Page 29 of Smoke Season

Sam had never seen Carbon so dense with smoke. As they came down Highline, they seemed to sink slowly into the abyss of it, their headlight beams barely illuminating five feet ahead of them.

“This is creepy,” Astor said. “It’s like ... what do you call it? Like that machine Claude got to make the fog in his garage on Halloween.”

Sam just grunted in answer, focused on straining to see through the dirty windshield and the gray pea soup outside. Itdidlook ghostly out there. As agonizing as it had been to leave Annie at the house, Sam thanked God for Claude now, keeping her at higher elevation. They passed the grocery store, then Carbon Cuts Beauty Parlor, to merge onto the main drag in town that hugged the river on the right.

For a while they had the road to themselves, folks in Carbon hunkered down while awaiting further evac orders, Sam figured. He eased toward the River Eddy, noting a slight increase in traffic the closer he got. Several cars followed behind him on the highway, and just before the bridge, a Toyota Camry pulled out right in front of them, probably never even seeing Sam’s vehicle through the smoke. Sam tapped the horn—just a warning—as Astor braced a hand against the dash.

“Sheesh, where’s the fire?” she muttered, sliding a sly smile Sam’s way.

His heart gave a little lurch even as he smiled back. When had his little girl become grown up enough to act like a smart-ass?

“Might be a tourist,” he told her. Folks born and bred in Carbon didn’t scare quite so easily after over a decade of regular forest fires. A duo of kayaks sat strapped on top of the Camry, listing alarmingly to one side as the driver hit the brakes again. Ah: a deer had dashed across the road in front of it, two fawns trotting in her wake.

On the other side of the bridge, Sam put his blinker on before the entrance to the River Eddy, only to be cut off again, this time by a Subaru pulling a pop-up camper. Three very excitable dogs sat in the front seat. Miniature Pomeranians, maybe? Astor smiled again, watching them leap onto the anxious-looking owner’s lap as she attempted to drive.

“Maybe they know something we don’t,” she noted. “Animals sense things, you know.”

For the second time in less than a minute, her astuteness struck Sam. “When’d you get so smart, hmm?”

Astor shrugged, then added with a low whistle, “Sohere’swhere everybody is.”

The small parking lot of the River Eddy was packed with locals. Sam blinked in surprise, his theory that Carbon residents would take this fire in stride, same as the rest, instantly debunked. Some people stood by their cars, and others had gathered on the front patio, waiting, apparently, for the doors to open. The bandannas and ski masks covering most faces made them look like bandits conspiring together. A few chatted among themselves, probably comparing notes on fire preparedness, bitching about neighbors who didn’t do their fair part to clear fields, and speculating on the fire’s trajectory, but most looked concerned at best, alarmed at worst.

“It’s like the whole town has shown up,” Astor said as Sam found a spot between a Deschutes Brewery delivery truck—probably stuck here in the middle of his route—and Margo Hennings’s Sprinter van,Outlaw Rock Climbing Expeditionswrapped across the sliding doors.

Sam nodded to Margo as he and Astor climbed out of the SUV. Was it really just last week he’d picked her brain about her van, pouringher a cup of coffee right here at the Eddy? Sam had been considering buying one himself, hoping to start a food-truck side hustle since the Airbnb idea had flopped—anything to generate another income stream for Annie. The bank had shot financing down fast.

“Ah, Bishop!” someone called out. “Glad to see your mug, man.”

Sam squinted through the smoke. He made out the rig of Dan Jacobs, owner of Jacobs Hardware, the ACE location on Main Street.

“Hey there, Dan,” he called back. “You all good? I heard what happened out by your place.”

The Jacobs family had a few acres west of Carbon, right below Flatiron, and by the looks on the faces of Dan’s wife and kids peering out at him through the windshield, they might have had to leave their property in a hurry after the fire had jumped the line.

“It was touch and go,” Dan said, “Level 1 to Level 3, just like that.” He snapped his fingers, and Sam flinched, thinking about Annie and Claude. Things could change so fast. Had it been a mistake to leave them? “I won’t lie,” Dan added, “we’re glad to be ridin’ this one out in town. You opening up? The kids could use a square meal.”

Before Sam could answer, he spotted the distinct brown and yellow of a sheriff’s department Chevy in the lot, lights flashing. “Hold that thought, Dan,” he said as the sheriff’s deputy, a fellow dad Sam recognized from Astor’s class, waved him over.

“That’s Kaylee Simpson’s dad,” Astor said, and Sam greeted him through the mist of smoke.

“Deputy Simpson, what’s the word?”

Astor added, “Is Kaylee here?”

“Not just now, sweetie,” Simpson told her with a smile, then looked back up at Sam. “But all these folks?” He thumbed in the direction of the parking lot behind them. “They’ve been caught flat-footed with a Level 3 order. The official announcement is coming soon, but your wife—uh, Battalion Chief Bishop probably told you about the fire jump?”

Sam nodded.

“Well, they’ve got nowhere to go until we set up an official shelter.”

Nowhere to go. And they’d all come to the Eddy, like that was the most natural thing in the world. Sam took another look around at the sea of people who had assembled at his bar and grill. Dan Jacobs, hoping for a hot meal. Margo, charging her phone in the front seat of her van. Countless others, soot-smudged and miserable, hoping to get out of the smoke.

Sam’s mind flashed suddenly on the rows of team photos still displayed in the bar. He’d sponsored his share of them after his predecessor’s day, but he’d never quite achieved that elusive status ofupstanding citizen.Pillar of the community.At least he didn’t think he had. And yet ... all these people, here at his bar, gathering at their local watering hole for shelter, camaraderie, information. It filled Sam with pride.

Deputy Simpson was still talking, something about temporary housing and a news team on its way. “And I imagine you could use the income, especially once reinforcements from out of town arrive.”

“Wait, what?”

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