Summer of Fire - Linda Jacobs [97]
Deering felt as though the air were a thick liquid that he swam through. “No.” He couldn’t think of anything that wouldn’t be a lie, and he was through lying. Another rose ended up on the floor. “It’s not what you think,” he managed.
Georgia put out a stiff arm and shoved the vase she’d treasured for twenty years, and he’d never realized why until today . . . off the table. It tumbled to the floor, bounced once and smashed.
“Go back to her,” she said. “Fight your damned fires.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
September 5
Within the peaceful town of Jackson, nestled at the base of a butte, it was hard for Clare to believe that war raged on a hundred fronts to the north. She wanted nothing more to do with it.
After she’d told Deering good-bye at the Jackson Hole Airport, she had rented another car, shopped for clothes that weren’t green and yellow Nomex, and checked into a motel. Then she’d walked, window-shopping turquoise jewelry and bronzes, and sat beneath the town square’s antler arches.
Deering had gone to try and make things right with his wife, as it should be. That left things all wrong with Steve. Last night, after they’d talked for hours, she’d almost believed the spell of his Susan was weakening. And if Deering’s call had made him jealous, maybe that was a good sign. She passed a pay phone, but what could she say if she called? Devon would be here within hours.
Thinking of family and watching the tourist stagecoach circling the block reminded her that she wanted to learn about her ancestors. Such ties extended beyond death, like Steve’s to his wife and child. If she didn’t have Jay anymore, she at least had her daughter and the people who’d gone before.
Recalling the Yellowstone historian’s recommendations, she searched out the Jackson Hole Historical Society. It occupied an authentic-looking log building on a quiet side street. When she opened the door, a bell tinkled.
The man who emerged from the rear room might have been a weather-beaten seventy or a well-preserved eighty-five. His ruddy face beamed beneath a shock of silver hair. “Don’t get many folks here.” Filled from floor to ceiling with ancient volumes, the dimly lit cabin was not exactly the average tourist destination.
“Asa Dean.” Her host peered owlishly through glasses and extended an age-spotted hand.
“Clare Chance.”
Some of the books were thick leather-bound tomes with pages edged in gold; others had seen better days. Wildflower books were filed alongside old novels. When she trailed her finger along the edge of a water-stained spine, Asa offered, “A souvenir of the 1927 flood.”
“I’ve not heard of that,” Clare said.
“Back in twenty-five, old Sheep Mountain got tired of holding herself up and slid down into the valley of the Gros Ventre.” Asa’s voice lapsed into the cadence of telling a familiar tale. “Dammed the river and created Slide Lake . . . until the wet spring of twenty-seven. On May eighteenth, the earthen dam let loose and a fifty-foot wall of water wiped out the town of Kelly.”
“Were you here then?”
“I was born in Kelly in ought-seven. Moved to Jackson after the flood.”
“I had some family that lived near the Tetons. My grandfather left for Texas in twenty-seven.”
“Mayhap ‘cause of the flood.” Asa toyed with his suspenders. “Would you like coffee?”
Clare checked her watch. She’d called the airport and been told that Devon’s flight was delayed several hours. “That would be nice.”
“Cream and sugar?” Asa stumped into the room behind the library.
“Just black.” She raised her voice, for she’d noted her host wore a pair of large, old-fashioned hearing aids.
Asa returned. Coagulated lumps of powdered creamer floated in both brimfull Styrofoam cups. “What brings you to Jackson?”
“I’m a firefighter.”
“Whee . . .” Asa set his coffee on a worn antique table, hitched up his pants and sat down. “Many women do that now?”
“Some,” Clare said, then admitted, “not many.”
“We’re hearing they can’t stop those fires. Just plain burning out of control, and all you firefighters do is toast marshmallows.”
By now, she should be used to