Primal Threat - Earl Emerson [94]
“Remember,” said Scooter. “This was an accident. Fred’s truck ignited some grass. We couldn’t do anything about it. Right, Roger?”
“Right.”
“Right, Jenn?”
“Right.”
He turned to Fred, who said, “Fuckin’ A.”
“I just thought of something,” said Bloomquist.
“What?”
“That fire’s going to go up to the lakes. It’ll destroy Perry’s Jeep.”
“Those three little lakes are miles away.”
“What’s going to stop it from getting there?” Kasey asked.
“Yeah, well. Perry’s beyond caring about that.”
“Still, it’s sad,” said Jennifer.
“A lot of stuff is sad,” said Fred, striding toward his dead brother’s truck. “But there comes a time when you have to do something about it, and that time is now.”
42
During mountain bike races both Zak and Muldaur had crashed and remounted to finish the race often enough that they were used to riding with injuries, so they both knew they could gut it out now. At least for a while.
“What took you so long?” Muldaur asked.
“He was having such a good time beating you to a pulp, I didn’t want to spoil it for him.”
“That’s what I figured.”
“Plus, it took awhile to figure out what to do.”
“You didn’t have a lot of choices. Man, that took some guts. You could have been hurt bad coming down the hill. Or he could have shot you.”
“I was hurt bad.”
“Thanks for bailing me out, though. I really mean that. I think you saved my life.”
“You’re welcome.”
Eventually the ground leveled out and they found themselves side by side on a single-lane logging road, clear-cuts and gentle uphill slopes to their right, sporadic glimpses of the North Fork of the Snoqualmie River through the dense firs to their left. According to the directions Stephens had given them, they would soon be approaching the intersection at the bottom of the hill below which they’d camped, and would soon see the little concrete bridge where the races had ended. That morning they’d gone up the mountain and then had circled back almost to their starting point. They should be within five or six miles of the beginning point of their trip and the guard at the gate.
After half a mile Zak broke a protracted silence. “You think we should go back to town? We could send help back for Giancarlo and Stephens.”
“I think we should try.”
“What are you going to do if we see the others?”
“I don’t think they’re going to trade shots now that I have a gun.”
“That gun is not going to deter Scooter. In fact, it might make him more likely to fire at us.”
“Even with a broken collarbone?”
“If he can fire a gun, he will.”
After riding a mile on the flat road, they arrived at the junction near the bridge. On the far side the landscape was cloaked in wind-driven white smoke, which they knew signaled burning vegetation; it was shifting like a series of rapidly moving fog banks. From time to time wind currents picked it up off the ground and allowed them to see the terrain, but from their vantage point along the river it was generally impenetrable. Every once in a while a gust would send enough toward them to cover a football field, and they would be riding in a fog for a few minutes.
“Are we going to be able to ride through that crap over there?” Muldaur asked.
“Doubtful.”
“Which means we won’t be going back into town anytime soon.”
“It might get better farther on.”
“It might get worse, too. It’s a good seven or eight miles into town from here.”
“More like eight or ten.”
“That’s a lot of smoke to be pedaling through. If we keep heading north in the hope of finding a clearing and we don’t, we’ll be in that much deeper. And I don’t think we’re going to find a clearing.”
“Neither do I.” Looking dazed and confused, several deer wandered down the center of the road, noses