Summer of Fire

by Linda Jacobs

  Garrett smiled. “Before you commit yourself to Boise there’s one more thing you might want to know. Ben Mallory is retiring here at the Fire Cache early next year. They’ll be needing somebody too.”

  Are you moving to Yellowstone? Clare heard Devon’s voice in her head, as clearly as when her daughter had asked the question earlier in the summer. She looked again at Steve’s place, where the light from the lamp she’d left on in the living room glowed. “I’ll think about it.”

  Black smoke billowed from behind the high smooth shoulder of Bunsen Peak.

  Steve left the administration building and limped across the lawn toward Park Headquarters. Maybe he should have brought along those crutches.

  With an angry look at the smoke haze, he found it difficult to believe it had only been seventy-two hours since the North Fork’s Incident Commander had pronounced that fire would sweep through Old Faithful. Now the Chief Ranger was weighing the wisdom of evacuating Mammoth. In contrast to the seasonal ebb and flow, headquarters was the year-round community that directed people and goods to the rest of the park, like a heart pumping blood.

  Steve passed Carol Leeds from Billings Live Eye and the ponytailed cameraman who’d heckled him at Roaring Mountain. They were filming the collection of fire trucks and apparatus in the yard.

  The outside basement door of headquarters gave its usual protest at opening, but finally let Steve into the hall outside the archives. To his surprise, the lights were off behind the wire glass windows. Walt Leighton and Harriet must have closed early to pack for the evacuation.

  Pale illumination from the above ground basement windows gave Steve a view into the familiar room lined with filing cabinets. To him, these records were so much more than yellowed paper and fading ink. They were people’s lives, transcribed with loving care, so that future generations might know their legacy. He thought of Clare’s ancestral diary that they’d found in Grand Teton Park. He needed to look at that and make sure a copy was made for posterity.

  An approaching fire engine rumbled. Ranger Shad Dugan had said that by morning there would be at least forty units onsite. Steve glanced at the sprinkler head on the ceiling. Beneath the stone building, the archives were largely insulated, but what of the historic wooden buildings of old Fort Yellowstone? By this time tomorrow, the place Steve called home might be ashes.

  His knees protested as he exited the building and headed toward his house.

  Next door, Moru Mzima came out and set a loaded cardboard box on the open tailgate of his Chevy wagon. “Bloody glad to see you,” he called. “I heard just now that you were in another nasty scrape yesterday.”

  Steve clasped Moru’s extended hand. “It’s been one hell of a summer.”

  Moru shifted his tall frame and nodded toward the half-full rear of the station wagon. “The North Fork’s not to reach us till tomorrow, but …” He cocked a dark brow at the restless limbs of the cottonwoods. “In the morning I will send Nyeri and the kids to stay with friends in Bozeman.”

  “Good idea.” Steve would have to send Clare and Devon away, too. He planned to stay, for even a gimp could patrol the evacuation by truck.

  “You must get packing,” Moru advised.

  “I’ll do that now.” Steve took off toward his house at as brisk a pace as he could manage, pausing to dry-swallow two ibuprofen when pain told him to take it easy. He passed within twenty feet of a lazy group of elk. These local animals seemed so tame that he could only hope they would move off their chosen turf if the North Fork burned through.

  Steve went up the back stairs of his house and into the kitchen. The house had that silent feel he always came home to, and he had to remind himself that today he wasn’t alone.

  “Clare?” False twilight made the kitchen dark.

  Devon was supposed to be sleeping, so he stopped calling and went into the living room. Here a lamp cut the gloom. Steve went into the short hall and listened for the murmur of voices. A board creaked beneath his boot. The bedroom door had been left off the latch.

  Clare’s daughter lay on her side with one hand beneath her cheek. The shorn part of her curly hair exposed a profile smooth and untroubled like a child’s. A little tug in his chest said that Christa would have been a blonde too. Although Steve thought he’d opened the door quietly, blue eyes opened and focused on him. “Is Mom here?”

  He shook his head. “She may have gone over to the Fire Cache.”

  Devon gave a faint smile. “She can’t stay away, even when she says she’s gonna.” She closed her eyes as though she was still exhausted.

  From the nightstand, Steve picked up the frame containing the pictures of Susan and Christa. In the living room, he stripped off the backing and removed them, then set the empty silver frame on the piano.

  Down the hall, he opened the spare room that he used for a study and darkroom. Aluminum foil covered the windows and an Indian blanket was rolled to block the light from under the door. His negatives resided in a metal box, indexed by year and subject matter. He placed the box in the hall.

  From a nearby shelf, Steve plucked his master’s thesis and doctoral dissertation, the copies that had been signed by his major professors. He tucked the photos of Susan and Christa inside the back of his dissertation on forest ecology, contrasting the Southern pine assemblage with a deciduous control.

  Books in hand, he stood thinking what else was irreplaceable.

  His textbooks were out of date. His favorite novels could be found in a library. His furniture was ordinary except for a piano he now knew he should have sold years ago. He carried the box and books out to the kitchen, where he added a nondescript set of stainless camping cookware. His Dad had composed many a fireside meal in those pans, while teaching the culinary arts that were now Steve’s pleasure.

  A cardboard carton from the pantry held everything.

  After carrying it out to the truck, he came back and got his toolboxes from the porch. A lot of the tools had also been handed down from his father.

  The wind continued to rise; the harbinger of yet another dry front. Steve scattered his small pile of firewood from against the house over the yard.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

  September 9

  Clare entered Steve’s kitchen through the back porch. His blond hair was darkened from a shower and he wore fresh jeans and an Old Faithful T-shirt. He turned and smiled at her from the counter where he was dredging chicken breasts in flour flecked with spices. His wooden cutting board was piled with onions, carrots, and a carton of mushrooms.

  Two bottles of Chilean Cabernet sat beside the largest copper pot from the rack.

  “For cooking.” Steve had said that at the Pic and Save when he’d placed them in the cart, but Clare really wanted to have a glass.

  “Corkscrew’s in that drawer.” He pointed with his elbow. She didn’t move.

  “As far as I know,” he said dryly, “you’re not the one who needs to stay off the stuff.”

  She secured the opener and removed the cork with a satisfying pop.

  “I can still name that tune in one note,” Steve said with regret.

  “You’re doing great, though.” She poured and tasted the red’s balance of grape and oak tannins. “This will go well in the stew.”

  As she mentally toasted being here with Steve, she nearly blurted out Garrett’s offer. What kept her silent was that she didn’t know how he would take it. Sleeping with her was one thing, but he’d given no sign he’d be open to anything of a longer term.

  Steve rinsed his hands and reached for a hand towel. “I’m sure you heard the North Fork is coming.”

  “Big time. Can I help you pack?” She looked around his kitchen and wondered what he valued enough to take.

  “Already done,” he said. “I travel light.”

  Here she was thinking of moving to Boise to be closer to him. How would a man who traveled light take that?

  Deliberately putting the future from her mind, she checked on Devon and found her s
till sleeping. The spread was thrown back. As Clare recovered her, she noticed the nightstand was bare.

  Of course, Steve would have packed Susan and Christa’s pictures.

  Clare passed the piano and had a restless impulse to play. For a defiant moment she almost did, to show Steve that his home could have music again. Instead, she went into the kitchen, certain that her technique would be too basic for him.

  “Can I help?” she asked from behind his shoulder.

  “Just stand back and let the master work.” He turned and dropped a light kiss on her cheek. As quickly, he went back to dicing.

  She sat at the kitchen table, sipped a long slow glass of wine, and drank in the show. Despite his limp, Steve moved with grace. His hands were sure and exact as he produced clean coins of carrot and slices of mushroom.

  When the meal was prepared, she went and asked Devon whether she would prefer a tray or getting up. Dopey from the drug, Devon elected dinner in bed.

  An hour later, the aroma of stewed chicken lingered in the kitchen. The delightful blend of spices and the succulent taste had proven that Steve was one primo chef.

  “I’ll do the dishes,” Clare said. He’d done more than his share by cooking when his knees were probably killing him. She located some plastic bags and filled them with ice from the freezer. Wrapped in a kitchen towel, they made credible ice packs. “One for each leg. Off you go.”

  In Steve’s bedroom, she collected Devon’s half-eaten dinner and saw that she had fallen back to sleep. She paused and planted a kiss on her daughter’s forehead, the kind that would have made her squirm if she were awake.

  On her way down the hall, her chest swelled with content. Steve stretched out on the sofa looking so comfortable that she wanted to lie down and put her head against his shoulder.

  With a smile that warmed her, he asked, “Would you mind if I looked through your great-grandmother’s diary?”

  She hadn’t had a chance to sit down and really read it yet, but there could be nothing in it she wouldn’t trust Steve to see. She knew how he loved history. “I’ll get it.”

  Clare’s ‘luggage’ was on the kitchen windowsill, the paper sack her grizzly T-shirt had come in. It contained the shirt and diary, along with a toothbrush, paste, and comb. She was traveling light, herself.

  That felt good. For months she’d lived out of a suitcase, mostly wearing a uniform that bonded her with the brotherhood of firefighting. Black and white, Native American, Hispanic, and Asian, they dressed alike. College student, fire general, soldier and convict, they came together for the season … and back apart.

  Laura Sutton’s leather-bound book felt more fragile, the spine wobbly from all it had been through. Much more handling would see the pages come free from the backing.

  A smudge of something rusty like dried blood dulled the burnished gilt on the edge. Clare turned it in her hands and opened it to the last entry before a series of blank pages. Perhaps the ink had once been blue, but it had faded to sepia.

  October 15, 1927

  It is hard to believe that we are leaving today. The sun shines on the Tetons as though it were any other day, any of the thousands we have passed pleasantly at home over the last twenty-six years.

  I sit facing what I have come to regard as my personal and private view of the Grand and wonder what we will do in far away Texas, a flat, baking land that Cord and I have never even visited.

  It’s all wrapped up here, so nice and neat, the check from the Snake River Land Company folded in Cord’s breast pocket for deposit in our new account in Houston. We didn’t get as much for our ranch as I thought we should have, but folks all over the valley have been caving in to the tough young men who assured us that we would not see a better offer.

  They’re waiting for me, Cord already settled in the back of Cordon’s noisy automobile. Our son adjusts the lap robe and I am glad he is good at pretending and making it seem as though Cord is not really so ill. It scares me so to see the bluish pallor come and go at his lips, and to watch him massage his chest when he thinks I am not looking.

  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 goodbyes 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 scraped carrot curls and onion peels into the trash, packaged the leftovers, and washed the copper pot. She didn’t like domestic chores, 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 glass 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 w
oodsy, 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-shirt, 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 shining 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 shirt,” 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.

  God 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.