Page 46 of Smoke Season

Mel eyed the bloodred sun, angry against a dark sky, and thought of True, standing not far from here across the river only the day before, asking for Henry Martin’s mercy. She thought next of Astor, braving this disaster without her mother. Of Annie, with her father.

Never since her separation had Mel wanted to be with them more, all together at the house on Highline, its weather-sealed windows keeping the wolves—in all forms—at bay.

CHAPTER 22

July 13

5:00 a.m.

True got up with the sun, or what she could see of it, which was essentially zero. The rapid tag had been burning a hole in her pocket all night. Longer, really ... ever since Mel had assured her that she could gain access to Temple Bar herself.

She’d delivered Astor back to Sam at Highline yesterday afternoon; as True expected, Sam had gone white as she’d described what she could of their interaction with Fallows at the Eddy.

“I don’t understand,” he said, peppering Astor with questions. “Are you hurt? What did he say to you? Why was he back there? None of this makes sense.”

True shot him a look. “Don’t interrogate her, Sam,” she said in an undertone. With every word, she could see Astor reliving the ugly encounter. And it wasTrue’sfault the animosity had been stirred back up between the Bishops and Fallows. True’s and Mel’s. The guilt felt thick enough to reach up through her gut and choke her. What if Astor internalized blame, too?

But before she departed, Sam pulled True aside again by the door. “That confrontation last night, and now this ... Fallows has never shown the least interest in my kids. Thank God,” he added. “So why now?” His expression clouded just as it had at the Eddy,Sam sensing something didn’t add up. She’d been privy to the same look whenever Sam confided in her about his marriage. Why wasn’t it working? What had he done wrong? Why did two and two never add up to four?

It wrenched at her gut. “Stop it,” she begged him. “You’ll never make sense of Fallows, Sam.” It was true, just not as true as her own culpability. “I should have been more diligent with Astor,” she added. “It’s unforgivable, and I’m so sorry, Sam.”

She squared her shoulders, preparing herself for more blame, but instead, Sam palmed his own skull, raking his fingers roughly through his hair. “I should have known he’d slink back around. I should never have left.” He looked over at True, and she sensed him wrestling with something again. She feared more questions, but in the end, he said, “Just ... stay away from that man, True,” his voice thick with defeat. “Please.”

Instead, True had entertained every fantasy she could dream up for how to get to Fallows and make him suffer for what he’d done to Astor while Mel took care of the ammo box. The problem was, no matter how inventive her imagined revenge, it didn’t change the fact that she and Mel were still puppets on a string. A warning of Sam’s echoed in True’s brain.Fallows would sacrifice anyone.

But what had Fallows himself told her?I protect my assets.True would bet money someone was still holed up at his property, tasked with defending it from fire. Even more than a few someones ... seasonal trimmers, undocumented ag workers ... maybe even Fallows himself.

While Mel retrieved the ammo box, True could utilize her rapid tag to gain entry to the river and the Outsider,positioning herself perfectly for a faster, and hopefully final, handoff.

With any luck, she told herself this could all be over today. Not that luck had exactly been flowing down the river corridor this week.

Mel eased out of her sleeping bag on the hard ground across the Outlaw from Wonderland Lodge. She was instantly alert, her priorities already splintered cleanly in two: today, her crew could finally tackle this blaze in earnest, now that evacs had been issued, andshecould finally find a way to continue down the river road to Temple Bar.

She stood and shook out her sleeping bag, a sprawl of firefighting humanity at her feet: dirt and soot-encrusted, mustard-yellow-shirted bodies lying prone atop unzipped bags on the dewy ground. Her own crew members lay sprawled next to private Dust Busters and Firestorm crews; only the hotshots, Mel knew, would have segregated from the rest. She could glimpse their neatly rolled bags about fifty yards away, already strapped to their packs in anticipation of another strenuous day with their own specialized agendas.

She nudged Lewis gently with the heel of her boot as she rose, just to make sure he got up to help her unearth the MREs from the truck cab, then made her way between sleeping bags to the back of an outbuilding. Squatting behind cover, she relieved herself.

When the rest of the crew began to stir as the sun made a weak attempt to show between the hazy pine boughs over the river, Mel tossed her own share of the morning rations toward Deklan and Ryan, who accepted the unexpected generosity with twin whoops. Teenagers were always hungry, even when faced with ravaging wildfire. Mel, however, seemed to have lost her appetite.

At 0600, they got an update from the overnight hand crew:She’s keeping us busy on the west side.Gonna finish this line, then move toward you as conditions permit.Mel read the update aloud to Lewis, then waved her crew in for a morning debriefing. Giving her next orders was easy: they needed to cut an insurance line here at Wonderland, then make sure the access road stayed clear of debris, so the hand crews and hotshots could move their way downriver. At the mention of clearing the road, Deklan cast an eager eye toward the truck panel storing their power saws. “Not so fast. The line, remember? You’ll need your Pulaski first, kid.”

“Yeah, yeah,” he muttered, already rubbing at his sore biceps. He tugged his Buff up over his face to block both the smoke and his sour expression.

They’d cross as a unit back over the bridge to the fire-plagued north bank to cut the containment line needed just east of Wonderland Lodge, for the purpose of protecting the building listed on the National Registry of Historic Places. If time permitted, White informed them via radio from his position at the command station closer to town, they could work their way back upriver until they met the hand crew, which Mel estimated should be somewhere near True’s property in the acreage between Buck Peak and the river. Mel hoped to God she wasn’t there, utilizing the rapid tag she had been assured she didn’t need, but knowing True ... Mel pushed back the thought. Busy as they were with all hands on, and this deep in the river corridor, she had no way of knowing. Just as she had no way of knowing how Annie was faring this morning up on the hill at Highline, where Astor even was at this point, any of it.

Trust Sam,she told herself. Whenever her work had to take over—to pay the bills, to have insurance—she’d always had to, hadn’t she? Even when they’d been at their worst. What were they now?

“What do we think of this weather?” Lewis asked, cutting in and saving her from rhetorical—not to mention redundant—thoughts as they all filled their canteens and loaded their packs. He frowned as he glanced upward at the dense smoke.

Mel looked up at the sky. Lost in her own agenda, she hadn’t paid the weather any attention. It had to already be at least eighty degrees, and even more humid than the night before. Sure, humidity in and of itself could help their cause, but ...

“You thinking fireclouds, Lewis?” Hernandez asked, confirming Mel’s worry.

“What’s a firecloud?” Ryan asked, his skeptical tone suggesting he figured Lewis was pulling his leg. Of course, that was José’s MO, but their driver engineer’s duties lay elsewhere today.

“It’s what you fart after eating all those MREs,” Deklan guffawed, subbing in.

“It’s when smoke rises, then condenses in the upper atmosphere,” Mel supplied. “The water already in the atmosphere combines with water evaporating from the burning trees and brush, forming a dense cloud called a pyrocumulus, or firecloud.”

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