Summer of Fire - Linda Jacobs [10]
Clare imagined times past, when Native Americans or settlers from the East had faced a fire such as the Shoshone. They’d had no truck to escape in, nor any pumpers or hoses to save their houses. Men and women had passed buckets until the verdict was a changed land and a new village to be built.
Now the Shoshone caught up with the backfire. The roiling glow had an eerie life, crimson, then flaring orange and wavering purple. As much as the sight exhilarated her, Clare also hated to see the forest burn. How many years must pass before it would be restored?
The heat grew more intense. Javier gunned the engine, his hands now white-knuckled. He, like Clare, wore Nomex fire retardant clothing, tested at DuPont to withstand the heat of a blowtorch. She hoped they didn’t get a chance to find out.
Just ahead, a tree uprooted and cartwheeled across the road.
Javier hit the brakes. The truck slewed sideways.
Clare nearly shrieked, but caught herself in time to keep from scaring the bejesus out of the driver. She ducked and braced against the dash. As Javier fought for control, two wheels dropped off the pavement. Gravel thrown up by the tires hailed against the undercarriage.
Her stomach clenched, for if they ended up on foot there was no telling what would happen.
After driving half in the ditch for thirty yards, Javier managed to pull back onto the highway. Clare felt as though the truck’s heater ran full blast as they sped through the screaming gale.
When they broke out, it happened suddenly. One moment they were driving through burning forest and the next, they were in the clear on the main highway. The wide thoroughfare with broad shoulders formed an efficient firebreak.
Clare rolled the window down and savored the breeze on her hot cheeks.
They left the flames behind and took the turnoff for West Thumb Geyser Basin, a mile from Grant Village. Javier parked and she ran down the boardwalk that bridged the thin crust. On either side were algae-coated spring deposits in hues of mustard, lime, and rust. Steam rose from clear turquoise pools and was whisked away. A hundred yards downslope, the boardwalk curved and ran along Yellowstone Lake.
“I don’t see anything.” Javier caught up with her in a loping stride. The wind that had fed the fires since June blew his dark hair and whipped the lake into whitecaps.
Clare fiddled with the Motorola and tried again to call West Yellowstone.
“Go back to the pay phone by the restrooms and see if you can talk to Garrett,” she told Javier. “Let me know if they’ve rescued anyone.”
Left alone, she looked up and down the beach. West Thumb seemed an oasis next to the Shoshone raging to the south. The pale smooth rock of the Fishing Cone broke the water’s surface a few feet offshore, while the shadows of trout hung nearby. Swirling eddies indicated more springs flowing into the lake.
Despite, or perhaps because of, the fire’s sideshow, a number of tourists strolled the geyser basin. A man with a video camera gestured for his slender blond companion to stand farther left so the plume of smoke would be in the background.
Clare headed for them. “Did you see a helicopter go down in the lake?”
The woman gasped and shook her head. The man pointed toward the fire. “Heard an engine over that way a while ago.”
Another scan of the lake turned up no sign of a floating wreck.
Clare watched the Shoshone leap through the treetops and wondered if tourists should be this close. At the flame front, pines exploded as their moisture flashed to steam. She’d always been mesmerized by fire, but until her husband, Jay, had left her, she’d never considered the challenge of fighting it for a living. Jay and her daughter, Devon, didn’t understand why she’d rushed