Summer of Fire Part 30

Steve and his fellow biologists were another matter. She imagined them out there absorbed in their work, while the fire came on.

Steve surveyed the forty-by-forty foot area they had staked out, partly sheltered by a community of mature lodgepole. The trees exuded chemicals that discouraged the entry of other plant species into its neighborhood.

The balance of the tract had been cleared of forest by the pine bark beetle. A few snags stood, but most had gone down and were in an advanced stage of rot, providing homes for communities of fungi, grubs and termites. Growing lushly around the fallen were crested wheatgra.s.s gone to seed, spreading fronds of bracken fern, and dense patches of red clover. A Monarch flitted around the cl.u.s.ters of late-blooming goldenrod.

Fly away, Steve told the b.u.t.terfly. The rooted could only await the inevitable.

"Twenty-eight, twenty-nine, thirty." Moru finished his count of common Indian paintbrush in precise tones. He looked toward the sound of the approaching fire and broke into a smile. "I believe this one will burn."

Summer intern Thomas Lee looked at the darkening sky through thick gla.s.ses and pressed his lips together. Steve thought Thomas wanted to head out, but didn't want to be the first to suggest it.

Kelly Engels wiped sweat from her freckled forehead. "Let's beat feet!" She tightened the cinch on her untidy ponytail, stowed her clipboard in her pack, and waited expectantly.

As Steve's focus shifted from the plant community to the North Fork, a rising roar made him wish they had worked faster. Moru got to his feet with a worried look.

Kelly swiveled her head. "It's jumped the highway!" she shouted. She took off, Thomas at her heels.

Moru was running now, too, leaping over logs behind Kelly and Thomas. Steve chased them, running awkwardly on his crippled knees. Behind them, the North Fork howled like a predatory animal.

Steve and Moru had fire shelters on their belts, but he hadn't seen any on Thomas and Kelly. Maybe they had them in their packs, for at this rate they were going to need them. He hated the thought of going into a shelter for the second time in a week, but there it was. And from the wind velocity and the sound of it, the North Fork's firestorm would burn far fiercer and hotter than the h.e.l.lroaring. If they were overtaken, they'd probably die.

Trying to think of a way out, he considered the layout of the complex. If they worked their way to the left, they might get ahead of the fire's path and break into the open near the employee cabins.

The smoke grew thicker. Ahead, the visibility was down to just under a hundred feet when Thomas slewed to a stop, holding his out his hand. When Steve pulled up beside him, he felt the fire's heat. As Kelly and Moru joined them, a flash of orange appeared through the trees.

"They'll be heading for the eas.e.m.e.nt," Garrett predicted. From his neutral tone, she gathered he saw long odds against their making it.

This wasn't G.o.dd.a.m.n fair. Last night she'd dared to believe that Steve was making a new start after losing Susan and Christa. A fresh beginning that she might have a stake in.

Her little voice whispered that life . . . and death . . . weren't fair.

Garrett looked at the h.e.l.lish red twilight and broke into a flat out run. Clare's bandanna covered the part of her face not protected by goggles, but she felt the stinging impact of wind-borne cinders.

Not far from the south edge of the parking lot, the wide, treeless swath of eas.e.m.e.nt headed into the forest. Clare strained and picked out four yellow Nomex shirts. They weren't even wearing hard hats and she a.s.sumed they hadn't believed the North Fork would move this fast.

She picked out Steve and uselessly added her scream to that of the fire. He waved an arm to signal that they were heading her way.

Clare started toward them, but Garrett grabbed her sleeve. "I wouldn't."

Although she'd come to appreciate his wisdom, this time she tried to pull away. "Steve!" she cried.

Garrett's fingers held like a vice. "Rule number one," he ground out. The commandment she'd preached to Jerry Dunn of Toro Canyon, about not jumping into the water to save a drowning victim unless you had the right equipment and were certain of conditions.

The one she'd ignored while struggling to uncover Frank, the one Javier had disregarded to drag her from danger. She struggled to get free, to go to Steve, but a wall of flame roiled up over the trees on the eas.e.m.e.nt's west side. Heat waves distorted the air.

Garrett pointed to the pipes running down the center of the corridor with sprinkler heads at intervals. "The irrigation system!"

Pete Cullen and his West Yellowstone volunteers had brought their equipment to protect the power lines, but no water flowed. "Why isn't it on?" Clare shouted.

"Don't know."

She located the fireplug where the pipes were tied in to the four-inch connection. "I hope there's pressure." She ran for the nearest fire truck, parked thirty yards away. Instinct told her that she was running for Steve's life.

No one was near the vehicle, a grim sign that this perimeter, too, had been abandoned, so quickly that n.o.body had moved the truck. She checked the back where the hose clamp was, but the plug wrench wasn't in plain view. Moving to the side, she unlatched the shining silver cover of the nearest locker.

Nothing inside but air packs, with spare bottles clipped in place above. Clare started for the other side of the truck and realized that the wrench was on the rear step. She'd just failed to see it.

When she grabbed the two-foot steel spanner, she heard a man call to her and realized that someone was coming to save the truck. Without waiting to explain, she ran back toward the eas.e.m.e.nt.

At the fireplug, she didn't dare take time to a.s.sess Steve and the others' situation. The look on Garrett's face was enough as she read, "Hurry," on his lips. The sound was torn away by the North Fork.

Clare fit the wrench head over the five-sided lug on top of the fireplug. She took three turns with her right hand to tighten the grip of the jaws, leaned into it, and prayed.

It was too late to outrun the fire, Steve realized. The North Fork relentlessly filled in the portions of black canvas not yet painted. He'd seen Clare across the burning barrier, for a bare second, but she was out of sight now.

He and the others had one last chance. To leap through the low, burning brush of the eas.e.m.e.nt and sprint through the unburned woods to the Firehole River . . . immerse in the cold water and let the fire rage over their heads.

Steve began to run, hoping that his fire r.e.t.a.r.dant clothing would prevent major burns. Within a few yards, his knees reminded him that he had already done far too much insult to his old wounds this day. Each step was as though a blade stabbed through his calf and emerged from the top of his thigh. He felt the heat, just ahead where he would have to plunge into the flames.

Clare waited for him, so close, and yet cut off by the enemy they'd been combating all summer. With a surge of anger, he decided that he, by G.o.d, was not going to die this way. For the first time in years, he had something to look forward to.

As he redoubled his efforts, he suddenly felt something he believed was impossible. Stinging droplets pelted him, spraying his face and forearms. It was rain, no, of course, it wasn't; great black clouds were in the sky, but it sure as h.e.l.l wasn't raining.

He stopped, stunned. Falling water mingled with his sweat and dripped down his neck to his collar. Moru held out a hand, palm up, and watched the drops land on his pale palm. The smile lines at the corners of his eyes and mouth grew deeper.

The conduit down the center of the eas.e.m.e.nt spewed great fountains. Where water landed on the fires, a cloud of steam arose.

Clare saw them running along the pipeline. After thirty yards of slogging through thick brambles, Steve lagged the others.

The tall man gasping for breath waved thanks when he pa.s.sed Clare and Garrett. The two young people didn't stop running even when they were in the clear. As Steve staggered onto the pavement, his legs buckled.

Clare knelt beside him. "Give me a hand, Garrett."

He bent to help.

Steve struggled to rise on his own, but Garrett grabbed him beneath his arms and pulled him up.

"Can you walk?" Her voice carried that element of business she used in emergencies, but she heard a trembling kind of timbre that said she was running on empty.

"Not sure," Steve managed.

"Put your arms around us," she urged, "just in case."

Garrett hunched down so that the disparity between his and Clare's heights would not throw Steve off balance.

"I wish to G.o.d those sprinklers had been on," Clare said. "It would have saved me nearly having a coronary."

Steve's arm tightened around her shoulder. "You?" He gave a grin that turned into a grimace when he put weight on his right leg.

"Power lines can be restrung," Garrett said. "I'm sure they needed the water pressure to defend the inn because it can't be replaced."

"Did it . . .?" Clare stopped. Had all their efforts to save the building she loved ended in a smoking ruin? She ran to the plug and turned off the flow, hoping it might help keep up pressure at the inn.

Ahead, the other scientists stared at something in the distance. Clare moved forward to see around the pines that blocked her view and she saw through the red haze. The inn was still there, with flags snapping on the ramparts.

Yet, all was not the same. A blackened ring would surround Old Faithful, long past all their lifetimes.

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT.

September 7 In Karrabotsos's Huey, Deering acknowledged radio communication. If this was a blanket call to set down, he was way ahead of them. Controller Jack Owen knew it.

"Deering," Jack spoke directly to him. "I need you on Nez Perce Peak to pick up some hikers. Word is they're trapped on a ridge by fire."

"I'm trapped on the ground by one," Deering replied. "You got any idea what's going down at Old Faithful?"

"I thought the worst was over."

"I can't take off in this wind." He repeated what he'd told Garrett. "I'd crash."

Clare's daughter had blue eyes that weren't a thing like her mother's. They went wide. Maybe he shouldn't have used the 'c' word, but he did want to make his point with Owen. "Where's Johnny Arvela?"

"Way north. Look, those hikers were spotted by a fixed-wing over an hour ago. G.o.d knows what's happening up there."

Deering wasn't ready to fly again, but with a sinking feeling, he gauged the wind's velocity and direction. In the past few minutes, it had shifted so that the full brunt did not bear down on the inn. "Where is it again?"

"Either Nez Perce or Saddle Mountain. The pilot wasn't sure. Two or maybe three guys."

Clare's kid clutched his arm. "Can't we get out of here?"

A few minutes ago, it hadn't seemed possible that the inn would not burn, but now the roof merely smouldered. It looked as though the firestorm's front had pa.s.sed, already cresting the ridge with the lookout.

A nasty ache rose in his throat. The wind was still a hazard, each gust rocking the chopper, but it was subsiding rapidly. "Okay," he told Jack. "It looks like the worst is over here, but I was flying Garrett Anderson."

"I'll see that he finds out where you are."

That settled it, except for Clare's daughter. "Look . . ."

"Devon." That was going to be a nasty burn on her chest. She cradled a swollen wrist and hand that was turning blue.

"Look, Devon, I've got to fly out of here now. You need to find a medic."

"Take me with you!"

"I thought you wanted to find your mother. She's here somewhere."

"I've looked for her all morning. I don't have any money to even get something to eat." Her voice was a wail. "Besides, everything's closed."

Deering calculated. He shouldn't take on a pa.s.senger like this, especially for a rescue mission. But there was no way he could fly and open the rear door if the hikers had to board while he hovered. No telling what kind of terrain they were on, but Jack had mentioned a ridge.

He decided to relent. He could easily carry three hikers and Devon and she might be useful. The trip out to the eastern part of the park wouldn't take long, and he'd have her in the hands of a West Yellowstone medic within the hour.

"Okay," he told her. "You can hook up with your mom at Fire Command."

"Now, what in the . . .?" Garrett Anderson frowned. Clare thought the annoyance in his voice odd, when he should have been pleased to see the inn unscathed.

Away across the parking lot, the Huey's rotors turned, the engine revving up in a whine. Only a few moments before, they would not have been able to hear it over the screams of the North Fork.

"Where in h.e.l.l is he going?" Garrett pulled his Motorola from his belt and tried to raise Deering in the c.o.c.kpit.

"I thought it was too windy to fly," Clare said.

"It's still touch and go." Garrett groused.

"I've flown with Deering," Steve began.

Clare heard the venom in his voice and silenced him with a look.

"Yeah?" Garrett asked suspiciously.

Steve started to speak, but Clare cut him off. "I was with Deering the day he rescued a Smokejumper on Bighorn Peak, and the night he ferried over fifty firefighters out of the Mink Creek spike camp, just ahead of a firestorm. He did one h.e.l.l of a job."

Garrett stepped away from them and used his Motorola. "h.e.l.lo, West Yellowstone?"

As soon as they were alone, Steve's hard look challenged her defense of Deering. After last night, she'd thought they had that straightened out.

"Steve, Deering is a good pilot, with guts. Are you certain that your feelings about flying aren't getting in your way here?"

Their eyes held, but before either could speak, Garrett was back. "Buddy, it's gonna be one h.e.l.l of a drive," he said to Steve, "but could I trouble you for a lift to West Yellowstone?"

"Sure. Moru is driving the kids back to Mammoth." His gray eyes remained on Clare. "You coming?"

She thought of Devon and shook her head. "I have to find my daughter. She's been missing since last night."

Garrett jumped on the new emergency with the same alacrity she'd seen in him since July. "Okay, I'll need a description, and a photo if possible. We'll get it out to all the rangers and the heads of the fire crews as well, since most of the park is closed to tourists."

"I've got a picture in my bag at the cabin."

"Get it then, so we can head out," Garrett said.

It wasn't far, but before she'd covered half the distance, she saw smoke coiling up from behind the first row of rough wooden roofs. A pale swirl compared to the black tower over the North Fork. Despite layers of foam laid on thick, at least seven of the small dark buildings had burned.

Approaching on leaden feet, Clare found she didn't need her key. The ceiling had collapsed, covering the smouldering ruins of the twin mattresses. Burned and half-burned timbers lay about like pick-up sticks, some precariously propping up portions of the roof. She almost leaned against the door-jamb to support herself, but felt the heat of charred timber just in time to pull her hand away.