Summer of Fire Part 37

"Everybody take ten," Garrett called. "Shad Dugan is coming over to map out where the crews will set up."

The group headed for the coffee urn and began pa.s.sing Styrofoam cups. "Something to drink?" Garrett asked Clare.

"No, thanks."

"Fig Newton?"

She laughed.

"They're in my car," Garrett said. "Why don't we take a walk?" He led the way out of the command post past the crowded radio room and the warehouse depleted of Pulaskis, rope, shovels, and webbed belts with canteens. The cache was mostly stocked for wildfire fighting, with a small unit for calls in the village. The biggest local fire danger was the Mammoth Hot Springs Hotel across the way, or it had been until today.

When Clare and Garrett went out, the world looked brighter. A stiff wind had blown out some of the hanging smoke, giving a filtered view of the surrounding mountains. The sun looked angry, a violent red disc suspended over the white terraces of the hot springs. As they crossed the lawn between Park Headquarters and the first big house on Officer's Row, Garrett asked, "You see any news last night?"

"Nothing but a few minutes of Peter Jennings. I caught it in the hospital waiting room while they were X-raying Devon. Democrats trying to give the spin that if they were in charge, nothing like this would have happened."

"Nightline agreed that people will argue about fire management policy for years," Garrett said. "How is Devon?"

"Cracked wrist and a chest burn she got from a flying cinder at Old Faithful." Ashes drifted from the sky as premature darkness resettled over the day. "She'll be okay once I get her home to Houston."

Garrett stopped in the street and looked at Clare. A flicker of his eyes took in her ragged hair. "How're you doing?"

She recalled their unfinished business. "I'll be a lot better when they've finished the h.e.l.lroaring investigation."

His dark brow furrowed as they moved onto the lawn with scattered picnic tables. "I've already taken statements from Sergeant Travis and the troops. And you told me about it the other night."

They reached the old parade ground that was thick with sage. Clare stopped beside a fence around a fumarole. Watching the steam rise and whip away on the wind, she dared to hope, "Is that it?"

"That's it."

She held the wooden rail and rode a surge of elation.

"I know you won't let an accident like what happened to Private Jakes run you off." Garrett was offhand.

She opened her mouth to tell him she'd quit, but said, "How do you know that when I don't?"

"A tough gal like you didn't let the death of Frank Wallace get her down."

Clare went still inside. "All summer, I've kept up a brave front, never thinking you knew."

"Buddy Simpson at A & M told me. He thought coming up here would do you good."

"So did the department psychologist."

Garrett leaned his bulk on the fence rail. It creaked and he stood straight again. "Getting back in action is always the best thing."

"Now you, too." Clare let go of the rail and crossed her arms over her chest. "I've been hearing that from everybody all summer."

"Because it's a fact."

Hadn't she thought that, herself, back in July when she scanned Lake Yellowstone and wanted to help the anonymous victims of a helicopter ditching?

Garrett went on, "Before you get away from us, I want to ask what you think about wildfire work."

Clare weighed the hours spent in the fire station in Houston against the mountain vistas the Smokejumpers enjoyed in West Yellowstone. The siren's wail as the engine negotiated eight lanes of traffic on Westheimer Road, versus the sunlight strobing in an avenue of trees. Going into an apartment to pull down the ceiling with a pike pole, or digging line in the pine smelling forest, with the ever-changing flames crackling a few yards away.

Both were honest hard work.

Billy Jakes had met a terrible end on the h.e.l.lroaring, but it was G.o.d's own truth that she saw more death in the city from wrecks and coronaries than she could ever find in the forest. For the first time since she'd made her decision, she hesitated. "What about wildfire?"

"I want you with me at the Interagency Center in Boise."

Clare glanced over her shoulder toward the small frame building Steve called home. Boise was a lot closer to Yellowstone than Houston. "Talk to me," she said.

Garrett smiled. "Before you commit yourself to Boise there's one more thing you might want to know. Ben Mallory is retiring here at the Fire Cache early next year. They'll be needing somebody too."

Are you moving to Yellowstone? Clare heard Devon's voice in her head, as clearly as when her daughter had asked the question earlier in the summer. She looked again at Steve's place, where the light from the lamp she'd left on in the living room glowed. "I'll think about it."

Black smoke billowed from behind the high smooth shoulder of Bunsen Peak.

Steve left the administration building and limped across the lawn toward Park Headquarters. Maybe he should have brought along those crutches.

With an angry look at the smoke haze, he found it difficult to believe it had only been seventy-two hours since the North Fork's Incident Commander had p.r.o.nounced that fire would sweep through Old Faithful. Now the Chief Ranger was weighing the wisdom of evacuating Mammoth. In contrast to the seasonal ebb and flow, headquarters was the year-round community that directed people and goods to the rest of the park, like a heart pumping blood.

Steve pa.s.sed Carol Leeds from Billings Live Eye and the ponytailed cameraman who'd heckled him at Roaring Mountain. They were filming the collection of fire trucks and apparatus in the yard.

The outside bas.e.m.e.nt door of headquarters gave its usual protest at opening, but finally let Steve into the hall outside the archives. To his surprise, the lights were off behind the wire gla.s.s windows. Walt Leighton and Harriet must have closed early to pack for the evacuation.

Pale illumination from the above ground bas.e.m.e.nt windows gave Steve a view into the familiar room lined with filing cabinets. To him, these records were so much more than yellowed paper and fading ink. They were people's lives, transcribed with loving care, so that future generations might know their legacy. He thought of Clare's ancestral diary that they'd found in Grand Teton Park. He needed to look at that and make sure a copy was made for posterity.

An approaching fire engine rumbled. Ranger Shad Dugan had said that by morning there would be at least forty units onsite. Steve glanced at the sprinkler head on the ceiling. Beneath the stone building, the archives were largely insulated, but what of the historic wooden buildings of old Fort Yellowstone? By this time tomorrow, the place Steve called home might be ashes.

His knees protested as he exited the building and headed toward his house.

Next door, Moru Mzima came out and set a loaded cardboard box on the open tailgate of his Chevy wagon. "b.l.o.o.d.y glad to see you," he called. "I heard just now that you were in another nasty sc.r.a.pe yesterday."

Steve clasped Moru's extended hand. "It's been one h.e.l.l of a summer."

Moru s.h.i.+fted 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 c.o.c.ked 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 pa.s.sed 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 a.s.semblage 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-s.h.i.+rt. He turned and smiled at her from the counter where he was dredging chicken b.r.e.a.s.t.s in flour flecked with spices. His wooden cutting board was piled with onions, carrots, and a carton of mushrooms.

Two bottles of Chilean Cabernet sat beside the largest copper pot from the rack.

"For cooking." Steve had said that at the Pic and Save when he'd placed them in the cart, but Clare really wanted to have a gla.s.s.

"Corkscrew's in that drawer." He pointed with his elbow. She didn't move.

"As far as I know," he said dryly, "you're not the one who needs to stay off the stuff."

She secured the opener and removed the cork with a satisfying pop.

"I can still name that tune in one note," Steve said with regret.

"You're doing great, though." She poured and tasted the red's balance of grape and oak tannins. "This will go well in the stew."

As she mentally toasted being here with Steve, she nearly blurted out Garrett's offer. What kept her silent was that she didn't know how he would take it. Sleeping with her was one thing, but he'd given no sign he'd be open to anything of a longer term.

Steve rinsed his hands and reached for a hand towel. "I'm sure you heard the North Fork is coming."

"Big time. Can I help you pack?" She looked around his kitchen and wondered what he valued enough to take.

"Already done," he said. "I travel light."

Here she was thinking of moving to Boise to be closer to him. How would a man who traveled light take that?

Deliberately putting the future from her mind, she checked on Devon and found her still sleeping. The spread was thrown back. As Clare re-covered her, she noticed the nightstand was bare.

Of course, Steve would have packed Susan and Christa's pictures.

Clare pa.s.sed the piano and had a restless impulse to play. For a defiant moment she almost did, to show Steve that his home could have music again. Instead, she went into the kitchen, certain that her technique would be too basic for him.

"Can I help?" she asked from behind his shoulder.

"Just stand back and let the master work." He turned and dropped a light kiss on her cheek. As quickly, he went back to dicing.

She sat at the kitchen table, sipped a long slow gla.s.s of wine, and drank in the show. Despite his limp, Steve moved with grace. His hands were sure and exact as he produced clean coins of carrot and slices of mushroom.

When the meal was prepared, she went and asked Devon whether she would prefer a tray or getting up. Dopey from the drug, Devon elected dinner in bed.

An hour later, the aroma of stewed chicken lingered in the kitchen. The delightful blend of spices and the succulent taste had proven that Steve was one primo chef.

"I'll do the dishes," Clare said. He'd done more than his share by cooking when his knees were probably killing him. She located some plastic bags and filled them with ice from the freezer. Wrapped in a kitchen towel, they made credible ice packs. "One for each leg. Off you go."

In Steve's bedroom, she collected Devon's half-eaten dinner and saw that she had fallen back to sleep. She paused and planted a kiss on her daughter's forehead, the kind that would have made her squirm if she were awake.

On her way down the hall, her chest swelled with content. Steve stretched out on the sofa looking so comfortable that she wanted to lie down and put her head against his shoulder.

With a smile that warmed her, he asked, "Would you mind if I looked through your great-grandmother's diary?"

She hadn't had a chance to sit down and really read it yet, but there could be nothing in it she wouldn't trust Steve to see. She knew how he loved history. "I'll get it."

Clare's 'luggage' was on the kitchen windowsill, the paper sack her grizzly T-s.h.i.+rt had come in. It contained the s.h.i.+rt and diary, along with a toothbrush, paste, and comb. She was traveling light, herself.

That felt good. For months she'd lived out of a suitcase, mostly wearing a uniform that bonded her with the brotherhood of firefighting. Black and white, Native American, Hispanic, and Asian, they dressed alike. College student, fire general, soldier and convict, they came together for the season . . . and back apart.

Laura Sutton's leather-bound book felt more fragile, the spine wobbly from all it had been through. Much more handling would see the pages come free from the backing.

A smudge of something rusty like dried blood dulled the burnished gilt on the edge. Clare turned it in her hands and opened it to the last entry before a series of blank pages. Perhaps the ink had once been blue, but it had faded to sepia.

October 15, 1927 It is hard to believe that we are leaving today. The sun s.h.i.+nes on the Tetons as though it were any other day, any of the thousands we have pa.s.sed pleasantly at home over the last twenty-six years.

I sit facing what I have come to regard as my personal and private view of the Grand and wonder what we will do in far away Texas, a flat, baking land that Cord and I have never even visited.

It's all wrapped up here, so nice and neat, the check from the Snake River Land Company folded in Cord's breast pocket for deposit in our new account in Houston. We didn't get as much for our ranch as I thought we should have, but folks all over the valley have been caving in to the tough young men who a.s.sured us that we would not see a better offer.

They're waiting for me, Cord already settled in the back of Cordon's noisy automobile. Our son adjusts the lap robe and I am glad he is good at pretending and making it seem as though Cord is not really so ill. It scares me so to see the bluish pallor come and go at his lips, and to watch him ma.s.sage his chest when he thinks I am not looking.