Chasing Fire
Page 81

“Selfishly yes. But I think it would embarrass her if you did.”
He nodded, having thought the same. “If you think it’s right, you could tell her I’m sorry for her loss, sorry for what she’s going through.”
“I’ve made us both sad, and here I was thinking about being happy.”
“People who are together get to share both. I want to... share both with you.”
Almost, she thought as butterflies on the wing filled her belly. They were both almost ready to say it. Had she said she felt lucky? She’d been blessed.
“Let’s take a walk in the moonlight,” she decided. “In the garden. We can finish drinking this wine, and make out.”
“You always have the best ideas.”
Using a dead woman’s phone to lure a man to his death felt... just. A man of God should understand that, should approve of the sentiment of an eye for an eye. Though Latterly was no man of God, but a fraud, a liar, an adulterer, a fornicator.
In a very real sense Latterly had killed Dolly. He’d tempted her, led her onto the path—or if the temptation and leading had been hers, he had certainly followed.
He should have counseled her, advised her, helped her be the decent person, the honorable woman, the good mother. Instead he’d betrayed his wife, his family, his God, his church, for sex with the daughter of one of his faithful.
His death would be justice, and retribution and holy vengeance.
The text had done its job, so simple really.
it wasnt me u have 2 come bring money dont tell not yet talk first need to know what 2 do meet me 1 am Lolo Pass Vistor Center fs rd 373 2 gate URGENT Can help u Dolly
Of course, the soon-to-be-dead man called the dead woman. The return text when the call went unanswered had been full of shock, panic, demands. Easy enough to deflect.
must c u face 2 face explain then will do what u say when you know what i know cant txt more they might find out
He’d come. If he didn’t, there would be another way.
Planning murder wasn’t the same as an accident. How would it feel?
The car rolled in ten minutes early, going slow. A creep along the service road.
Easy after all. So easy. Should there be talk first? Should the dead man know why he was dead? Why he would burn in fiery hell?
He called for Dolly, his voice a harsh whisper in the utter peace of the night. At the gate, he sat in his car, silhouetted in the moonlight.
Death waited patiently.
He got out, his head turning right, left, as he continued to call Dolly’s name. As he continued up the road.
Yes, it was easy after all.
“An eye for an eye.”
Latterly looked over, his face struck with terror as shadow moved to moonlight.
The first bullet struck him in the center of the forehead, a small black hole that turned terror to blank shock. The second pierced his heart, releasing a slow trickle of blood that gleamed black in the shimmer of light.
Easy. A steady hand, a just heart.
No shock, no grief, no trembling, not this time.
A long way to drag a body, but it had to be done right, didn’t it? Anything worth doing was worth doing well. And the forest at night held such beauty, such mystery. Peace. Yes, for a little while, peace.
All the effort came to nothing in that moment when the body rested at the burn site, on the pyre, already prepared.
Reverend Latterly didn’t look so good, didn’t look so pious now with his clothes and flesh torn and dirty from the trail.
A click of the lighter, that’s all it took to send him to hell.
Flames kindled with a whoosh as they gulped fuel and oxygen. Burning the body as the soul would burn. Peace settled while the fire climbed and spread.
How did it feel to murder and burn?
It felt right.
20
The fire chewed its way east, consuming forest and meadow, its head a rage of hunger and greedy glee leading the body across two states.
Gull dug his spikes into a lodgepole pine, climbing up, up into a sky of sooty red. Sweat dripped down his face to soak the bandanna he’d tied on like a latter-day outlaw as he ground the teeth of his saw through bark and wood. Logs tumbled, crashed below as he worked his way down.
The blaze they sought to cage danced, leaped nimbly up trees to string their branches with light as it roared its song.
He hit the ground, unhooked his harness, then moved down the saw line.
He knew Rowan worked the head. Word traveled down the crew, and the jumpers from Idaho had twice had to retreat due to unstable winds.
He heard the roll of thunder, watched the tanker pitch through the smoke. So far the dragon seemed to swallow the retardant like candy.
He’d lost track of the hours spent in the belly of the beast since the siren had sounded that morning. Only that morning, looking into Rowan’s eyes as she moved under him, feeling her body rise and fall beneath him. Only that morning he’d had the taste of her skin, warm from sleep, on his tongue.
Now he tasted smoke. Now he felt the ground move as another sacrificial tree fell to earth. He looked into the eyes of the enemy, and knew her lust.
What he didn’t know, as he set down his saw to gulp down water, was if it was day or night. And what did it matter? The only world that mattered lived in this perpetual red twilight.
“We’re moving east.” Dobie jogged out of the smoke, his eyes red-rimmed over his bandanna. “Gibbons is taking us east, digging line as we go. The hoses are holding her back on the right flank at Pack Creek, and the mud knocked her back some.”
“Okay.” Gull grabbed his gear.
“I volunteered you and me to go on south through the burnout and scout spots and snags along the rim, circle on up toward the head.”
“That was real considerate of you to include me in your mission.”
“Somebody’s got to do it, son.” Those red-rimmed eyes laughed. “It’s a longer trip, but I bet we beat the rest of the crew to the head, get back into the real action sooner.”
“Maybe. The head’s where I want to be.”
“Fighting ass-to-ass with your woman. Let’s get humping.”
Spots bloomed like flowers, burst like grenades, simmered like shallow pools. The wind colluded, thickened the smoke, giving loft to sailing firebrands.
Gull smothered, dug, doused, beat, then laughed his way through the nasty work as Dobie started naming the spots.
“Fucking Assistant Principal Brewster!” Dobie stomped out the licking flames. “Suspended me for smoking in the bathroom.”