Summer of Fire - Linda Jacobs [119]
“Can I help here?” Clare shouted to the man spraying the inn’s roof.
“I think we’ve done all we can,” he returned.
She ran for the chopper Deering sat in. Pulling herself up into the passenger seat of the Huey, she slammed the door.
Breathing hard, with a stitch in her side, she felt the futility. It was stuffy in the cockpit, but not as crazy as being out in the screaming gale. “Will we be safe here?” she asked.
Deering stared through the windshield. “We’re a ways from anything flammable right now, but if the inn starts to go up, we’ll need to abandon ship.”
“Okay.” Clare turned to study his pale face. “You look sick.”
Deering’s eyes were smoke-reddened. “I really am sick . . . or something. Garrett and I weren’t scheduled to land, but I . . .”
Clare put a hand on his shoulder. He shook as though he were on drugs, like some of the ODs she’d run to the ER in Houston. She’d told Deering there was nothing for them, to go back to his wife, but she hated to see him falling apart like this. “Have you seen Georgia?”
The chopper rocked as a gust struck it. More cinders pelted the windshield.
“I botched it.” He sounded broken.
Clare sat up straighter when she saw Garrett Anderson running toward them. He slid open the rear door and the wind whirled inside. Climbing into the back, he said, “Deering, the way the fire’s moving, I’m sure that it’s cut off those guys we saw counting plants or something.” He raised his index finger and circled it to mimic rotors. “Let’s pick ‘em up.”
Clare swallowed. Steve had gone to do something in the woods with his fellow biologists.
She waited for Deering to start flipping switches.
The chopper rocked again. “Can’t do it, Garrett,” Deering said. “In this wind, we’d crash.”
Devon jumped as an explosion reverberated across the Geyser Basin. Fire raged on three sides of the inn and darkness had fallen in midafternoon.
The North Fork swept steadily toward her perch on the roof of the inn. A building at the edge of the parking lot burned unchecked, after the firefighters who had been spraying it had retreated.
Another rumble rolled across the valley. “What is that?” Devon asked.
“Probably fuel storage tanks,” the tall cameraman with the ponytail replied. He hefted his video unit to his shoulder. “It’s time to get off this firetrap.”
Below, a helicopter sat on the parking lot. Its door opened and a small figure climbed out. Something about the determined walk of the person dressed in fire clothes made her scream, “Mom!”
Clare, if it was she, joined another man and headed away from the hotel. They looked strong and purposeful like all the firefighters, while Devon shook with fear. She must have been crazy to come up here.
A gust hit her like a fist. Her hand opened and the white napkin lifted and blew away.
God, she was falling, her arms windmilling toward that lousy knee-high rail. Heights had made her mindless since she was old enough to peer from the stair landing and scramble back for dear life.
She landed hard on her wrist and elbow. Lying on the rubber roof mat, she fought nausea while pain brought tears to her eyes.
Reaching her trembling good hand to the railing, she pulled herself up. A single dizzying glance over the edge told her if she had been next to the downwind side, she’d have tumbled fifty feet down the steep roof.
Her heart hammered. Looking at the faraway porch where she would have fallen, she suddenly realized that the shingle roof was ablaze.
Devon shrieked and nearly wet her pants. She ran for the stairs behind the ponytailed cameraman. Down one flight and just before she reached the door leading inside the inn, a flying cinder caught her in the chest. Feeling its sting below her collarbone, she raised a hand to slap it away. In the same instant, the singed foulness of burning hair filled her nostrils.
The cameraman, already halfway inside the inn, turned back. His video landed on the decking with a crash. Swiftly, he pulled off his jacket and wrapped her head and shoulders.
The burning heat on her skin sent agonized pulses that