Summer of Fire

by Linda Jacobs

  He wondered if he had been a fool this evening. Instead of leaving, he could have drawn the paper shades and turned the bolt. He flashed on images of Clare naked—a mystery to be unveiled.

  With his arms beneath his head, he watched a sliver of moon appear to fall endlessly, the billowing shadows rising to meet it.

  It was like that with Clare. He felt as though he’d left his life behind, falling free like the moon through the heavens. As sleep rose to meet him he dropped into a dream in which he was not quite the fool he’d imagined.

  YELLOWSTONE FIRES

  September 7, 8:00 a.m.

  Here is a list of the fires and approximate perimeter acreages. To date, over 633,000 acres in Yellowstone National Park (and over acres in the Greater Yellowstone Area) have been affected by fire. However, only about half of the vegetation has burned within many fire perimeters. Throughout the summer, 52 different fires have been started by lightning. Of those 52, eight are still burning inside the park. Fire fighters are working to control them. Any new fires will be suppressed as quickly as possible.

  ****1,066,010 acres

  Clover-Mist Fire: 238,300 acres. Mist Fire started July 9. Clover started July 11. They joined on July 22. Shallow Fire started July 31. Fern Fire started August 5. These two fires joined Clover-Mist August 13. Lovely Fire started July 11 and burned into Clover-Mist on August 21. The SW flank is near Turbid Lake and may reach the East Entrance Road. A major run occurred in the Jones Creek area within 2 miles of Pahaska Tepee. Engines and crews were sent to the area for structure protection. The fire could reach Pahaska today. 1352 firefighters, 35 engines, 7 bulldozers, and 3 helicopters.

  Fan Fire: 23,325 acres. Started June 25. The fire is reported as contained. One crew is completing mop-up. 25 firefighters, 1 helicopter.

  Hellroaring Fire: 57,470 acres (estimated 8,500 acres in Yellowstone NP.) Started August 15. A planned backfire did not occur due to unfavorable conditions. The backfire will be tried again today. Crews burned out around Buffalo Plateau cabin. Tuesday night this fire joined with the Storm Creek Fire. 628 firefighters, 5 helicopters.

  Huck Fire: 56,345 acres. Started August 21. Caused the evacuation of Flagg Ranch. Spreading SE into Teton Wilderness and N across the Snake River into Yellowstone National Park. Fire had pushed around Pinyon Pk. into Gravel Ck. Fire is exhibiting erratic behavior. 640 firefighters, 6 engines, 5 helicopters.

  North Fork Fire: 145,800 acres. Started July 22 by human. Split from Wolf Lake Fire at Gibbon Falls. The fire has spotted to within 3/4 mile of Old Faithful Area. The area is being evacuated this morning. Sprinklers have been installed under powerlines. A major run to the NE occurred in the Mt. Holmes area. West Yellowstone and Island Park areas had little activity. 1608 firefighters, 39 engines, 22 bulldozers, and 6 helicopters.

  Snake River Complex: 205,800 acres. Red Fire started July 1. Shoshone Fire started June 23. Joined August 10. Falls Fire started July 12. Red-Shoshone joined the Mink Fire on August 31. Acreage includes Continental-Ridge and Mink Creek fires. Fire activity was generally light yesterday. Some small spots are being worked today. Winds were mostly light. Mink Fire crews were successful in keeping the fire in the Yellowstone River drainage. Fire is most active in Pass Ck. and Silvertip Ck. 703 firefighters, 16 engines, 6 helicopters.

  Storm Creek Fire: 65,000 acres. Started July 3. A spot fire has moved just N of Silver Gate. Fire is also within one mile of Cooke City. All non-essential fire personnel and all area residents have been evacuated. No structures were lost overnight. Hgwy 212 from Tower Junction to the Sunlight Basin Cutoff (Hgwy 296) is closed. 1236 firefighters, 48 engines, 4 dozers, 7 helicopters.

  Wolf Lake Fire: 61,200 acres. Divided from North Fork Fire at Gibbon Falls. The fire is advancing NE into Carnelian Ck. and in the area of Dunraven Pass and Mt. Washburn. Line on the S held well. Line around Canyon Village also held. More engines arrived form California. 675 firefighters, 30 engines, 3 helicopters.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  September 7

  Park service,” A woman’s voice filtered through the cabin door.

  Clare rolled out of bed and her feet found the cold floor. The bed with Devon’s duffel bag and backpack was still empty. “Yeah?”

  “Sorry to disturb you, but this is official business.” She threw on a T-shirt and sweat pants. Outside, morning was a gray streak against smoke hanging in the Firehole Valley.

  The young woman at her door wore a ranger’s uniform, complete with a brimmed hat of pale straw. Despite the chill, she was sweating, her chestnut hair damp where it showed at the temples. “We’re evacuating Old Faithful. The North Fork fire is threatening … “

  “Oh, dear.”

  “There’s no cause for alarm,” the ranger said. “You have until ten a.m. to leave, but I would start right away.”

  Minutes later, Clare found Steve in the parking lot. He lay curled inside a sleeping bag in the back of the Park Service truck. One arm was over his head, reminding her of when she’d found him on the lakeshore.

  He must have heard her boots on the pavement, for he opened his eyes. This time he looked neither confused nor shocky, but gave her a steady smile that lifted her spirits until he asked about Devon.

  She shook her head.

  He wriggled out of the bag in his jeans, shirt, and sock feet. With a glance at her Nomex clothing, he said, “I’ve got a spare set to change into.” He pulled on his boots, and grabbed the folded shirt and pants from his bag.

  As he let himself down from the tailgate, he cringed when he put his weight on his right leg. She put out a hand and he let her help him.

  Swiping a hand through his hair as a comb, Steve led her toward the Visitor Center. Although it was not officially opening time, she could see through the windows that a number of people were crowded inside. The woman ranger who’d knocked at Clare’s door stood surrounded by at least six elderly women.

  “What do you mean, evacuate?” one stout dowager demanded.

  “We were on a bus tour,” said another, a small-boned woman with the hump of advancing osteoporosis. “I think they left without us.”

  Clare followed Steve through the gift shop to the information desk. There, a ranger with a strained look on his bearded face tried to answer questions from at least three people at once.

  Steve hailed, “Hey, Butler.”

  “Is the fire really coming?” a pudgy woman in Birkenstocks asked.

  “Can we stay and watch?” A boy around six tugged his father’s polo shirt.

  Steve’s hand closed over Clare’s shoulder. “Butler Myers, this is my friend Clare Chance. She’s with the firefighters from Houston.”

  Butler nodded absently and started to deal with another agitated traveler. Finished with the social niceties, Clare grabbed the ranger’s arm. “You’ve got to do something. My daughter is missing.”

  He spoke over his shoulder to a female ranger who looked about twenty. “Take over, Jen.”

  “Let’s go over here, ma’am.” Butler drew Clare past a seismograph to the rear auditorium. Steve came along, still carrying his fire clothes, and turned on the lights in the vacant room.

  From his breast pocket, Butler drew a small notepad and pen. “I’ll need your daughter’s name and a description.”

  Clare thought how many times she’d taken information from people in crisis. With the tables turned, she took a breath and tried to stay calm. “It’s Devon, Devon Chance. She’s a couple inches taller than I am, blond hair, shoulder length … “

  “I’m sorry,” Butler interrupted. “Did you say taller than you?”

  “About five-six.”

  “How old is she?”

  “Seventeen.”

  The woman ranger Butler had called Jen stuck her head in the door. “The wind’s kicked up. Thirty-to-fifty on the heights. That puts the North Fork here in a matter of hours.”

  “Please,” Clare said. “You’ve got to find Devon.”

  “How long has she been missing?”<
br />
  “Since last night.” It seemed like a lot longer.

  “Where did you last see her?”

  “At my cabin. Number sixteen on the back side.”

  “Then how did she get lost?”

  Clare hesitated. “We … that is … “ She thought of lying, but it wasn’t in her. “We had a fight and she ran away.” Her back still smarted from the rough edge of the bed frame.

  Butler ruffled his beard with his hand.

  “She’s a good kid,” Steve put in. Clare could have kissed him for it.

  The notebook lowered. “I’m sorry, ma’am, but at her age law enforcement would not track your daughter as a runaway.”

  “Someone could hurt her,” Clare insisted.

  “We’ve been busing folks out of here since seven,” Butler said. “She was probably on one of the first ones.” His voice had an upbeat tenor. Clare knew that tone; she used it herself on the job. “I’m sure you’ll find her, ma’am.” Butler touched the brim of his hat, gave Steve an apologetic glance and hastened back toward the front desk.

  Clare sank into a chair and put her face in her hands. Steve sat beside her and said, “Devon is old enough to take care of herself.”

  “How can you say that?” Clare turned on him. “She didn’t show any judgment when she ran away.”

  “Point taken, but Butler’s probably right. If she’s running, she’s already gone.”

  For the rest of the morning, Clare and Steve tracked back and forth across the complex. From the post office and Snow Lodge on the southeast to the Hamilton Store and Conoco station on the northwest, they scanned the common areas, both indoors and out. Just past noon, they took a seat on one of the vacant benches surrounding Old Faithful.

  “Now what?” Clare asked.

  “We hope she’s in West Yellowstone or Mammoth with other evacuees,” Steve said. “If so, she’ll ask around and find Fire Command or Headquarters.”

  Clare hoped it would be that simple.

  She looked over at Steve watching the opening of Old Faithful’s show. Strands of his hair blew over his forehead and the collar of the yellow shirt he’d put on. She thought about smoothing them. The memory of being in his arms last night came back as they watched the geyser.

  The deep familiar growl of a fire truck sounded behind them. In the parking lot beyond the Visitor Center a group of structural firefighters mustered.

  Steve rose, “I’m going to the snack bar and see if they’re still open. Get us something to eat.”

  Clare nodded, watching the firefighters. She recognized Javier Fuentes, standing out above the crowd in the same moment that he saw her. He came to her with his long-legged gait, dark eyes bright. She reached up to hug him.

  She’d seen him off and on during the firefighting effort, but today his embrace reminded her that he’d done the same after Frank had died. Javier had picked her up from the gutter and taken her from the scene, given her strong coffee, and refused to let her succumb to feeling guilty.

  Her arms tightened convulsively.

  “Hey, hey? What’s this?” he asked.

  A sob burst from her, startling them both.

  “What in hell’s happened?” Javier drew back to look at her.

  “We lost a soldier the other day. A guy I was training.”

  “That’s tough.” Javier checked her face again. “Ah, God, Clare, you can’t do this.”

  “Who says I can’t?” she exploded.

  “I say,” he insisted. “You refused to come back to the station. You wanted to rush off up here so I decided to come, too. But you can’t run away from the fact that it’s a dangerous goddamn business.”

  “I’m thinking of getting out of it,” she said grimly.

  Javier’s eyes went wide. “You can’t. For every student of yours who dies, there are the rest you taught something to save their life … and the lives of others. I’d back you up on the hose any day.”

  Behind him, one of the firefighters pointed to the southwest, where a towering column of smoke looked like a nuclear weapon had exploded over the horizon.

  Javier pointed toward the inferno. “We need every hand we can get.” He lifted hers and looked at them. “There are a hell of a lot of folks alive today because these are some of the best hands in the business.”

  The roiling firestorm was the kind of enemy that called for somebody, anybody, to rise up and fight. Clare shook her head. “I can’t.”

  “The hell you can’t!” Steve said from behind her. She thought he’d gone to the snack bar.

  She turned. His eyes looked like flint chips.

  Javier dropped her hands and stood back.

  Her eyes held Steve’s for a long moment while his softened.

  His look of encouragement spoke volumes, but he simply said, “Frank and Billy would want you to.” Putting a quick grip-and-release on her shoulder, he walked away.

  Javier waited.

  Clare stared at the pavement, sprinkled with little marble-sized chunks of obsidian. As she had done so many times, she ached for a sign from Frank. Was it possible that he was irrevocably gone? Could all those people who believed in ghosts and portents from beyond be wrong? She closed her eyes and sent her own message winging, knowing it was yet another futile one-way effort.

  By now, several others had joined her and Javier. Clare heard, “ … planning to foam the cabins.”

  Another man said, “Hose down the roof of the inn.”

  Straining memory, she could see Frank at work, his back to her while he lifted and dragged a hose. All their training, repeating drills until reaction became instinctive. Working at A & M and at the fire academy in Houston, they had faced fake situations, but the flames had been real.

  The North Fork was out there and this was definitely not a drill. In her mind’s eye, Frank never turned to look at her, but wasn’t it enough to know that if he were here, he’d lead the charge?

  Steve approached and gave Clare a Coke and two Hershey bars. She popped the top and drank. “Thanks. I should have had supper, or at least some breakfast.”

  He shifted his weight from one foot to the other. “I’ve run into some fellow scientists,” he said slowly.

  Clare saw three people waiting for him outside the cafeteria. A tall dark man talked with a younger Asian fellow who wore glasses. A girl a few years older than Devon sat cross-legged on the sidewalk. She rooted in her backpack and came up with a cigarette pack.

  “My neighbor Moru,” Steve said, “and our summer graduate students. They could use my help cataloguing some areas in the path of the burn, but if you need me … “

  “I don’t need you right now.” She touched his arm so that he would understand the “now” aspect of the statement. Later, she reserved the right to need much more.

  Clare turned and faced the southwest, staring directly into the face of the North Fork. Silhouetted against the smoke, tankers dropped retardant and helicopters ferried water.

  “You help your friends,” she told Steve. “I’ve volunteered to join these guys.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  September 7

  For the second time this summer, Deering found himself flying blind, trapped inside turbulent smoke. Luckily, he’d already released his load of water and was turning back toward the Firehole River to refill the bucket.

  Deering hoped that Mark Liebman in the lead plane had not seen him. Flying into zero vis was strictly verboten. He corrected course, pulled up and to the right, which should have brought him into clear air. Instead, he was still within the cloud.

  He straightened out to avoid putting the chopper into a tight spiral that would result in flying in circles. Using his compass, he flew in the opposite direction from which the North Fork was approaching.

  Seconds passed. Deering fought to keep the craft steady and checked his altimeter. He tried not to dwell on the fact that there were a number of aircraft in the area, all flying VFR, or visual flight rules. If someone else blundered into the cloud, t
here could be a midair.

  He stared through the windshield. The murk snugged right against the glass.

  This was bad business. Today showed all the signs of being another one like Black Saturday. If the wind kept rising with the dry cold front, Old Faithful Inn was going up.

  “Okay, Deering,” Mark Liebman radioed in his habitually cheerful manner, “no playing peek-a-boo.”

  “The hell you say,” Deering gritted. Was there a barely perceptible thinning of the smoke?

  Before he could decide, a harsh droning drowned the Huey’s engine noise. As Deering broke in a patch of clearer air, a C-130 tanker flashed past. The enormous plane dove earthward, on approach to dump retardant.

  Deering’s hands stung as adrenaline rushed to them. The Huey plunged, caught in the vortex from the tanker’s four great propellers. Struggling to arrest the dive, he realized that smoke kept him from seeing the ground and that he could smash into it at any second. He kept his eyes glued to the artificial horizon and altimeter, trying not to think about instant annihilation in a fireball of fuel.

  In the midst of maybe dying, he couldn’t help but think of Georgia. He’d thought of her that day in Yellowstone Lake, too, when he’d longed to be home.

  He cajoled the controls and forced himself not to imagine the ridge top studded with treacherously sharp pine trunks, God only knew how far below. Finally, the Huey began to respond.

  Once in open air, Deering was able to see he’d been only a few hundred feet off the deck. He let out a shaky breath and wiped his sweating palms, one at a time, on his pant legs. Thank God, he wouldn’t have to tell Georgia he’d crashed twice in one summer. He thought of her arms around him, and found that the stinging in his eyes was not all from smoke.

  As he headed toward the Firehole to pick up more water, along with the tattered remnants of his self-control, the radio crackled with a message from West Yellowstone Air Control. He was wanted to meet Garrett Anderson and fly recon.