Summer of Fire - Linda Jacobs [37]
As Steve concentrated on not throwing up, a steadying hand touched his shoulder.
“I don’t want to leave.” His voice broke. He wanted to stay in Yellowstone where the land brought peace.
“I am told that you must accept treatment or nothing changes,” Moru said in a compelling yet soft tone. “Dugan would have come, but he was advised to send someone you view as your friend.”
Moru was his friend. Steve was grateful for his coming to the Lake Hotel’s bar after the chopper crash. He’d told Steve he’d found him slouched asleep in a wicker chair, wasting the view of water. Without a censuring word, he’d settled the tab and supported Steve on their way out of the lobby.
Moru squared his shoulders. “They said you must check yourself into treatment.”
Steve couldn’t breathe, imagining himself in a straitjacket, screaming and beating his head against the walls of a padded room. Someone would sit in the corridor recording his tears and profanity with an impassive hand. He should have known this was coming, but there were a lot of walls inside him, one for lying about his drinking, another for his father’s slow death from leukemia, and the big iron one he kept Susan and Christa behind.
Except when it rusted through.
“Why now, Moru? I’ve had these problems for years.”
“You said you were running late for a Monday?” Moru kicked the empty bottle of Old Crow with a vicious swipe of his boot.
“Yeah.”
“So, it’s not Monday, Steve. It’s Wednesday.”
On Wednesday afternoon, Clare wiped sweat from her face with the standard issue bandanna. Thankfully, daylight and hours of toil had driven away the spirits of Frank and little Pham Nguyen. Behind her, a column of troops on their second training day marched through still heat toward West Yellowstone.
Things had gone well with the soldiers, despite their youthful armor of invincibility that reminded her of her daughter. Devon could be counted on to downplay danger, no matter whether it was inhaling cigarette smoke with the glamorous air of a fifties movie star, driving too fast even with Clare in the car, or diving into the shallow end of the Springwood Pool. The day Frank died, Devon had taken one look at Clare’s face and hid out in her room. It had stung, as if her daughter hadn’t cared or taken it seriously.
Ahead in the pines, Clare caught sight of something colorful and veered left.
“This way.” Sergeant Travis pointed.
“I know.” She tried to keep an edge out of her voice. “I merely wanted to see what was there.” Around fifty yards away, a bright drape fluttered from a tree.
Without waiting for Travis’s reply, she struck out walking toward the banner. As she drew nearer, the cloth became a faded housedress, drying in the wind. Several tents that might once have been yellow were pitched around the ashes of a campfire. A woman with braided black hair sat on the ground mending a pair of trousers.
Clare stopped and Sergeant Travis stepped on her heel. With a muffled oath, she held out a warning hand. “Migrant camp.” This sheltered oasis seemed fragile.
Travis frowned.
“They come to work the summer season,” Clare explained. “There’s not enough housing in town so they live in squatters’ camps. When the Forest Service finds them, they move until they’re rousted again.”
The woman scrambled to her feet, still clutching the pants. Even at a distance, Clare saw that her eyes were wide.
“Let’s tell her to go, then,” Travis said loudly.
“Leave her alone,” Clare returned.
Travis’s eyes were on a level with hers, a fact that obviously added to his Napoleon complex. He seemed to be evaluating whether she regarded her statement as an order.
“I’m heading to town.” She turned and walked away, passing the curious group of soldiers. In fifteen minutes, she came out of the trees onto pavement at the west end of Yellowstone Avenue and heard the tramp of boots behind her.
West Yellowstone had the spare look of many a northern community. Trailer homes and small, weathered houses sported bare yards growing nothing but stacks of firewood and parked snowmobiles. Clare