay?”
“No!” he said sternly. “We aren’t going anywhere, but back to those cops and the hell off this burning mountain.”
Angelina saw she had lost all hope in reasoning with him. She opened her door and got out of the vehicle, leaving her cell phone on the seat. She pulled her wet shirt up over her nose and mouth to act as a filter for the smoke, which stung her eyes and throat like she had felt before when their house was on fire. She opened Sam’s door and instructed him to keep his eyes closed and cover his mouth.
Neil decided he would have to physically hold her back until she could be gotten into handcuffs. He got out and began to run around the vehicle to grab her.
He didn’t see the police officer coming up behind him. The cop leapt through the air and tackled him hard, sending him sprawling into the dirt.
Angelina saw Neil go to the ground with the cop on top yelling something about him being under arrest. She spun around and grabbing Sam’s hand, lead him off the side of the road and down a steep incline.
Sam nearly tumbled forward into a free fall, except she kept two arms around him, keeping him balanced and upright. Twenty feet down they reached a level ground where the smoke was clearer and she guided him forward, skirting bushes and trees and onto a trail that she knew well. She heard voices from where the vehicles were and looked back to see flashlight beams aimlessly penetrating the haze of smoke.
A minute later they came upon the oak tree, shrouded in smoke like a monolithic apparition. Angelina’s eyes and throat were burning and she heard Sam occasionally cough. His eyes were shut tight, preventing smoke from getting in them.
Once they were under the oak’s canopy the wind seemed to have shifted and the air cleared more.
“Sam, have you ever climbed a tree before?”
“No, Lucy won’t let me,” he replied.
“Well, we’re going to climb a tree now, okay? I’m going to show you places to put your arms and legs and we are going to climb a tree together.”
“Are we going to get eaten by the fire?” he asked nervously.
“No, not at all! The fire is far away. We are going to climb the tree and then go home.
And so they began, her cautiously telling him each position his legs and arms were to be in and pushing him up, bough by bough into the tree. She marveled at his remarkable sense of balance as he followed each instruction carefully. He had a strong bond and deep trust in her and if she said he could do something and would be safe, he would do it.
◊
With the shift in the wind, the police car and Nissan SUV came into view on the TV screens. Paula and Lucy could see Neil with his hands cuffed behind his back and face being pushed flat against the hood of the police car. Three other cops were running back along the road and along neighboring trails, spinning their heads this way and that. The TV anchor droned on in excitement about the chase, describing what was happening as if the viewers were blind and couldn’t observe it for themselves.
The oak tree, Paula thought! Go check that big oak tree, she wanted to scream. The camera zoomed in on a police officer running up to and looking through the oak tree’s foliage. He ran around the tree, looking this way and that through it. He ran off, clearly having seen nothing. Oh, my baby, what have you done?
The wind shifted direction again; the smoke clouds billowing back to the west and up into the sky. The cameras panned back over the mountainside, attempting to spot the two children. Each police officer searching the area was visible, like ants on a white sheet of paper. There clearly was no Angelina and no Sam.
The SUV and its entourage were pulling off the freeway now, Lucy glued to the TV, watching the police officer helplessly run in circles, finding nothing.