Chasing Fire
Page 57

Not going to have it, she thought, using her Pulaski and her bladder pump to smother the spots as she went. It wants to run, wants to feed. She smelled the sharp resin as trees burned, heard their crackling cries, felt the air tremble with the power already unleashed. Smoke spiraled up where spitting embers met dry ground.
She yanked out her radio. “She wants to run, and she’s fast, L.B. She’s fast. We need another load of mud on the head, and another down the right flank. She’s throwing a lot of spots along that line.”
“Copy that. Are you clear?”
“I will be.” She kept moving, away from a spot that ate ground the size of a tennis court. “We need to contain these spots now, L.B. We’re at critical. Gibbons is on the line, southwest, and I’m doubling back.”
“Stay clear. We’ve got another load of jumpers on alert. Say the word and we’ll send them in.”
“Copy that. Let me finish this recon, check in with Gibbons.”
“Tankers on the way. Don’t get slimed, Swede.”
“I’m clear,” she repeated. “And I’m out.”
She ran, charging her way down as she checked in with Gibbons, making for the trail where Lewis and Clark had once traveled. At the roar behind her, she cursed, ran through the falling embers, the missiles of burning pinecones hurled by the blasting wind of a blowup. When the ground shook under her feet, she charged through the heart of the fire.
Safer inside it, she thought while smoke gushed through the lick of orange flames.
In the black she took a moment to pull out her compass and get her bearings, to plot the next moves. Gibbons would have sent the crew up the ridge on attack, she thought, and then—
She nearly ran over it. Instinct and atavistic horror stumbled her back three paces from the charred and blackened remains of what had been human. It lay, the crisp bones of its arms and legs curled in. Contracted by the heat, she knew that, but in that terrible moment it seemed as if the dead or dying had tried to tuck into a ball the fire might overlook.
Her fingers felt numb when she pulled out her radio. “Base.”
“Base here, come back, Swede.”
“I’ve got a body.”
“Say again?”
“I’m maybe ten yards from the Lobo Trail, near the southeast switchback, in the black. There’s a body, L.B.” She blew out a breath. “It’s crisp.”
“Ah, Christ. Copy that. Are you safe there?”
“Yeah. I’m in the black. I’m clear.”
“Hold there. I’ll contact the Forest Service, then get back to you.”
“L.B.” She rubbed her fingers between her eyebrows. “I can’t tell for sure, but the ground under and around the remains, the pattern of the burn... Hell, I think maybe somebody lit him—her—up. And there’s... I don’t know, but the angle of the head. It looks like the neck’s broken.”
“Sweet Jesus. Don’t touch anything. Do you copy, Rowan? Don’t touch anything.”
“Believe me, I won’t. I’ll radio Gibbons, give him a SITREP. Jesus, L.B., I think it’s a woman or a kid. The size...”
“Hang in, Rowan. I’ll come back.”
“Copy that. Out.”
She steeled herself. She’d seen burned bodies before. She’d seen Jim, she thought, when they’d finally recovered his remains. But she’d never stumbled over one, alone, in the middle of an operation.
So she took a breath, then radioed Gibbons.
It took her more than an hour and a half to get back to her crew, after holding her position, and guiding two rangers in. She welcomed the heat, the smoke, the battle after her vigil with the dead.
As she’d expected, Gibbons had the crew up the ridge, and the line held.
“Holy shit, Ro.” Gibbons swiped a forearm over his blackened face. “You okay?”
The time, the vigil, the hard reality of giving a statement hadn’t completely settled the raw sickness in her belly. “I’m a lot better than whoever’s back there. The rangers are down there now, and a Special Agent Somebody’s coming in. And an arson guy.”
“Arson.”
“It might be this fire was deliberately set, to cover up murder.” Because it felt as if it squeezed her skull, she shifted her helmet—but it did nothing to relieve the steady throbbing.
“They don’t know yet,” she told him as he cursed. “Maybe it was some dumb kid messing around, but it looked to me like that could’ve been the point of origin. Putting the fire down’s first priority. The feds’ll handle the other. Where do you want me?”
“You know you can pack out, Ro. Nobody’ll blame you.”
“Let’s finish this.”
She worked the saw line, while another part of the crew reinforced the scratch lines riding up toward the head. A fresher crew of jumpers attacked the other flank, down toward the tail.
Countless times during the hours on the line, she pulled off to radio the other crew for progress, updated base, consulted with Gibbons.
A few more hours to finish her off and mop up, she thought, and the crew would sleep in beds tonight.
“What’s up?” Gull stopped by her side. “There are rumors up and down the line something is, and you’re the source.”
She started to brush him off, but he looked her dead in the eye.
“You can tell me now or tell me later. You might as well get it done.”
She’d shared her body with him, she reminded herself, and her bed. “We’ve got her caged. If Gibbons can spare you, you can come with me to scout out smokes.”
Cleared, they moved away from the line. Rowan beat out a spot the size of a basketball, moved on.
And told him.
“You think the person was murdered, and whoever did it started the fire to try to cover it up?”
“I can’t know.” But her gut, roiling still, told her differently.
“Smarter to bury it.” His matter-of-fact tone slowed the churning. “A fire like this brings attention. Obviously.”
“I’ve never done it, but it seems to me killing somebody might impair logic. Or maybe the fire added to it. Plenty of people get off starting fires.”
“They spotted this one at first light. From the progress it made by the time we jumped, it must’ve started late last night, early this morning. It was burning damn hot, had at least a hundred acres involved when we jumped at, what, about eight?”