Chasing Fire Part 27

"Don't tell me what I need. There's a baby needs her ma. And none of you give a d.a.m.n about that. You're going to pay for what happened to my Dolly. You're going to pay dear, all of you."

He spat on the ground, slammed back into his truck. Rowan saw tears spilling down his cheeks as he spun the wheel and sped away. "Ro."

"Not now, L.B. Please." She shook her head.

"Now," he corrected, and put an arm firm around her shoulders. "You come inside with me. Agent DiCicco, if you need to talk to Rowan, it's going to be later."

DiCicco watched the wall of men close ranks like a barricade, then move into the building behind Rowan. Inside, L.B. steered her straight to his office, shut the door on the rest of the men. "Sit," he ordered.

When she did, he shoved his hands through his hair, leaned back on his desk.

"You know Leo Brakeman's a hard-a.s.s under the best of circ.u.mstances."

"Yeah."

"And these are beyond s.h.i.tty circ.u.mstances."

"I get it. It has to be somebody's fault, and Dolly blamed me for everything else, so I'm the obvious choice. I get it. If she told him-people-I was doing the deed with Jim before he tossed me over, why wouldn't her father think I had it out for his kid? And just to clarify, Jim and I were never-"

"You think I don't know you? I'll be talking to DiCicco and setting her straight on that front."

Rowan shrugged. Oddly she'd felt her spine steel up again under Brakeman's a.s.sault. "She'll either believe it or she won't. It doesn't matter. I'm okay, or close to being okay. You don't have time to babysit me, L.B., not with our crews out.

"I'm sorry for Brakeman," she said, "but that's the last time he'll use me as an emotional punching bag. Dolly was a liar, and her being dead doesn't change that."

She got to her feet. "I told you this morning I was fit and fine. That wasn't a lie but it wasn't completely true, either. Now it is. n.o.body's going to treat me like Dolly and her father have and make me feel bad about it. I'm not responsible for the baggage full of s.h.i.t they've hauled around. I've got plenty of my own."

"That sounds like you're fit and fine."

"I can help out in Ops if you want, or head up to the loft, see what needs doing there." "Let's go see how our boys and girls are doing."

DICICCO MADE HER WAY to the cookhouse kitchen, found it empty, unless she counted the aromas she dubbed as both comforting and sinful. She started to move into the dining area when a movement out the window caught her eye.

She watched the head cook, Margaret Colby, weeding a patch of an impressive garden. Marg looked up at the sound of the back door opening, pushed at the wide brim of the straw hat she wore over her kitchen bandanna. "That's some very pretty oregano."

"It's coming along. Are you looking for me, or just out for a stroll?"

"I'd like to talk to you for a few minutes. And to the other cook, Lynn Dorchester."

"I let Lynn go on home for the afternoon since she was upset. She'll be back around four." Marg tossed weeds into the plastic bucket at her feet, then brushed off her hands. "I could use some lemonade. Do you want some?"

"If it's not too much trouble."

"If it was, I wouldn't be getting it. You can have a seat there. I spend enough time in the kitchen on pretty days, so I take advantage of being out when I can."

DiCicco sat in one of the lawn chairs, contemplated the garden, the lay of the land beyond it. The big hangars and outbuildings, the curve of the track some distance off. And the rise and sweep of the mountains dusted with clouds.

Marg came out with the lemonade, and a plate of cookies with hefty chocolate chunks. "Oh. You hit my biggest weakness."

"Everybody's got one." Marg set the tray down, sat comfortably and toed off her rubber-soled garden shoes.

"We heard it was Dolly. I let Lynn go as it hit her hard. They weren't best of friends, Dolly didn't have girlfriends. But they'd worked together awhile now, and got along all right for the most of it. Lynn's got a soft core, and punched right into it."

"You worked with Dolly for some time, too. Were her supervisor." "That's right. She could cook-she had a good hand with it, and she never gave me a problem in the kitchen. Her problem was, or one of them, was she looked at s.e.x as an accomplishment, and as something to bargain with."

Marg picked up a cookie, took a bite. "The men around here, they're strong.

They're brave. They've got bodies you'd be hard-pressed not to notice. Dolly wasn't hard-pressed.

"A lot of them are young, too," she continued, "and most all of them are away from home. They're going to risk life and limb and work like dogs, sometimes for days at a time in the worst conditions going. If they get a chance to roll onto a naked woman, there's not many who'd say no thanks. Dolly gave plenty of them a chance."

"Was there resentment? When a woman gives one man a chance, then turns around and gives the same chance to another, resentment's natural."

"I don't know a single one who ever took Dolly seriously. And that includes Jim. I know she said he was going to marry her, and I know she was lying. Or just dreaming. It's kinder to say just dreaming."

Though he'd used different words, L.B. had stated the same opinion. "Was Jim serious about Rowan Tripp?"

"Ro? Well, she helped train him as a recruit, and worked with him... ." Marg trailed off as the actual meaning of serious got through. Then she sat back in the chair and laughed until her sides ached. She waved a hand in the air, drank some lemonade to settle down.

"I don't know where you got that idea, Agent DiCicco, but if Jim had tried to get serious with Ro, she'd've flicked him off like a fly. He flirted with everything female, myself included. It was his way, and he was so d.a.m.n good- natured about it. But there was nothing between him and Ro but what's between all of them. A kind of friendship I expect war buddies understand. Added to it, Rowan's never gotten involved with anybody in her unit-until this season. Until Gulliver Curry. I'm enjoying watching how that one comes along."

"Leo Brakeman claims that Rowan and Jim were involved before he broke it off to be with Dolly."

Marg drank more lemonade and contemplated the mountains as DiCicco had.

"Leo's grieving, and my heart hurts for him and Irene, but he's wrong. It sounds to me like something Dolly might've said."

"Why would she?"

"For the drama, and to try to take some of the shine off Rowan. I told you, Dolly didn't have girlfriends. She got on with Lynn because she didn't see Lynn as a threat. Lynn's married and happy, and the men tend to think of her as a sister, or a daughter. Dolly always saw Rowan as a threat, and more, she knew Rowan considered her ... cheap, we'll say."

"It's obvious they didn't get along."

"Up until Jim died they tolerated each other well enough. I've known both of them since they were kids. Rowan barely noticed Dolly. Dolly always noticed Ro. And if you're still thinking Rowan had anything to do with what happened, you're wasting a lot of time better spent finding out who did."

Time wasn't wasted, in DiCicco's opinion, if you found out something. "Did you know anything about Dolly getting work in Florence?"

"No. I don't know why she would. Plenty of places right around here would hire her on, at least for the season."

Marg loosed a long sigh. "I wouldn't give her a reference. Her preacher came out, tried to get me to write her one. I didn't like his way, that's one thing, but I wouldn't do it anyway. She didn't earn it with the way she behaved. "I guess I'm sorry for that if she felt she had to leave Missoula to work. But there are plenty of places she could've gotten work without a reference."

Marg sat a moment, saying nothing. Just studying the mountains.

"Was she coming back from there when it happened? From work in Florence?"

"It's something I'll have to check out. I hate exaggeration, so you know I'm giving it to you straight when I say this is the best cookie I've ever eaten."

"I'll give you some to take with you." "I wouldn't say no."

THE CREW IN IDAHO had the fire caged in by sundown. But up north, the battle raged on.

She could see it. As Rowan stepped outside to take the air, she could see the fire and smoke, and the figures in yellow shirts brandishing tools like weapons.

If they called for another load, if they needed relief or reenforcement, L.B.

would send her. And she'd be ready.

Her back stiffened at the glint of headlights, the silhouette of an approaching pickup. Then loosened again, a little, when she saw it wasn't Leo Brakeman back for another shot at her.

Lucas stepped out of the truck, walked to her. Some anger there, she noted.

Still some mad on.

He proved it when he clamped his hands on her shoulders, gave her a little shake. "Why the h.e.l.l didn't you tell me what happened? Finding the remains, about Dolly, about any of it." "I figured you knew." "Well, I d.a.m.n well didn't." "You've been busy."

"Don't pull that c.r.a.p with me, Rowan. Your landing text said A-OK." "I was. I wasn't hurt."

"Rowan."

"I didn't want to tell you in a text, or on the phone. Then it was one thing and another. I came down this morning to talk to you about it, but-" He simply yanked her against him and hugged.

"I'm a suspect."

"Stop it," he murmured, and pressed his lips to the top of her head.

"The Forest Service agent's questioned me twice. I had altercations with Dolly, then out of all the acres up there, I stumble right over what's left of her.

Then, Leo Brakeman came here today."

She unburdened, stripped it out and off because he was there to cover her again.

"Leo's half mad with grief. In his place, I don't know what I'd do." Couldn't bear to think of it. "They'll find whoever did it. Maybe it'll help like they say it does, though I swear I don't know how."

"He was crying when he drove away. I think that was the moment I stopped feeling sorry for myself, because I'd been having a real good time with that."

"You were never able to stretch that out for long."

"I was going for the record. Dad, about before. I'm sorry."

"So am I." He wiped a hand through the air, a familiar gesture. "Clean slate."

"Squeaky clean."

"Where's that guy you've been hanging around with?" "He's on the Flathead fire." "Let's go check with Ops, see how they're doing."

"I want him back safe, want all of them back safe. Even though I'm p.i.s.sed at him. Especially p.i.s.sed because I think he had a point about a couple things."

"I hate when that happens. Besides, who does he think he is, having a point?"

She laughed, tipped her head to his shoulder. "Thanks."

SHE KEPT VIGIL in Operations, helped update the map tracking the crew's progress and the fire's twists and turns, and watched the lightning strikes blast on radar.

Sometime after two while a booming thunderstorm swept over the base, and up north Gull and his crewmates crawled into tents, she dropped into bed.

And almost immediately dropped into the dream.

The roar of thunder became the roar of engines, the scream of wind the air blasting through the plane's open door. She saw the nerves in Jim's eyes, heard them in his voice and, tossing in bed, ordered herself to stop him. To contact base, alert the spotter, talk to the fire boss.

Something.

"It is what it is," he said to her, with eyes now filled with sorrow. "It's, you know, my fate."

And he jumped as he always did, taking that last leap behind her. Into the mouth of the fire, screaming as its teeth tore through him. This time she landed alone, the flames behind her snarling, throaty growls that built until the ground shook. She ran, sprinting up the incline, heat drenching her skin while she shoved through billowing clouds of smoke.

She shouted for Jim-there was a chance, always a chance-searching blindly. Fire climbed the trees in pulsing strings of light, blew over the ground in a deadly dance. Through it, someone called her name.

She changed direction and, shouting until her throat burned, stumbled into the black. Charred branches punched out of smoldering spots and beckoned like bony fingers. Snags hunched and towered, seemed to shift and sway behind the curtain of smoke. The scorched earth crackled under her feet as she continued to run toward the sound of her name.

Silence dropped, like a breath held. She stood in that void of sound, dismayed, disoriented. For a moment it was as if she'd become trapped in a black-and- white photo. Nothing moved, even as she ran on. The ground stayed silent under her feet.

She saw him, lying on the ground the fire had stripped bare, facing west, as if positioned to watch the sunset. Her voice echoed inside her head as she called his name. Dizzy with relief, she dropped down beside him.

Jim. Thank G.o.d.

She pulled out her radio, but like the air around her, it answered with silence.

I found him! Somebody answer. Somebody help me!

"They can't."

She tumbled back when Jim's voice broke the silence, when behind his mask his eyes opened, behind his mask his lips curved in a horrible smile.

"We burn here. We all burn here."

Flames ignited behind his mask. Even as she drew breath to scream, he gripped her hand. Fire fused her flesh to his. She screamed, and kept screaming as the flames engulfed them both.