Summer of Fire - Linda Jacobs [124]
“Sure. Moru is driving the kids back to Mammoth.” His gray eyes remained on Clare. “You coming?”
She thought of Devon and shook her head. “I have to find my daughter. She’s been missing since last night.”
Garrett jumped on the new emergency with the same alacrity she’d seen in him since July. “Okay, I’ll need a description, and a photo if possible. We’ll get it out to all the rangers and the heads of the fire crews as well, since most of the park is closed to tourists.”
“I’ve got a picture in my bag at the cabin.”
“Get it then, so we can head out,” Garrett said.
It wasn’t far, but before she’d covered half the distance, she saw smoke coiling up from behind the first row of rough wooden roofs. A pale swirl compared to the black tower over the North Fork. Despite layers of foam laid on thick, at least seven of the small dark buildings had burned.
Approaching on leaden feet, Clare found she didn’t need her key. The ceiling had collapsed, covering the smouldering ruins of the twin mattresses. Burned and half-burned timbers lay about like pick-up sticks, some precariously propping up portions of the roof. She almost leaned against the door-jamb to support herself, but felt the heat of charred timber just in time to pull her hand away.
She was losing it. Almost two months of inhaling enough to equal two packs a day, and she had had enough. If . . . when she found Devon, she was going to take her home.
The things she’d bought in Jackson were on her bed, with Devon’s picture inside her checkbook. Peering though the drifting smoke, she saw the synthetic bag, a melted lump of plastic. Thankfully, she carried her wallet in her trouser pocket.
Her foot crunched on fallen shingles as she advanced carefully into the cabin. The inn might have survived, but how old was this building that had seen many seasons of employees and their families come and go? With a thickening in her throat, the ruin reminded her of the falling down homestead of the Suttons.
There was more to lose here than a photograph of her daughter. Clare had only begun to know Laura Sutton through words penned long ago and she wanted more. To know the hardships and triumphs of a life that had ultimately led to her creation.
The small table where she’d left the book still stood between the beds. There was nothing on it except the lamp, lying on its side with the shade burned away. She started to move toward the table, stepping over fallen boards.
Her foot slipped on the pile of rubble and she fell against the bathroom wall. Looking down, she saw that her boot had uncovered the diary. With a sigh of relief, she snatched it up and headed back to where Steve and Garrett waited.
“There’s Nez Perce,” Deering told Devon.
Straight ahead of the Huey rose a high peak with a broad, jumbled slope of blocky rock facing them. Sharp ridges splayed out in three directions. The summit was above timberline, with scrubby grass growing in the fractures between dark rocks.
Jack Owen had said the hikers were being trapped on a ridge by a fire. Seeing a rising smoke column behind the mountain’s shoulder, Deering zeroed in on a potential area.
He put the chopper into a dive. Then he leveled off and flew along the west spine. From a few hundred feet away he noted that the rocks were as big as houses. There was no sign that the hikers were sheltering on the barren slope.
“Help me look for these guys,” he told Devon through their headphones.
She swiveled her blond head. From the corner of his eye, Deering noted long tanned legs in tight shorts and surmised that Devon’s father must have been a big man. Her mother was certainly a lot smaller.
He climbed again, heading up to the ridge crest. The top flashed past and the forest on the east side dropped away beneath. There was the fire, eating its way up the slope.
Deering swung in a wide arc and came back. This time he flew only about a hundred feet off the promontory, fighting