Summer of Fire - Linda Jacobs [115]
Devon thought that if Clare were still at the geyser basin, she would be out there with the firefighters. Through the glass rear door that led out of the Old Faithful Inn lobby, the sky looked even darker than it had when she’d come inside just after one p.m.
Her mother’s accusations still made her chest ache. For years, both her parents and Elyssa had believed the worst of her. According to Annalise McIntyre, whose folks had dumped her in the loonie bin for acting out inappropriately, group therapy was full of “dysfunctional families.”
Last night when it had gotten too cold and scary, Devon had sneaked, shivering, into the hotel. Near dawn, a patrolling security guard had rousted her from a couch on the lobby balcony. “Go on now, miss, we don’t have no sleeping in here.”
He’d thought she was a vagrant.
This afternoon the smell of smoke permeated even inside the Inn. Members of the press came out from filming the vacant dining room. With a small shock, Devon saw they wore white napkins tied around the lower half of their faces as filters.
“You think maybe we should get out of here?” she asked a red-haired woman reporter in a jeans jacket. Maybe she and her ponytailed companion with the video would give her a ride out. She’d looked for Mom until all the buses had gone.
The reporter shook her head and headed with the others toward the stairs. Devon checked out their conversation.
“Superlative vantage point . . . “
“Special exception . . . “
Devon ducked into the cavernous dining room with wagon wheel chandeliers and a huge fireplace. Like the others had, she grabbed a napkin off a table setting. Hurrying to keep up, she chased the press upstairs.
On the third floor, she followed the journalists as they stepped over a chain and went up rickety-looking stairs through the open atrium. Devon didn’t look down as she climbed. At the top was a tree house, complete with gingerbread scrollwork. Out through a door so small she had to duck, and onto the inn’s roof. Forceful gusts of wind struck. She stopped and stared at the column of smoke pouring up from the fire that seemed to be just beyond the horizon. One more set of wooden stairs took her to the widow’s walk astride the highest peak of the inn.
A mounting roar announced the approach of a plane from the west. Flying low, the tanker dumped a load of red liquid in a long sweeping pass. A rosy fog hung, streamers emerging from the bottom of the cloud as it fell to earth. The smoke lay down and Devon breathed relief.
In a moment, it swirled up black with the fire’s renewed fury.
The North Fork couldn’t be half a mile away.
With the rising wind and deepening darkness, it grew colder. On the opposite side of the roof, the ponytailed man videotaped the people wearing napkin masks. Even though the smoke stung her eyes and throat, Devon clutched her own napkin in a sweaty hand.
The woman reporter began taping. “This is Carol Leeds, Billings Live Eye,” she intoned importantly. “Only a handful of tourists remain to watch the geyser’s show at Old Faithful Inn this afternoon, where formerly there were hundreds of spectators.” A double ring of empty benches surrounded the geyser. “The evacuation was announced at dawn. All morning, busloads of visitors and employees have pulled away from the loading zone in front of this landmark hotel. This does not mean that all is quiet, though, for firefighters have ringed the inn.”
From below, they sent flaring arcs of water to break on the roof and sheet down. Farther away, another group covered small wooden cabins in foam that looked like shaving cream.
Devon looked for her mother, checking for a firefighter who was a lot smaller than the others. Last night she’d slipped up and admitted to being scared when Mom went to the fire station. Pretending it didn’t matter had been part of her defense. That had worked pretty well . . . until back in July when Mom came