Firestorm Read online

  “Base, this is Spike Camp Medical Unit Leader.”

  Anna’s voice emanated from the handheld radio Stanton had set near the phone and he jumped. His nerves sang like stretched piano wire. Before he could grab up the Motorola, Burwell answered. Anna asked for him and Stanton thumbed the mike down. He held the radio tightly as if by the force of his fingers he could hold onto Anna. The timbre of her voice was deep for a woman, strong, but she sounded so tired and he wished he had words to buoy her up.

  “I’ve got some information,” he said into the transmitter, and was dismayed that his words sounded so cold. “Are you ready to copy?”

  A pause followed, scratching through the dead air, and he wondered what was going through her mind. Somehow he felt he had let her down.

  “Clear to copy. At least as near as I can tell. I’ve got John’s radio, Lawrence has mine but they should be out of range by now…it’s a long story,” she finished wearily.

  Frederick smiled. Rambling, tired, human, it warmed him to hear her lose her professional tone. On one level he knew circumstances had undermined the formality of radio etiquette. On another he chose to take it as a sign of friendship. Clutching at straws, he chided himself.

  “How are you doing, Anna?” He pressed his lips close to the transmitter as if that afforded any privacy.

  A couple of clicks clouded the air. “Good. I’m good” came back a little too strong and Frederick wondered what he had done to offend. “Black Elk’s in trouble,” she added. “And morale’s a little strained but otherwise we’re hanging in there.”

  Acutely aware of the distance between them and the public nature of this broadcast, Frederick paced the Communications tent. Even his pacing was frustrated. Tables and equipment curbed his steps and the sloping canvas of the roof brushed his hair if he veered from the ridgeline.

  “Stand by,” he said abruptly. He sounded aggravated and wished he could explain. Forcing himself to sit down he picked up his notes.

  CHAPTER

  Eighteen

  BACK AGAINST THE body of Paula’s truck, elbows on knees, Anna rested her head in her hands. She felt like whining and wouldn’t have hesitated to do so if there’d been anyone around to commiserate with her. Constant cold was the worst of it, more debilitating than hunger or fear. Her time in the Trans-Pecos had brought out her exotherm tendencies. If she let self-pity take hold, she believed she would never be warm again.

  Scritching at her scalp, rubbing off—or in—the crud that lodged there, she thought about Frederick. She’d managed to forgive him for being comfortable and for doing his job. By the end of the conversation she’d even said thank you with a modicum of heartfelt warmth. When all this was behind her, she would sit with him and talk, tell him all the details of this chapter of her life and he would understand, understand even the things left unsaid. At least that was the fantasy. That was always the fantasy.

  Cynicism stole the fun from the dream and, forcing herself to concentrate, Anna worked through the information Stanton had unloaded.

  Though he was a good worker, Lindstrom’s supervisor disliked him and suspected him of unprovable crimes. The sheriff of Washoe County liked Lawrence though he was a wanted felon. Not much to go on. Physical evidence was more reliable and Anna returned to the puzzle of the shelters. First task was to see who’d been seen leaving theirs. That would significantly narrow the playing field. Already it was down by three: herself, Black Elk and, by necessity, Jennifer Short. Anna hoped she hadn’t made a grave error in character judgment. Her “you’re the only one I can trust” speech had been pure theater. She couldn’t trust anyone and the thought depressed her. Maybe she’d get lucky, maybe somebody saw Short crawl out of her shake ’n’ bake.

  Whoever was left would have to be questioned. The safest way would be for her and Jennifer to do the interviews together, but given the inherent anarchy of the situation Anna doubted they would get any cooperation.

  Subtlety and luck were all they had going for them. They’d have to make the best of it.

  Heavy breathing caught her attention. Jennifer was puffing up from the heli-spot. “Over here,” Anna called, and Jen waved as if there could be any mistake about who was talking to whom on the desolate ridge. She trotted over and plopped down beside Anna.

  “Least ways I’m warm.” Short fanned her face with her hand.

  “Wait till the sweat starts to cool,” Anna said pessimistically.

  “You sure know how to cheer a girl up.”

  “Sorry. What have you found out?”

  “The big news is Barney. What happened up here anyway? He’s got Howard’s big ol’ Buck knife strapped to his belt and has been swaggering around like Rambo saying he’s got to defend himself.”

  Anna groaned.

  “Just telling you,” Short said without rancor.

  “Okay.” Anna thought for a minute. “Here’s what we’ve got. I talked with Frederick. Washoe County doesn’t seem too interested in dragging Lawrence back for prosecution on the assault and grand theft auto. It was five years ago and nobody cares much anymore. But Lawrence may not know that. He worked for Nims about six years ago. He quit or got fired. There might be something in that or Nims might have known there was a warrant out for his arrest.”

  It crossed Anna’s mind that Jennifer was younger and prettier than she was and might be able to get more out of Gonzales than she could but she dismissed it. There was a chance Lawrence was dangerous. “I’ll check it out.

  “Stephen’s supervisor has something against him. He seems to think he might have been involved with your brother in his environmental protests.”

  Jennifer thought it through a minute, then shook her head. “I don’t think so. Josh was very left wing, I guess you could say. Stephen’s conservative. Josh bitched about it once or twice.”

  “Do you know if Stephen had something against Len?”

  For an instant Jennifer looked startled, then professionalism took over. This was an investigation, not a birthday party. Everybody was invited.

  “Not so’s I’d know. I hadn’t met him but once till this fire. He doesn’t seem to.”

  “Okay,” Anna said. “Joseph had a beef with Len over some land he was considering for oil leases—Joseph’s been working with the Navajo in northern New Mexico to get it stopped. If he’s passionate enough about it it may mean something. At the moment it’s the strongest motive we’ve got. John’s hating Nims seems a little weak to me. And John’s such a firebug I can’t imagine him sullying a natural disaster with something as mundane as murder. But he’s not ruled out. Nobody saw him getting out of his shelter.

  “Frederick found out Neil Page bailed Paula out of jail a couple of times. I don’t know if it has anything to do with anything but you should talk to her.”

  “I got something,” Jennifer burst out. Anna could see the pride and excitement on her face and was glad somebody was having a good time. For the moment at least, Short had forgotten about the death of her brother. “I went out to that place you guys saw Neil and there wasn’t nothing there. At least nothing I could find. I think he was just hiding out smoking cigarettes so he wouldn’t have to share. But I met him coming back and started needling him, pretending I knew he’d killed Len—”

  Anna shuddered. “Jesus, Jen, you’ve got to watch it. You’ll get us both killed.”

  “No, no. I was real discreet.”

  Anna doubted it but she wasn’t going to waste words.

  “Anyway, Neil got huffy and said I should talk to Paula. Remember those scratches on Len’s face? Well, according to Neil, Paula put ’em there. He swears he doesn’t know why.”

  “Worth following up on,” Anna said. “See what you can get out of Paula. See if anybody saw her getting out of her shelter.”

  “Neil didn’t. He said she was already out when he got up. I guess that means she saw him though.”

  “Check it out.” Anna shoved herself to her feet. “We’d better get a move on before we freeze to dea
th.”

  HOME SWEET HOME, Anna thought sourly as they returned to the bivouac. Buck knife displayed ostentatiously on his hip, Hugh Pepperdine paced back and forth, deepening a blackened patch in the snow.

  “Nice knife,” Anna said.

  Hugh shot her a filthy look.

  “’Scuse me, Barney.” Jennifer started to duck past him into the shelter.

  Pepperdine grabbed her upper arm. “No more Barney,” he said.

  Short just glared at him. After a moment Hugh let go of her. “Thank you,” she said coldly.

  Hugh had backed down but Anna noticed his free hand had gone to the hilt of the knife. Pressure was ungluing the New Jersey boy. At a guess she would have figured as much, but she thought the stress would manifest itself a little differently. Pepperdine was turning into a bully. He had the height and weight to make it stick and it was as if he’d waited all his life for the opportunity. He reminded Anna of one of the wretched little boys in Lord of the Flies. How many more times would he back down, she wondered.

  Forcing all contempt from her voice, she said: “I sure appreciate you giving up the radio. Black Elk’s mind is wandering some. The radio kind of ties him to reality, I think.”

  Pepperdine was stone-faced. Anna couldn’t tell if he was mollified or not and she didn’t have the energy to lay it on any thicker. She poked her head into the shelter.

  Lindstrom and Paula flanked Black Elk. Boggins had tied her hair back with somebody’s bandanna and fed Howard tepid sips of water. Jennifer settled in the darkened enclave with a sense of purpose.

  Anna left her to worm what information she could from Paula. “Where is everybody?” she asked Pepperdine, who was continuing his self-imposed sentry duty. He looked at her and the hatred in his eyes hit her like a bucket of ice water.

  “Why?” he said after a good fifteen seconds of silence. “You want to go crawl in bed with your precious little Lawrence?”

  Shock stilled Anna’s tongue as well as her brain. It passed and was replaced by a deep sense of unease. “You’re slipping a few cogs, Hugh,” she said carefully. “The weather’s bound to clear and we’ll be out of here. Just hold it together awhile. Everything’s going to be all right.” She laid her hand on his arm in what she hoped was a reassuring gesture.

  Pepperdine pushed it off. “That stuff won’t work on me.” He was so superior, so smug, Anna’s good intentions went west.

  “Did you happen to see anybody getting out of their shelter after the blowup?” she asked abruptly.

  “No. I did not. When I crawled out Sir Lawrencelot was already wandering around. He could have been out awhile for all I know.”

  “Anybody see you?”

  “Lawrence did.” Hugh looked both complacent and mean. He knew exactly why she was asking and Anna reminded herself not to underestimate his intelligence just because she’d taken a dislike to him. A memory of the first minutes after the burn came to mind. When John asked where Len was, Hugh said, “He didn’t make it.” John pressed him and he’d insisted it was just a guess, but there had been no uncertainty in his voice, no speculation. He’d stated it as fact.

  Pepperdine had known Len was dead before they’d discovered the body. Despite his apparent alibi, Anna was keeping him on her active list until she found out how he’d come by that knowledge.

  “Where is everybody?” she asked again.

  “Looking for coals. John and Neil went downstream. Joseph up.”

  “Lawrence?”

  Pepperdine smirked and pointed to the north side of the creek. “Have fun,” he called after her as she climbed the bank. She didn’t look back. She allowed herself a small fantasy of shooting him. Not only would it be personally satisfying but it might be the only way to keep him from tearing their fragile society apart.

  Events had piled on top of one another with such stunning rapidity no one had yet ventured very far from camp. Close in the tracks and trails were a mishmash. Less than twenty yards from the creek they sorted themselves out distinctly. The constant temperatures preserved footprints in pristine condition.

  Pepperdine had pointed north; Lawrence had found his badger north. Pursuing a hunch, Anna followed the old trail. Thoughts blinding her, she walked without really seeing until she reached the clearing where Neil had been sitting earlier in the day. It seemed more like weeks. Time was definitely doing its petty pace thing.

  Anna considered rechecking the scene. Hiding out and smoking was believable but there was something about it that rang a sour note. It’ll come to me, she promised herself.

  Lawrence was in search of embers. She schooled her mind. Steam, smoke, heavy fuel loads, melted snow: those were the things he would be looking for. Squinting against the glare, gray faded into gray, white jarred against black, and she wished she had the eyesight of a twenty-three-year-old.

  The constant fog was wearing on Anna. She suspected it was partly to blame for the creeping insanity that darkened their minds: Black Elk’s wandering, Jennifer’s depression, Paula’s sullenness, Pepperdine emerging as a closet bully.

  Anna had spent a year of graduate school at the University of California in Davis. She remembered the weeks of heavy tule fog that smothered the campus for twenty-two days in January of that year. Students were jumping from the clock tower. Professors were beating their wives.

  Dense unremitting fog filled the brain, chilled and clouded human thought processes.

  A hallucination disturbed Anna’s field of vision. Past the dry creek where Lawrence had bagged breakfast, over a low ridge, the texture of the world’s walls looked slightly different. Asked to describe it, Anna would have been hard pressed to find words. The difference was minute, a mere disturbance of the air, like the first wavering of heat mirage rising off the desert in late morning. If she stared too long or thought too hard she couldn’t see it anymore.

  A set of boot tracks branched off in that general direction and she followed them. At the badger creek the trail veered again, the new track leading up the ridge, zigzagging around fallen trees. Snow over ash: each print was as clear as the painted footsteps in an Arthur Murray dance studio.

  At the top of the ridge Anna could see what had drawn Lawrence so far from camp. Beyond a shallow valley and over another hill, slightly lower than the one on which she stood, the imperfection in the air was pronounced. Steam billowed up in clouds. A faint smell of rotten eggs tainted the air.

  The view from the second ridge was considerably more startling. In the valley below a horseshoe-shaped depression cut into the side of the mountain. Steam poured up in veils, sinuous, live, sentient to a tired mind. Snow had melted in a wide irregular circle exposing gray earth and rivulets of smoking water of improbable aquas and oranges and lavenders. The sound of bubbling—bubbles primeval in size—percolated through the steam. Seated on a stone, his back to her, was Lawrence Gonzales, mother naked.

  From her work in the northern midwest Anna knew it wasn’t uncommon to find people frozen to death, their clothes torn off and strewn around. No one knew for sure, but the theory was that in the late stages of hypothermia, when the body’s thermostat was going haywire, the victims felt suddenly hot and so divested themselves of garments.

  Almost instantaneous with that thought, the pieces came together. Lassen Volcanic National Park. The entire mountain range from Canada on down was formed by volcanic activity. Lassen Volcano had erupted in the early 1900s, Helens in 1980. Thermal activity was a common feature in the park. Mud pots, fumaroles and boiling springs. Lawrence had found a thermal outlet.

  One thought crowded all others from Anna’s mind. She forgot she’d come to interrogate the man, she forgot all the dangers, she forgot Gonzales was naked.

  It would be warm.

  “Lawrence!” she hollered lest her sudden appearance startle him and he injure himself in the boiling stream.

  “I’m naked,” he called as in warning.

  “That’s okay.” Anna hopped the last few feet, unlacing a fire boot as she came. D
umping herself on the rock next to him she finished unlacing and pulled her boots off with a grunt.

  Lawrence had dragged his shirt modestly over his lap but Anna was beyond noticing. Thrusting her feet in the thermal pool next to his she threw her head back and laughed. “Who’d’ve thunk it? Heaven’s a fire pit stinking of sulphur. We’ve got to call the Pope and let him know they’ve got it all wrong.”

  To their left a small lake, thirty or forty feet across, hissed and spat. The water backed up against a wall of dirty-white porous soil pocked with holes, some the size of pinpricks, some several yards across. Above the mud bluff were old growth trees, the bark blackened and the needles scorched but the tops still green. The Jackknife had gone around them. They would probably survive another hundred years if no one cut them down.

  Steam poured from vents and Anna could hear the dull wet plop of mud pots. For twenty yards around the lake nothing lived, at least nothing larger than the rainbow-hued algae that lined the runoff beds. The ground was as barren and white as an alkali flat.

  The thermal lake looked as if it came from one of the seven levels of hell. Colors were bright and unnatural, painted by algae that lived in the differing temperate zones. Water was opaque: milky green, then blue, then white. To the center and rear, where the mud pots boiled, the surface simmered, heat roiling, sending up belches of sulphur-scented steam.

  Lawrence’s perch was sensibly downstream from the burning lake where the water had been cooled by springs and melting snow.

  Anna stripped down to her underpants and shirt. But for Lawrence’s delicate sensibilities she would have chucked those aside as well. Sulphur water, stinking and warm, ran from her arms and face in black rivulets. Hot air billowed around her. The rock beneath her bare thighs was pleasantly warm.

  “God, this is great,” she said for the tenth time.

  “Be careful,” Lawrence cautioned. “There’s a place like this over in the park called Bumpass Hell because the first white guy that found it fell through and got a leg burnt off. These places are weird. The ground is hollow like.” Gonzales had spread his trousers around so they covered his crotch and most of his butt. He sat rigid as if afraid any movement would endanger this careful arrangement.