Throwing Shadows at Fire

Chapter 1

Throwing Shadows at Fire

By Emery C. Walters

“Look at that i***t down there filming the lava! What the hell is he doing? Doesn’t he know how fast it’s moving? Whose house it that, anyway? Oh, s**t! Oh, take us up! Lord love a duck, the lava just hit the garage roof!”

That was Sam, the newspaper photographer along for the ride. As a helicopter tour pilot, I’d been taken off tours and loaned to the media, with the understanding that it would be the right thing to do, the caring thing to do, and not lose our company, or me as a pilot, any money. So far, so good, and I’d even airlifted three people out of the eruption area, saving their lives and becoming, in their minds at least, a big hero.

“Keoni, take us back,” said Sam. “I have to see if this guy is okay. The readers will want to know. Wait, is that a dog? He’s trying to catch a f*****g dog? Well, quote me here, boss, everyone cares about their pets, right, Keoni?”

That’s when I tuned Sam out. I was trying to keep the chopper away from the burning rocks the volcano below was tossing at us, the fires that were hitting the trees and telephone poles, not hit anything else, and yet keep us level so his cameras could see what was going on.

I steadied us in the thermals that rose and watched in awe as steam came out of a new vent, closer to the house below. I had taken the residents of this house out just this morning. I thought anyone who stayed this long, cutting it this close, was stupid, but it wasn’t my business to judge. This other guy down there, though, what…ah, I could see it now. He had brought a leash, had put it on the dog, and was jogging with the dog alongside him back to safety. Well, relative safety, but that was all that mattered for right now. He was a runner; I could tell that from up here. Probably did marathons in his spare time. He must have been a tourist or vacationer, though, because I pretty much knew everyone who lived in this small town currently being wiped off the map by our persistent, active, grumbling volcano.

Speaking of grumbling, holy s**t: my cameraman was shooting video of the biggest helicopter I’d ever seen, up close anyway, outside of a Vietnam era war movie. I got on the radio. My boss hadn’t told me about this, but I should have kept up better on my own. My bad; but when I make mistakes, I learn from them.

I recognized it as a Super Stallion, probably from the base on Oahu. It looked like it was practicing, and the only reason I could think of for it being here was to evacuate people who got trapped. People like that man down below, who should have left much earlier. But he hadn’t, and he had saved that dog.

Yesterday, a horse had been rescued minutes before the lava took over the barn he was in. Why he was left there, I do not know. People had been leaving in a panic, some forgetting their pets, some unable to take them anywhere, and some because they were unable to find them. The animals were upset, too, and ran off and hid. Maybe that’s what this dog had done.