Mirabile (14 page)

“Catalan!” I shouted again. “The ballyhoos first—they burst! If one of them starts up this side of the river, we won’t be able to contain it.”

That did it. I pointed across the river and she spared a look just in time to see another ballyhoo burst. Her eyes went wide. She nodded and left off the tree she’d barely begun to race to the nearest ballyhoo and start on that.

So I followed. The ballyhoo fell with a crash. Catalan sliced off the top and the two of us shoved that into the river and pushed it off. Leaving the nearly branchless trunk for somebody else to roll in, Catalan took aim at the next ballyhoo and brought it down too.

Shovelers followed us, scraping up the duff and tossing it by the shovelful into the river. We were lucky—it wasn’t more than two inches thick this close to the river—we could scrape down to bare rock.

We could feel the heat from the fire now. Somebody’d brought a second chain saw. I grabbed him and dragged him to the water’s edge and in. He looked at me like I was nuts, but I didn’t waste time on explanations, just took the chain saw from him and held it high and slogged across the river with it.

I’d gauged the depth of the water by the clashings charging through it. I hadn’t counted on coming waist high to a pack of grumblers in midstream. Grumblers are only dog sized but that many of them will take on humans if they’re threatened—or think they are.

They grumbled at me—I couldn’t hear it but I could tell by the way their fringed muzzles were working overtime—but they were too busy treading water to really care, so I bulled right through them.

There were three ballyhoos on the opposite bank. By now, I had all too good an idea how far they could throw those embers. Cutting those three was our only chance to keep the fire on the far side of the river. I attacked the first with a vengeance, not stopping to worry about how I could get it pushed off by myself. As long as the crown was under water I figured Milo’s Ford had half a chance.

I dropped that one and went on to the second. I was sweating like a pig now, from the effort and the nearing flames. Some wicked bit of my mind wondered what had ever possessed the Texan Guild to coin such a phrase—pigs don’t sweat.

The second ballyhoo hit the water with a crash and a splash and I raced for the third. I wasn’t sure I was going to make it—the flames were already too close for comfort. I got it dropped though and then leaned into it to shove the crown into the river.

Something pounded me hard on the shoulder—three times before I could react. I whirled to find the guy I’d taken the chain saw from. “Your jacket was on fire!” he shouted.

“Let’s get this shoved off and get the hell out of here!”

We did both. As we hit the water, with him carrying the chain saw this time, I realized he’d shoved the other two trees off too. God only knows why he’d followed me across the river—people do the strangest damn things when they’re scared—but thank god for the favor!

The grumblers were still treading water in midstream, grumbling irritably into their whiskers as they paddled. Since they were making no attempt to reach the town side of the shore, it was obvious they expected the fire to leap the river. I could only hope my helper and I had at least made that a little more difficult.

He gave me a hand again as we hit the bank—with such a yank that I flopped to land like a beached whale. Then he was helping me up. A tree drifted downstream just that moment, so I realized why he’d felt the need for urgency. “Thanks,” I shouted, but I don’t know if he heard me—he was too busy stamping out a spark that had landed scant inches from his feet.

And then I was too busy stamping out sparks to repeat myself. I took off my jacket, scarcely noticing the hole burned in it, and wet it down to beat out anything else that landed nearby.

And that was what we did for the next few hours. It felt like days—I know it was hours only because Leo told me what time it was when he dragged me back to Milo’s Ford for food and coffee. What I

needed was a bath—I was covered head to toe with soot and sweat—but I didn’t have the energy and, anyway, the town’s water was being used elsewhere at the moment.

Still, reinforcements had arrived by the hover full, so I was willing to take a break before my body quit on me. Just sitting took all the energy I had left.

Somebody passed me a cup of coffee and a plate of eggs— Cornish hen eggs, from the size of them. If I’d had the strength I’d‘ve had somebody’s heart for wasting the gene pool like that. As they were already cooked, I ate ’em.

When I finished, the same somebody took the plate and handed it back with a second helping.

This time I was revived enough to pay some attention to what was going on around me.

The guy who was shoving food at me was the same guy who’d followed me across the river.

“Damned if I know what possessed you to cross that river,” I said, “but thanks for the help.”

He shrugged and gave me a shy sort of grin. “Least I could do for somebody who threatened to shoot my balls off.”

I blinked at him and wiped soot from my face. Sure enough—it was the same guy I’d turned my persuader on, somewhere in the dim dark past. I thought back—in reality, it had
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only been a few hours earlier. “I was aimed lower,” I said. “I don’t waste good genes.” I stuck out my hand. “I’m Annie Jason Masmajean.”

“Pallab Hatcher Brahe,” he told me in return. Then he laughed, taking my explanation for a joke. “I thought you looked familiar. No reflection on me, then, that you wanted to save my genes. You saved the kangaroo rex.”

“You never know what might turn out to be useful,” I said.

He looked suddenly abashed. “Not me,” he said. “I screwed up bad.”

I knew he was thinking about the lynch mob he’d gotten up. “Good,” I said. “If you know that much, maybe you can keep your priorities straight next time something needs doing.” I fixed him with as steely an eye as I could manage, given all the smoke in the air. “Fire fighting first, justice second.”

Something flashed in his eye and I said, “

Justice

, Pallab, not vengeance, and not blind striking out at the nearest scapegoat. Just because you don’t like the man doesn’t mean he sets fires. Show a little good sense—that would hurt him as much as it hurts you!”

My throat was hoarse and sore, from all the shouting and the smoke. I poured some coffee down it, hoping that would help some. It did—the coffee was mildly spiked.

Hatcher Brahe looked as if I’d spiked him.

“I saw Jongshik Caner Li set two fires earlier this week. Good thing they were small enough we could just stamp them out. But he was in the right place at the right time to have started that one”—he waved a hand in the general direction of the river—“as well.”

“Saw him start two fires? Bend down and set fire to the woods with a match each time?”

“No, of course not! Nobody’s stupid enough to be that obvious!”

I was more than a little cranky myself, so I matched his tone. “So what did you actually see?”

“First time, we were out about five miles west of here.” He paused a moment, took a step back in his telling. “Jongshik is our caner. There’s a good stand of goldrushes there. I went along to help him gather a couple of bundles of cane.”

All right, I could follow that so far. About time for the town to replace some of the older baskets and chairs.

He went on, “I was bending over to scythe the goldrushes—my back was to Jongshik, I grant you—when I heard Jongshik yell for help. I looked around and he was stamping out flames.”

“So you helped him stamp out the flames. And?”

“And not much. He looked scared. Hell, I was scared, too. I know how dry the woods are. But we got it out. I reamed him out for being careless. He claimed he hadn’t, and he looked even more scared.” Brahe took a sip of his own coffee and said, “At the time, I thought he just didn’t want to be blamed for—for his carelessness. But there was no way that fire could have started otherwise.”

“And the second time?”

“Just like the first. That was the second trip we made for goldrushes—they’re awkward carrying at the length Jongshik needs. Except that this time I spotted the fire. He helped me put it out but…” Instead of finishing the sentence, he glowered into his coffee.

“How far away from the fire was Jongshik when you spotted it?”

“He could have thrown a match that far easily. Or it might not have flared until after he moved away.”

“Or he might not have had anything to do with it.”

“When it just ‘coincidentally’ happens twice in his presence?”

“Happened coincidentally twice in your presence,” I pointed out. “I can’t think of a better way
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to avoid suspicion than to cast it on someone else first.”

Somebody else might have slugged me for that suggestion. Maybe Brahe was as tired as I was, even though he was some thirty years younger, or maybe he was just fair now he’d had a chance to think about it.

He said, “I couldn’t have set the big one. I was in town all evening.”

Meaning Jongshik hadn’t been. “So Jongshik was out there?”

“Yeah. The goldrushes out there dry up red. He uses them for pattern.”

I thought about that for a while. “Awfully stupid of him to admit he was in the vicinity.”

“I was just thinking that,” Brahe said. His shoulders slumped. “And I was just thinking I could probably rig a device that would start a fire two days after I walked away from it. I’m not even very good with technological devices. Lots of people are better. They’d have thought of it first in fact.”

He stared into his cup. Got up, got us both more coffee. Then he resumed staring into his cup.

“I still don’t like the coincidence.” He met my eyes. “I know, I know, the coincidence makes me as suspicious as it makes Jongshik, but I was there and I know I didn’t set it.”

He glared at me. “Dammit, there’s been no rain, no thunderstorms with lightning—not even heat lightning! If Jongshik didn’t set those fires, how the hell could they have started?”

“Good question,” I said.

The fire was pronounced “out,” which only meant that the area would have to be watched closely for two days or so. There was always the chance that a burning ember could restart it. So the firewatch was on.

Leo drove home. I fell asleep on the way and woke up only long enough to crawl into bed (not caring how sooty and sweaty that got the bedclothes or Leo; to his credit, he didn’t care much about how sooty and sweaty I got him either) and fall asleep again.

When I woke up, it was late afternoon. First things first, I showered and changed the sheets. The mirror told me what I was feeling was not just bruises but scrapes as well. My face looked like the end cut of a well-done roast. I smeared on antiseptic with a liberal hand—well, at least I looked well-basted now. The thought made me ravenous.

Downstairs I found sandwiches waiting in the fridge and a note from Leo. He’d gone over to the lab to lend a helping hand. I ate my sandwiches on the way.

The lab was the usual madhouse, which was why I was pleased to see that Leo had acquired an interested onlooker. The more the merrier… Leo was giving him Set Lecture No. 1 and sounding remarkably like Susan while he did it.

“… When they tried to raise Cornish fowl up near Last Edges, they got everything from bluejay to cassowary. Chie-Hoon thinks it was the higher lime in the soil”—he shrugged— “but it might have been the higher average temperatures. Or it might have been something else. EC can differ even from one farm to the next.”

The onlooker said, “Oh. So that’s why Susan insisted we bring their feed, too.”

“That’s right.” Leo caught my eye, grinned a welcome and went on with his lecture. “Now, hit the right EC to switch on the encrypted genes and… well, Chie-Hoon tells me the Last Edges Cornish hens hatched out a bluejay-cassowary chimera that was close to eight feet tall and got its manners from the jay side of the family. The only’good thing about it was that it couldn’t fly.

Lucky thing those weren’t viable!”

“I dunno about that,” I said. “It was tasty.”

Should have kept my mouth shut. Now I was officially on duty again.

Mike looked up and said, “Good news, Annie! The ashes from the fire just about wiped out the hopfish population downriver!”

Well, that was a nice surprise. The hopfish were still a damn nuisance. The best we’d been able to do was make them a favorite in soups and dinners. That meant we didn’t lose all the benefit of the rice they devoured from our rice fields. They eat it, we eat them. Trouble was, we couldn’t eat them morning, noon, and night, which was how they ate our rice.

“Best news I’ve heard all morning,” I told Mike. I gave Leo a peck on the cheek and pulled up a chair to see what Mike was up to. “How’d that work out?”

“The ash asphyxiated ‘em, Annie. It got in their gills and smothered ’em.” He grinned at me.

“Disgusting thought, isn’t it?”

I grinned back. “Extremely.” That explained the school of hopfish I’d seen leaving the river; they’d known something I hadn’t. “And what have we here?”

Mike looked up from the little pile of seeds he was working over. “I had a thought,” he said.

“Do tell.”

“Fire-stripped land is the perfect EC for lodgepole and longleaf pine. I was thinking now we’ve got just the opportunity to start a grove or lots of groves…”

I held up both hands. “Before you complicate the issue thoroughly,” I said, “I want to do a full workup on the EC around Milo’s Ford.”

He squinted at me. “We’ve got one, Annie.”

“We’ve got one from before the fire.” We’d done it several years ago, trying to figure out why the Cornish fowl did well in that area and nowhere else. “I need one for the current EC around Milo’s Ford. As you’ve just pointed out with your lodgepole pine seeds, things have changed.”

He looked at me glumly. “I suppose so,” he said, and made a big deal of scraping his chair back from the bench. I knew a pet project when I saw one. Mike likes pine trees better than just about anything (except Selima, of course). If he had his way, Mirabile would be a forest of pines—all Earth-authentic, mind you—and nothing but.