Page 80 of Protecting the Flame

Chapter 3

C’mon, c’mon, light, you motherfucker, light!

Scott was shaking so hard he could barely hang onto the lighter to flick his Bic. Gritting his teeth, he forced his icy thumbs to bend and stroked the Bic’s wheel again and again. Tiny sparks sputtered briefly to life but quickly died.

Light, light!

Calm, he had to calm down. Shuddering with cold, he forced himself to stop and jammed his hands under his armpits. He’d lost his gloves somewhere along the way, he didn’t know where, probably back at the fuselage when he’d cut and run right before Emma, that bitch, that bitch,torched the place. Squatting in the snow before his sorry pile of twigs and crumpled bills laid atop rocks because even he knew you couldn’t start a fire in the snow…and, yes, he was going to burn his own fucking money because he didn’t have a knife either and no way to find tinder or kindling or whatever the hell you called that shit because he’d grabbed the one snowmobile that doesn’t have any gear, no matches, no clothes, no food, not even a gun… But at least by the time those helicopters appeared, the machine had gotten him far enough away before running out of gas. He’d bet everyone was so busy looking at that fireball and zeroing in on the wreck, no one even thought about, say, hadn’t there been three guys?

He’d been lucky. But he was a lucky guy. That bullet Dave took? Totally meant for him. He ducked faster, was all, and then he got the hell out of there.

So, yeah, okay, he wasn’t a fucking Boy Scout. He also didn’t know what he was doing here. He’d watched Mattie fuss at that signal fire, but she at least had wood and lighters, and she wasn’t freezing and starving.

Calm down. He had to calm down. He dragged in a sobbing breath. He couldn’t feel his face anymore. His cheeks were numb, and so was his nose. He was going to die if he couldn’t calm down and get a fire going. The problem was the damn lighter. There was only this much fuel left, and most of that probably vapors. God, he should never have gone through all those smokes! Rachel had always been after him to quit. Think of the baby and the secondhand smoke.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Get through this night, this one night. It was Christmas. Hell, nothing bad happened to people on Christmas, right? He was on a mountain, he knew that, but lower than before. Right before dark, he’d spotted the twinkle of lights in a far-off valley. Ten miles, he thought. Maybe twenty. He couldn’t tell distance, but it didn’t matter because there were lights. A ranch, he bet. In the stillness, if he held his breath, he could swear he heard the moo of cows. So, that was good. People in the country were solid, good, decent folks. They’d help him. All he had to do was get there. Well, he could do that. It would be all downhill come morning, ha-ha, and…

“What was that?” he said. He popped out of his slouch. He’d heard something off to his right. Not a snap or crack but a very soft, almost inaudible shushing that was the sound of plush slippers over a shag rug. He tried to listen above the fierce chattering of his own teeth but couldn’t still himself enough to be sure. He twisted right and then left. Nothing.

The fire. Light the fire.

“Please.” He held that lighter the way a penitent clutched a rosary… Christ. When was the last time he’d taken Communion? Been in a confessional? Well, I promise, God. He was quaking so hard the lighter jittered in his hands. He was worse than a drunk with DTS. The feel of the wheel was distant, more of an impression, his thumbs wooden. He stroked the wheel but so weakly there wasn’t even a spark. I promise. Get me out of this. He closed his eyes. One more time, last time, I promise. I’ll get clean, I’ll change. Please, just one light, just one.

He rolled the wheel as fast and hard as he could, thinking this was it, this was all she wrote, he couldn’t possibly…

The Bic caught with a tiny, thin, yellow flame.

For a second, he was so stupefied, he only stared. Then he laughed. “There, there!” Cupping the flame, he touched it to a twenty and then laughed again, an almost maniacal cackle, as the bill caught. “Yes!” The Bic died, but it didn’t matter. He didn’t care. He held his hands over his burning stash. So he torched some money. So what? He had a duffel half full of the stuff. Thank God, he’d stuffed his pockets before he left. There was still the heroin, too. That was going to get him big money. Grinning, he fed more bills to the hungry flames. The fire was tiny, but hell, it was hot and going and that was all that mattered. He was going to be all right. It was like that really, really old movie with the gangster guy: Look at me, Ma! I’m on top of the—

That was when he happened to look up and to his right.

For a second, he only…he just…his brain simply hung there. If he’d been a cartoon, there would have been one of those thought bubbles filled with question marks over his head.

But then, time started up again.

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