Falls Like Lightning (25 page)

CHAPTER

42

E
lle leaned her head against the wooden door. Her hands hung cuffed, this time to the inside handle with the door shut. She sat with her legs bent together. The old man wheezed and coughed and searched for something in the kitchen pantry. His hands trembled and clumsily knocked over spice jars. The shotgun stood propped in the corner.

Cleese’s body lay out front.

The old man staggered, mumbling to himself. His skin color became ashen. He rummaged about, as though he were at work to prepare a meal, but his efforts accomplished little to nothing. A pot on the cast-iron stove boiled over, water hissing and vaporizing on contact with the surface.

He fell victim to a hacking and coughing fit, balancing on the counter for support. The coughing continued, and then, in one violent sudden cessation, he stood erect, clutched his chest, and looked at Elle with eyes like a man falling into an abyss.

———

Caleb squinted through the growing smoke. The sound of the fire crackled constantly now. The front was hitting even sooner than he expected.

He held his Ruger in his hand, ring finger threaded through the top of the trigger well, handgrip pointed downward. Last thing he needed was to shoot himself in the leg. He strode along the trail, eyes beginning to water from the smoke. He stopped at the tree line before the cabin and blinked away the moisture. The door was shut and the wick of an oil lantern emitted a warm glow through a small window.

His eyes fell to a form facedown in the dirt. Caleb drew a sharp breath.

Cleese.
His knife lay beside him in the dust. One of his legs bent at an unnatural angle, clamped between the jaws of a saw-toothed bear trap.

Caleb clicked off the pistol safety and chambered a round. Maybe this was foolhardy. The prudent choice would be to cut his losses and bail, but he couldn’t leave any witnesses.

He angled the Ruger in front of him and studied the perimeter. Three well-trod paths led to the front door of the cabin. From the looks of Cleese’s fate, Caleb thought it wise to stick to those. He walked sideways down the path toward the front door. His eyes bounced from corner to corner of the cabin and then back to the window. He made out a kitchen counter and a hanging pantry with cabinet doors ajar.

How best to do this?

Caleb reached the front door and turned his back against the wall, peering through the window for evidence of anyone inside. On the floor just beyond the table, barely distinguishable in the faint lantern light, lay a dark object—possibly a body?

The front door rattled.

Caleb jumped back and swallowed a curse. He pressed against the cabin wall and aimed his gun at the door.

———

Silas felt light-headed and short of breath. The smoke-veiled edges of the forest lit aglow. A pervasive pop and crackle filled the air.

From somewhere close came a distinct mechanical sound. He placed hands on his knees and inclined his ear. Rotors. A Bell UH-1. Since his time years ago on a helitack crew, he couldn’t mistake it. A Huey was taking off, from somewhere very close.

The temperature elevated. He ran, advancing with the flame front. Ash flittered in the breeze. Fire fingered alongside, jumping and spotting flames up ahead.

A blast of thick dark smoke chugged from a juniper ahead of him.

Branches cracked beneath his heels. Rocks tumbled beneath his boots. One more hillside. One more obstacle to surmount.

He crested the hill in time to see the skids of a helicopter lifting into the smoke above.

Silas dropped to his knees. Oxygen fled from his lungs. He blinked and gasped, propping himself with one hand.

Cunning plan. Sabotage the jumper aircraft. Drop into an area under conditions they knew no one would chase them into. Grab the hidden plunder and coordinate a rendezvous with a getaway bird. The Huey had the carrying capacity to fly out all of those guys and a heavy load of gold.

The wind swirled soot and dust. The fire would soon be upon him.

———

The door shook again. A voice grunted. Caleb’s hamstrings ached and his forearms tired.

Metal clacked and wood knocked again, followed by an exasperated sigh. A sigh . . . not a grunt. A woman’s sigh.

Caleb stood alongside the window. He stuck his head out with more boldness to examine the shape on the floor of the kitchen. Sure enough, those were boots, and the boots were attached to the legs and torso of the old prospector on his back. Unless he had decided to take an impromptu nap, Caleb guessed he was out of commission. He moved more in front of the window and turned his gaze to the opposite side of the front door. There, of all people, sat the pilot, handcuffed to the handle.

His eyes flicked back to Cleese and the dark muddy blood pool beneath him.

A breathy laugh escaped. He shook his head.

Impressive. And irritating.

He scanned the edges of the small clearing around the cabin. An orange glow filled the forest, smoke lingering in the spaces like an army of specters.

Caleb really preferred not to be on the front end of killing. Okay, murder. Call it what it was. That’s where Cleese had proved useful. The man had no reluctance of conscience or squeamishness of gut.

Caleb saw the greater plan as it needed to be. And he’d designed the operation so there would be no face-to-face killings.

When Plan A didn’t work, he had hoped to fall back on Cleese to carry out the details by the more grotesque means. But even that, as most things on their mission, had failed. The spotter and Bo escaped, prompting him to send off two more men, away from the gold, for the purpose of finishing what could have been so cleanly accomplished by an apparent aviation accident.

Enough remorse. Fate found him now with the upper hand and the fortune in flight. The fire would soon be upon this place and take it to the ground. He placed his hand on the wrought-iron door handle and depressed the latch.

———

Silas lifted his head at the sight of motion along the clearing’s edge.

Caleb burst from a narrow forest path with another person.

Elle.

Alive.

She staggered behind him, her hair balled in his fist, hands cuffed behind her back.

Smoke flooded the area. The pressing flames advanced with a dull roar. Below, Caleb dragged Elle across the clearing to an earthen mound that, on closer inspection, sported a rectangular opening reinforced by timbers.

The bunker.

They disappeared inside of it. Silas hopped to his feet. He ran and jumped along the edge until he reached the top of the earth-covered bunker. He lowered to a squat and crawled forward, floating ash fluttered past his head. He felt the heat of the fire on the backs of his legs. The clearing beneath him reeled into view with every movement forward until he came to just above the edge.

Voices trailed out. Elle’s, sorrowful and burdened. “This is insane. You understand that? Look at me. Look at me and tell me what you are doing.”

“The time is past for explanations, Pilot.” Caleb’s voice, accompanied by the sound of scuffling and something like a reel unwinding.

“My name is Elle. You know it. Look at me. Look at me and face what you are doing.”

“What I am doing,
Elle,
is what needs to be done. I cannot take any chances with you this time.”

“What you’re doing is murder.”

“Call it what you will.”

“There’s no other name for it.”

“I’ve spent my life corralling fate, Elle. You know that? As a medic, I curbed death until it found another way in through the cracks. And now, as a smokejumper, what do I do? What do we do? We herd fire in the direction we want it to go. Sometimes you need to give fate some direction. I am sorry it had to work out this way.” The scuffling grew louder. Caleb paused in the entryway, a wooden dowel in hand with cord spooling out from it. “It will be swift. You won’t suffer.”

Silas’s eyes grew wide. A cord fuse. Caleb was going to blow the bunker and bury Elle with it.

Erratic winds howled. Fire lapped into the perimeter trees, flaring them off like Roman candles.

Caleb moved backward, both hands on the cord reel. Both hands meant neither held a gun.

Silas perched on the balls of his feet. Flaming embers flitted. He counted down.

Three. Hands at the ready.

Two. Foot on the threshold.

One.

CHAPTER

43

E
lle screamed. Caleb dropped to the dirt, jumped by another man. The two tangled and twisted.

Silas.

Unbelief and excitement filled her. She jerked her handcuffs against the pipe railing beside the pulley system. The bolts in the aging boards below jiggled. She grabbed the metal crossbar with both hands and shook, trying to increase the play in the railing, rattling the handle of a push broom that leaned against the far end of it. On instinct, she slid the cuffs along the pipe and reached toward the bolts below. The metal bracelets dug into her wrist.

Silas and Caleb exchanged blows. Silas struck Caleb twice in the face. Caleb swung a fist to his belly. The two locked like steers again. Caleb pulled the gun from his belt, but Silas grabbed his wrist and took him to the ground. The gun fired. Silas knocked Caleb’s wrist against a stone. The pistol went flying, and the two tumbled in the duff. Sagebrush in the clearing burst into flame. Cheatgrass at their boots ignited. Smoke curled inside the bunker.

Elle rattled and fought against the metal. Her hair draped over her face. She flipped it back, strands sticking to the sweat across her brow. The men rolled over blackened and smoking ground, flames licking up around them. Elle’s eyes followed a line of grass catching fire. It wound directly beneath the fuse reel.

The fire roared in the wind. “Silas!”

He wrapped his arm over Caleb’s back and glanced over at her, cheeks red and hair wild.

“The fuse.” She pointed. “The fire is going for the fuse.”

Caleb grunted and lifted Silas at the midsection. He drove him up and then back down into the earth. Flames flashed across the cheatgrass, wicking toward the fuse. Silas shifted to his knees. He drove an elbow into Caleb and clambered to his feet.

The fire licked at the fuse. Silas lunged for the cord, lifted it from the ground and shot a glance back at Elle.

Caleb barreled into Silas, knocking him to the ground and the cord from his grasp. The fuse fell into the burning grass. Silas made his belly and struggled for the fuse. But Caleb pounded fists against his ears and jaw.

Silas covered his head, kicked and turned and ended up on his back. Caleb shifted and positioned himself on Silas’s chest, taking full advantage to drive fist blows to his face. Silas writhed and struggled but was pinned beneath the punishment.

Helpless, Elle watched blow after blow strike him. His arms dropped lower, his strength to block the barrage waning, opening his head to even more strikes.

“Silas!”

He didn’t look her way.

Hot, stinging tears welled in her eyes. Elle shook the railing, screaming in frustration.

“Stop it. Stop it!”

Caleb gripped Silas’s shirt with one fist and landed another blow with his opposite. Silas’s head dropped to the side. His eyes rolled back. Caleb cocked his fist above his head.

The fuse lit.

It hissed and sparkled and took off in two directions—one up into the cord reel, where it quickly burned out. The other climbed along the cord that ran straight toward the middle of the bunker a body length from Elle and toward several stacks of dynamite Caleb had moved from the walls.

Caleb released Silas and stood. He stared at the fuse and flashed a wild, panicked look at Elle. He turned, stumbled, scampered to his feet, and ran off into the forest beyond.

The fire buzzed along the fuse. She had half a minute at most. Elle shook the railing again. Silas lay unconscious.

There had to be a way.

Sparks ran along the fuse, drawing closer. The world around Silas lay engulfed in wind-driven smoke.

Seconds remained.

It wasn’t supposed to end like this.

She brought her hand to her mouth and let it fall to her chest. She felt the circle of her father’s ring hanging on her necklace.

The necklace.

Her eyes flashed to the push broom just out of reach. She lowered her head and pulled off the chain. The lit fuse climbed toward the entrance. She hooked a finger through the ring, brought her hands above the railing, and flipped the necklace toward the top of the broom handle.

It knocked against the wood and swung back. The fuse sparked inside the bunker, running up the middle of the floor toward the explosive stash.

Elle held the necklace up and flipped it again. The chain sailed over the end of the handle and slid down the shaft. She yanked the broom toward her. It tipped like a tree into her hands.

Elle shifted her feet around, lifted the end of the broom handle and spun the flat wood atop the brushes toward the ground. The fire danced along the cord, hissing and spitting. She hovered the broom head over the fuse cord, her forearms burning, sweat beading. Waiting. Waiting, until the sparking inched just within her reach.

She slammed the broom end upon it. Again and again, the cuffs biting into her skin. She pummeled the fuse, driving up dirt and pebbles. Wood cracked with a swing and the brush head broke off and flipped across the floor.

She trembled with the shattered broom handle in hand. Dust fell to the floor. And there the fuse lay darkened and burnt up to the point where she struck it.

No more sparking. No more hissing.

She collapsed by the pipe railing, chest heaving for breath. She ran fingers over gashes in her wrists, over the skin of her palms now worn raw. The necklace chain draped across her knuckles, running through her father’s ring upon her finger.

CHAPTER