The Call for Rain
an excerpt

“Right. Executive decision,” I said. “We officially have to get out of here.”
Fire goes slower downhill. Mrs. Hallings had said something about that. We needed to get to lower ground and maybe the fire would bypass us. We had no chance of outrunning it. Towards our right, where there was no path, just brush and trees, the land dipped down into a small pass where two ridges of the mountain met. I dragged Jean to her feet and ran.
“Come on! Please, faster,” I said, to myself or to Jean, and ran headlong into a patch of brambles.
My clothing snagged on branches and thorns. Something whipped across my face and I felt blood run into my mouth. Jean’s hand was sweaty and hot in mine, but her grip was tight and she kept up with me. There were loose rocks under my feet, held in place by tree roots and a thin layer of dirt. My boots dislodged them and it was like walking on a landslide. Every step lasted for horrible seconds of slipping and rolling down the hillside. The plants opened up and I was at the start of a steep drop. I twisted sideways and slid, bracing back against my momentum, down ten feet of pebbly rocks and dry sticks. At the bottom, Jean crashed into me and we tumbled to the ground, landing on rocks and the broken branches of plants.
Jean grunted and got to her hands and knees. She shook her head and took deep breaths as though to combat nausea. I was flat on my back for the second time that day. Twigs poked into my scalp and my skin was sticky and stiff with a smear of dried blood next to my mouth. I sat up and pulled sticks and burrs out of my hair. I licked the back of my hand and washed the blood from my face like a cat. Jean sat on her haunches and watched me. Then she laughed, full and loud and a little crazy.
“What’s so funny?” I asked irritably, still gulping down air with a hand pressed to my cramping side.
“You are bad at rescues.”
I grinned and pushed her away.
“Jerk. I don’t know what you’re talking about. This was a well-planned, intelligent act of heroism.”
I winced and concentrated on breathing again as my ribs twinged with pain. The gully was claustrophobically close quarters, barely widening from the closed back to the three foot wide channel that opened to my right. Above us, I heard the snaps and hisses of the fire devouring more vegetation. The ground around us was dirty gray with ash and still more fell on us.