Breaking Point

31

“You’re not gonna shoot me, are you, Butch?” Joe called out, after reining Toby to a stop. He knew the answer, though, because Roberson was lowering the rifle he’d raised instinctively when Joe appeared.

“I don’t think so,” Butch responded, “or I’d have already done it.”

“That’s good,” Joe mumbled aloud to himself, and nudged Toby’s flanks toward the three men who stood staring at him from within a sparse stand of twisted and ancient mountain juniper that was just a little taller than themselves.

Through burning eyes, he noted that Farkus wasn’t dead after all, and that both Farkus and McLanahan weren’t cuffed or bound. They stood on either side of Butch Roberson, who squinted at him through the haze and waves of heat, wearing his backpack and cradling his AR-15.

He’d found them more by intuition and strategic luck than anything else, Joe thought. After he’d left Underwood and the agents, he’d ridden south, cutting across the face of the mountain from clearing to clearing so he could look back and down and see the progress of the fire. He tried to skirt dry grassy areas and stick to the shade and rock on the side of the meadows because he knew how fast fire could consume it and he didn’t want to be trapped.

The fire was amazing and terrifying to behold, and as he rode he got the clear feeling that all rules had been suspended, all bets were off, all was forgotten, and it was suddenly every man for himself. Even the wildlife had jettisoned its instincts and caution, and ran across his path up the mountain with no more than a passing glance. Elk, mule deer, mountain lions, bobcats, three black bears (two with cubs), and a lone black wolf he thought he’d seen before. Only the wolf hesitated as it loped along, and locked eyes with Joe for a momentary and primal exchange of information-run-before vanishing into the timber.

“You again,” Joe had said.

When he could see clearly from the edges of the meadows, which wasn’t often, Joe noted how the fire was racing up and across the mountain in what looked like reverse molten rivers of flame. It was ravenous and craven, without thought or mercy, and it either roared up ravines from the ground up or jumped from crown to crown of high dead pine trees like a manic gremlin, consuming everything it wanted to consume. The fire was so huge and so voracious that it seemed to be creating its own weather; hot blasts of air rocketed up the mountain and primed the dry timber for oncoming destruction. Long-standing trees went whumpf and exploded into flame, and the underbrush snapped and crackled with a high-pitched fury.

At one point he saw a wall of flame shoot through a stand of aspen, linger a moment among the live green trees as if taking a breather, then squirt out the side onto low-hanging dead pine boughs and continue its course. Ash behaved like snow, either swirling horizontally along the ground as if in a ground blizzard or floating down softly through the air, depending on the wind speed and direction of the moment.

It was a maelstrom. The hot dry wind blew steadily to the east, but at times it swirled and reversed direction and blew like a blowtorch and blew north, then west.

Twice, he witnessed fire whirls that emerged from the trees in thirty-foot columns of flame. The whirls whipped back and forth as if they were being shaken. One fire whirl was slapped down by a gust of wind but continued to burn as a horizontal fire worm that ignited all the grass in its path.

Joe knew from the speed of the fire’s advance that there would be no putting it out. This fire, in perfect conditions of hot, dry weather with an endless supply of dead and low-moisture fuel, would burn until it burned out. Joe had heard of fires that burned so hot they literally sterilized the ground for years after they’d passed through, and he guessed this was going to be one of those.

He could only speculate how big the fire would become, because it was already out of control and growing. If it found enough fuel at the summit, it could flow over the top and into Big Stream Valley. Airborne embers could be blown through the wind to land on dry trees hundreds of yards from the source. He felt both sick to his stomach and humbled by the awesome power of nature at the same time. It wasn’t the first forest fire he’d seen-far from it-but it was already the biggest and fastest. Previously, he’d observed fires from a safe distance.

Fire was natural, he knew that. Forests had to regenerate, and fire jump-started the process by opening the canopy, clearing debris, and activating aspen shoots and pine seeds. The mountain had burned countless times over the ages, long before there were humans to run from it.

Yet. .

So he continued to head south, toward Savage Run Canyon. Not only because he’d speculated that Butch had chosen the same route and everything else was misdirection but because it was the only terrain that wasn’t yet in flames.

As Joe rode up on the three men, he said, “Butch, when this is over I’m going to place you under arrest. You understand that, right?”

Butch nodded.

Joe said, “Just so we’re clear. I’m going to try to get this handled aboveboard and locally. I’ll get Dulcie involved, and we’ll do our best to keep the Feds out.”

“I appreciate that.”

“But right now we’re going to put that all aside and try to survive this. Does that sound like a deal to you?”

“Yes, Joe.”

“Okay, then.”

“How far from here to the canyon?” McLanahan asked Joe, without any preamble.

“Couple of miles,” Joe said.

“Can you get us across?”

“I can’t promise it,” Joe said. “It’s been years and I haven’t been back.”

“Jesus Christ,” McLanahan said. “We’re going to burn to death up here.”

Joe shrugged. He didn’t have the time or inclination to talk to McLanahan, even when there wasn’t a forest fire racing toward them.

“I thought you were dead,” Joe said to Farkus, as he climbed off Toby.

“So did I,” Farkus said, rolling his eyes toward Butch Roberson. “That trick was his idea.”

Joe asked Farkus, “Why is it you always seem to be in the middle of every bad situation there is?”

“I don’t know!” Farkus said, almost howling. “But the same could be said about you.”

“Point taken,” Joe said.

“It was spur-of-the-moment,” Butch said, referring to his claim that he killed Farkus. “That guy Batista just pissed me off so bad I needed to convince him I was a serious man and I’d kill hostages if I had to.”

“Why not McLanahan, then?” Joe asked. “That would make the world a better place.”

“Hey!” the ex-sheriff cried, hurt. “That was uncalled for.”

But Joe noticed Butch was stifling a grin.

“You know there was never any helicopter,” Joe said.

“I figured as much.”

Joe said, “Did you know when you sent the shooter away they’d try to blow him up?”

“No,” Butch said.

“Then why’d you give him that satellite phone?”

“I knew it had GPS. I figured they’d track him thinking it was me and give me some time to get out of here. I had no idea they’d shoot a goddamned missile at him.”

“This fire isn’t the only thing out of control,” Joe said.

Joe looked around where they stood. It was dry and rocky except for the junipers. He said, “I’ve read where you can start a personal grass fire and lay down in it when it goes out. That way, the fire will go around you because you’ve already used up the fuel.”

The others looked at him optimistically. Except Butch.

“That won’t work here, though,” Joe said. “Not enough grass and the brush is over our heads. Plus, the fire is burning too hot. People die from smoke and heat, mostly. They don’t burn up.”

“The canyon is our only choice,” Butch said.

“Yup.”

While Butch, Farkus, and McLanahan waited anxiously, Joe said, “Give me a minute.”

“We don’t have a minute,” McLanahan shouted. He was looking at actual flames advancing on them from tree to tree in the direction from which Joe had come.

“You’re free to go on ahead,” Butch said to McLanahan, which shut him up.

Unsaddling Toby, Joe quickly dug into his essentials bag for a canvas evidence pouch and a length of leather string. He dug out the digital recorder from his pocket, put it in the pouch and cinched it, and wrote FOR GOV RULON ONLY on the canvas with a black marker. He tied the string around Toby’s neck and said, “Be safe, buddy,” and slapped his horse on the flank.

Toby bunched up and took off. He looked back only once.

“Go!” Joe hollered.

“He’s got a better chance without my weight and that saddle,” Joe said. But as he watched his horse thunder up the mountain, his eyes stung, and it wasn’t from the smoke.

He dug the satellite phone out of the saddlebag.

He turned to Roberson. “Butch, I’d jettison that pack if I were you.”

Butch looked back, conflicted.

“Remember our deal,” Joe said.

Butch nodded and lowered the pack. “What about my rifle?”

“I’d leave that, too.”

“No. It goes with me.”

Joe didn’t want to argue. The look in Butch’s eyes said it wouldn’t be productive.

“Then let’s go,” Joe said, walking through them toward the south, still clutching the phone. He looked down and noticed there was a message on the screen. In all the commotion, he hadn’t heard it ring.

He’d retrieve it as soon as he had a moment.

“I hope you can find that passage again,” McLanahan shouted.

“Yeah,” Joe said dourly. “Me, too.”