Summer of Fire - Linda Jacobs [150]
Steve clasped Moru’s extended hand. “It’s been one hell of a summer.”
Moru shifted his tall frame and nodded toward the half-full rear of the station wagon. “The North Fork’s not to reach us till tomorrow, but . . .” He cocked a dark brow at the restless limbs of the cottonwoods. “In the morning I will send Nyeri and the kids to stay with friends in Bozeman.”
“Good idea.” Steve would have to send Clare and Devon away, too. He planned to stay, for even a gimp could patrol the evacuation by truck.
“You must get packing,” Moru advised.
“I’ll do that now.” Steve took off toward his house at as brisk a pace as he could manage, pausing to dry-swallow two ibuprofen when pain told him to take it easy. He passed within twenty feet of a lazy group of elk. These local animals seemed so tame that he could only hope they would move off their chosen turf if the North Fork burned through.
Steve went up the back stairs of his house and into the kitchen. The house had that silent feel he always came home to, and he had to remind himself that today he wasn’t alone.
“Clare?” False twilight made the kitchen dark.
Devon was supposed to be sleeping, so he stopped calling and went into the living room. Here a lamp cut the gloom. Steve went into the short hall and listened for the murmur of voices. A board creaked beneath his boot. The bedroom door had been left off the latch.
Clare’s daughter lay on her side with one hand beneath her cheek. The shorn part of her curly hair exposed a profile smooth and untroubled like a child’s. A little tug in his chest said that Christa would have been a blonde too. Although Steve thought he’d opened the door quietly, blue eyes opened and focused on him. “Is Mom here?”
He shook his head. “She may have gone over to the Fire Cache.”
Devon gave a faint smile. “She can’t stay away, even when she says she’s gonna.” She closed her eyes as though she was still exhausted.
From the nightstand, Steve picked up the frame containing the pictures of Susan and Christa. In the living room, he stripped off the backing and removed them, then set the empty silver frame on the piano.
Down the hall, he opened the spare room that he used for a study and darkroom. Aluminum foil covered the windows and an Indian blanket was rolled to block the light from under the door. His negatives resided in a metal box, indexed by year and subject matter. He placed the box in the hall.
From a nearby shelf, Steve plucked his master’s thesis and doctoral dissertation, the copies that had been signed by his major professors. He tucked the photos of Susan and Christa inside the back of his dissertation on forest ecology, contrasting the Southern pine assemblage with a deciduous control.
Books in hand, he stood thinking what else was irreplaceable.
His textbooks were out of date. His favorite novels could be found in a library. His furniture was ordinary except for a piano he now knew he should have sold years ago. He carried the box and books out to the kitchen, where he added a nondescript set of stainless camping cookware. His Dad had composed many a fireside meal in those pans, while teaching the culinary arts that were now Steve’s pleasure.
A cardboard carton from the pantry held everything.
After carrying it out to the truck, he came back and got his toolboxes from the porch. A lot of the tools had also been handed down from his father.
The wind continued to rise; the harbinger of yet another dry front. Steve scattered his small pile of firewood from against the house over the yard.
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
September 9
Clare entered Steve’s kitchen through the back porch. His blond hair was darkened from a shower and he wore fresh jeans and an Old Faithful T-shirt. He turned and smiled at her from the counter where he was dredging chicken breasts in flour flecked with spices. His wooden cutting board was piled with onions, carrots, and a carton of mushrooms.
Two bottles of Chilean Cabernet