Chasing Fire: An I-Team/Colorado High Country Crossover Novel

by Pamela Clare

  Janet didn’t seem to find anything funny in this. “Think what would have happened if he had fallen or hadn’t been there. All of those people…”

  Jack took his wife’s hand. “Life is hard enough without dwelling on the ‘what ifs.’”

  The conversation drifted after that.

  Jack’s and Nate’s experience rescuing stranded horses and being a Noah’s Ark for everything from Australian cattle dogs to fawns and eagles. Zach calling Reece, who’d won the day for Scarlet Springs with the 747 Supertanker. Natalie watching all of this unfold on the television and through text messages from Zach.

  “I felt so helpless.”

  Then Sophie and Tessa shared their visit with Joaquin and Mia.

  “I looked at his photos when Tom went through them,” Tessa said. “They were incredible. There was one shot of the fire chief, covered in sweat and soot, standing in front of the fire as if he were daring it to come and get his town. It gave me chills.”

  Nate shared what he’d heard about Hawke’s condition. “He has a long road ahead of him, but he’ll get through it.”

  Megan put her hand over his. “You know better than anyone what that’s like.”

  Nate twined his fingers with Megan’s. “I’ve already told Vicki that if she needs anything, she can count on us.”

  Jack tossed back the last of his whiskey. “A lot of people are going to need help getting back on their feet. I’ll call Joe, and we’ll put something together.”

  Sophie knew that Jack and Nate would reach into their own pockets to help. They were among the most generous people she knew.

  “Hawke is a hero,” Marc said. “He fought like hell for his town.”

  Sophie shared a conspiratorial smile with Tessa and Megan. “What did the two of you do today? You were up there for most of the day.”

  She didn’t miss the quick glance Marc shot Julian.

  Julian avoided eye contact the way a person does when they’re about to lie. “We helped with the early evacuations and then hung out with the members of the Rocky Mountain Search and Rescue Team, waiting for the green light to go search for Rossiter and the others.”

  Marc nodded. “We also caught the idiots who were flying the drone that made the helicopter crash.”

  “So, you were never in any danger up there?” Tessa asked sweetly.

  They shook their heads.

  “Nah, man,” Julian said.

  “It was pretty chill day for us.” Marc took a drink of his beer.

  Megan shook her head, poked a finger at her brother. “You are such a liar.”

  Sophie turned to Marc. “Sheriff Pella called and talked to Megan this evening before you got here. He told a different story. He said the two of you are heroes. He said you evacuated a street that was already in flames to save a cat and a dog and how someone in town told him that Julian had gotten second-degree burns in the process.”

  “Crank is a cool dog,” Julian protested.

  “Hey, I got scratched by the cat.” Marc held up his hands. “Don’t forget that. I rescued the guys’ wedding photo, too. They were very grateful.”

  Megan took it from there. “Pella says he’s amazed the two of you made it out alive. But, yeah, it was a chill day.”

  Tessa looked Julian square in the face. “You and I are going to have a conversation when we get home.”

  Julian gave Tessa a slow, sexy smile. “Aren’t you going to take care of me? I am wounded.”

  Tessa narrowed her eyes at him. “Oh, I’ll take care of you all right.”

  Sophie noticed Marc watching her, as if trying to gauge how she was feeling about it all. “To tell you the truth, hon, I wasn’t even surprised.”

  Marc frowned. “You weren’t?”

  When the laughter died down, Jack got to his feet. “Who wants coffee and a slice of my cherry pie?”

  “Is that even a question?” Natalie asked.

  It was close to midnight when Sophie and Marc loaded sleeping kids into the car and headed back to Denver.

  Sophie looked over at the man she loved. “You can’t help it, can you?”

  He glanced over at her. “What do you mean?”

  “You just can’t sit on the sidelines. When there’s trouble, when someone needs help, when lives are on the line, you have to be in the thick of it.”

  His brow furrowed. “I can’t do nothing.”

  Sophie laughed. “No, you really can’t, can you?”

  He took his right hand off the wheel, threaded his fingers through hers. “I didn’t tell you all of it because I didn’t want to upset or worry you.”

  “I know.” Sophie raised his hand to her lips, kissed it. “It’s one of the reasons I fell in love with you, but it scares the hell out of me sometimes.

  “Remember the graduation party? You saw those meth heads bullying me, and you stopped them. You didn’t even know me—not really—but you risked your safety for my sake.”

  Marc grinned. “Remember what happened after the graduation party?”

  “How about we reenact that when we get home? I’ll be the shy virgin—”

  Marc snorted. “Shy? You were a virgin, but I don’t remember you being shy.”

  Sophie let that go. “You can be the hunky guy who rescues and deflowers me.”

  “I like where you’re going with this.”

  “You’re my hero, Hunt. You always will be. Just don’t get yourself killed, okay?”

  He gave her hand a squeeze, serious now. “You got it.”

  As quiet fell over the fairgrounds and evacuees took to their cots, the wind died down, and the temperatures dropped, giving firefighters a chance to rest.

  As the sun rose the next morning, the latest edition of the Denver Independent hit the streets with its stunning front-page photo of a firefighter facing down a wall of flame—and the story of how he and the man who’d taken the photo had almost been killed.

  In the early morning cool, fire crews put out the last of the big spot fires and started the long work of mopping up—finding hot spots, cutting down dangerous snags, clearing roads of ash and fallen timber. By mid-afternoon, the wind picked up again, but this time it brought rain, and the fire was finally out. The evacuation order was lifted, and the residents of Scarlet Springs began the hard work of returning home.

  In all, forty-six homes had burned to the ground, together with their barns, sheds, and everything inside them. Three public campgrounds and Camp Mato Sapa had been destroyed as well. But, not a single human life had been lost.

  To everyone who’d seen the fire, that seemed like a miracle.

  Lt. Governor Reece Sheridan came to visit Scarlet Springs that afternoon. He wore jeans and a T-shirt with the Colorado flag on it, shaking hands with firefighters and people who’d lost their homes, promising to do all he could to support the town’s recovery. The media followed him, of course, one intrepid photographer getting a photo of climbing legend Megs Hill kissing him square on the cheek. Then, without the media horde, Sheridan paid a quiet visit to the Denver Burn Center, spending time with good friend Joaquin Ramirez and visiting the others wounded in the blaze as well.

  Moved by the media coverage, communities around Colorado and the nation joined together to help Scarlet Springs, donating money, clothes, and food to those who had lost everything. The director of the YMCA children’s camp in Estes Park heard of the plight of Camp Mato Sapa and took the children and camp counselors in, giving them a safe and fun place to spend that last three days of the session.

  Almost immediately, signs began to go up at the end of people’s driveways, on corners, and in storefronts. Some were hand-written on poster board, while others were spray-painted on scraps of plywood. They all carried the same message.

  “Thank you, firefighters!”

  “God bless our fire chief.”

  “Scarlet Strong.”

  Joe and Rain sent photos of the signs to Vicki, who showed them to Eric, who was in and out of it on morphine.

  �
��See? People love you,” she told him.

  As the investigation into the fire was set in motion, Terry Robertson announced his immediate retirement, leaving the top county firefighting post open. More than a few people thought Eric Hawke should have that job.

  Austin drove Lexi’s car up the canyon in heavy traffic, listening while she told him what she’d learned from Bear’s mother’s journal, which she had read last night.

  “They all got sick with something—high fever, nausea, seizures. His father refused to come into town for a doctor. He thought God would heal them.”

  “How did that work out for him?” Austin hated shit like that.

  It was one thing for an adult to risk their own life on faith-healing. It was another to use religious beliefs as an excuse to deprive a child of life-saving care.

  “Elizabeth, the youngest child, died first. Then Abel, his father, who’d had pneumonia that previous winter, died. Matthew—Bear—got sick next and was in bed with a fever for a long time. One by one, the other children got sick and died.”

  “Why didn’t their mother go to Scarlet for help?”

  “By the time her husband died, she was sick, too. She wrote this heartbreaking entry about trying to find the strength to dig graves for Mary and Paul. In the end, it was just the two of them, Bear and his mother.”

  “How old was Bear then?”

  “He would have been about thirteen.”

  “Hell of an age to watch your whole family die.”

  “Bear slowly got better, but when he was upright again, he wasn’t the same boy he’d been. His mother said the fever had damaged his mind somehow. She also wrote that fever had left her all but blind. She lingered on, doing her best to teach him how to care for himself, knowing she was dying. She wrote that he remembered every Bible verse she read to him but that he seemed to have the mind of a small child.”

  What disease could cause brain damage and make a person go blind? Scarlet fever maybe? Meningitis? Viral meningoencephalitis?

  Hell, entire families had been wiped out by fevers in Scarlet Springs back in the day.

  “In her last entry, Rebecca wrote that she warned Bear against going to town or trusting people from Scarlet Springs because they would lead him astray.”

  “I guess Bear got lonely enough or hungry enough to ignore that—or at least part of it. He’s never been open to talking about where he lives or where he’s from.”

  “It breaks my heart to think of him up there alone.” Lexi held something up. “I found this old document tucked in the back of the journal. I’m not sure what it is. It’s pretty faded.”

  Traffic had brought the canyon to a standstill, so Austin reached over, took the document, unfolded it. At first, he couldn’t make sense of it. Then he saw a familiar stamp at the bottom.

  Forest County Clerk & Recorder

  He stared. “This is the deed to the land.”

  “It’s … what?”

  “It’s the deed to the property where the cabin stood. The land belongs to Bear.”

  Since the day Austin had discovered the cabin, he had worried the county administration would find out Bear was there and force him off the land. Now, they would have to concede that the land belonged to Bear outright.

  “Does that mean he’ll be able to stay up there?”

  “The county might choose to contest it or try to condemn the land, but they’ll have everyone from Scarlet on their back if they do. Of course, we need to talk to Bear first, see how much he understands and what he wants us to do. These things belong to him, not to us. We’re just keeping them safe.”

  Traffic nudged forward again, winding toward home.

  “It’s going to be burned to the ground,” Lexi said.

  “Yeah.”

  They had both resigned themselves to finding an ash heap. They’d heard on the news that most of the homes beyond Quarry Street had burned. Their home sat high above Quarry Street, midway up Dead Man’s Hill overlooking town.

  They rounded the last corner, and Scarlet Springs came into view.

  Austin stared. “Holy shit.”

  “God, look at that.”

  From the top of the mountain stretching westward to the high peaks, south to Ski Scarlet, and northward toward Estes Park, the conifer and aspens were gone, replaced by a landscape of gray. No trees. No houses. Nothing but ash.

  Austin refused to let his spirits sink. He’d gotten a second chance at life. Nothing was more important than that. “We have a lot to be grateful for.”

  Lexi reached over, rested a hand on his thigh.

  They found Julia Marcs directing traffic where the highway entered town, a big smile on her face. “Welcome home!”

  Bear stood in his roundabout, preaching encouragement to those who drove by. “It is the Lord who goes before you. He will be with you. He will not leave you or forsake you. Do not fear or be dismayed!”

  “Seeing him, knowing what he’s been through—it breaks my heart,” Lexi said.

  Austin waved. “Hey, Bear!”

  “Austin Taylor!”

  They drove on through town and up the highway toward home.

  “God, look at this.” Austin glanced around at charred tree trunks and stone chimneys that marked the homes of friends and neighbors.

  “Oh, Austin. It’s terrible.”

  “It’s going to be okay.” He turned the corner onto their street. “A year from now…”

  “Oh, my God!” Lexi squealed, pointing. “It’s there! It’s still there!”

  Their house stood by itself in the middle of the block, the orange-red tint on the exterior and the surrounding vegetation telling the story. The fire had burned to within ten feet of the house before it had been stopped.

  “It looks like we took a direct hit from one of the slurry bombers.”

  “Thank God! Thank you, slurry bomber pilot!”

  Austin turned into the driveway. “Honey, we’re home.”

  Pain woke Eric. He heard himself moan, opened his eyes.

  Nate West was standing beside his hospital bed.

  “Hey.”

  “Hey, brother.” Nate pushed the call button. “He needs a bolus of morphine.”

  “I’ll be in to check on him in a—”

  “Now.”

  “Thanks, man.”

  Eric closed his eyes, breathed. It did no more to relieve his pain than it had Vicki’s when she’d been in labor.

  Nate rested a hand against his shoulder. “Hang on. She’s coming.”

  The nurse entered the room. “So, you’re having some pain?”

  Eric couldn’t respond without shouting, so Nate answered for him.

  “He needs morphine.”

  A few minutes later, Eric was floating. “Thanks. I appreciate it.”

  “Happy to help.” Nate grinned. “You’re looking good, man.”

  “Good to see you, too.”

  He and Nate had gone to high school together. Eric had gone off to fight wildfires, while Nate had joined the Marines. Eric had always respected the man.

  “How are you feeling?”

  “Better than I was a few minutes ago.”

  “I bet.” The burn scars on the right side of Nate’s face were proof that he knew more about what Eric was going through than Eric did. “Joaquin Ramirez told me what happened. He says you saved his life and the pilot’s.”

  “How is he?”

  “He’s going home today—Silver and the pilot, too.” Nate held up a newspaper. “He wanted me to bring you this.”

  It was today’s Denver Independent.

  “Wow.” Eric remembered the exact moment when this shot had been taken. He’d heard the click of the camera and ordered Ramirez to get out. “Ramirez is good.”

  “He’s kind of a big deal. He won a Pulitzer some years back.”

  “Rossiter told me about that. Can I keep the newspaper?”

  “It’s yours.” Nate took it from him, set it on his bedside table.

  “Thanks
for helping with the evacuations. We would have lost a lot of horses if not for you and your old man.”

  “Not just horses.” Nate told Eric that his father had helped Winona evacuate the wildlife clinic. “It made his entire year to have a baby moose and fawns in his trailer.”

  “A baby moose?” Eric hadn’t known that.

  “Yep. So, tell me about your situation.”

  Eric told Nate what the doctors had said. “I’d show you my leg, but it’s all wrapped up now. They’ve got temporary skin grafts on it. I guess they take skin from a donor site at some point and use that.”

  Nate listened, nodding. “They want the burn site to stabilize first. They won’t want to risk losing an autograft to a hematoma or some other problem.”

  “I just got to say, it doesn’t sound like fun.”

  Nate looked Eric straight in the eyes. “I won’t sugarcoat it. It’s going to be tough. For a time, every day is going to be a bitch, but it will get better. I promise. A year from now, you’ll be looking at this in your rearview mirror.”

  Eric wondered what it was like for Nate to be here. Did it stir up bad memories for him? Eric couldn’t see how it wouldn’t. Nate had spent the better part of a year in a burn center in San Antonio and had gone through dozens of surgeries to reconstruct his face and enable him to use his right hand. And still, he was here.

  “How did you get through it?”

  “One day at a time. One hour at a time. Sometimes, it was minute by minute.” Nate pulled over a chair, sat. “I don’t have many memories of the first weeks. I was unconscious a lot of the time. The first time my fiancée saw me with my face unbandaged, she decided she couldn’t handle it and broke things off. It felt like my life was over.”

  “Bitch.”

  Nate chuckled. “I appreciate that, but she did me a favor. She got out of the way and made room in my life for Megan. You’ve got Vicki, so you’re set. And, hey, congrats. I hear you’re expecting another baby. That’s great.”

  “Yeah.” Eric fought to stay awake. “Vicki is trying to find a rental nearby, somewhere furnished where she and my mom can stay with Caden until I’m discharged. It’s too much to drive in from Boulder or Scarlet Springs every day.”