by Rachel Lee
“I’m glad I rescued you.”
“So am I.” Tipping her head up again, she found him looking down at her. Her heart caught, and a little sound escaped her.
“Yeah,” he said, as if he could read her mind. For an instant he seemed to go far away, but then, with a little movement of his head, he called himself back and smiled. “I need a shower, ma’am. May I?”
“Help yourself.” Even though she didn’t want him to be that far away.
Apparently neither did he, because she found herself being drawn from the bed and guided into her bathroom. He didn’t turn the light on, though, for which she was grateful. Even though he had touched every part of her body and had kissed many of them, she still wasn’t ready to stand nude before him in bright light.
He turned on the water in the tub and let it run to heat up. “You’re not supposed to shower in a storm.”
“I know.”
“I’m feeling invincible right now. How about you?”
She could only laugh. A short time later they were standing under the hot spray together, using a bar of soap as an excuse to touch each other everywhere.
As arousing as it was, Mary also found it to be a tender, caring experience. He washed her hair for her, making her feel special. Loved.
But she warned herself not to go there. That was a dangerous way to start to feel.
Sam, however, was not about to let her run away so easily. He toweled her dry from head to foot, and she realized that she was forever going to think of these moments when a storm rumbled outside. Forever.
He didn’t have a change of clothes, so he put on what he had been wearing before. She changed into fresh shorts and a cotton sweater, grieving inside over the apparent end of their day together. Now he would go home, and she would be left alone, wondering if he would ever come back again.
But he didn’t leave. Instead he suggested they make a snack. She had some microwave popcorn, and he settled on that. They carried the bowl into the living room and sat side by side on the couch, with the bowl on the coffee table.
It occurred to her that they weren’t saying very much. The silence that had fallen between them was almost profound, as if they were both drifting away into their own worlds.
Of course they were, she thought sadly. He was probably thinking about his late wife, and she was thinking about a past that would forever make a future impossible.
He suddenly reached for the small black box that was clipped to his belt and looked at it. “I need to call in to work,” he said. “Can I use your phone?”
“Of course.” She tried to smile.
The bowl of cherries had just been plucked away.
The wind had carried embers over the top of the mountain into the valley north of Whisper Creek. There the embers had found plenty of dry pine needles to start a fire before the stingy drops of rain could put them out.
The flames skipped along the forest floor and began to climb tree trunks, dining voraciously on tinder that the dry spell had created everywhere. Pine pitch sent clouds of black smoke rising, but the air overhead was so cool from the storm that the cloud sheared and stayed low. For a while, no one saw it.
Then lightning struck a tall lodgepole pine a mile away, and it burst into flames. Squirrels and deer and even a mountain lion began to scatter, many instinctively heading downward to the creek that ran most of the length of the valley and gave the town its name.
In between the two growing rings of fire lay The Little Church in the Woods.
It was Deacon Hasselmyer who discovered the fire. He was on his way out to the church to check the lost-and-found box for his wife’s sunglasses. They were very expensive, with three kinds of coatings. Mrs. Hasselmyer was very concerned about the amount of ultraviolet light that reached her eyes, because her mother and father had both had cataracts. Never mind that ordinary glasses could be treated to protect the eyes, the missus claimed that the light was just too bright anyway, especially during the winter, when it bounced off the snow at her from every direction.
The glasses were a minor thing to the deacon. If they made Ina happy, then let her have them. But replacing them was an expense he would rather not have to bear just now, since their twelve-year-old daughter needed braces and they’d just made a big loan to his wife’s brother to tide him and his family over until he could find a new job. Not that the deacon had much hope of being repaid. He thought of it more as a gift.
Either way, it would be a great help if he could find those glasses at the church.
He saw the smoke when he was still a mile from the church, and his stomach lurched. Another fire. He could have turned around right then and gone to town for help, but he was determined to get those glasses. Besides, there was a phone at the church he could use, and he would be there in just a couple of minutes.
It wasn’t until he was pulling into the church parking lot that he saw the second fire. And figured out what was going to happen to the church if they couldn’t put those fires out. It was enough to make him forget his wife’s glasses.
At the door, he fumbled with his keys, his hands starting to shake. His grandfather had helped build this church nail-by-nail. It had been built in the days when small congregations didn’t hire the work done but did it themselves from start to finish. It was a simple church, with white clapboard and a steeple, and a bell that had been brought in from Chicago. Each pew had been hand carved, and every one had a family name on it. There was more to be saved here than just a small church and a parish hall.
Finally getting the door unlocked, he stepped inside and hurried to the back office where the phone was. There he dialed 9-1-1.
“We’ll get someone right on it,” the dispatcher told him. “And you’d better get out of there right away.”
Instead of fleeing, though, he dialed the pastor’s number. Elijah Canfield wasn’t at home, so the deacon left a message about the fire.
That was when he remembered his wife’s glasses. He had to look for them first, and he was sure there was plenty of time for that.
He wasn’t so sure they would be able to save the church.
The fire engines were already racing out of town before Sam made it to the end of Mary’s street. He sped home, ignoring the speed limit so he could change into jeans, work boots and a heavier shirt; then he headed out toward his father’s church as fast as he could go. The healing burns on his legs twinged as if in memory.
He was supposed to help organize the volunteers who were expected to show up to build a firebreak around the building. Where these volunteers were going to come from, he didn’t know. But he knew one thing about Whisper Creek: for all its human, small-town flaws, when there was an emergency, a good many folks could be counted on to help.
The dispatcher had said something about calling the mine. They could call people who were off work. Or maybe even release some of their on-duty crews to come help. The churches were going to be called. The local businesses. Word would get out soon. He hoped it got out in time.
The forest service was going to be called, too, of course, but he wondered if they had any manpower to spare, what with the fire across the divide.
God. He found himself praying again, praying as hard as he could. Why? It wasn’t just that the town might be in danger now, the homes of a lot of people who had built in the small, wooded subdivisions north of the village. No, it was because he knew his father was going to head straight for the church the instant he heard about the fire.
As he neared the church, he saw what the deacon had seen and felt his chest tighten. The two fires weren’t too big yet, but if they didn’t control them soon, it was going to be a mess.
The fire trucks were parked in front of the church, and a handful of volunteers had already gathered, people who had most likely followed the trucks from town. The wind was blowing, complicating matters, and the smell of smoke was growing thick. Rain still spattered, as if each drop were reluctantly squeezed out by a resentful cloud.
He
recognized Carl Hasselmyer, who owned a small bookstore in town and was deacon at this church. He’d rolled up the sleeves of his shirt and looked as ready as anyone to get to work. The others were miners he knew more by sight than name.
The fire chief came up to greet Sam. “We need to stall this thing where it is now. But the fire service isn’t going to be able to get us any tillers quickly. They’re using all the ones we have. So I asked Bucky Jones if he could send us some back-loaders and graders. Even some snowplows.” Bucky was the manager of the local branch of the state highway department.
“Good. What did he say?”
“He’s going to send everything he can. We need to carve our way back to the fire and start clearing.”
“We need to clear around this building, too.”
The chief nodded. “There are also some homes out that way.” He cocked his head to the northwest. “But the wind is blowing to the east. As long as it stays that way, our problem is here. We don’t want these fires hooking up.”
“Right.”
Already more volunteers were arriving, and Sam started organizing them into squads. A few minutes later a pickup arrived carrying spades and shovels from the two hardware stores. Behind it came another carrying chain saws and other assorted equipment that might be useful.
“Okay,” the chief said. “For now I’m keeping the trucks here. We might need ’em to save structures. But I need some spotters to get out there and see if they can pinpoint where the fires are.”
“What about the fire towers?” Sam asked. “Aren’t they reporting?”
The chief shrugged. “I don’t know if it’s the storm or something else, but we can’t get any radio response.”
“Hell.”
“We’re blind, Sam,” the chief said. “Blind as a bat. The ceiling’s too low to send up a plane.”
Sheriff Earl Sanders arrived then, bumping over some ruts as he pulled his car up. He greeted Sam and the fire chief. “I’ve got my deputies trying to triangulate the fires. We’ll see what we come up with.”
“Radio contact?” the chief asked.
“Problematic. They’re under orders to get out here if they can’t get through by radio.”
“Good. Okay, here’s what we need to do.”
The map was spread out on the hood of the truck. Sam went back to organizing the steadily arriving volunteers, handing out shovels and saws, explaining what everyone needed to do.
Then, after what seemed like an interminable wait, the heavy equipment began to arrive. Rumbling up in a long line like bright yellow dinosaurs aboard flatbed trucks, they were greeted with cheers. Behind them, as Sam had feared, came his father.
Elijah climbed out of his car and stood looking at the church, as if he believed it would be the last time he would see it. Deacon Hasselmyer joined him, and the two stood with their heads bowed in prayer, an island of quiet amidst the swirling uproar around them.
After what seemed like forever the deputies began to arrive, sharing what they had seen from various points around the north end of the county. The chief and the sheriff drew pencil lines on the maps until they felt they had the fires triangulated.
Sam, watching, didn’t think it looked good at all for the church. With all the trouble they were having controlling the fires in the next valley, he didn’t see why they should have any better luck here, especially with no one to help but volunteers. And with radio contact so problematic, coordination was going to be nearly impossible.
“How are we going to coordinate?” he asked the chief.
“Hell. I guess we need runners.”
“Clancy,” Earl said, referring to one of his deputies. “I’ll detail him to run messages.” Clancy was older, someone Sam was sure that Earl didn’t want doing any heavy physical labor.
A raindrop spattered in the center of the map, darkening one oval. No help at all.
Sam looked up at the sky, thinking what a false promise this storm was. No rain, but a ceiling so low they couldn’t even send up the planes to drop fire retardant. No radio contact. Just a sky crackling with dangerous lightning.
The chief started barking orders, sending equipment in two different directions along the road. The crews Sam had organized were also divided up and sent out to follow the heavy equipment.
Sam, ready to depart with one of the crews, was stopped by Earl, however.
“You stay here, Sam.”
“We need all the help we can get with the fire.”
Earl shook his head. “Stay here. Make sure your father and his people don’t do something stupid if the fire gets close. I’m counting on you.”
Sam half wished Earl would count on someone else, but another part of him was relieved. Very relieved. Because the bottom line was, he didn’t trust anyone else to be able to deal with his father if the old man got stubborn. And regardless of the hard feelings between them, he didn’t want to see Elijah die.
So he stayed behind, leaning against his car, near a pile of shovels and a chain saw that had been left behind so he could pass them out to new volunteers as they arrived.
Elijah and his deacon stayed on the other side of the parking lot, apparently still praying. Sam had never known anyone like Elijah for praying. That man could get into a prayer and totally forget to come out on the other side unless someone disturbed him. Maybe that was a good trait. All Sam knew was that as a child it had driven him crazy. At times he only seemed to get his father’s attention when he’d done something wrong.
Elijah had always been busy. If not with his duties as a pastor, then with prayer and Bible study. That had been hard for a child to accept. It wasn’t that Sam hadn’t understood the importance of God. Hell, if there was one thing in his life he’d known from the cradle, it was that God was Numero Uno. Nor did that bother him. That was the way it was supposed to be.
But in his childhood he’d often felt there was God, there was Elijah, and there was the church—and nobody else existed, least of all little Sam. Even his mother had been bound up in her duties as pastor’s wife, but she at least had always made some time for Sam. Elijah, on the other hand, had seemed to look down from his elevated existence only when he was angry.
Sam looked up to the heavens with a sigh and asked himself a tough question: How much of that had been a little boy’s perception, born of a child’s natural self-centeredness, and how much of it had been real?
He didn’t know. Maybe it hadn’t been as bad as he remembered it being. Maybe he was remembering a child’s emotional reaction, all out of proportion to the truth. If so, did it matter? It had certainly poisoned their relationship.
He had poisoned their relationship. The thought jolted Sam, and he stared at it like a snake. Wait a minute. Wasn’t that taking too much responsibility on a child’s shoulders?
Maybe it was. But it remained that he unhappily recalled the times he had acted up out of anger and resentment, getting his father’s attention no matter what it took. He’d become something of a wild child at times.
Maybe that had been a normal reaction, but he couldn’t blame his father’s harshness on his father alone. He had to accept some responsibility for it.
They’d been locking horns most of his life. It was hardly to be wondered at that they hardly spoke to each other anymore.
Well, if he ever had a child, he was going to make very sure that his son or daughter knew they were important to him.
And that thought jolted him, too. He’d banished all such thoughts since Beth’s death. Where had that one come from?
But he knew. It had come from Mary. From his day with her. Thunder, quiet for so long now, rumbled again, and for an instant he felt he was back in her room, back in her bed with her.
The craving in his body was suddenly intense, but so was the craving in his heart. Oh, man, he couldn’t do this again. He couldn’t take this risk again.
But it seemed he already had. And for his sake, and hers, he was going to have to figure out soon what he was going to do abo
ut it. All he knew for sure right now was that his insides, his heart and mind, felt as if a storm even bigger than the one above his head was ripping them apart.
Just then another vehicle pulled up. Louis and Joe. They stepped out of the car, glancing uncertainly in the direction of Elijah, then came over to Sam.
“We came to help,” Louis said. “We heard the church was in danger.”
“It may be soon,” Sam said. He explained the situation in quick, broad strokes.
“Then we’d better get started,” Joe said. “We need to clear-cut, don’t we?”
Sam nodded. “The ground needs to be clear eighty feet around the building.”
Louis whistled and looked around at the way the forest crowded in on the old church. “That’s a lot.”
“Then there’s no time to waste,” Joe said. Ignoring the preacher and the deacon, he went to pick up the chain saw. “I’ll cut. You move. Are we gonna get anymore help?”
“I imagine so,” Sam said. “I just don’t know when.”
“Okay,” said Joe, “here’s how we do it. I’ll cut the trees. Do you have a chain so you can drag the trunks away? Or do I need to cut ’em up?”
“I have a tow chain that’ll probably work. When we get some more help, we might need to cut them up. I don’t know. But let’s just worry about what we can do right now.” Sam paused. “You do know how to cut a tree down?”
“Hell yes,” said Joe. “Who do you think cleared the lot for our cabin? And cut all the timber we used to build it?”
Sam felt a smile crease his face. “My man,” he said.
Joe laughed and pulled the cord on the saw. It roared to life, and he headed for the first tree.
Sam was in the back of his SUV, pulling out the tow chains, when Elijah came up beside him. “What can we do?” he asked.
“Joe’s going to have to cut the limbs off the trees so I can move the trunks. Load them into the back of the deacon’s pickup and dump them on the far side of the road.”
He doubted his dad was up to any such thing, but at least it would keep him busy.
Then it struck him: that had been the first time in his life Elijah had ever asked him what he should do.