Summer of Fire Part 25

Clare fumbled in the pocket of her jeans. The key secured, Devon headed for the staircase.

Steve wanted more time with Clare, but he decided it was not to be. "I'd better look for a room, then." His married friends had told him how G.o.d-awful kids were on your s.e.x life.

Below, Devon dragged out her duffel and backpack and slammed doors. He saw Clare scan the street where a couple of "No Vacancy" signs were visible. "You'll never get a place at this hour."

"Yeah," Devon agreed, as though eavesdropping was perfectly fine. "This town is packed."

So he'd drive up to one of the Teton overlooks and sleep in his d.a.m.ned truck. If one of the rangers rousted him, he'd flash his badge and convince them that Steve Haywood was not drunk for a change, just too dog-tired to drive. He'd try not to think that last night Clare had slept in his bed while he'd repeatedly retrieved his pillow from slipping through the sofa's armrest.

He could hardly believe his ears when Clare's husky voice stopped him. "We have two beds. Why not stay with us?"

Ten minutes later, Clare climbed in beside Devon, who appeared to be already asleep in the spot against the wall. She'd thought of asking Steve to go for a walk, but they were both exhausted.

At least now, they had tomorrow.

Keys and change jingled when Steve placed them on the round table near the window. That sound came from another life, when Jay used to stow his stuff on the gla.s.s-topped dresser in their bedroom.

Steve faced the window and she heard the snaps of his western s.h.i.+rt. He loosened the cuffs and shrugged out of one sleeve, stopping to scratch his back. Off with the other and he turned out the hanging light over the table.

With wonder, she realized that she had spent the entire evening without thinking of Billy Jakes, her upcoming interrogation, or the question of whether to quit fighting fires. From across the three feet that separated the beds, her eyes met Steve's. One arm was pillowed beneath his head and the other beneath the covers, but for a moment, she felt as though he reached out to her.

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE.

September 6 The river terrace dropped away, revealing an inner valley where the Snake River flowed in three winding, braided channels. On the bank, Clare saw at least a dozen leaning cabins with red metal roofs bleached by the sun.

"There's the Bar BC," Steve offered. "Dude ranch for armchair cowboys of the teens and twenties."

When Clare had told Steve over breakfast omelets that she wanted to try and find her family ranch, he had immediately started making plans. Even Devon had surprised her by saying she'd like to go.

They'd convoyed to the airport and dropped off Clare's rental, then driven through sage meadows and crossed a bridge over the rus.h.i.+ng Snake. At the Grand Teton Visitor Center, a silver-haired ranger offered directions to the landmark Bar BC and the nearby Sutton homestead. "They're just ruins," he warned. "We don't have funding and the goal is to let the land return to its natural state."

The Bar BC was better preserved than Clare had thought from the way he'd spoken. Despite their derelict appearance, most of the buildings stood intact behind rail fences. The exception was a bare foundation with a river-rock fireplace where she imagined ghosts danced on moonlit nights.

Steve turned the noisy truck onto a faint track at the base of a bluff. Willows and aspen grew thick in the bottomland. As the trail grew fainter, they backtracked several times. Finally, Steve brought the truck to a halt beside a small ravine lined with granite boulders. "Can't give up now."

He struck out on foot down the bank and into rus.h.i.+ng water. Clare splashed behind him, wetting her boots and jeans. Past the ravine, she had to watch for burrows, twisted roots, and the rounded pellets of elk droppings. The bottomland smelled of evergreen, the woodsy tang of sage, and something cinnamon-like. "What smells like Christmas?"

Steve pointed out a tree with light-brown bark. Its narrow leaves had yellowed from the dry season. Pulling a clump that looked sticky with pungent sap, he brought the spicy aroma to her nose. "Cottonwood."

They walked the faint memory of a trail around a bend. There, leaning log walls and a trio of ruined cobblestone chimneys made Clare draw in her breath. Remnants of jagged gla.s.s studded the window frames, and the wind roamed freely through what might once have been a cozy refuge. The sagging door swung on its hinges.

Hurrying footsteps sounded and Devon rushed up panting through her open mouth, her lips slicked with a red so dark it looked almost black.

Clare stepped onto the porch where someone had laid a mosaic of river rocks. Above the door, a weathered set of elk antlers spread bleached branches.

The cabin's interior smelled of the pine log walls. Save for metal andirons and a kettle on the hearth, the main room was empty. Irregular gaps in the wood floor showed packed earth beneath. In the other room, a potbellied stove stood close enough to cast warmth onto the bed. Looking at the rusted frame, Clare imagined that here was where her family had once lived and loved.

Her grandfather Cordon had grown up surrounded by the awesome beauty of wilderness, yet he had moved to Houston and gone into the oil business. Standing in the homestead, she wondered why anyone who lived here would leave this country. Even the flood of Asa Dean's story should not have deterred the hardy folk of the frontier.

Of course, her try at this wild country had resulted in disaster.

"Mom," Devon called from the main room.

"What?"

Clare looked in and found Steve watching Devon with a raised brow. Her daughter bent over in her already abbreviated cutoffs, rocking a loose hearthstone that c.h.i.n.ked. "It's probably buried treasure," she suggested with childlike enthusiasm.

"Don't be silly, the place is falling apart."

To her surprise, Steve defended Devon. "You never know until you look."

He pulled an andiron from the fireplace, knelt, and strained to lift the heavy rock. The powdery scent of earth emerged, along with the sharp edge of tarnish that Clare recognized from cleaning her mother's silver tableware.

Steve lifted out a box a foot square and six inches deep. For a moment, she thought he would open it, but he offered it to Devon.

She seemed taken aback and looked to Clare as if for permission.

"Go ahead, dear."

When Devon raised the blackened lid, the hinges broke. She looked startled, and Clare said, "It's okay."

Reaching in, Devon drew out a compact, leather-bound book. Gold leaf edged each yellowed page. Inside, Ex Libris and the name in spidery brown ink.

Laura Fielding Sutton.

Clare's mother had been right about her great-grandmother keeping a journal. It was difficult to believe that the delicate book had not been ruined by rain or melting snow. The silver box's bottom had tarnished through, making it a ruined sh.e.l.l.

Devon riffled the tissue-thin sheets. They were a bit warped, with a tendency to stick together. A clear round hand sprawled, occasional splotches revealing that Laura had tended to press her fountain pen too hard. How long ago must this have been written, fifty years, eighty?

With a steady look that revealed the woman she might become, Devon pa.s.sed the book to Clare.

July 23, 1925 Six a.m.

From this high meadow on the Grand, dawn silhouettes the scar on Sheep Mountain where the Gros Ventre Slide took place a month ago. When the mountainside gave way, I saw curious plumes of rising dust. Trees danced and undulated and the hillside peeled away to raw earth. Finally, I heard an unearthly low rumbling as though a train pa.s.sed.

When the earth lay quiet, a mile and a half long gash wounded it.

Engineers have a.s.sured that the slide is stable and that the Gros Ventre River can simply go on flowing around the side, but I wonder. There are stories of major earthquakes in just the last century and the Yellowstone country is violently unstable.

High above me on the Grand, morning kisses the highest peak with rose. The light brightens and sweeps down, illuminating more of the mountain with each moment. The sunrise comes to me and warmth touches my face.

Yesterday afternoon a summer rainstorm pa.s.sed, quick cold making us reach for oilskins. As rapidly as it had blown up, the squall gave way to sunset. Ruby light pinkened scattered snowfields and the high glaciers glowed.

Cordon built an evening fire and paid attention to the young woman he brought along. Francesca is lovely and sweet, an immigrant from Italy. When I put on some beans, sliced bacon, and added brown sugar, Francesca suggested that a pinch of dried mustard would add flavor. Our younger son, Bryce, back from another of his wanderings, started coffee and struck up conversation with the guests we brought up to the campsite. I hate the term "dudes." Before we sought the warmth of our bedrolls, we watched for shooting stars. One traced a long line over Idaho.

We went to bed with an added sense of antic.i.p.ation. This morning we strike out, not for the ranch and the valley, but for the summit of Grand Teton.

The rest of the words blurred. Flesh of Clare's flesh, Laura Sutton had climbed the peak that soared to the sky. And there in the meadow of flowering yellow balsamroot walked a new generation in Devon.

Steve pa.s.sed Clare a clean bandanna. She sniffed and blew her nose.

Mildly, Steve observed, "By rights, that book belongs to the National Park Service." Then he grinned. "I don't think anyone would mind if you hung onto it."

Clare tested one of the porch posts with the heel of her hand. It seemed solid and she leaned against it. "I'm sorry I got weepy." She tucked the kerchief into her pocket rather than hand it back soiled.

"Keep it," he offered. "Something to remember me by when you get back to Houston."

She did not miss the catch in his voice, just as Devon reached the cabin's front steps.

Driving through a long corridor of pine on the Rockefeller Parkway, headed toward Yellowstone, Clare could not resist the urge to open the diary again. With the sunlight strobing on the pages, she read a pa.s.sage dated two years later.

May 19, 1927 Three a.m.

When the warning came from Ranger Dibble, saying that a wall of water was bearing down on Kelly, many people did not believe.

This evening was a horror. Past dark we searched for survivors amidst the mud and rubble left when Slide Lake broke its dam. I helped our neighbors from Mormon Row lay out the dead in the church. While I helped carry buckets of water to wash the dead, Cord was on the detail of men constructing coffins.

Near midnight, young Cordon insisted that his father and I return home and rest. Before we left what remains of Kelly, only four buildings standing, he promised to eat something and rest. I suspect he has kept searching by lantern light. Francesca, the girl he has been after, was helping out at the school today and has not been seen since before the flood. I only hope that Bryce was delayed in returning from his journey and was far from here.

At the Bar BC they asked for news of the dead and those missing. I don't think that either Cord or I wanted to be alone yet, for we stayed late drinking coffee and talking with Struthers Burt.

I should sleep, but I keep listening for Cordon's Model A. It is as though if I hope hard enough he may bring us Francesca, weary yet well. I am sure that if I close my eyes I would see the wall of water, bearing the trees and rocks of Slide Lake Dam, houses, fencing and livestock.

Devon put an arm around her shoulder. She'd been reading over Clare's shoulder in the truck's front seat. As Clare dug out Steve's bandanna again, she said, "It's okay, Mom. If she hadn't made it, we wouldn't be here."

"Except that your grandmother's name was Anne Lamar."

"Oh . . . yeah." Devon chewed her lip and stared again at the page, while Clare wondered if the diary would unravel the mystery of the missing Francesca.

In late afternoon, Steve pulled under the ma.s.sive porte-cochere of Old Faithful Inn. They had stopped along the way at several waterfalls. Overlooking the Lewis River's rugged canyon, Devon had gaped at the blackened landscape where the Red-Shoshone had wreaked ruin.

As Devon slung her backpack over her shoulder and opened the pa.s.senger door, Clare said, "Just a minute . . . " She swallowed the rest, for her daughter was out and heading toward the walkway encircling the geyser. "Our cabin is number sixteen," she called after her.

In late afternoon, the loading zone was chaos. Rainbow bags and designer leather lay strewn over the wide sidewalk. A bus arrived, blowing diesel exhaust.

It was difficult for Clare to reconcile this air of normality with the fact that beyond the public window dressing, Pete Cullen and his West Yellowstone volunteers were moving in irrigation sprinklers. Since their town was no longer threatened, the equipment was being brought into the park to protect power lines. When Clare had spoken to Garrett this morning, he'd cautioned that another grasping tentacle of the North Fork reached for Old Faithful.

Although she had phoned him with the best intentions, she had hung up without telling Garrett that she was going home. No matter how many ways she tried to phrase it, the words had choked in her throat.

Steve rested both hands on the steering wheel. His left hand still wore the bandage she'd put on for him the other night at his house. An unbidden image of his strong, yet gentle fingers sliding over her skin almost made Clare gasp. She hadn't felt this way with Deering.

Another bus pulled in behind them. Steve glanced in the rearview mirror. In just a minute, she would get out and thank him for the ride. He'd drive away without having explained his trip to Jackson, all because her daughter was too d.a.m.ned effective a chaperone.

The bus driver hit the air horn.

Do something, but for G.o.d's sake don't let him leave.

Wordlessly, Clare brushed Steve's cheek with the back of her hand. He'd brought his kit into the Antler this morning and shaved, leaving his skin smooth with a hint of blond stubble. He gave her a long look. "I can't drive if you do that."

A second horn blast and he said, "I guess I'll have to park and get us some dinner."

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR.

September 6 No matter how many times Clare watched Old Faithful Geyser, she never tired of it. Despite the fires, tourists from all over the world crowded closer, speaking the universal language of expectation.

The circular walkway ringing the geyser was at least fifteen feet wide, standing room only with the rows of wooden benches already occupied. Clare looked for Devon, but didn't see her.

The waiting crowd stirred as the first signs of steam poured from the roundish mound of white rock in the center ring. Across the mineralized soil on the far side of the geyser, a small group of tourists cl.u.s.tered. Not ten feet from the elevated walkway, a s.h.a.ggy bull stood with his head lowered, creating a buffalo jam.

Another blast of steam burst from the earth, a white cloud streaming against the hazy summer sky. Steve's hand rested at the small of her back.

Above the spectacle, the long green shoulder of a ridge stood at least three hundred feet high, a backdrop for the geyser's hundred-fifty foot show. Towering and triumphant, the foaming rush peaked and began almost imperceptibly to subside. Too soon, the exalted ritual turned to streams of hot water finding a path away from the central cone.

The sounds of the crowd muted. People turned away before the last gallons spilled over the terraced earth. The small channels narrowed, running in rivulets down to join the Firehole River.

As Clare and Steve headed for her cabin, she caught a glimpse of Devon dropping a cigarette and stepping on it with her clunky boot. Beside her, a tall man in his mid-twenties produced a lighter and lit her next smoke while she shoved the pack in her bag. He looked down her tank top and laughed at something she was saying A sick feeling seized Clare. She'd given her daughter the birth control lecture a long time ago, but Devon had never volunteered and she'd never directly asked whether she was s.e.xually active. She could imagine Elyssa being smugly certain of the worst.

As she watched Devon flirting with someone she'd just met, Clare wondered if she'd been naive.

"Home sweet home." Clare opened the door of her small dark cabin and went in ahead of Steve. Cool air and a musty smell greeted her, a sign that the sun never really reached through the pines decorating the row of employee housing. Late afternoon light filtered through the flyspecked window, illuminating faded paint in a dark shade of brown. Twin beds shoved against opposite walls had less than three feet between them.

"Nice place." Steve raised a brow.

Clare grinned. "I've slept in worse spots this summer." In a tent with Deering, but they hadn't actually slept, in a sleeping bag on the ground at Madison. "Even in the plain old dirt I've fallen asleep."

Steve tossed Devon's overstuffed duffel onto the floor. "I doubt if your daughter will be as forgiving of the accommodations." His tone suggested he'd noticed the dark looks Devon had been giving him.

What could she expect? This was the first time Devon had ever seen her mother with a man other than her father. Clare sank onto one of the beds and lay back on the brown ribbed spread. "Sometimes being a mom wears me down."

Steve rubbed the back of his neck and looked thoughtful. "I don't know. If Christa had lived I think I'd be looking forward to even the teen years."

"I'm sorry." Clare sat up. "I didn't think. "

"Don't worry about it." He sat on the opposite bed with a hand on each knee. "I owe you an apology, too."

"For what?"