Summer of Fire - Linda Jacobs [28]
Steve looked up from the roadside parking lot at Roaring Mountain, a bare, bleached slope that smoked from hundreds of steam vents. It always came as a surprise, after driving for miles through the unrelenting corridor of pine, to come upon the scar that looked as though it had been quarried.
A cluster of press piled off the advance bus. The Washington contingent looked as though they’d bought their stylish outdoor clothing at Abercrombie and Fitch just before boarding the plane. The press corps, mostly westerners, wore rugged jeans and scarred footwear that was suitable for rough terrain.
Secretary Mason smiled at the reporters.
A lanky cameraman with an untidy coffee-colored pony-tail stepped in closer. The stocky young woman with him thrust her mike at the Secretary’s face. “Carol Leeds, Billings Live Eye.” Her mane of red hair spilled over the shoulders of her denim jacket. “Is it true the Park Service made a serious error in judgment when they let the fires burn out of control in the park?”
Garrett Anderson murmured to Steve, “Cutting right to the chase.”
Mason studied Carol Leeds with sharp blue eyes for so long that the group of reporters broke ranks.
“Mr. Secretary . . . “
“Secretary Mason . . . “
“Do you support the Park Service . . .?”
Mason raised his hand and waited for quiet. “Certainly, I support the men and women in whose hands lies the stewardship of Yellowstone, our national’s crown jewel.”
Steve thought that he could never be a politician. He would have told them wildfire was natural, that in Yellowstone man had been just standing in the way of the inevitable since before the turn of the twentieth century.
For when Native Americans dominated the land, the Smoky Bear phenomenon hadn’t existed. They used fire to clear fields and forest undergrowth and early settlers followed their lead. How ironic during this season’s blowup that Yellowstone had been the first place in the nation with fire patrols, set up by the U.S. Army in 1886. Fire suppression for a hundred years had let the forests grow until the level of fuels was at an historic high.
“What’s going to happen at Old Faithful?” blurted the freckle-faced journalist Mason chose next.
Garrett Anderson interceded. “Mr. Secretary, if I may?”
Mason nodded.
“We’ve got a thousand firefighters digging line and setting backfires west of Old Faithful,” Garrett told the press. “For the time being, I feel safe to say the danger to the complex has been averted.”
Impatient to get his part of the program over, Steve took the lead onto a foot trail that wound along the base of Roaring Mountain. Park Superintendent Tom King, a beanpole of a man, fell into step, his neatly pressed uniform of gray jacket and darker pants made a sharp contrast to the Secretary’s vacation wear. The press followed like a pack of hounds.
As the hill steepened, Steve felt the incline. His heart started to pound and his dry mouth made him aware of his hangover. Garrett Anderson caught up with him. The thick-waisted fire general put it on Steve as they continued to climb. “You met Clare Chance,” Garrett said in the soft accent of a fellow southerner.
“Things were happening a bit fast for us to be properly introduced the day that chopper crashed.” He failed to mention how he’d distinguished himself last night at the Bear Pit.
“Clare’s quite a gal.”
“I thought so.” Steve tried not to sound out of breath.
Garrett smiled. “Friend of mine at the Texas A & M fire school recommended she train the troops to fight fire.”
Clare went up another notch in Steve’s estimation. Last night he’d been looking at her bare shoulders and legs and thinking she looked all woman. Now, he was reminded how she’d saved him from the Shoshone and realized if she were going to train the military, she must be one tough woman.
“If we have