Chapter Five: Day Two

Becky awakened just as the sun was rising and immediately knew that something was wrong because there was an almost overwhelming, stifling odor. 

"Oh my God, what is that awful smell?"

As she became more alert and aware that this was not a dream, she sat up and looked around. It was time for a reality check. What she saw was a fine, gray, powdery film on her car window, and it was definitely not snow. She realized that it was ashes from the forest fire and that during the night, they had blown in and covered her car, as well as everything else in sight.

"I may have to get out of here, fast," she thought, reminding herself not to panic. "Before I try to go anywhere else, I need to know what that forest fire is doing first." 

Becky knew that there was no time to waste. To check the forest fire meant that she had to climb back up to the top of the rock cliff, but this time she could go up the white mountain goat pathway to the top. 
She started out immediately, dreading the worst.  

"God, help me!"

Surprisingly enough when she reached the top of the rock cliff,  she saw that there was almost no sign of the forest fire to the west, only intermittent pockets of smoke here and there. 

"Thank God for that!" 

For the moment, the fire was out and Becky was still safe where she was. She breathed a sigh of relief as she watched the beautiful sunrise and captured photographs of it, as well as some pictures of the forest fire area with its patches of smoke.  

"I need a picture of my arrow too." 

Becky brushed the ashes off the arrow she built from rocks and then headed back down to her car.  

"I'll have to rebuild my own fire. When I think of it, I never did have plan C for ashes, but maybe I will not need one now. Maybe the wind that blew the forest fire ashes over here will blow them away, too."

She knew that was might not happen. Ashes covered her help sign, so she quickly rewrote the word help.

"The most important thing for me to do is to try to let someone know where I am. The worst of my problems for the moment is that stifling air from the ashes, but if I stay inside my car, I won't have to breathe as much of it."

She quickly stirred up her fire and added a few green branches and dead wood to it. They started to burn slowly, creating smoke that headed directly upwards. Gradually, the wind from the west started to pick.

Becky ate cold cereal for breakfast and sipped on water inside the car, as it was still far too smoky outside. There were too many ashes being blown around to stay outside. Shortly after that, it started to drizzle and within an hour, the sky broke loose and it poured. Everything was drenched, but she stayed warm and dry. 

"So that is why the forest fire died down to the east," she said aloud. "The wind blew the ashes over here, but then the rain that followed, put the forest fire out over there. Now it is coming here. Thank you for the rain, God!"

Becky was very grateful that she did not have to try to flee, but the rain also put out her fire.  

"Rebuilding my fire is no big deal," she decided. "I will that when it dries up a bit here. I can manage without a fire for the time being, but I did want to make some coffee in the tin can the beans were in. I will have to settle for water."

As she formulated her plan, she suddenly heard a loud noise coming from the forested area. She grabbed her camera phone just in time to snap photographs of a huge, black bear lumbering across her sign on the gravel road. 

"Somehow that bear must know that the forest fire is out and that it is safe for him to go back. He looks determined to get where he is going and he is not at all interested in me, or my car."

Over the next few hours, a number of other animals followed his lead across the gravel road, as Becky watched in sheer delight.

"That animal trail must go somewhere important to them. This whole scenario may be potentially precarious for me, but it is still beautiful to watch."

A bull moose that followed shortly seemed to know that Becky was still there, but he did not stop or wait around for long.

"If I was braver, I'd follow that path too, just to see where it goes. My curiosity could get me in big trouble though, so I had better not chance it."  

Getting restless from sitting in the car, Becky opened the window cautiously. The rain had died down and it appeared that most of the ashes had disappeared too. The air was fresher and the trees were a deeper shade of green. In the gradually clearing sky, Becky could see one vertical, sharp edge of the rain cloud moving off further to the west.

"I think that I'll sit tight for a while longer. I know what I should do.” She sharpened a pencil with her penknife and pulled a fresh package of printer paper out of her brief case. "If I am going to document all of this, I have to do it right now. I needed this kind of experience in my life to inspire me to write another manuscript." 

Becky inwardly hoped that no one would come along and rescue her just yet, because she wanted to use this valuable time to write about what was happening, without any interruptions. As she wrote, she munched on a can of mixed nuts.

She wrote freely and her words flowed with an intense passion. This time, writing was almost effortless compared to the difficulty she had encountered while writing her previous manuscript. So many things had happened in the past few days and she trying not to forget any of them. Keeping the events in the right order would help her to stay focused, as so she made a brief outline of them.

Her writing was fast and furious. Becky could not recall ever writing with this intensity of passion, as she wrote non-stop for several hours. She became so engrossed in her writing that nothing else seemed to matter. As she reached the end of her manuscript, she breathed a deep sigh of relief. 

“I have the photographs to prove everything that I have stated is true. They are in the order that I took them too, so I can check my manuscript against them at any time, but not at the moment. I had better do a few other things like try to rebuild my fire.”