Summer of Fire - Linda Jacobs [88]
The heavy growl of a diesel roared toward them on the bulldozed track leading out to Highway 212. The headlights of the big machine swept over them. When the glare subsided, Clare saw Steve in the passenger seat.
There was nothing to stay for. She couldn’t stand that Steve thought she was on Deering’s side. And another midnight evacuation would put her God knows where when Devon’s plane landed.
She ran toward the truck, waving her arms.
The door opened and Steve pulled her into the cab. When they reached Mammoth, she could get a room at the hotel. In the morning, she would figure out how to get to the airport.
The miles unfolded hypnotically, as the truck made the ten-mile descent down Soda Butte Creek to the Lamar River valley. Traffic was light, for the hotel guests, campers, and soldiers of the fire war had settled for the night.
Clare straddled the seat between Steve and Miguel. She saw little of the country, just the stabbing beams of headlights on the two-lane asphalt and the colorless specters of trees rushing past. To the north, the crimson glow of the Storm Creek and Hellroaring fires lighted the sky.
Down and down, twenty miles until the truck launched onto a span over dark space. A sign identified the chasm as the Yellowstone River. After Tower Junction, they began the climb up the divide that led to Mammoth.
Deering had put his hands on Clare tonight, but the thrill that had first run through her at his touch had vanished. Hell, nothing was the same as it had been four hours ago when she and Steve had crawled into a dugout hole in the ground and listened to Billy Jakes’s fiery death.
On the rising slope, moonlight silvered the Blacktail Deer Plateau. A pair of reddish-gold orbs flashed in the headlights, animals abroad in the night.
Past the summit, the road to Mammoth joined Lava Creek Canyon, spiraling down. The center of the gorge was an ominous gash.
How dark was it where Billy Jakes was tonight? He had a wife, maybe even children, she didn’t know, but Sergeant Ron Travis had been clear. Clare had led Billy on his final march.
The truck rushed down a roller coaster that carried her stomach. Tomorrow Devon would arrive, coming into the midst of another death investigation involving her mother. She’d shrugged off Clare’s feelings of guilt over Frank, just like all the other firefighters. Get back on that horse and ride, they’d all said. Right into the maw of the Hellroaring.
She didn’t know if she could go back on the line. Garrett had given her a few days off to show Devon the sights and after that, maybe she’d go home.
As they drove, she felt Steve’s thigh and shoulder against her side. A few more miles and he looped an arm around her, drawing her head onto his chest. She rested against him, hearing his steady heartbeat. Deering had said he was a worthless alcoholic and she’d seen him drunk, but that couldn’t erase the way Steve had looked at her just before he’d thrown off the fire shelter.
Clare looked through the windshield and watched night rush at them.
CHAPTER TWENTY
September 4
By a freak of atmospheric currents, Mammoth Valley was clear tonight. Leafy cottonwoods underlined to Clare the contrast between this refuge and the stark skeletons of trees all over the park. A herd of perhaps thirty elk posed on the lawn in front of Park Headquarters.
They were more fortunate than the ones Steve had found on Black Saturday. For that matter, through mere luck, Clare and Steve had not been dealt the card Billy Jakes had received.
She climbed down from the truck after Steve. In the street, he said, “You can bunk at my place.” She saw how he looked at her rather than at the Mammoth Hotel across the way.
She considered. Still shaking inside at how close they’d come to the edge, she wasn’t ready to be alone.
He pointed along the street lined with stately old houses. “I’m down that way.”
She checked herself for reluctance. “Your place is fine.”
Steve played tour guide. “There used to be a much grander hotel. The National was an enormous