Hig Plans to Evacuate Cima First and Return for Pops

Hig’s decision to evacuate Cima first and return for Pops turns a promise of escape into a precarious two-stage plan. The family’s canyon refuge is failing under drought, and the short sage meadow that serves as a runway makes carrying everyone at once uncertain. Hig must weigh their need to leave against the fuel, weight, and takeoff limits of The Beast; his eventual arrangement separates Pops from his daughter temporarily rather than abandoning him outright.

Drought and the Request to Leave

Pops first makes clear that the question is no longer whether he and Cima want to leave. In a few weeks, he expects, it will be time to go, and he tells Hig that the three of them will fly out together. Hig had already said that he would leave whenever Pops asked, but the prospect of carrying both father and daughter changes that promise into a practical and urgent commitment.

The reason is the steady loss of water. The previous summer, the creek nearly dried up, forcing the family to dig in its bed to collect enough water to drink; half the cattle died. Conditions have worsened year by year, while the weather has grown warmer. Pops expects the drought to continue and knows they will probably have to leave in the spring. The prospect of traveling without reliable water makes the choice harder: if the canyon is drying, he cannot know how much worse conditions will be beyond the mesa.

The landscape holds both the evidence of decline and a counterimage of life still present. Hig looks at the green meadow and burbling stream, while the country’s longer trends point the other way: less snowpack on the Continental Divide, earlier runoff, and lower creeks by fall. Birds still call across the field, and the larger rivers have not yet dried. The contrast makes the family’s predicament more than a sudden crisis. The water and pasture that have sustained them are becoming unreliable, even as the canyon can still look like a refuge.

The Limits of The Beast

Hig’s agreement does not settle whether a flight with both Pops and Cima is possible. The immediate obstacle is the short sage meadow. Hig cannot treat its takeoff performance as a known quantity, and he doubts whether The Beast can lift off with the extra weight, perhaps even with only one passenger. His concern is grounded in the airstrip itself: the aircraft’s performance figures were established by test pilots on smooth tarmac, whereas a rough, rutted track in a sage field will reduce performance further. Filling and smoothing the ruts may help, but cannot remove the uncertainty.

The fuel plan also includes more than a one-way trip. Hig proposes flying to Grand Junction to inspect the tower and airport, obtain aviation fuel, and then return to Bangley. Pops has already calculated figures for a Cessna 182 of The Beast’s vintage, including its usable fuel capacity, hourly burn, and approximate distances. He recognizes that Hig is near the point beyond which there is no return, and has assumed that Hig brought extra fuel. But Pops has misjudged Hig’s confidence in his own calculations: the numbers cannot guarantee that the loaded plane will safely clear the trees.

Hig tries to reduce the load before the flight. He siphons twelve extra gallons into cans, a reduction of seventy-two pounds, then judges that he should put about two gallons back rather than cut the fuel too close. He leaves one full can in the sage and empties the other into the dirt before stowing the empty can in The Beast. This careful adjustment shows how little margin he believes he has. Even a decision about fuel must account for both takeoff weight and the need to preserve enough for the planned stops and later pickup.

A Staged Evacuation

The calculations initially suggest an answer Hig cannot comfortably present: his best chance of taking off and clearing the trees may require leaving Pops behind. Hig imagines how badly that choice would be received, especially after Pops has trusted him to fly the family out. The obstacle is not simply a disagreement about who gets rescued; it is the physical limit of the airplane, which makes the first version of the plan appear to demand a painful choice between father and daughter.

Pops recognizes that Hig has already made that calculation. Hig confirms it, and Pops states the division plainly: he will stay while Cima goes. Hig’s response is not to treat that separation as the final arrangement. He explains that fourteen gallons are needed because the plane must land and take off again, then offers a way for Pops to rejoin them: Pops can walk out to the highway, where Hig will pick him up. Hig identifies a sufficiently straight stretch near the bridge turnoff, giving the second pickup a practical landing place rather than leaving it as an undefined promise.

Pops is to leave a day early and wait for pickup at daybreak. He accepts the proposal with a brief assent. The plan therefore depends on several stages working: Hig must get Cima out of the canyon, complete the intended stop and refueling, and return to collect Pops from the road. The evidence establishes this as the agreed arrangement, not as a completed rescue. Its outcome still depends on a difficult takeoff and a later landing on the highway.

The Cost and Meaning of the Plan

Hig’s choice combines care with calculation. He does not dismiss Pops’s insistence that all three leave together, but neither does he promise a flight that the aircraft may not be able to make. Instead, he converts the apparent choice to abandon Pops into a temporary separation with a specific rendezvous, route, fuel requirement, and time. His promise is made more credible by its details, while those same details reveal how vulnerable it remains to the conditions of the terrain and the plane.

The episode also shifts the canyon from a place of apparent safety to a place the family can no longer count on. The green meadow and running creek remain visible, yet the nearly dry streambed, dead cattle, falling snowpack, and starving fish show the pressures beneath that surface. The evacuation plan is not driven by a sudden attack or an immediate collapse of the household; it is a response to deterioration measured across seasons. Hig’s task is to make a narrow passage through that slow decline, carrying Cima first and preserving a route back for Pops. The plan’s decisive feature is its refusal to confuse an unavoidable logistical split with a final abandonment.