THE THREE
Thirty Days Ago
He rides as never before, as if the archangel of flying horses is within him. The night is darker and colder than any he can remember. He does not shiver or damn the dark; he spurs his horse on. Sweat and saliva from the animal’s lathered mouth slops the boy’s rawhide jacket. He ignores it. He swivels from his waist to look behind him. It’s too dense to see a soul. Damn! Smoke and fire swirl towards him in oppressively tight and heavy grey clouds, obscuring his vision further. Shadows fall forward, then rise at odd angles and collapse again. Broken voices scream in Spanish, in English. Women, men, children. Voices call out in tears, in rage. Wretched, demanding. “Help!” “No!” “Over here!” “Please… por favor!” The pleas assault him in circular echoes. He navigates black walls of smoke framed by flashes of redorange, red-blue flames. Fire, the only light the darkness will allow, licks its furious and relentless flame in front of him, above him, to his left and right. A projectile spark sears his left cheek. His eyes sting and water, squinting open-shut-open. A flickering cinder stubbornly sticks to the skin that attaches jaw to neck. He swipes his leather riding glove over the burn, and the ember flares on the fabric, singeing his fingers. He rides on. He’s lost sight of his brother. Each of them had been ponying several horses into this town where the firestorms rage and people seek any protection from the winds that spur flames and leave them homeless. They’ve been riding for more days than he can count. Two boys in their teens, they are; leading refugees out of this place of blistering destruction and into the rugged mountains. Each day the winds blow harder, and the fires grow hotter and faster and more devastating. Hisss. Crrrack. A stand of eucalyptus trees, the last wall of specious safety for the refugees, explodes in a rain of lethal sparks and accompanying ribbons of fire. Every animal and element in proximity moans with the new annihilation. The boy yells to warn and direct the people in front of him, again and again, and to inspire his brother riding behind him. For a brief moment, a flaming branch hanging from a desolate tree illuminates the Page | 1