Summer of Fire Part 38

It was that way with Father, near the end.

Selling the ranch seemed the right decision. We could no longer keep it up and Cordon insisted we move someplace where the climate is not so harsh. I believe that is an excuse, for he knows we have weathered Wyoming winters for many years, as he did growing up. We don't any of us speak of it, but he is the one who wants to make a new life in Texas.

Cord said his good-byes last night. I woke in that darkest hour before dawn and found him gone from our bed. Through the window, I saw him in the autumn meadow before the house, his fine head of silver hair tilted back to look up at the mountains' shadow against the star-studded sky.

This morning Cordon was brusque and businesslike, but I saw his eyes darting this way and that, now to the corner of the hearth where Sophie had her puppies, then scanning the path to the barn. He could usually be found there, communing with the horses, when all his other haunts had been checked.

Everything has been loaded and there is no reason to linger. In just a moment, I will put this journal to rest where it belongs. I do not believe I could bear to read of our joys and sadness here, once we are in Texas. Instead, I will let time soften the edges of memory, in the same way it blurs the lines of our faces and fades the brightness of our hair.

And yet . . . the mountains will not let me go, weaving their subtle spell of changing light and shadow. They invite me to stay, to watch the magic of clouds appearing from clear air and day fading to darkness.

Out there in the night, mountains ringed this valley. People would come and go, live and die, and still the heights would endure. The time it took to transform them into the plains of tomorrow rendered meaningless a single lifetime. She was bound to this land, by blood and by a book that reached to her through the years. With her hand on the worn leather, Clare decided. No matter whether she fought fire, no matter what happened between her and Steve, she was coming back.

When she gave the diary to Steve, he was immediately absorbed in turning the pages. She watched him scan rapidly, seeing the scholar in him.

Back in the kitchen, she sc.r.a.ped carrot curls and onion peels into the trash, packaged the leftovers, and washed the copper pot. She didn't like domestic ch.o.r.es, but this evening it gave her a sense of purpose to take care of both Devon and Steve. When she finished wiping the tiled counter, she stepped to the back door.

The chirp of crickets and the chatter of television in a nearby house added to her aching feeling of being at home. Unfortunately, the distant laughter of firefighters swapping stories at the cache reminded her of the threat to this haven. The stately mansions that had once made up Officer's Row were brilliantly lit this evening. It hurt to imagine flame licking at lace curtains and curling the varnish on lacquered wood.

When she returned to the living room, Steve was making up the couch with pillows and a comforter.

Clare took her paper sack to the bathroom. A bathtub on claw feet, small black and white floor tiles, and an almost new pedestal sink spoke of generations of renovation and park people who came and went. A man's razor and a purple handled toothbrush lay on a gla.s.s shelf in a house that did not know a woman's touch. All Steve had brought of Susan was a piano, photos . . . and memory.

In the mirror, Clare saw that her color was high. The events of the last two days had dulled her recall of the night with Steve, but now it surged like a flame to the bellows. Earlier he'd offered his bedroom to her and Devon, but the brief intense look he'd given her said he hoped she'd share his sofa.

If Devon had been listening in the hospital, she knew more about her mother and Steve then Clare would have wished. Her cheeks grew brighter pink as she recalled how freely she'd talked about their night in a motel. Yet, spitting toothpaste into the sink, she decided that in this afternoon's talk, Devon had approved of Steve.

Clare wiped her face and borrowed a bit of his hand lotion for moisturizer. It smelled woodsy, like the forest when it wasn't burning, a scent that increased the pull of this land. Her sweet ache intensified, for tomorrow when she and Devon evacuated it would be time to call the airlines.

Dressed in the grizzly T-s.h.i.+rt, she checked on Devon once more and gave her another pain pill. When she paused in the doorway to the living room, Steve indicated that she should close the extra door. "A little advance warning," he suggested softly.

Clare's breath caught in her throat. They couldn't, not with Devon just down the hall.

Yet, as she moved into the room, she imagined wearing something sleek and s.h.i.+ning like white silk, or better yet, red and lacy.

Steve waited in the light of a green-shaded reading lamp in gray drawstring sweat pants, barefoot and bare-chested. His knees were still on ice. "Can I get you an Ibuprofen?" the medic in her asked.

He shook his head, bent and shoved the melting packs under the coffee table. His gaze explored her bare legs and upward at leisure. "My very favorite s.h.i.+rt," he chuckled. His voice, pitched low, set her pulse drumming. As though it was the most natural thing in the world, he slid over to make room and threw back the comforter.

She crossed to him, her bare feet whispering softly on the hardwood. The glow of the single bulb turned his hair to gold. When she settled beside him, her head fit against his shoulder and her legs entwined with his.

Steve spoke softly, "Part of me says it's too bad your girl is in the other room, but I wouldn't have it any other way." He stretched to reach the lamp and turned it off. Faint streetlight shone in the barred window in the front door, striping the floor and silvering the gold in his hair.

Profound peace enveloped her. His arms went around her and he drew the comforter over them both. He was so warm and solid, yet that pulse inside whispered of what they'd shared at the Stagecoach.

G.o.d help her, she was falling in love with this man. She might be a fool, but there it was.

She listened to the steady beat of his heart and thought about telling him of Garrett's offer. Of asking what he'd feel if she moved West.

Steve kissed her forehead gently. His body against hers bore the heavy la.s.situde of fatigue and she felt the same. After all the antic.i.p.ation . . .

"I may have to wake you in the middle of the night," he whispered. "Just so you know I'm holding you."

A smile curved her lips. Comfort and the smooth lethargy of being in his embrace settled over her.

"I promise I'll be here," she murmured.

Without a thought to the nightmares that had been her torture, she settled into the summer's first deep and dreamless sleep.

Steve awakened in darkness and did not know where he was. For a moment, he thought the past four years had been a colossal mistake; that Susan lay nestled against his side. As his eyes became accustomed to the glow from a light outside, he made out the distinct curve of Clare's cheek. Somewhere inside, he'd expected to feel guilt over Susan, but all he knew was joy.

The years with his wife had been vivid, alive with her music and her voice's melody. The Christmas after she died, he'd been at her mother's house for dinner. Was.h.i.+ng his hands before carving turkey, Steve had been attracted to a familiar crystal shape on the bathroom counter.

A perfume bottle identical to one Susan had kept on her dressing table.

He lifted the stopper. The marriage of citrus with the earthy scent of iris was the same that Susan had dabbed behind her ears and in the hollow of her elbows, so that it floated behind her like an aura. It nearly brought him to his knees.

He fought it until he folded down onto the rim of the tub. Chill from the porcelain seeped into the backs of his legs. The tile was cold, too, where he leaned his head against the wall and wept.

Lying with Clare, Steve finally said good-bye to Susan.

He marveled that he did it without pain, as if he were suddenly made light. He could no longer summon Susan's music, because Clare's husky voice haunted his dreams, no longer smell Susan's perfume, for the faint spicy smell of Clare's skin excited him beyond belief.

She s.h.i.+fted and burrowed her head more deeply into the hollow of his shoulder. He smoothed her bare thigh where the s.h.i.+rt had ridden up, but she did not awaken.

Tonight was a moment s.n.a.t.c.hed in time, while the clock on his bookshelf ticked toward tomorrow. He wanted Clare with everything in him, to make a new life for himself with her in it. The h.e.l.l of it was that she did not seem the type of woman to drop her plans and take up with an alcoholic whose job was in jeopardy. He'd bought two bottles of wine today, more than he needed for cooking, only partially because he thought Clare might like some.

He'd managed to stay out of it tonight, but what about another day? And what would happen when he struggled with the depression that was bound to descend after he put Clare on a plane to Houston?

From outside the house came an odd sound, not loud, like the crackling of Rice Krispies, or . . .

Fire!

Steve eased himself out from under Clare, trying not to disturb her and yet move quickly at the same time. When he got up, he found that the pain had settled back into his knees. On the front porch, the crackling was louder and the wind whipped his pant legs. Less than two miles away, the near shoulder of Bunsen Peak was ablaze.

Clare awoke alone on Steve's couch. A current of moving air attracted her attention to the front door standing open. Beyond the checkered lattice, Steve was in the yard.

Down the single step, her bare feet found gra.s.s, cool and soft. She said Steve's name softly and slid her arms around him, resting her cheek against his back. He put his hands over hers, pressing her palms against his bare chest.

They stood together for a long moment until he said, "Take a look at this."

She loosed her grip and stepped from behind him. The red glow in the south suffused the sky. "Good G.o.d," she breathed. Her heart set up a tripping as she gauged the wind and the distance between the town and the fire. She was glad that Garrett was here, for he would know when an evacuation should be called.

"It's beautiful," Steve said. Clare stared at the crimson underbelly of the clouds. "Part of the forest's life, and yet it can be so deadly."

How many times this summer had she both shuddered and thrilled to that splendor? When she and Deering had watched the Mink Creek come down Turret Mountain even the sky had seemed aflame. When the h.e.l.lroaring had crowned and chased them to earth in their shelters, she'd felt its elemental fury. Driving away from Old Faithful, they'd pa.s.sed through the North Fork's undulating scarlet drapery.

Together, she and Steve watched the advance of the North Fork, smelling and tasting its wind-borne tang. It seemed as though they could actually see its progress as it marched down the mountain, now less than a mile and a half from where they stood. Thankfully, the way the wind blew was driving it east rather than directly toward them.

Steve drew Clare back against him. He kissed her and their lips clung with a new intensity she had not imagined possible, something that came from inside both of them. She drew away and studied the clean lines of his face. His eyes met hers and she believed in their unspoken revelation.

"What's done it for us so suddenly?" she wondered.

Steve nodded toward the approaching conflagration. "I suppose it's the shadow of the sword."

There was a battle to fight, but it would not come until sunrise.

CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR.

September 10 "It's time," a man's deep voice called through Steve's front door. Clare realized she'd been half-aware of knocking for some time.

When Steve opened the door in his sweat pants Clare recognized Moru Mzima. She thought he took in the situation, but he didn't look at the rumpled couch or at her until she joined Steve at the door.

"They've called the evacuation," Moru said. The clock on Steve's bookcase read five-forty.

The wind that blew in the door was cooler than it had been earlier, but still lacked the slightest trace of humidity. Through the open weave of the porch lattice, Clare saw that the North Fork had burned down Bunsen Peak to Golden Gate pa.s.s. The only remaining natural break between the fire and the town was the jumbled blocks of rock called the Hoodoos, the remains of an old landslide.

Moru looked at her. "I'm sending Nyeri and the kids to Bozeman now. Do you and your daughter want to ride along?"

"You'd better go," Steve told Clare.

There wasn't any doubt that she had to take Devon to safety, but the sight of the crimson fire front had Clare spoiling for a fight. Garrett had convinced her . . . no, she had decided to keep working wildfire.

"I'll go with them, Mom." Devon spoke from the hallway. "You stay."

She turned to find her daughter barefoot and wearing the oversized T-s.h.i.+rt Steve had given her to sleep in. Her hair was mussed, but her blue eyes were clear and steady. "Really, I'll be okay." Her certainty said she understood her mother wanted to fight the fire.

Clare looked at the latest advance of the North Fork with growing certainty. After nearly two months of watching the fires' dark shapes envelop the strategic maps, she wanted to be on the battlefield when the sons-of-b.i.t.c.hes were vanquished.

When she and Frank had charged up the apartment house stairs they'd tasted fear, a hot bright edge that could cripple . . . or be forged into a weapon. The challenge was not to live without fear, but to carry on in spite of it.

Fight and fall back!

Clare sweated and struggled as firefighters' lines were leapt, their backfires swallowed on the long retreat into Mammoth Valley. Her hope that the Hoodoos' bare rock would stop the North Fork proved vain, as the fire circ.u.mvented the slope on the downhill side. By afternoon, she and the others on the line had been pushed below the last highway curve above town. In the h.e.l.lish half-light, Jupiter Terrace's glistening surface had taken on the hue of fresh blood.

As the battle was joined, Clare manned a drip torch, side-hilling it below the upper terrace of the hot springs. "This one will do it," she said grimly. She kept moving ahead of the brisk crackle and heat. Burning sage was supposed to be a sacred Native American purifying rite and she hoped Mammoth would emerge unscathed from this day.

When she reached the road, the entire hillside above her was ablaze with only a three hundred yard gap to the main body of the North Fork. "Burn, baby, burn," she entreated the backfire. The more thoroughly it consumed the vegetation before the main fire arrived, the more effective the firebreak.

Clare turned away and trotted down the shoulder of the highway. A short way down the hill, she saw Steve in his Park Service truck. He waved and pulled into the parking lot above the stables. The horses had been trailered away in early morning.

Steve climbed down stiffly. He wore Nomex fire clothes, along with his badge and the summer straw uniform hat that identified him as a ranger. "Would you believe that even after the park's been closed two days, I'm still rousting campers that haven't heard the news?"

"I'd believe just about anything right now."

Below the parking lot, the team of California hotshots from the Mink Creek rested in the area inside a metal rail fence. As she came closer, Clare realized that it was a cemetery, poorly tended, for the headstones barely cleared the high gra.s.s.

"Take a load off," a man called. "If this break doesn't hold, we're to fall back and defend the housing."

Clare looked where he pointed, maybe a quarter mile to the first enclave of park employees' homes. She stepped across the fence and gave a hand to Steve.

He came across awkwardly and sat in the gra.s.s beside a headstone. Many were illegible, mainly those of marble. The granite and banded gneiss had held up better, their names and dates a history of the last years of the nineteenth century and the first of the twentieth. Next to Clare's boot was a flat stone, flush with the ground. Unknown Child, it read simply.

Sitting down in the gra.s.s near Steve, Clare checked her watch and found it midafternoon. She was tired, the good honest fatigue that came from working with a purpose. Around her, sweaty faces showed determination. She removed her hard hat and scratched her head.

"In another ten minutes we should know if this firebreak holds," said the head of the hotshot team. Clare recognized the tough, gray-haired woman who had sounded the alarm at the Mink Creek.

Clare nodded to her and bent to pluck a stem of gra.s.s. She bit down and released a sour flood in her mouth.

A deep rumble sounded. Dynamite, someone blasting trees in some firebreak. She wished she had a case of the stuff, to set off a spectacular concussion that would snuff the North Fork like a blown birthday candle. She imagined the long cascade resonating down the valley.

No, it was not her imagination. All around her, firefighters raised their heads. Some looked puzzled, others disbelieving.

"Thunder," Steve said.

The wind's pa.s.sage could be seen through the trees, tossing and bending their trunks, loud enough to be heard over the crackling roar of flame. The long gra.s.s whipped and scrubby sage jerked as though a hand deep in the earth tugged its roots. The advancing wave swept down the hill toward the cemetery, kicking up clouds of grit and raising a miniature tornado in the parking lot.

It hit Clare and gave her a shove as though a damp towel had struck her across the back.

"G.o.dd.a.m.n," someone said.

The temperature dropped at least ten degrees within a minute, bringing moist relief to dry, cracked lips. Everyone climbed to their feet, took off their hard hats and looked skyward.

A fat drop stung Clare's cheek. She closed her eyes.

The temperature continued to plummet, cooling her sweaty skin. More raindrops landed, making dark stains on weathered headstones and yellow s.h.i.+rts.

"Here it comes," Steve said.

A long line of silver rain bore down from Sepulcher Mountain above the hot springs. Its s.h.i.+fting curtains replaced the smoke haze as the relentless advance obliterated the view of Jupiter Terrace. The front crossed the highway, drops bouncing high off the pavement.

The North Fork recoiled with an angry hiss. Clouds of steam roiled, an elemental struggle destined to end with the death of the dragon.

An hour later, Clare kept her arm tight around Steve's chest, to keep from losing him in the crowd of reveling firefighters on the Mammoth Hotel lawn. It also didn't hurt that he helped keep her warm after the cold front had swept in. Above, on Sepulcher Mountain and over behind the cemetery, other crews were still fighting to cool the leading edge of the North Fork.

The hotel had closed for the evacuation, but as soon as the danger pa.s.sed, the bar had been opened to accommodate the celebration. Rows of TV trucks with satellite antennas lined the street, the press mingling with the soot-faced, filthy fire crews.

Carol Leeds of Billings Live Eye clutched her jacket close and pa.s.sed a bottle of champagne. Clare drank a deep swallow of golden effervescence and the bubbles burned her nose. She didn't know whether to give it to Steve.

He took it and sipped without tipping it far up. A man behind him said, "I heard on TV that there've been sixty-eight thousand wildfires in the U.S. this season."

"Two million acres gone in Alaska," someone else replied.