July Thunder (12 page)

“No way,” one firefighter said, shaking his head as he climbed out of his Jeep. “No way we go in there.”

“Don't you have those fire-retardant suits?” Sam asked. “His house is only another couple hundred yards, I think. We can't just leave him to die….” Sam paused. In the heat of the moment, he hadn't even asked the man's name. He extended a hand. “I'm Sam.”

“Paul,” the man said, taking his hand quickly. “And you
think
it's only another couple hundred yards. Even if you're right, that's too far. Or it's not far enough.” Paul looked at the fire. “The house may already be gone, and your friend with it. And as for suits, those flames can reach two thousand degrees. They'll melt the suit right on a man. We can't get in. Period.”

“I'm not leaving a man to die,” Sam said. “There has to be a way.”

Another of the firefighters stepped forward. Younger, blond hair turned gray by ash and smoke. “Paul, they're dumping mud on the far side of the ridge. Maybe if one of the planes has something left in its load…”

Paul turned and started to argue, then stopped. Instead he simply nodded and spoke into the microphone clipped to his vest. “East range chief, mobile two, over. Yeah, we have an urgent rescue and we need some mud.” He looked at his map and barked out coordinates. “Yep, where the backfires turned. There's an old mining road. I'll flash our strobe to let him know where we are.”

The voice on the radio crackled in objection. Paul let out a sigh. “I know they're busy. But we've got a man trapped, and he may be dying while we're arguing.” The voice crackled again, and Paul shook his head. “If that's the best you can do, I guess it'll have to work. We're marking now. Mobile two out.”

“So?” Sam asked.

Paul ignored him for the moment, turning instead to his crew. “John, get the strobe up on the roof of the Jeep and stay clued in to the radio. Greg, Larry, suit up. We have maybe two minutes.”

The men scrambled into action as Paul turned to Sam. “They're diverting a plane that was on its way back. It's gonna dump some mud on the road there, and we're going in right behind it. If he finds us. If he drops on target. If the mud knocks the fire down. It's going to get messy, so get in your Jeep and stay there.”

Sam shook his head, reaching into the Jeep for his rebreather. “I'm going with you.”

“The hell you are,” Paul said. “Look, this isn't
about courage. It's about training and experience. You'll just be a liability for my men.”

“And you don't know where the house is,” Sam said, shrugging on the tank and pulling the mask over his face. “What's more, we're wasting time talking. And Joe Canton can't spare the time.”

“Fine,” Paul said, donning his own tank and mask. “But you stay with my men. If I say pull out, we pull out. No matter what.”

“Deal,” Sam said.

They hunkered down behind his Jeep while one of the firemen stood on the roof of their vehicle, aiming a strobe light up through the forest. Soon the roar of flame was joined by another roar, a deep-throated rumble from the sky above. Sam couldn't see the plane. He hoped the pilot could see the flashing light. If not…

The rumble grew, then passed directly overhead. “Duck and cover!” Paul yelled, pulling Sam's head down.

A rain of thick, gooey fluid fell around them, instantly staining everything a bright red. Too thick to evaporate in the heat as it fell, it hit his back with a wet, stinging thud. In an instant the temperature around them dropped forty degrees. Sam looked up, wiping a few droplets of mud from his mask. The road ahead was clear, but only barely, the flames beaten back only a few yards on each side.

“Go-go-go!” Paul yelled, already up and moving.

Sam jumped up and jogged alongside the others,
the tank shifting and bouncing on his back. He tried to tighten the straps as he moved. A quick glance to either side told him they didn't have much time. The mud had damped the flames, but it would dry in minutes, and the fire would return in full force.

“Just ahead on the right!” he called, pointing over Paul's shoulder.

“It better be,” Paul said, looking around. “If it's not around this corner, we're pulling out.”

Sam understood the cold moral calculus, even if his heart rebelled against it. Joe Canton was a man worth saving. But so were Paul and his men. Getting them killed wouldn't save Joe's life. If he was still alive.

They rounded the corner and Sam pointed again. “There's the house!”

Paul nodded. Flames were already crackling across the tiny, spare yard, clawing at the base of the walls. Windows had shattered. “Come on!” he yelled, waving an arm forward.

By the time they reached the house, Paul already had the fire ax raised. He swung it at the door, next to the knob, a hard blow. The frame splintered, and the door sagged inward.

Sam followed the men in. There was no one in the front room. He started toward the hallway off to the left, but Paul grabbed his arm. “We go in twos. Greg and Larry, you go right. Sam, you're with me.” He looked at his men. “Count to thirty and get out, no matter what.”

Sam heard the groaning yawn of overheated timbers stretching. The fire had reached the back walls. Remembering what little training he'd been given on the job, he touched each doorknob before opening it. A hot doorknob would mean an active fire in the room beyond. He opened the first door. It was the two men's bedroom, and empty. Paul stood in the doorway while Sam ran in to check the attached bathroom. Also empty.

“Ten, eleven, twelve,” Paul called out aloud, pointing down the hallway.

Sam hurried back out, and they tested the next doorknob. It was warm. Maybe there was time. He opened the door and felt a rush of heat. On the far side of the room, the curtains had already ignited. A pair of metal file cabinets stood along one wall.

Curled on the floor, eyes clenched shut, papers clutched in his hand, was Joe Canton.

“Joe!” Sam called. But his voice was lost in the roar of the fire. A chair under the window was already smoldering. The room would be alight in moments. Sam crossed the room quickly and grabbed Joe's shoulder. The man looked up, terror filling his eyes. “Come on, Joe! You're okay. Let's go!”

A pall of smoke hung in the room. Joe tried to stand, but in doing so he sucked in the smoke and bent over, coughing and retching. Sam grabbed the man and slung him over his shoulder, turning to the door. The carpet had now caught, and flames licked
their way across the room. He looked at Paul, who waved his arm desperately as if to say
Get out now!

Sam crossed the room as quickly as he could, ignoring the heat on his legs. Paul had moved out ahead of him, and when Sam stepped into the hallway it was empty. He cursed and headed back toward the front of the house. As he passed the next door, Paul emerged from the master bedroom holding a wet towel. He clapped it over Sam's legs. Only then did Sam realize his trousers had been on fire.

“Go-go-go!!” Paul called. Outside, Paul counted “twenty-six, twenty-seven,” looking at the door. His men tumbled through exactly at thirty.

In the darkness and smoke inside the house, there had been no way to tell the others that Joe had been found. Now they offered quick, grim nods of relief as they set out to the road and back toward safety. The mud was almost dry, and the fire was already pressing back onto the sides of the narrow road.

Sam labored under the unfamiliar tank and the weight of Joe Canton, stumbling in a slow jog. He knew the others were chafing at his pace. He also knew they wouldn't run on ahead and leave him. As they passed through the drying mud, the flames on either side seemed to scream in rage. Sam felt the skin on his face dry and tighten around the edge of his mask. There was no stopping here. Even to pause would let the fire feed on them.

Finally they passed through the worst of it, shambling along, guided only by the feel of the road be
neath their feet. They were only a few feet from Sam's Jeep when they saw it through the smoke. Sam tumbled Joe into the back seat and climbed behind the wheel.

“Wind shift!” Paul called out.

Sam turned. The wall of flame had reached across the road again and begun creeping toward them. Paul and his men were already piling into the other vehicle, where John had begun radioing in the good news the minute he'd seen them coming through the smoke. Sam turned the key in the ignition, slammed the truck in gear, twisted in his seat so he could see out the back window and stomped on the gas. The Jeep shot backward, and Sam yanked the wheel to move around Paul's vehicle. Then Paul was also moving, and they backed down the road, bouncing wildly, until they found a small clearing in which to turn around.

“Damn fool,” Paul said, leaning in to talk to Sam through the window when they stopped at the checkpoint. “We could've died in there.”

Sam nodded. “But we didn't.”

“Get him to the hospital,” Paul said, reaching for his microphone. “East range chief, mobile two over. We got him out, Doug. Thanks for the flyby.”

“Tell him thanks from me, too,” Sam said, backing away.

But Paul had already signed off. “Just get that jackass to the hospital and make it worth our while.”

 

Louis was waiting at the entrance to the E.R. “I think he's okay,” Sam said as attendants bundled Joe onto a stretcher and wheeled him in. “Maybe smoke inhalation.”

Louis seemed about to hug him, but instead he simply held out a hand. “Thank you for saving him.”

“When he wakes up,” Sam said, “chew his ass for being an idiot. He almost got four men killed.”

“Gladly,” Louis said, nodding. “But he's my idiot. And I love him.”

“He's lucky to have you,” Sam said. He looked down at his charred trousers, then up at Louis. “Hell, after today, he's lucky all around.”

S
am's lower legs were stinging, but he didn't want to look. As long as they hurt, the burns couldn't be too serious. In fact, he could remember worse pain from bumping his hand into the side of his oven.

He had to pass near Mary's house on his way home from the hospital. Realizing she was probably on tenterhooks about what had happened, he turned down her street and parked in front of her house. The lights were on, so she was still up. He spared a glance for his blackened jeans, then decided he could pass the damage off as ash so she wouldn't worry about it. Hell, he was dirty and sooty from head to foot. But he was still walking, and that ought to be reassurance enough.

He looked even worse than he thought, though. He could tell that from the expression on Mary's face when she opened the door. She was still wearing that pretty dress she'd worn to dinner, but he
had a sneaking suspicion he no longer resembled the man who had picked her up.

“My God, Sam,” she said in a throaty whisper. “My God.” Reaching out, she grabbed his hand and pulled him into the house. “Is there anywhere you're
not
burned? Why aren't you in the hospital?”

“I'm not burned,” he lied. “It's soot.”

And that was when he saw his father. The man had been sitting on the couch, but now he got to his feet, drawing Sam's attention to him.

Whatever Elijah was thinking, it was, as usual, expressed in stern lines. His was a face Sam had rarely been able to read. “Your legs,” Elijah said.

Mary looked down and gasped. “Your pants are burned!”

“Just singed.” What he wanted to do was ask what in the hell his father was doing in Mary's house. In some deep, inescapable way, he felt betrayed. She was associating with the enemy.

But the enemy spoke. “We were worried about you,” Elijah said. “Risking your neck like that…”

“No risk,” Sam said shortly. “I was with an experienced crew.” It was a lie, but he wasn't going to have Mary needlessly upset. Even if she was consorting with Elijah. “I'm
fine.
And if anybody's interested, we got Joe out. He's in the hospital for smoke inhalation, but otherwise he's fine.”

“Thank God,” Mary said prayerfully.

Elijah's gratitude was conspicuously absent. Sam felt a surge of the old rage but bit it back out of
deference to Mary. Damned judgmental old fool, he thought angrily. Elijah's spots were never going to change.

“Well,” said Sam flatly, feeling his heart turn to stone as he looked at the two of them, so cozy in Mary's living room, “I'll be on my way.”

“Sam, no.” Mary reached out, taking his hand again. “You're exhausted. You need to unwind. Why don't you take a shower here? It'll help get rid of the tension.”

He gave her a humorless smile. “No change of clothes.”

“I'll get something from my place,” Elijah said, heading for the door. “We're still pretty much the same size.”

“Thanks,” Mary said. Sam said nothing, just felt the deep burning that never quite seemed to go away when anything to do with Elijah was involved.

“Come on,” Mary said, tugging his hand after Elijah left. “You'll feel better. I'll make you a snack. Something to drink…”

He was weak. He didn't want to go home to his empty house. Not yet. And Mary's soothing, concerned tone worked on him like a spell. Had he been strong, he would have marched out. But he was feeling weak, feeling in need of a little TLC.

He told himself it was the adrenaline wearing off. Somewhere inside, though, he realized he didn't want to relinquish Mary to his father.

“Okay,” he finally said. “Can I have a garbage
bag for these clothes? They're shot, and I don't want them messing up your house.”

“Of course.”

She gave him one of those big green lawn bags and he took it into the bathroom with him. Judging by the stinging of his legs, he didn't think he was up to hot water. Cold shower. Just what he needed.

And the water was
cold.
At this altitude the ground rarely warmed up enough to take the chill off the water pipes. It felt like a bath in ice, and he shivered as he soaped and then soaped again, trying to wash away the mud and the soot. His legs were red, but there were no blisters, and though the water made him shiver, it felt good on his scorched skin. Really good. With the pain easing, he felt himself relaxing a bit.

When he climbed out to towel off, he discovered that clothes lay in a neat pile on the toilet seat. Resistance rose in him, but he told himself not to be an ass. It was only as he was patting his legs dry—gently, so as not to abrade the tender skin—that he realized all the hair had been singed off them.

Somehow that brought home the danger he had been in even more than the charring of his jeans. For a moment he closed his eyes and said a prayer of thanksgiving, a prayer that Joe was safe, a prayer that they were all safe.

Then, eating his humble pie, as it were, he pulled on his father's clothes: boxer shorts, a polo shirt and,
thank goodness, a pair of khaki shorts. Nothing to rub on his tender skin.

When he returned to the living room, garbage bag of ruined clothes in hand, Mary took one look at him and exclaimed, “You're burned!”

“Just a little red. Nothing major.”

“Sam, I can see where flames licked you!”

Elijah spoke. “So can I, son.”

He hated it when his father called him son. The word had come to mean a lot of things through his childhood, few of them good. It made him feel about three feet tall again. He had to bite back a demand that Elijah call him by name. He didn't want to get into this in front of Mary.

But Mary had other things on her mind than who called whom what, apparently. She turned on all the living-room lights and knelt on the floor to look at his legs. “Sam, these are first-degree burns!”

“They'll be fine. I get worse burns cooking.”

“But not over so large an area.”

“I'll be fine,” he said again, his tone brooking no argument.

Mary shut up, but she didn't listen. She rose and disappeared down the hallway, returning in half a minute with a big bottle of green gel. “Aloe,” she said firmly. “If you won't put it on, I will.”

“Swallow your pride, Sam,” Elijah said. “Do it.”

“You're one to talk about pride.”

Mary's eyes snapped. “The apple doesn't fall far
from the tree. Now put this gel on or both of you are going to hear me say some words schoolteachers aren't supposed to use.”

She took the garbage bag from Sam and handed it to Elijah. “Put this in the trash can for me, please? It's out the kitchen door.” She pointed.

Elijah went meekly enough, but his gaze met Sam's for just an instant, and Sam thought he saw something like amused understanding there. It made him so uncomfortable that he looked quickly away.

Mary shoved the gel into his hand. “You or me, Sam. Your pick.”

He sat obediently and opened the bottle. The thought of the sticky gel all over his lower legs didn't thrill him, but neither did the stinging, which was beginning to get rather nasty and persistent. “Okay, okay.”

He really wouldn't have minded Mary doing it, he realized. Feeling her small hands sliding over his skin so gently… No, he wouldn't have minded at all being babied that way. But Elijah was here. Damn the man's eyes.

He corralled his thoughts, which were straying down some rather enticing lanes, and focused on squeezing the gel onto his legs. It felt almost as cool as the water on his skin, and after a moment he didn't mind that he was making himself sticky all over.

Elijah returned and resumed his seat on the couch. Sam was careful to take the wooden rocking chair
at the other end of the room. Mary disappeared for a few seconds and returned with a damp paper towel for him to wipe his hands on.

“You must need something to drink,” she suggested as she took the towel and bottle of gel from him.

“Water, please. I could probably drink a gallon right now.”

Mary disappeared again, and Elijah spoke. “Your cheeks look burned, too.”

“No worse than a sunburn,” Sam said, touching himself lightly with his fingertips. Imagine that. They were being civil to each other. He wondered how long that would last.

“You took a terrible risk.”

Here it comes, thought Sam, stiffening. The lecture. When Elijah was around, there was always a lecture.

“The man would have died if we hadn't gone in for him.” He felt Mary enter the room behind him, but he didn't turn around to look.

“And you might have died trying to save him,” Elijah snapped. “You could have let the firemen look. At least they knew what they were doing.”

“They didn't know how to find the cabin. I did.”

“You could have given them directions.” Elijah got to his feet, flinging out an arm. “That's my Sam. Always the hero. Always sticking your neck out even when it's not appreciated.”

Sam got to his own feet. “It's appreciated.”

“You think this town is going to make you a hero because you saved one of
them?
”

Sam heard Mary's gasp behind them. Reining in his own temper with difficulty, he said, “So loving and tolerant, Dad. What happened to the man I heard lecturing Mrs. Beemis earlier about tolerance and the commandment to love? You always were a narrow-minded bigot.”

“I'm no bigot. But maybe you ought to stop rushing in where angels fear to tread. You could have been killed. And for what?”

With that Elijah stormed out of the house, the door slamming behind him.

Silence reigned for a few minutes; then he heard Mary draw a breath. “Wow,” she said.

“Yeah.” Sam's tone was bitter. “Everything I've ever done was wrong. No surprise there.”

Mary came to him, glass of ice water in hand. It seemed to him her eyes slid away uneasily. Well, of course. Who would want to take on a man with a father like that?

And why the hell did that question even cross his mind?

He took the glass and drained the water in one long gulp. “Thanks.”

“I'll get you more.”

He let her do it, instead of offering to refill the glass himself. He needed a minute to calm down, and so, probably, did she.

He should have known his dad wouldn't applaud
his action but would see it as foolhardy. Hell, yeah, it was foolhardy. He knew it himself and didn't need the old man to tell him. But a man's life had been at stake, and there had been no way he was going to sit around twiddling his thumbs when he could do something about it. No way. But Elijah, as usual, had managed to turn it into an act of folly.

Mary returned with another glass of ice water. He accepted it with thanks and sat again in the rocking chair, taking care that his gooey legs didn't touch anything.

“I'm sorry,” he said. “Sorry you had to see that.”

She waved a hand. “It's all right.”

“I guess if I'd helped rescue a good Christian, he'd feel better.”

Her gaze grew thoughtful. “Are you sure of that, Sam?”

“What does that mean?”

“Only that…I think he was upset because you could have been seriously hurt, not because of who you saved. I mean…I shudder when I look at your legs. Can't you see it? It's almost like the flames branded you.”

“It's a minor burn.”

“Right. But I can see how close it came to doing real damage. Your pants were on fire, weren't they?”

He shrugged. “Maybe for a few seconds. I think
it was the starch I put in them. The denim was still holding together.”

She shook her head and sat on the sofa. “You can minimize it however you want, Sam, but you came awfully close to being killed. And I don't think it's the person you saved that really has your dad upset.”

“What are you? Pollyanna?” He leaned forward, gripping the glass in both hands. “Look, Mary, I know you're a nice person. But some people aren't as nice as you. In my dad's church, you have to be a saint—or at least look like a saint—to be accepted. No sinners need apply. And people like Joe and Louis are at the top of the list of sinners.”

She sighed. “Maybe so,” she said quietly.

“Not maybe. I grew up with him and his churches. I know what I'm talking about. If I'd saved a church warden, he'd be singing my praises.”

Mary didn't look as if she were ready to think so poorly of anyone, but she didn't argue with him. Instead she tucked her feet up beneath her on the couch and folded her hands together.

“How are the burns feeling?”

“I hardly notice them,” he lied.

“Promise me if they look any worse in the morning you'll go see a doctor?”

“Sure.” It was easy to promise. He planned to be fit as a fiddle by then.

“It must have been frightening out there.”

“I didn't have much time to think about it.” He sighed and let himself lean back and relax. “I suppose it was, but I was so focused on getting to Joe, I didn't think about it.”

“Adrenaline?” she suggested.

“Probably.”

“What happened?”

“The fire cut the road a few hundred yards from their cabin.” He sketched briefly, without any frightening details, how the plane had carved a path for them, and how he'd found Joe. His voice trailed off as he remembered. “The room he was in was already starting to burn. I think he'd given up.”

“Oh, no.”

“At least we got him out.” He shrugged as if it were nothing.

“With your pants on fire.”

“Apparently so.”

Mary bit her lip and closed her eyes for a few moments. He wondered what she was thinking but didn't ask. He figured he probably didn't want to know. Her thoughts were probably running like his dad's. After all, the two of them had been hanging out together.

That stung. That really stung. It was as if his dad was taking something else from him.