 There's a story I need to tell. This seems as good a place as any. It happened at the Devil's Elbow. The Devil's Elbow is a jagged peak that juts up from a ridge in the Sierra foothills. It's in the southern part of the state, not far from where the mountains give way to the desert. There's a rounded rise further down the ridge that people call Hip Hill. Being viewed from the proper angle, it resembles a man lying on his side with his bent elbow poking up. That's how it got its name. Well, that and the reputation the area has. Not many people venture up the slopes of the Devil's Elbow, and of those that do, not all of them come back. I've lived around here most of my life. Our family was from Darby, about 20 miles down the highway. But my parents owned a cabin on Maggie's Folly Road, a two lane state route that winds its way up a broad canyon near the base of Devil's Elbow. That's where I lived in the cabin, although calling it a cabin is a little misleading. The rough timber and fieldstone construction gave it a rustic look, but it had indoor plumbing, electricity, a hot tub, and even broadband. Most of the other cabins along the road were the same. It was the kind of place where people with money built vacation homes. I may have not amounted to much in the eyes of some, but my parents did pretty well for themselves. Maybe that making money genes skips a generation. Aside from having living there for the better part of the last five years, I spent most of my summers at the cabin when I was growing up. I may have not heard all of the tales, but I know most of them. Strange sounds, strange tracks, strange occurrences. My older brother Brad once told me about the time he went out on a search party with our dad looking for a missing hiker. I was too young to go along and he kind of lorded that over me. But when they came back, he wasn't so smug anymore. He told me the story that night, whispering down from the top bunk. He said there were only a few hundred yards up the slope of the devil's elbow when the sheriff's deputy leading their party raised his hand for everyone to stop. He asked if anyone heard anything. Nobody did. At all. There was no birdsong, no crickets chirping, no cicadas whirring. He said everybody was really weirded out by it. All of a sudden, the members of the search party, most of them seasoned hunters and outdoorsmen, got panicking and scared. The deputy decided they'd gone far enough and should move on to the next search sector. Nobody argued. I laid awake most of that night, wondering what might be up on that mountain. But by the next day, I was pretty sure Brad was just yanking my chain. Since then, I've never put much stock in the tall tales and campfire stories people told about the devil's elbow. That was until the fire. I got a text ordering evacuation a little after three in the afternoon. I would have missed it if my phone wasn't set to vibrate. I always keep my phone on vibrate. There's no way I'd ever hear a ringtone or notification chime over all the noise in the shop. The winds had shifted, according to the alert. The wildfire had turned west, crossing the devil's elbow ridge, and was burning out of control. Straight for the canyon where I lived with my girlfriend. I immediately stepped out onto the loading dock to call her. Chloe, did you get the evacuation message? I asked when she picked up. Oh yeah, I left about a couple hours ago. People were saying the fire was going to turn, so I didn't wait. So you're in town? Where are you staying? Um, actually, I'm at Gary's. What? Gary was her ex, one of those corporate flunkies with an office in the city, soft hands and a closet full of silk shirts and Italian loafers. He and Chloe had remained friends after their breakup. She even had him up to dinner at my place a couple of times, just to show how mature an adult we all were. Normally, I'm not the jealous type, but their chumminess didn't sit right with me. I thought we agreed we'd stay in town if we had to evacuate, I said. Darby was what they call a bedroom community, maybe a 45 minute drive from the city, situated in the desert. It had a main drag lined with upscale boutiques and restaurants surrounded by gated communities. On the outskirts of town were a couple of strip malls for the regular folk, two chain motels and Reggie's Rods and Chops, the custom car and motorcycle shop where I worked as a machinist. Most of the hot rods, muscle cars and choppers we built wound up as little more than lawn ornaments for rich people, but I can't complain. It's a pretty good living. You want me to stay in some cheesy, best Western or Comfort Inn? I can't even. You know I have anxiety. I need to be some place familiar. She was almost in tears. That always got me. We could hash things out later, Gary had one of those fake haciendas all tile and stucco. The place reminded me of a 90s era Taco Bell. It was in a new development near the edge of the desert, far enough away from the wooded foothills below the devil's elbow to be safe. Okay, okay. I said, we'll figure it out. But what about Dizzy? Gary was not fond of my dog. Dizzy, oh. What do you mean, oh? David, I'm so sorry. I forgot her. You left my dog in a forest fire? Don't shout at me. I was so scared. The fire was coming and there was so much smoke and I was rushing to get away and you know I have anxiety. I don't know what other excuses she gave because I hung up, leapt off the loading dock and sprinted for my Jeep. You have to understand Dizzy is pretty important to me. Dizzy is some kind of pit bull mix black with a white bib mismatched eyes and at around 30 pounds on the small side, she has scars on her snout and half her left ear is missing, which leads me to believe she was used as bait by dog fighters. She came to me at a pretty low point in my life. It was about five years ago. I'd just gone through a messy divorce and had been laid off from the factory where I worked at the time. My dad had lost his battle with cancer the year before. Mom had just passed away herself. I think she died of a broken heart. Sounds sappy, I know, but I'm pretty sure it's true. My brother got the big house in Darby and I got the cabin in the canyon because my parents knew us well and wanted us to be happy. I was on my way out of the city after signing the papers at the lawyer's office to take possession of the cabin when I saw the sign for the animal rescue. I'm not sure why I turned in there. When people ask, I always say I figured a guy that lived in a cabin is a guy who should have a dog. That's not true. It's just something I made up. So I'd have an answer to the question I didn't have an answer for. Whatever the reason, I pulled into the shelter and told the woman behind the counter that I wanted a dog. She told me I was in luck. They had plenty. There were lots of purebred labs, retrievers and collies. Dogs that had been Christmas gifts when they were puppies and then dumped at the shelter when they got big and the kids lost interest. I'm sure they were great dogs. All of them seemed friendly enough, but I didn't really click with any of them. I was about to thank the woman for her time and head out when she said they had one more. She didn't sound hopeful, but I said I'd look at it just to be polite. That's when I met Dizzy. She didn't take to me right away. But just kind of hid behind the shelter lady with her head hung low. I got a couple of treats from the jar on the counter and managed to get her to take them from my hand. Once she had the treat in her mouth, though, she'd run back behind the shelter lady to gobble it down. Dizzy had been confiscated from her previous owner by animal control and had been in the shelter for more than two years. She was a bully breed, mostly black, probably about three years old, had different colored eyes, scars and a missing ear. The only thing that would have made her less adorable was if she had horns and cloven hooves, according to the shelter lady. Right about the time she was explaining that to me, Dizzy let me give her a quick scratch. She wagged her tail. It was only two or three times, but that's all it took. You could have stuck a fork in me because I was done. The only question I had was how much turns out you can't just hand them some money and walk away with a dog. There is an application and a background check. I even had to give references. It took two weeks to get approved. While I waited, I made a trip to the shelter every day they were open to take Dizzy for a walk or play fetch. Every day when they brought her out of her kennel, she'd get so excited when she saw me that she'd spin in circles until she couldn't walk straight. The day the adoption was official, I changed her name to Dizzy. The shelter staff had called her Edna. That just wasn't going to work. It was just the two of us for the next couple of years. We settled into the cabin. I got hired at Reggie's. Life was good. It was the first time in a long time that I felt like I wasn't just going through the motions. Then along came Chloe. That was good too, at first. Things started to get a little iffy when she moved in with us. Chloe had opinions that she didn't mind sharing. She didn't think animals should be kept as pets. It was demeaning to their intrinsic nobility and symbolic of neocolonialism. She would tell me stories that she'd read somewhere she couldn't remember about how dangerous pit bulls were and that they could lock their jaws about how sometimes they just snapped for no reason and mauled innocent little children. I knew all of that was BS, but it was easier not to argue. At one point, she asked me what I would say if she told me she wouldn't marry me unless I got rid of Dizzy. The thought that popped into my head was who said anything about marriage? Instead, I told her that Dizzy would probably only live for another eight or 10 years. If we were still together, we could get married then. That did not go over well. Chloe packed her bags. She made it as far as the front porch before she had a panic attack and collapsed. For her part, Dizzy didn't seem to care much for Chloe either. She never got aggressive or anything. She just ignored her. In all honesty, I can't think of anything that would piss Chloe off more than just being ignored. Coming up out of the desert and approaching the foothills, I could see a couple of highway patrol cruisers on the road ahead, blocking the turnoff to Maggie's folly. They would never let me pass, not to rescue a dog, but there was an old cutoff just to the south. Not much more than a rutted dirt track through the desert, it followed the top of a low bluff before turning east into a draw that would eventually lead to the canyon road a couple of miles below my cabin. My jeep was beefed up from stock, one of the advantages of working in a custom vehicle shop, but even with the engine and suspension modifications I'd made, it would be slow going. The sky was already darkening with smoke. I could see the orange glow of the wildfire coming down the backside of the devil's elbow ridge. It was moving fast. With no other choice, I threw the transfer case into four by four high and wheeled onto the cutoff. The fat off-road tires sprayed plumes of dust into the air. There was no way the cops didn't see me, but there was no way they could stop me either. I pushed my jeep as fast as I dared, slamming over ruts and rocks, worried the whole time I might break an axle. Halfway along the bluff, I could actually look down on Gary's place, sitting at the end of a cul-de-sac lined with empty lots. He was very proud that this was the first home in that section of the development. It was a good ways off and I was being thrown against my seatbelt hard enough to rattle my teeth, but I thought I could make out two figures, reclining on lounge chairs by the pool. I couldn't believe it. She abandoned my dog to die in a wildfire and now she's relaxing poolside, sipping mojitos with her ex-boyfriend. Once I turned into the draw, the going got tougher. I had to shift into four low. The cutoff was more overgrown than I remembered. Low hanging spruce branches slapped against the windshield, cracking the glass and scraping down the sides of my wrangler. More than once, the skid plate slammed against a rock or root with a jarring blow. I had to be careful. Lots of animals were fleeing the fire. Several times mule deer and white tails jumped out out of the trail in front of me. I even spotted a couple of elk bowling their way downhill through the underbrush. My tires spun, caught, lurched forward and spun again, making my progress nightmarishly slow. My phone vibrated in my pocket. I ignored it, concentrating on keeping the Jeep upright and moving forward. Finally, after what seemed like an eternity, twice over, I broke into the clear and turned onto the smooth asphalt of Maggie's folly. I floored the gas pedal. It was a little after five, according to the dashboard clock and sunset at that time of year was just before seven. But when I whipped into my driveway, slewing sideways on the loose gravel, the smoke was so thick, it might as well have been midnight. Ash drifted down from the sky like an early snow. I took the porch steps three at a time, fumbling my keys twice before I managed to get the door open. Dizzy should have been right there. She always knows when I pull in the driveway. She always greets me at the door, spinning in circles until she can't walk straight. Dizzy, I shouted, come on girl. Nothing. The cabin's lower level has an open floor plan. I could see she wasn't downstairs. Up on the second floor, I checked the bedrooms, closets, bathroom, and under the beds. I couldn't find my dog. The only place left was outside. I told Chloe a hundred times never to let Dizzy outside by herself. The canyon wasn't wilderness, but it was close. There were coyotes, bobcats, bears, maybe even some wolves and mountain lions. Dizzy wasn't big enough to take on a pack of coyotes, let alone a wool for a cougar. I dashed out the back door, heat hit me like a fist in the face. The yard was empty. Dizzy, I shouted, then immediately doubled over in a coughing fit. The smoke was thick. The fire was no longer an orange glow in the distance. I could see flames through the trees. Dizzy, I shouted again, running to the edge of the woods. More coughing racked me so hard, I vomited. I heard something moving through the brush. It wasn't Dizzy, whatever it was, it was big and moving fast. Branches snapped like gunfire, trees swayed. A cold hard panic gripped my heart as I backed away. Maybe 20 yards into the trees, I saw motion, just a blur, really, but bigger than any bear I'd ever seen. I kept backing away until I thumped against my storage shed. That's when I heard the low whining. Dizzy, I dropped to the ground, peering into the gap under the shed's floor. No dog, I ran around to the other side, she wasn't there. There was a weak yip, it came from inside. I kept the key on a hook beside the kitchen door, but there was no time to run back and get it. Instead, I shoved my fingers through the gap between the double doors and yanked. It took three good hard pulls with everything I had before the hasp screws ripped out of the wood. Inside, Dizzy was cowering in the back corner, panning and hacking from the smoke. When she saw me, she trotted to the door and tried to spin around, but there wasn't enough oxygen in the air. She fell over. I scooped her up into my arms and ran for my jeep as fast as my burning lungs would allow. The roof of my cabin was smoldering. I could see the glow of burning trees further down the canyon. The fire had flanked us and we were in danger of being cut off. I began to realize that we might not make it out of here. Back in the jeep with the windows closed, the air was slightly more breathable. Dizzy seemed to perk up a little. I jammed the transmission into gear, wheeled around and sped down as fast as I could in the smoke and darkness. Heat battered us. Flaming embers sparked off the hood and windshield. I babbled prayers to a God I wasn't sure existed. Three miles along, just when I started to think we might make it, a fallen tree blazing so hotly, the asphalt beneath it bubbled, blocking the road. I screamed incoherently, beating the steering wheel with my fist. Dizzy put her front paws on my thigh and licked my face. I wrapped her in my arms and began to cry. How long had Chloe been locking her in the shed? Why would she do that? Dizzy panned and whined in my arms. The heat had become almost unbearable. At least Dizzy wasn't gonna die alone. Then it hit me. The cut off. The fire hadn't advanced as far down on the other side of the canyon. It might still be clear. We're getting out of here, girl. I assured my dog as much as myself. I whipped the jeep around again, heading back up the hill. In the smoke and darkness, I missed the turn and had to reverse back down the road for 50 yards or so. Plunging the jeep back into the trees, we jounced over the same ruts, rocks and roots that had nearly rattled me to pieces on the way up. Dizzy splayed her feet on the passenger seat, trying to steady herself. My phone vibrated again. I ignored it again. We were maybe three quarters of a mile down the draw with the fire closing in fast from behind. When the thing stepped out under the track in front of us, I slammed the brakes. Dizzy slipped off the seat and fell into the passenger's footwell. It was tall, 15 feet at least, towering over my jeep and walked upright. Its body was emaciated, mottled gray skin stretched drum tight over its bones. Tuffs of mangy fur hung from its shoulders. The hands were enormous. Each gnarled finger tipped with a hooked claw. Its head was elongated and crowned with antlers. In its mouth were row after row of crooked needle-like teeth. It leaned forward, peering at me through the windshield with eyes that glowed a dull yellow. I felt that cold, hard panic grip my heart again. Blood turned to ice water in my veins. Dizzy jumped into my lap, planning her front paws on the steering wheel, snarling and barking at the thing like I'd never heard her before. Just then, a tree exploded to the right of the track. The heat of the flames had boiled off the pine resin in the trunk, turning it into an expanding gas that blew the tree apart like a grenade. Chunks of wood pelted the side of my Jeep, dimpling the sheet metal and making spider webs in the safety glass. Jagged splinters sprayed the creature. It snorted in irritation before striding off into the trees on the left. I sat frozen in terror until the brightening glow in my rear view mirror drew my eye. The flames were speeding up behind us. I released the brake, stomping on the gas. Dizzy jumped back into the passenger seat as the Jeep leapt forward and we careened downhill. The rest of that trip down that draw was a blur. I have snatches of memory of lurching painfully hard against my seatbelt, of Dizzy whining in fear as she was thrown around in the passenger's footwell, of wanting to give her a reassuring pat but not being able to take my hands off the wheel. I do remember emerging from the last bit of scrub into the open desert and the fire burning out just behind us. I drove along the top of the bluff for a bit before I had to stop. The sun had set, moonlight washed the desert, turning it into a black and white photograph. The air there was much cooler and free of smoke. Stepping out of the Jeep, I drank it in deep. I plopped down on the edge of the bluff, pulling Dizzy into my lap and scratching her behind the ears. My phone vibrated in my pocket. This time I answered it. David, Chloe nearly shouted. Where the hell are you? Why'd you lock Dizzy in the shed? What? What are you talking about? I went to get Dizzy. She was locked in the shed. You locked her in the shed. Have you been doing this every day when I go to work? You went to get your stupid dog? I've been calling and calling. Why didn't you answer? I was worried sick. You know, I have anxiety. What would have happened to me if you died? I could hear splashes in the background from where I sat. I could see the lights of Gary's house. Something else caught my eye. David, are you listening to me? No, I said, not really. You care more about that dumb mutt than you do about me. You wouldn't have run into a forest fire to save my life. You weren't locked in a shed. I growled. That dog is dangerous. She gets really mean with me when you're not around. I have to put her in the shed when you're gone. Did she even bit me once? She never bit you. You would have told me if she had. Are you calling me a liar? Yeah, I guess I am. I said, squinting my eyes. It was a ways off, but I was pretty sure I knew what it was. You know what? Gary's right. You need to make a choice, me or the dog. I'll take dizzy. She stayed on the line long enough to curse me out and tell me she never wanted to speak to me again before hanging up. I thought about calling her back, warning her, but what was the point? She would have just laughed at me. The three quarter moon was bright enough for me to see the beast slouching off across the desert floor towards the lights of Gary's Hacienda. I guess some of those campfire stories were true after all. According to the tales I'd heard, it would be hungry. They were always hungry. We needed to get out of there before it turned its attention to us. Dizzy and I loaded up and limped what was left of my Jeep back to Darby. The police came to talk to me a week or so later. Chloe's sister had reported her missing. I didn't even know she had a sister. I told them the truth, most of it anyway. They found her car and her possessions at Gary's place. Gary was missing too. Turns out he was embezzling money from his firm. The police figure he and Chloe ran off to Mexico together. The cabin was a total loss. So I stayed with my brother until the insurance company settled up. Dizzy and I got ourselves a little bungalow in one of the more affordable sections of Darby. I like it here. I like working at Reggie's and Dizzy took a real shine to Brad's kids. So it's nice to be nearby. I suppose I could have rebuilt the cabin if I'd wanted. A lot of the residents did just that. But this is as close to the devil's elbow as I care to go. Thank you very much. I'm just now at the point where I can sleep most nights without dreaming of those eyes, glowing dull yellow. Maybe I should have tried to warn Chloe. Maybe I should have told her that a wind ago, fleeing a wildfire on the devil's elbow was headed straight for her. Of course she wouldn't have believed me. But maybe I should have tried anyway. Does it make me a bad person that I didn't? I don't know. All I do know is that she shouldn't have tried to get between me and my dog.