praise for the allison coil mysteries: Lake of Fire: “Lake of Fire swirls into an environmental inferno that reads all too true— Mark Stevens writes like wildfire.” —Craig Johnson, author of the Walt Longmire novels, basis for the hit series Longmire “Don’t miss it. Mark Stevens is at the top of his game.” —Margaret Coil, New York Times bestselling author of the Wind River Mystery series “Mark Stevens is one heckuva storyteller, and Lake of Fire is a riveting page-turner of the highest order.” —Scott Graham, National Outdoor Book Award-winning author of Mountain Rampage “Mark Stevens just gets better and better … An absolutely must-read thriller!” —Chris Goff, author of Dark Waters and the bestselling Birdwatcher’s Mystery series “You'll revel in Mark Stevens’s painted descriptions and sharp dialogue. And most of all, you’ll root for the smartest, coolest heroine this side of the Mississippi: Allison Coil. Try not to tear the pages as you turn them furiously.” —James W. Ziskin, author of Stone Cold Dead and the Ellie Stone Mystery series Trapline: “A chilling tale.” —The Denver Post “Allison’s third adventure … combines a loving portrait of a beautiful area with an ugly, all-too-believable conspiracy that could have been ripped from today’s headlines.” —Kirkus Reviews “Readers will enjoy the fast-paced action.” —Mystery Scene “A well-executed and suspenseful narrative … The book is a thrilling read.” —The Aspen Times
“Stevens has a clean style and keeps the plot moving.” —Albuquerque Free Press “Thrilling, complex, and well-crafted with more twists and turns than a high road through the Rocky Mountains … No doubt about it, Mark Stevens is an author to watch!” —Margaret Coel, New York Times bestselling author of the Wind River Mystery series “Trapline rings as true as the beautiful mountains and valleys that frame this exciting, tense drama of today’s Colorado.” —Manuel Ramos, award-winning author of Desperado: A Mile High Noir Buried by the Roan: “Buried by the Roan is flat-out terrific. Everything you expect from a firstrate mystery is here: Savvy sleuth Allison Coil, hunting guide on-top-ofher-game, gorgeous Colorado mountain setting, gripping story where the pages practically turn themselves, and eloquent writing to boot. If you haven’t yet discovered Mark Stevens, this is your opportunity!” —Margaret Coel, New York Times bestselling author of the Wind River Mystery series “Mystery fans can delight in Mark Stevens.” —Fort Collins Coloradoan Antler Dust: “I stand ready to devour the next one.” —The Summit Daily News “The Colorado crime scene has gained a strong new voice, as well as a new character to watch in Allison Coil.” —The Rocky Mountain News “With its unique setting and diverse cast, Antler Dust makes a fast-paced, intriguing addition to the list of new thrillers.” —The Denver Post “This book was a thrill to read.” —The Loveland Reporter-Herald “A page-turner with all the makings of a great mystery: two deaths and a variety of characters who aren’t really what they appear to be.” —The Aspen Times
LAKE OF FIRE
other books in the allison coil mystery series Antler Dust Buried by the Roan Trapline
LAKE FIRE OF
AN ALLISON COIL MYSTERY
Mark Stevens
Midnight Ink
woodbury, minnesota
Lake of Fire: An Allison Coil Mystery © 2015 by Mark Stevens. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever, including Internet usage, without written permission from Midnight Ink, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews. First Edition First Printing, 2015 Book format by Teresa Pojar Cover design by Lisa Novak Cover photo by iStockphoto.com/19699798/©jonbeard Editing by Patti Frazee The song verse from Lake of Fire used with permission from Meat Puppets Music, LLC (Curt Kirkwood) Midnight Ink, an imprint of Llewellyn Worldwide Ltd. This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Stevens, Mark, 1954– Lake of fire / Mark Stevens. — First edition. pages ; cm. — (An Allison Coil mystery ; #4) ISBN 978-0-7387-4363-9 I. Title. PS3619.T4914L35 2015 813'.6—dc23 2015014201 Midnight Ink Llewellyn Worldwide Ltd. 2143 Wooddale Drive Woodbury, MN 55125-2989 www.midnightinkbooks.com Printed in the United States of America
This one is for Mark Graham, my longtime pal in words and stories
acknowledgments Thanks to Dan Schultz for writing about the tragic slaying of Cortez Police Officer Dale Claxton. Dead Run: Murder of a Lawman and the Greatest Manhunt in the Modern American West is a fascinating account of anti-government sentiment. Schultz’s research of those 1998 events provided key themes here. Overdue thanks to Al Marlowe. His guidebook, The Hiking and Camping Guide to Colorado’s Flat Tops Wilderness, has served as an ever-handy research tool throughout this series. In the latest edition (so glad to see the update), he is joined by co-author Karen Christopherson. Editor Shana Kelly helped shape an early draft and offered keen insights into character. Shana’s ability to see inside a story is remarkable. Thanks to Patti Frazee and Leroy Smith (yes, Leroy X of Denver rock and roll fame) for spot-on line edits and clean-ups. Much appreciation to a short-lived writers’ group—Christine Goff, Linda Joffe Hull, Jennifer Kincheloe, Christine Jorgensen, Suzanne Proulx, and Melisa Ford—for terrific comments on the opening chapters. Private detective David Keil offered considerable detail to my questions about investigations. Thanks again to Colorado Parks and Wildlife District Wildlife Manager Frank McGee for a careful read and insights about the wilderness and how humans and hunters behave when they go there. Thanks also to Rio Blanco County Sheriff ’s office and Deputy Sheriff John Scott for the extended ride-along. My good friend Stephen Singular generously shared a piece he wrote about a meeting with the late Randy Udall; I drew some key ideas from Stephen’s words (and may have borrowed an image or two). Writer pal Amy Kolquist gave generously of her time for read-
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ing and brainstorming. Thanks to David Akerson and Katie Reinisch for the use of a retreat space for a final writing push. The Short Story Book Club was there when I needed them most, at the semi-raw stage. The SSBC members are Ted Pinkowitz, Susan Fox, Dan Slattery, Parry Burnap, Laura Snapp, and my wife, Jody Chapel. Thanks again to two fabulous daughters, Ally Chapel and Justine Chapel, for all their support. Thanks to Sami Jo Lien for all her help behind the scenes. Thanks to the cast of thousands at both Rocky Mountain Fiction Writers and the Rocky Mountain Chapter, of Mystery Writers of America. Thanks to all the folks at Midnight Ink for their solid support and non-stop enthusiasm. And heartfelt thanks to Terri Bischoff for her friendship, leadership and, well, help with everything. In my world, Terri is a rock star. And final thanks to RenÊe Rumrill. I wouldn’t be here without you.
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“And the beast was taken, and with him the false prophet that wrought miracles before him, with which he deceived them that had received the mark of the beast, and them that worshipped his image. These both were cast alive into a lake of fire burning with brimstone.” —The Book of Revelations
“Where do bad folks go when they die? They don’t go to heaven where the angels fly They go down to the lake of fire and fry Won’t see them again until the Fourth of July” —The Meat Puppets
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one: wednesday late afternoon
Nature kills as mean as man. A one-hundred-foot spruce exploded like a giant sparkler. Smoke flowed thick like London or San Francisco fog. Take your fucking fog pick. The cloud stung her eyes and for a moment the burning lollipop bubble of orange on the tree faded behind the wall of smoke and she slowed to a walk, unable to see much beyond Sunny Boy’s snout. Pincers of flame threatened to close off the mouth of the ravine that she needed to clear in order to not become a fleshy morsel of skin and bone amid the fire’s otherwise steady diet of crispy-dry timber. Her heart flared. Sweat coated her forehead. Smoke whipped around and another tree caught the lollipop disease with a snarling crackle. High-definition, 3D movies rolled in her head that showed various scenarios for how the next minutes might play out. None of the clips ended well. 3
The gap with the lobster claw pincers of flame might, in fact, be a trap. She might be getting seduced by the appearance of an exit— an opening—when in fact the best route out would be where the two fires on her flanks converged. Allison Coil tugged the reins and turned Sunny Boy around, back uphill. “Trust me,” she said out loud. With authority. “And I’m not saying you don’t.” Sunny Boy’s ears flattened. He jerked his head up like he’d seen a snake. “I know,” she said. She shoved away the rising dread. At least, she faked it. She needed Sunny Boy’s complete dedication. He would sense her uncertainty. She pulled her kerchief up over her mouth, put her head down. She turned one stinging eye in the direction she had pointed Sunny Boy, shot the gap between two trees that cooked in relaxed fashion like a couple of logs at a campfire. From the ground up, fire wrapped each tree in wicked bursts of orange. Dragon’s breath. Dragon in the form of climate change and beetle kill and aberrant, menacing storms. And her demise. A minor loss in the big scheme of things. Katrina to Sandy to the monster tornadoes from Missouri to Oklahoma. In flashes, the heat surged with intensity. Trudy’s bread-baking oven times three. More bite. More weight. Less room to back away. Allison inhaled a lungful of heat. Sunny Boy jerked his head from side to side. No doubt his eyes stung too. All smoke. White-gray smoke. Chewy smoke. Fresh, thick gobs of the stuff. Allison found an open patch. A clearing. She stole a glance up— blue sky. Happy-normal grass under Sunny Boy’s feet. Fire on all sides and still the smoke, but this scrap of oasis, like the way some tornados leave one house unscratched in a city of devastation, offered 4
proof that fire and nature and man-made accidents were all capable of unexplained bits of random kindness. No time to linger. She kicked Sunny Boy toward the thickest, smokiest exit. Smoke charged her. Sunny Boy tensed. She may as well have coaxed a whale to the beach. His front legs stiffened. He had the urge to rear up, to shake off his parasite, determine his own fate. Allison contemplated her own. Colin flashed—and Trudy, too, right there. Her parents and family. Was this it? What would she miss? Time before birth was as unknown as the time after death— shouldn’t you also be afraid of what you didn’t experience before your birth? Or as jealous of what you missed? Why was one’s birth the starting point for zealous ownership of life? Family obligations kept Colin out of this pickle. No doubt spotters would have reported the fire. Maybe a response was already being organized. Maybe Colin knew she was in this area, given the timing and her anticipated trip over. Maybe she should say goodbye to him, even though he wouldn’t hear. To Trudy too. She coughed to relieve the ache in her lungs. To no avail. Should she climb down, press her nose to the ground and hope for a smoke-free snort of air? If a human caused the fire, did that disqualify it as a natural event? Sunny Boy relented. He shot forward as if to say, “Get this over with.” Allison ducked. The smoke was so thick she could be heading for a low branch. Or smack into a tree. She hoped Sunny Boy’s sonar was up and running. “Go,” she said, head down. “Go.” A hand on his withers came away soaked from worry and sweat.
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two: wednesday evening
Finding the edge of the burn scar was a snap. On one side of the random line, trees thrived. Their tops shuddered in the breeze. They showed no sign of remorse for their doomed brethren. On the other side of the random line, blackness reigned. Stillsmoldering blackness. Smoke oozed from the pores of the dying trees. Stray wisps—last gasps. Devo marveled at the thoroughness of the destruction. And it pissed him off. The fire was no act of nature. Or lightning. He had been up on the flank of Rat Mountain when the orphan thundercloud rolled through the valley. It generated mist, not rain, and it produced occasional and lazy lightning. But none of the strikes were down here where he had seen the first puffs of smoke. The cloud had stayed to his left, rolling in from the west. The fire had started in the sun-splashed timber a solid five miles of woods
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and scrubby undergrowth to the north. He had taken his bearings and headed off. By the time he had reached the ignition point, the fire was a blowup. Full-sized trees snapped like cracking bones. He caught glimpses of flame as he followed the general direction of Marvine Trail. Devo had stayed off the trail. He wasn’t fit for civilization. He avoided contact. He cut his own path, as he was prone to do. The fire had started on the west side of the Marvine Trail. Devo had started on the east. He crossed the trail when the line he’d chosen brought him to it. He could hold a straight line better than a crow. He could hide better than a well-fed wolverine. The risk of being spotted up here, even around the well-traveled Marvine Trail, was remote. Traffic in the Flat Tops was minimal— hikers, campers, fishermen. Horse riders too. The drought made the wilderness no fun. And no campfires. Devo didn’t need the newspaper to know that much—he hadn’t seen a campfire in weeks. But you couldn’t be too careful. At the spot where the fire started, the trees had not burned completely around the circumference. It wasn’t untouched bark on the downwind side, but the burn wasn’t as thorough. It was easy to see which way the fire had blown. What he saw here lined up with what he had seen from the ridge—yellow-orange sheets of flame that had kicked up twice the height of the treetops and then the frenzy churned to the northwest with an unlimited supply of its favorite food ahead. A normal west-to-east weather pattern might have put his camp —their homestead—in the crosshairs. “Camp sounds so temporary,” Cinnamon always insisted. “It’s a homestead. Our place on the edge of the new frontier.” The wind direction was a fluke.
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He looked for signs of where lightning might have struck the trees, even though he knew it hadn’t. He knew lightning could travel a long way, but the thundercloud had been so confined and distinct, and its lightning shots so straight down, that he knew something else was responsible. He looked for a shattered or exploded trunk or any black, linear gouge in the bark. Nothing. It was possible a lightning scar could get concealed by the fire itself but not here. There had been no goddamn lightning. Devo stood and took in a deep breath. He was alone. He’d slipped away, pre-dawn. He usually had a cameraman or camerawoman who followed every move. The television show captured every burp and scratch. But not today. He had made it look like a routine walk to take a pee and then he slipped off. It was his right. The show was his idea. Occasionally he needed the break. He needed breaks to think. And relax. Around-the-clock cameras were exhausting. Devo stopped. His senses were so keen that his body seemed to know things ahead of his brain. His eyesight had sharpened, but his nose led the way. The shift had been subtle. It wasn’t overnight or anything like that. He once sensed a herd of elk slipping through the forest a full half hour before he had come up behind them. He had known they were there. His nose told him the size of the herd. It sensed the weight of their collective smell. Elk were a fairly easy test, however. Their funk could linger in bedding areas for at least a day or two. He once stalked a pool of elk pee for hours. The elk? Long gone. He could smell bear and deer, both before and after the rut. He had long since merged his scent with the land. He hadn’t used a man-made product to clean himself since he had left the city. At some fundamental level, he emitted a human scent. He hoped the elk thought, oh that animal. But his ability to move softly, coupled with a growing sixth sense about the patterns and movements among the animals, made him feel at times utterly at home. 8
It worked. Devolution worked. Shedding the city worked. When the new recruits arrived, he could see the difference too —how far he’d come. They were up to nineteen now. Twelve women, seven men. The new recruits were hardly unfamiliar with outdoor life and outdoor survival, but committing yourself to the habitat, year-round, changed the dynamics. He could see them look around at the camp—the homestead—and study the more experienced tribesmen and start to process the fact that all their food would come from their work and prowess, that their survival would depend on their skills, smarts, toughness, teamwork. And that they were each other’s only source of friendships. They would have to work together. Devo could see them look. For now, the fire bugged the living shit out of him. In these conditions, the idea of a firestarter on the loose was worrisome, to say the least. While lush and dotted with lakes, the Flat Tops looked now like they had been forgotten in a kiln. Lakes and ponds sported shores triple the normal width. The remaining water in the lakes and ponds looked inert and dying. For ideal working conditions, a firestarter could ask for nothing better than this summer in the Flat Tops. If this had happened near his camp, their camp—their homestead—they wouldn’t have had time to outrun it. He shuddered to think. He found no signs of lightning. He drifted into the burn scar, zigged and zagged along the line between healthy and blackened trees. He was forty yards east of the Marvine Trail and that, too, suggested something other than lightning. Convenience. Access.
9
He was in a dense stand of lodgepole pine, weaving along the random line of fate, when he almost walked right into the small fire ring. It was no bigger than a dinner plate—seven stones in all. The inside was flat and, of course, black. It still held heat. And so did the trees. Ignition point. Devo stood back, walked away. The burn scar ran in a wide V-shape, fanning out and away. Carelessness? Somebody so desperate for a campfire that they had to sneak off and light one? There was no obvious sign of where any tents might have been pitched and no sign of a campsite at all except for this pint-size ring. Something was not right. Devo inhaled, turned his nose up and turned his head off to the side, trying to pick up something on the breeze. Something cooked. Like goat. A roast on a spit. But not quite. Heavier. A metallic whiff in the mix too. He turned his nose up like a dog getting the news off a flow of morning air. The whiff reminded him of a city barbecue. Frying fat. He straddled the line at the edge of the fire—pristine wilderness to his left, utter blackened devastation underneath and for miles on his right—and dropped down in a crouch. He moved on all fours. His compact frame liked the change. He’d grown more flexible and lean, of course, and the position didn’t bother him, even a stranger spotting him now might think the Flat Tops had long hidden the lone ape in North America. The move worked. His knuckles enjoyed getting in on the tactile action. Nose inches off the ground, the odor of crispy goat or pork hung to the air. The trail dissipated and he backed up, course-corrected. Followed further. Maybe the firestarter had gotten caught in his own blaze. 10
Devo stood. He had smelled enough, seen enough. This was the spot. The investigators would have no trouble confirming what he now knew—as long as they made it up here in the next day or two. An arson investigator would nail this as the spot, the V where it all began. Maybe there was a way to test the shattered bits and blackened remnants of wood. Wood and— Skull? Twenty feet from where he stood, the skull lay resting on its back. Staring up. Devo waited a moment, studied the ground he was about to step over and then crossed the steps as if seconds mattered. They didn’t. The skull was burned. No hair, no eyes. Mouth open, teeth exposed. The smell of meat mixed with burned guts and the coppersulfur pungent stew from blood and hair. In his first three years living in the woods, death was a daily issue. Rabbits, squirrels, deer, and elk. There wasn’t a species of bird he hadn’t tasted. But a still-smoldering human carried a heavier definition of death. Why? Really, why? He already wanted to find a way to report that the fire wasn’t caused by lightning. He already wanted to report he’d found the spot where it started. He already knew he’d have to find a way to communicate to the big civilized world out there. And he knew the implication for his brothers and sisters in camp. In the homestead.
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Cinnamon. He would have to secure her approval. They were a group now. And groups meant one thing he hated more anything else. Politics. “What the hell?” he asked the charred skull. “What the hell? Tell me what happened, would you?”
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three: wednesday evening
“As far as I’m concerned, pre-evacuation alerts or pre-evacuation orders or whatever they want to call it are a bunch of government bullshit. What the hell does it even mean? Get ready, you might lose it all so start packing the animals? Load the ark? Like they know what the hell direction the fire is going to go and they want to get the whole valley scared out of their gourds?” Earl McKee didn’t comment. He held court. He relished an audience. In this moment, he had a big one. Three sons—Daniel, Garrett, and Colin. Allison had fallen for the runt of the litter. Colin was the McKee most her size, below average in height and weight. She always found herself sitting up straight at the McKee’s dinner table. Dan and Garrett were twin towers of the family, an inch or two taller than Earl. You might not notice Colin at first, but when you watched his sure movements and started to make a list of all the things he could do— and do well—size didn’t matter.
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Along with the male offspring were Daniel’s wife, Gabriella, and Garrett’s girlfriend, Jayne. Jayne was the newest face. Allison met her for the first time this afternoon. Garrett hadn’t been super lucky in the girlfriend department and even now, Allison didn’t like his odds based on how Jayne had paid him any scant attention over the past couple of hours. The fourth female was Earl’s wife, the quiet force behind the McKee Empire, Charlotte. Char. Nobody’s fool. A Beagle puppy, Rex, was passed around for ear scratches and cuddles. He was twelve weeks old and his brown ears were soft like velvet. In these gatherings, Allison tended to sit back and sip margaritas. Or straight tequila. She kept her head down in the swirling stew of McKee testosterone. The topic of the day generally involved some government screwup. Earl’s prodding quizzes about her operation carried the not-so-gentle implication that this phase of her life was exactly that. They were gathered on the McKee’s back deck, a sprawling cedar beauty that served as the McKee exterior living room for three months of the year. It came with a gas grill the size of a small car. Plunked next to the grill, a well-stocked wet bar with one flavor of beer—Coors. Daniel McKee had opened his laptop on the long table. He was switching back and forth between Grand Junction and Denver stations. The news was all fire all the time, from the foothills west of Golden to a “monster” blaze near Paonia. On the size-of-fire scale, no doubt “monster” spoke of both sheer acreage consumed and its willingness to be tamed. News anchors must take a special class in learning when to assign such meaningless shorthand monikers. The beleaguered incident commanders stuck to droll facts-are-facts briefings. The wildfire she encountered wasn’t big enough to have joined the revolving news recaps. But it wouldn’t be long.
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The “pre-evacuation” order had come via recorded message on a reverse-911 call a half hour earlier as the elk tenderloins were coming off the grill. “They let the Big Fish Fire burn in ’02 at first,” said Earl. “That whole wilderness, let-nature-do-its-thing approach didn’t quite work and when it threatened to come off federal land they stepped up and knocked it down.” Earl took a swallow from his glass of golden beer. “It’s mostly luck every time.” One positive about these visits was the welcome reminder that she had hooked the one offspring in the brood, Colin, who believed there were more questions than answers. Earl overstated to make his points, but had raised his sons to believe that all you needed was a firm grip on the reins to get what you wanted out of all people, animals, and opportunities. “Well, finally,” said Daniel, punching up the volume on the laptop. Well-gnawed corncobs were strewn on the table. Char produced a fresh pitcher of margaritas, made with fresh lime juice and triple sec. The pitcher was jammed with ice, but none of it would last long. Jayne helped herself to a fresh topper. Daniel flipped the laptop around for all to see and punched up the volume. The news anchor from Grand Junction held a grim stare: “… a new fire near Trapper’s Lake in the Flat Tops Wilderness is the latest threat, although the area is lightly populated. Roadblocks are being set up to limit access to the scenic byway that runs across the north of the wilderness from Meeker to Yampa.” The McKee gathering grew church-like, except for Jayne. “Holy smokes, here we go. What’s gonna happen? Holy smokes. I knew it. I’ve been afraid of this all summer long. Oh my gawd.” Jayne’s flashy makeup was overdone for a simple backyard barbecue. She wore tight blue jeans and wedge shoes made of cork that jacked her up a couple inches. The blue jeans quit in time to reveal 15
matching barbed wire tattoos circling each ankle. She hadn’t looked Garrett’s way in about an hour, but fiddled with a stone necklace draped where her purple top opened up. She was skinny in an unhealthy way and not one thing about her suggested what she might be good at, other than the obvious. Earl never missed a chance for an eyeful. “They are calling this the Rat Mountain Fire and winds in the area are making this situation unpredictable.” The news anchor was chatting, not reading from a script. He was weary. This was all so familiar. “There aren’t a lot of houses in the area, as we saw with the six hundred homes destroyed on the Front Range last week, but another fire there could discourage hunters from booking trips and hikers and campers too. So to the folks who are trying to decide how best to prioritize all the battles around the state, you’ve got a tough job and limited resources.” Most summer nights in the mountains of Colorado required a light jacket. Something. But not this stretch and not this July. The deck came with a sun shade, but sweat came as natural as sitting. Allison estimated it was 90 with a gusty, dry breeze. Her smoky jean jacket was inside. She was down to her smoky riding shirt—blue checked, cotton long-sleeve—and her smoky Wrangler jeans. There was promise of a hot shower and she owed a check on Sunny Boy, who could use a scrub-down and de-smoking too. He was down with dozens of other horses in the thirsty, miserable grassland by the White River. Sunny Boy would no doubt have troubled dreams about their harrowing moments with the fire. So would she. “They won’t give a flying crap about Buford—you know it. I know it.” Earl leaned back, plucked a stubby cigar from a shirt pocket. He fired up the smoke with a silver lighter that snapped shut with metallic authority. The ritual required mere seconds. Even Jayne understood he hadn’t relinquished the floor. “They’ll evaluate 16
it, then the governor will check his list of contributors and see who deserves the big jets and the slurry drops. So, Ms. Allison, how far up was this when you tangled with the fire?” Now Earl McKee was in decision-making mode and, at last, listening. “Five miles. Most likely less by now,” said Allison. Wolf criers and worriers were Earl’s least favorite types, although he had a long list of least favorite types. “If it runs into where the Big Fish Fire took down the forest in oh-two, it’ll run out of gas.” This was Daniel, the oldest, not an Earl echo chamber. But all the sons seemed to defer, Garrett especially. “If it started near Rat Mountain, it could come down three or four different ways,” said Garrett. “Wouldn’t mind if it stays put up high where it belongs.” “You had lightning last night?” said Earl. “More lightning than rain,” said Allison. Two flashes were so close she’d climbed out of her sleeping bag to check on Sunny Boy, who was plenty agitated. The smoke in the morning wasn’t a shock, given the conditions. “But you thought you could get around it?” said Garrett. “I would have just headed the other way.” Garrett tried a protective arm around Jayne, but the arm did nothing to close the awkward gap of space between them. Jayne had checked her watch five times in the last minute. She was cute in a small-town way, but she tried too hard. Allison slapped herself for judging. Jayne’s fourth cocktail was already half-drained. With Daniel and Gabriella, who barely touched the beer she was poured, Allison smelled a touch of religions and morals—and the whiff reeked of steady judgment. With Garrett and Jayne, she wanted to know if they had met yesterday or last week and which online dating algorithm had a serious flaw.
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“I thought I had an angle around,” said Allison, making a point to minimize the number of words uttered aloud. “It was a calculated risk.” “Uh oh,” said Daniel. He’d switched from watching the laptop to staring down a spot on the ridge. They all followed his view. High to the south, a dull orange glow pulsed. Silent. Against the sweep of the dark night, the orange flicker wasn’t much but the flames waved hello. We are coming for you. The pulsing waves of fire were careless, offhand, and powerful. The edges of the light throbbed. Allison had no problem adding her own soundtrack, that exploding lollipop effect she knew so well. Someone produced a pair of binoculars from the kitchen—Char was a back-deck birder—and they took turns trying to discern its intentions. “She’s coming hard,” said Daniel, apparently missing the double meaning. “Mann Gulch in Montana? Killed all those smokejumpers back in the 1940s? They figure it was moving four to five miles per hour.” “She?” said Allison. “Why a she?” “Mother Nature,” said Earl. “All her kids—tornadoes, hurricanes, floods. They’re all a bitch.” “Hurricanes get boy names now. Andrew, Igor,” said Allison. “Sandy could have been either one.” “Government for you again,” said Earl. “Always trying to even things up, when everything was fine the way it was.” Earl took his turn with the binoculars. “Holy hell she looks angry.” Jayne stood up. “Let’s get out of here, please.” Allison appreciated Jayne’s sense of urgency. Jayne steadied herself with an arm on Garrett’s shoulder. Garrett took the opportunity to hold her but nothing about the gesture looked smooth. “That shit scares the daylights out of me.” Allison took pride in her resistance to panic, but the fire challenged those instincts. In this case, drunk Jayne was dead on. The 18
ranch house stood in the middle of a field on the northern banks of the White River. It was an idyllic spot close to Buford, nothing more than a cluster of closer-together houses, a gas station, and where the road from New Castle ended. The McKee location afforded splendid views, but they were limited to this spot in the valley. The big problem with any fire was a stand of eight towering cottonwoods that protected the house, like bodyguards, to the south. The shade kept the house cool in the summer but could now play the role of deadly fuse. Candles to the cake, in this case old clapboard. At the rate the wildfire was cooking, it would spew red-hot embers that could skip ahead on the fire’s own pumping, angry thermals and then land willy-nilly in dry timber downwind. Fires had their own selection process for destruction and it lived somewhere between random and nonsense. Once the fire had worked its way down to the southern banks of the White River, the McKee Ranch would be ripe fuel. The fire wouldn’t pause to burp. The match head on the high horizon had swelled. Through the binoculars, the fire filled Allison’s view. Individual trees stood black against their tormentor. The sight churned up fresh memories, mere hours old. “Could work its way down overnight,” said Daniel. “And we know the state won’t attack anything up this way until tomorrow.” “At the earliest,” said Garrett. Daniel stayed at the table, monitoring the laptop. Gabriella and Charlotte busied themselves with the cleanup. Allison knew they would wonder why she didn’t join the chore. How about this once? Channel your inner Trudy, Allison chided herself. Your best friend would never let a kitchen-related task happen without pitching in, so couldn’t she get off her ass? Allison gave Colin a high sign and a smile like “watch this.” She stacked dirty plates and grabbed empty dishes in an ungainly pile. 19
Her arrival in the kitchen was greeted warmly, though Allison worried she smelled too much like a week of camping. Or a month. No doubt she was spraying a scent like adrenaline-tinged sweat shaken with eau de forest fire. Neither Char nor Gabriella were prone to fingernail polish or fussiness, but the big gatherings at least called for a clean shirt and a comb through the hair. A look. Gabriella wore crisp new blue jeans. Charlotte—Char—sported a bright turquoise top. Nearing sixty, Char was a feisty presence who put her head down and did one thing at a time and did it well. Char managed chores around the ranch—working the vegetable gardens, keeping the house shipshape, keeping the family well fed, and attending to a variety of church and school organizations in Meeker, a booming metropolis compared to Buford’s blip. Char stood at the sink, conducting the orchestrated cleanup attack. Gabriella hand-dried bowls and pots with a towel. Through the kitchen window, Allison could see Garrett with his arm around Jayne at the deck’s railing, staring up the valley. Her attempts to keep her distance from Garrett were now a constant source of amusement and Allison almost felt sorry for the guy. Inside, Char spoke first. “If he decides to go, we’ve got a lot of animals to haul out and a ton of stuff to pack. But he might stay and fight.” “You don’t have a say?” Gabriella was a dark, beautiful woman whose Mexican-born parents were successful owners of a restaurant in Glenwood Springs, El Conejo. Gabriella was five months pregnant with the McKee’s first grandchild. The attraction between Daniel and Gabriella was obvious—her beautiful golden-brown skin, dark eyes like black beads, and a trim figure that sported the baby bulge like an appealing element of femininity. A temporary one. Pregnancy wouldn’t change Gabriella. Even Allison wondered what it
20
would be like to kiss her sleek mouth—sharp corners and screaming white teeth. It was easy to think some beauty might rub off. “A say? He lets me think so.” Char smiled. “This summer is terrible,” said Gabriella. She and Daniel had made the trek up from Denver for a week’s stay at the ranch. “You get the feeling the whole state is on fire. Or about to go up. Makes you appreciate the normal years.” “Just don’t mention global warming,” said Char. “Not tonight. Not ever.” Allison knew Earl McKee wasn’t the last non-believer in Colorado. There were bunches of them out there who walked around with the old ostrich mentality down pat. It was all a government hoax or a longer-than-normal shift in temperatures. By now the non-believers had dived deep underground, but they were out there crawling around in their secret tunnels and meeting up to mock what was happening to the water supply and the coastline. Her client base of hunters included the occasional denier. The idea that anyone could dismiss global warming was the equivalent, Allison thought, of dismissing east as the direction where the sun would rise. In all ways she could think to measure and weigh, Colin was perfect longterm material. The lone complicating element was how much she might be expected to interact and tangle with the McKee family as time went on. Tongues could be bitten for only so long before they started to bleed. Maybe she needed to homestead with Colin in backwater Alaska. Or the Himalayas. Dishes clacked into the washer. Gabriella wiped down the half acre of counter. Everything about the house was double or triple in size and scale. Daniel showed up carrying two stray beer mugs with his laptop tucked under one arm. Jayne sat alone by her margarita. Her glass had magically refilled itself. Garrett remained by the railing.
21
“I guess that huge fire down south has got Paonia in the crosshairs so the Denver station is going to full-time coverage,” said Daniel. Garrett drifted into the kitchen, Jayne on his fingertips, not even palm to palm. Jayne looked woozy. Daniel was the better groomed of the two older brothers—a fresh shave and bit of polish. He cared about his shirts and hair. The look said he cared. Garrett kept scruff and country grunge alive. He was prone to plaid flannel shirts and his jeans looked tired and ill-fitting. He had long, scraggly hair. Now that Daniel and Colin had moved off, Garrett helped around the ranch, home to the fine horse collection and a large herd of beef cattle kept on separate sides of the property. Garrett could strap on a distant gaze like he had taken full advantage of Colorado’s legalization of weed. She hadn’t had much reason to nail down the details of Colin’s two brothers—in part because Colin deflected probes on the general topic. “They already lost some ranches and barns outside Paonia and it’s a skip and a jump into town.” Allison snuck a glance at the big picture window over the sink. The wedge of orange jabbing its way down the ridge had tripled in size in the last ten minutes. “Thanks for all the help,” said Char. “Many hands, you know.” “No problem,” said Daniel. An old, tired joke. “I needed another drink after all that work.” “I’m afraid sons one and two learned the old-school separation of roles from their father,” said Char by way of explanation to Allison. “You got the one who doesn’t draw distinctions.” Earl McKee entered the kitchen like he was conquering new territory, Colin right behind him. Earl had left his cigar outside but a discernable waft of the sticky smoke trailed him like dust following a pickup down a dry dirt road. “We’re not running,” said Earl. “No?” said Char. “We’re not? You see what I see?” 22
“We’re going to stay and fight. Water from the river. We’ve got a pump and a generator and since I still don’t know what the hell a pre-evacuation order even means, we’re going to pretend we never heard the goddamn message.” Something told Allison that the comfortable guest bedroom, and Colin’s body wrapped around her in a happy, tequila-induced haze, was not in her near future. Earlier, she had visions of a quiet screw in the first-floor guest room, about the size of a normal master bedroom, as her thank you to the world for escaping the flash fire and her payback to Colin if she had ever, for one minute, taken him for granted. Garrett’s awkwardness made her appreciate Colin even more. But “alone time” vanished. Time for battle. And Allison’s usual low-key optimism had squirreled itself into a dark hole. No matter the size of the farm’s pump or hose, Allison doubted it could generate the pressure to soak the tops of the sixty-foot trees. Colin slid around his brothers and stood next to her in the nowimmaculate kitchen. “If it gets us, it gets us,” said Earl. “At the very end, we can let the horses go and we can make a run for it if it comes to that. But we can soak all this down real good and hold the line on our own. You see any sign of help? I’ve got four hundred feet of good hose in the barn and we can move the pump and generator down to the river in a pickup.” Earl already had it all figured out. “We’ll have to stand and watch it tonight but about an hour before she gets here we start hosing everything down and we keep it up for as long as we can. And we hope to get lucky with the winds. But I am not running. I’ve got too much sunk into this place. We all do.” “Fun way to end a party.” Colin said it with a disapproving bite. 23
“And you want to run? Leave it at that? Take our chances?” Once set, nobody bumped Earl McKee off a plan. Colin didn’t mind squaring off and Allison silently cheered him on. “Your hose and a wet-down won’t be enough if it comes to that. And the firefighters might take one look at the lack of defensible space on the south and just mark this all off as a goner. And if they want to drop slurry or do anything else in here and you had refused an order to evacuate—” “It’s a pre-evacuation order—” said Earl. “Whatever,” said Colin. Nobody else wanted to mix it up; nothing unusual there. “Yeah, whatever that is—” said Earl. “Well, the next call is coming in about an hour. Or two. And they are going to want you out of here.” Colin spoke with the calm authority of an independent consultant. “Who made you the expert?” said Garrett. “It’s the same thing every year, every fire,” said Colin. “Whether it’s Black Forest or Waldo Canyon. It’s all about defensible space.” “We aren’t running,” said Earl. “We’ll open up the gates and let the cattle and horses go if we need to and we’ll get them later. But the house and the outbuildings, I’m not leaving them to the whims of the government. No way. No how.”
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Mystery
“Thrilling, irresistible.”—Kirkus Reviews
Allison Coil and reporter Duncan Bloom confront extremists in the Colorado Rockies A giant wildfire is roaring through Colorado’s Flat Tops Wilderness. The massive blaze is wiping out Allison Coil’s precious hunting grounds, and the flames have set their sights on the beautiful ranch owned by her boyfriend’s family. Allison and longtime friend Trudy are shocked to learn that a body has been found in the fire ravaged forest—a friend who was a reclusive environmentalist with an unorthodox idea for the battle against global warming. Along with reporter Duncan Bloom, Allison burrows into an underground group of anti-government extremists. As they strike close to home and hurt those closest to her, Allison vows hell might not be punishment enough for these sinister fanatics. Praise for Trapline:
“A chilling tale.”—The Denver Post “Allison’s third adventure . . . combines a loving portrait of a beautiful area with an ugly, all-too-believable conspiracy that could have been ripped from today’s headlines.”—Kirkus Reviews “Readers will enjoy the fast-paced action.”—Mystery Scene
Winner of the 2015 Colorado Book Award for Mystery (Trapline) $14.99 US / $17.50 CAN ISBN 978-0-7387-4363-9
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