Part 5
Alvarez asked Janet for the roster and the building plan. She sent both while his crew gathered blankets, lights, medical bags, and a folding evacuation sled. The fire engine could get as far as a fallen pine half a mile from Birch Lodge; beyond that, they would need Daniel’s rig.
“Dog stays with the vehicle,” Alvarez told him.
Daniel checked Mica’s tether behind the passenger seat. “She’s secured.”
“And you stay with it unless I give you a job outside.”
The reply came easily until he heard the restriction in it. He shut the cabin door, tested the latch, and told Alvarez he understood. At the blocked road, the crew transferred their gear and rode in with him, leaving room for the shuttle trips that would follow.
Daniel found the route by fence posts, the line of spruce, and Alvarez’s map. The hood vanished whenever the snow blew straight at the windshield. He kept his hands loose on the controls and resisted the urge to gain back time on the short stretches he could see.
One emergency light showed them the entrance.
The lights inside were losing power as the firefighters made their first check. Their meter stayed silent. Cold was the immediate problem: less than forty-five degrees already, with the automatic generator idle despite the loss of utility power. The emergency lights wouldn’t last much longer either.
The captain sent teams through the bedrooms and asked Daniel to set a guide rope. He secured it between the front entrance and the rig, forty yards that could disappear behind a single gust. Then he stood where the first resident would be able to see him.
Daniel found June Avery’s name on the sheet as the first resident reached the rig. She had pink pajamas on beneath her coat and needed the firefighter’s arm to steady her. He showed her the seat inside, but she twisted to look back at the lodge, asking about Tessa.
“They’re looking for her,” he said.
June pressed a hand against the clear partition beside Mica. The dog lifted her nose to the other side and stood there, tethered, while June’s breathing slowed. Daniel checked the latch before turning back to the rope.
A second resident arrived with a walker; the third was brought out on the evacuation sled. The crew secured them for transport, and Daniel took the first load back to the waiting medics at the engine. He returned with the rig while the interior team continued the search.
The next two residents were ready at the door. Daniel checked each name, helped direct the loading, and listened as Alvarez radioed for the location of the sixth. Nobody answered with a name.
Arthur Bell was still inside. So was Tessa.
The firefighters checked the bedrooms and common room again before finding them near the laundry room. Arthur was eighty-two and could manage only a few steps even on an ordinary day. Tessa had got him into the service corridor, trying to reach the nearer side exit, when a storage rack came down across that route.
The crew could reach them from the main hall. Bringing Arthur back through the building and the deep drifts at the front would be slow; opening the blocked service path would give them a shorter way out. Alvarez sent firefighters to shift the rack and others around to the drift-jammed exterior door.
Daniel brought the rig as close as he could. He could hear a woman’s voice from inside, too muffled for words. At the door, a firefighter worked while Alvarez examined the angle from the winch.
“It’ll need a redirect,” Daniel said. He pointed to a substantial porch support and opened the recovery kit.
They inspected the post and its base together. Daniel arranged the strap and rated block, keeping the line clear, and a firefighter checked the rigging before the winch was engaged. For once Daniel didn’t resent someone going back over his work.
The door moved, then held.
Alvarez called for a stop. Metal scraped inside as the team worked at the fallen rack. Daniel adjusted the line with the power off, and when he picked up the controller again, it felt heavier than it had a minute earlier.
He tried to settle it in his palm. His fingers shook against the housing. The weakness had returned while he’d been looking at the door, and he knew how long he could make it look like ordinary cold if he kept his hand turned away.
“Ready?” Alvarez called.
Daniel looked at the button beneath his thumb.
“No. I need somebody on this.”
Alvarez turned. Daniel held the controller out where the captain could see it shaking. “My hand’s going. Take over.”
A firefighter came across immediately. Daniel explained the hold point, watched the other man’s grip close around the controller, and stepped back. Nobody asked him to defend the decision or made a moment out of it.
He sat on the running board.
Under Alvarez’s direction, the winch took tension while the crew inside cleared the rack from the service corridor. The opening widened from a narrow gap to enough space for a person. Daniel kept both hands on his knees and watched somebody else finish the pull.
A small figure edged sideways out of the opening, trying to keep a foil blanket around her shoulders. Tessa’s borrowed parka gaped over a thin scrub jacket; dark hair clung to her cheek. The medic caught her as she twisted toward the doorway and asked her age. “Thirty,” she said, still trying to see past him.
“Arthur. Please get Arthur.”
“They’re bringing him.”
“Don’t pull him backward. He can’t stand that.”
Alvarez relayed that to the crew. They turned the sled so Arthur could see ahead as he emerged headfirst, already grumbling about the weather. The blanket had slipped enough to show one green sock and one gray above his boots.
Daniel found the last unchecked name. “Arthur Bell?”
Arthur raised a hand from under his blanket. “Who else would come out in this?”
Daniel marked the sheet and radioed Janet. Six residents accounted for. Tessa out with them.
The crew still had work to do. They rechecked the rooms, assessed everyone for exposure, and arranged the remaining shuttle loads. Alvarez assigned another trained operator to Daniel’s rig after Daniel explained the controls and route.
On the next trip, Daniel sat in the rear cabin beside Mica. Her chin settled across his thigh, and Walt’s red glove lay between her paws. The door, the cable, and the people left behind at the lodge were in other capable hands.
By the time they reached the warming center, Edith was complaining about the coffee from a cot near Henry’s equipment. June took Mica’s leash while Daniel helped sort the blankets already unloaded beside them. Mica stayed near the cot, watching wheels and wet boots go past without trying to hide.
When he came back, June was asleep. Two fingers rested inside the slack loop of the leash, and Mica lay awake beside her. Daniel sat in the empty chair at the foot of the cot and, with nobody asking him for anything, found himself thinking about the half-full cup Walt had left on his counter.
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