Primal Threat - Earl Emerson [99]
The others stepped over to where Giancarlo was standing on a mound at the side of the road. From here they were able to see the distant lower parts of the mountain to the south; fire was indeed running up the sides of the lower slopes in massive sheets.
“That’s about where the wreck was,” said Zak.
“Shit. There’s another fire.”
“Where?” Stephens had climbed higher than the others, was standing on an old cedar stump eight feet across. When the others joined him, they could see directly down the mountain to some of the cliffs near where they’d slept the night before. Flames were coming up the side of the mountain close to where their camp had been.
“Three different points of origin,” said Muldaur. “Out in the valley. By the wreck and one at our camp.”
“They had a fire in our camp earlier,” said Muldaur. “They must have come up behind us and lit something in that area again. Now they’re searching the cabins at the lake. They’re right behind us.”
“If we’d stayed on the main road, they’d catch us for sure. This detour was good.”
After some time had gone by, Stephens lowered his voice and said, “Did you see Morse when you were at the camp?” Zak could tell it had taken a good deal of effort to get the question out. He and Morse had been friends for years.
“The body was gone,” said Zak.
“Gone where?”
“No idea. There was no trace of him.”
“They probably took him back to town.”
“Yeah, that’s right,” said Muldaur. “They probably have him all spread out in a funeral parlor with gardenias in his hair and wearing a nice new tuxedo.”
“There’s no need to get snide.”
“Maybe not, but there’s no fucking way they took him to town. You need to get your head out of your ass.”
Stephens was too tired to take umbrage at the remark, even as Muldaur was too exhausted to guard his words. They were all exhausted.
One by one they grew weary of watching the progress of the fires and wandered into the abandoned mining area. Giancarlo sat on a small boulder and tended to the bandages on his leg while Zak dropped to one knee and helped him.
Stephens hunkered on the ground and bit into an energy bar.
Leaving the rifle next to his bike, Muldaur sat on a patch of brown grass that poked through a slag heap. “The Land Rover crashed. The little guy. I forget his name…”
“Ryan Perry,” said Stephens.
“He’s dead.”
“What?” Giancarlo stopped fiddling with his bandages.
“Scooter crashed the Land Rover,” said Zak. “We’re pretty sure Perry died in the wreck. If he wasn’t dead when we saw him, he is now.”
“And Scooter?”
“Scooter was fine,” said Muldaur.
“He had a broken collarbone when we left him,” said Zak. “Along with some scrapes and bruises.”
“So how did you two get beat up?” Stephens asked Muldaur.
“Scooter and I had a disagreement,” said Muldaur. “It went on for a while.”
“I crashed,” added Zak.
“It must have been a doozy.”
“It was.”
Stephens continued to make inquiries, as if more information could somehow make their circumstances less dire. Zak had seen the same psychological mechanism at play in the fire department whenever anybody got hurt badly. Glean the details—the more, the better—and once you had them, digest them, make your assessment, then convince yourself it couldn’t have happened to you because you would have done things differently. It was part of the universal human impulse to distance oneself from tragedy using rationalization and self-deception. Zak wasn’t very good at it simply because every tragedy he’d seen in the fire department was one he quickly became convinced would visit him at some future date. He knew he was at heart a pessimist, and he knew his pessimism was rooted in the car accident when he was eleven, yet he felt helpless to change his nature or even try.
They would rest in the mine pit until the coast was clear or the fires came too close and forced them to move farther up the mountain.
45
Muldaur stretched out in the shade and took a nap.