Upstate Uproar (21 page)

Vivian couldn’t complain, he was right.

He changed the subject. “I love the great
camps. Perfect way to spend a vacation.”

“Camps?” Vivian asked. “I could fit three of
my 2000-square-foot house in there.”

“That’s what we call them. Some of the houses
date to the 1800s.” Larson turned south and soon pulled up to a
dock on the island.

He held on to the dock while also helping the
girls out of the boat. Once Kate was on solid ground he handed her
bag over. Vivian grabbed bags of groceries and Wendy helped him
with the cooler. He set down his end of the cooler and opened his
arms in a grand gesture. “Here we are, Hopping Bear Point. One of
my all-time favorite camping places.”

Vivian noted the dense foliage and the
lean-to and wondered how many nights he’d spent out here wooing a
woman. She figured this was where he took all of the ladies, trying
to impress them with the boat, tales of fire-fueled tragedy and
multiple…multiple Boy Scout badges. She felt a pang of jealousy but
quickly dismissed it. It wasn’t like she was looking for a
relationship. But he was H-O-T hot, and she couldn’t help wondering
what an evening next to the embers, gazing under the stars, using
body heat and friction to keep warm, would be like.

It’d be as blazing hot as lava!

She shook her head and snapped out of it.
With the last man she’d “met” on vacation, things went awry big
time, and with no warning. He was adorable, a good dancer, a good
buttery nipple maker, and yet, the sex suckkkked.
Do not make
that mistake again,
Vivian thought, looking Larson up and down.
He wouldn’t suck, would he?

They put their stuff down around the camp.
The lean-to was a free-standing, rectangular log structure with
three walls and a pitched roof. The open side faced the lake and
had a short bench at the base that could be used as a bed. Visitors
had carved initials, dates and all manner of randomness into the
bench. The steeply pitched roof covered the back almost to the
ground, while a shorter, slanted roof provided shade to the
front.

A mound of rocks formed a fire pit in front.
Vivian could imagine spending a cool night in the spring or fall
out there, but forget it in winter. No way, José. Not this
Texan.

A trail wandered off to the right, and Kate
looked in that direction. “Do they have bathrooms around here?”

“Sorry, not that sophisticated,” Larson
replied.

“Little mama’s gotta go. Be right back.”

“I need to go, too,” Wendy said as she and
Larson positioned the cooler by the fire pit. She took off after
Kate.

Larson got to work picking up kindling around
the area and building a fire with the cord of wood he’d brought.
Vivian opened them both a beer. She then got the goodies out of the
grocery bag and made a few crackers with cheese, then dipped into
the cooler.

“These are the best strawberries ever.
They’re so much sweeter than what I get at home.”

Larson held a match to some kindling and
looked up. “Thanks, grew them myself.”

“I’m impressed. I would have been okay with
Cheez Whiz, though. I’m an expert at decorating crackers with
little swirls and flowers. My mad skills have made magazines, you
know.”

“And what would you have put on mine?” Larson
asked with a grin, giving up on the fire for the moment and walking
toward her, his eyes locked on hers. He wrapped his arms around her
waist and pulled her to him. Tight.

He smelled fantastic, a perfect blend of
sweat and sweet. “Hmmm, let me think. Something flaming for sure,
Mr. Fireman.” She pushed her hips into him, enjoying the hardness
of his body. She let her fingers slowly drift from his neck to his
shoulders to his arms. Oh my gosh, his arms. They were amazing.

He leaned down and kissed her, his hand
reaching up and tickling underneath her breast.

“Mmmmm, yes,” she said, letting the kiss
linger, then going from his mouth to his ear. “Or something a bit
naughtier. Maybe lower.” For his cracker decoration, she was
thinking an X, for X marks the spot.

Just then, Kate walked up. “Oh come on you
two, I’m hungry. And without my husband.”

Wendy popped out from around a tree,
oblivious to the heat radiating from the non-fire. “Guess what? The
trail markers here are UT burnt orange. The two we saw looked about
as beat up as the ones on Haystack Mountain.” She handed Vivian her
phone, which showed a picture of an orange semicircle.

Vivian broke from Larson and looked at the
picture, laughing. “I’ll leave the hiking to other people. We’ve
uncovered more than our share already.”

“I’m with you,” Kate said and sat on the
bench next to the cheese and crackers. She scarfed down three with
double cheese before she looked up and offered to make the others
one.

They enjoyed the appetizers while Larson
prepared the fire for their main course. He’d made grass-fed beef
tenderloin shish kebobs.

“You are earning a Boy Scout badge, aren’t
you?” Vivian said, smacking him on the ass as he walked by with his
’bobs.

“I like to cook things over an open flame,
what can I say?”

“I bet you do,” Vivian said, then bit into a
grape.

Suddenly, a loud boom sounded in the
distance. She couldn’t tell which direction it came from, but it
couldn’t have been far away. “I don’t suppose that was some really
big fireworks?”

Larson ran toward the shore. He peered at the
horizon, looking for any indication of trouble in the sky. “I’m
afraid not.”

L
arson ran to the
fire pit and started stomping on the kindling that was lit.
“There’s a cloud of smoke south of here. I’m probably the closest
responder and have to go check it out. Wendy, call 911 and report
an explosion on the lake, just south of Hopping Bear Point. It
looks to be on the southern end of Moose Island, or possibly on
Buck Island.”

Wendy got to dialing as Vivian threw the cold
stuff into the cooler and Kate chunked stuff in the grocery bag.
They were loaded on the boat within two minutes.

“Hold on!” Larson said as he pushed off the
shore, then he landed behind the captain chair. He cranked the
engine, pushed the throttle down and the bow of the boat rose out
of the water, throwing the girls off balance, even though they were
seated. He glanced over his shoulder. “You all right, Kate?”

She shouted, “Yeah,” but didn’t look at him,
as she was looking at the dark cloud.

Vivian also had her head back, looking up.
The cloud rose from the tree line, drifting east in the wind.

Larson steered south, following the
coastline. The cloud loomed larger, and before long, the area where
it had originated was visible.

“As I feared,” Larson said, angling the boat
toward shore. “Wendy, call 911 back and tell them there’s a boat on
fire at the Dillengers’ dock on Buck Island and to send help.”

The back of a 15-foot wooden boat was on
fire, and it wouldn’t be long before it spread to the dock. Not far
away, a three-slip boathouse, a near-perfect replica of the house,
stood dangerously close to the inferno. Vivian could imagine the
fire racing down the dock to the boathouse, then catching the trees
on fire and spreading to the house. The entire property would be
engulfed. They needed help now!

Wendy did as told and Larson pulled up along
the shore, about a football field away from the burning boat.

A man and a woman ran out from the trees
nearby. “Holy shit! It just blew! Did you see that?” the man
yelled.

“Is anyone hurt?” Larson asked. “Is there
anyone else on the vessel?”

“We’re fine. We weren’t on it when it blew,”
the bottle blonde said. “It was just us, no one else.” She looked
to be in her early 20s and needed to take care of her roots. She
wore a gray hoodie sweatshirt with a T-shirt underneath sticking
out in places. Her matching sweatpants said “Pink” down the leg,
and her black, lace bra was in her hand.

“I just finished restoring that boat.
Dammit!” The guy kicked at the dirt and kept on cursing. He’d
missed a button on the fly of his grease-stained jeans, and his
long-sleeved T-shirt was on inside out. His brown hair was three
weeks overdue for a cut.

Vivian took in their disheveled appearance
and figured they had more to hide than setting the Dillengers’ dock
on fire.

“Is this your property?” Larson asked.

The guy turned around. “No, we just wanted to
take a look around.”

Another explosion boomed, though not as big
as the first. A flaming piece of something impaled itself in the
boathouse roof, igniting the shingles in a flash. Flaming pieces of
wood were suddenly floating on the surface of the lake and strewn
across the lawn.

The guy put his hands on his head. “Oh
shit!”

Larson threw a fire extinguisher to the guy
and hopped out of the boat. “Put out the debris on the lawn and try
to keep the fire from spreading to the house.” He tied a line to a
big tree root along the bank and ran around the side of the
boathouse.

The guy worked his way across the yard
squirting at the bigger pieces of burning boat and stomping on a
few smaller ones. Vivian couldn’t see Larson, but soon a stream of
water sprayed onto the roof.

“Is that lake water?” Wendy asked.

“They probably have a fire hose in the
boathouse that pulls water from the lake,” Kate said. “All this
wood and no fire department right down the street, they need
something to help in case of fire.”

Bra Girl walked over to Larson’s boat. “I
can’t believe this is happening. “Totally cray-cray, right?”

“Right,” Wendy said, then faced the girls and
rolled her eyes.

The girl looked at Wendy’s water. “Do you
have an extra bottle of water?”

Wendy reached into the cooler and handed her
one. “What’s your name? I’m Wendy, this is Kate and Vivian.”

“Shawna,” she said, then took a few
gulps.

They all watched as the fire seemed to
grow.

“What were y’all doing out here?” Wendy
asked.

“I got my shift covered and Dale didn’t have
much going on at the shop, so we took his boat out.” She waved her
bra in the air as she spoke. “He just finished working on it, and
it sounded like a fun thing to do. He said it was totally safe! I
didn’t know it was a lemon. I could have died!”

“Hope it was insured,” Kate mumbled, only
loud enough for Vivian and Wendy to hear.

Vivian choked back a laugh. “You said you got
your shift covered. Where do you work?”

“At the Lake Placid Brewery. Dale’s an auto
mechanic.” Shawna watched her guy squirt a stream of white foam
onto a flame. “Now I wish I’d been at work instead of coming out
here with that loser. He’s a total jackass.”

“Hope he’s not your boyfriend,” Kate
said.

She shrugged. “I see him some, helps fill the
void since I can’t have the man I love.” She took a deep breath and
tapped her finger to her lips. “Yet.”

Vivian was about to ask why not when two guys
in a jon boat pulled up behind them. One, dressed all in black,
jumped out and pulled the boat ashore. The other was head to toe in
camouflage.

“What happened?” Camo asked, getting out of
the boat with a fire extinguisher.

Vivian pointed toward distressed Dale, still
shooting out mini-fires around the lawn. She explained what had
happened.

“We’ll go help,” Black said and they ran
off.

A pontoon boat with Sheriff in big, black
letters on the side raced toward the island, siren wailing. As it
pulled closer, a third explosion sounded from the demolished
vessel, shooting debris sky-high. A few pieces narrowly missed the
pontoon as they fell into the lake.

Wendy looked at Shawna. “What’s with all the
explosions?”

“Maybe it’s the cans of varnish that were
still on the boat? He said he wasn’t quite finished sprucing her
up. Guess he doesn’t need to worry about that anymore.”

“How many cans were there?” Kate asked.

Shawna wrung her hands. “Just a couple. They
were in my seat so I set them on the back bench.”

Vivian turned her attention to the sheriff’s
boat. “Look who it is.”

A stoic Deputy Brad Young was at the wheel.
Beside him, Deputy Cheri Stokola sat in the co-captain’s chair. She
gave a quick nod to the girls as they pulled next to Larson’s boat.
Young cut the engine and jumped out to tie up to an exposed tree
root.

“What happened here?” Stokola asked as she
got out of the pontoon.

The girls and Shawna briefed them while the
two sheriffs took in the scene. Dale stood by the house, Larson’s
fire extinguisher still in hand. Camo and Black from the jon boat
were in the middle of the lawn, looking at a chunk of boat. All the
debris on the lawn had been put out, but the boathouse fire roared.
Though Larson was still spraying water on the roof, the flames were
taking over.

The dock was ablaze, and flames were working
their way toward the boathouse. The boat itself had sunk about
halfway into the water. It wouldn’t be long before everything was a
total loss.

Stokola talked into her walkie-talkie, and
someone on the other end said, “Be there in five. Out.” Stokola
turned to Young. “Let’s go check on Larson.”

They were halfway across the lawn when the
boathouse roof cracked, then started to cave in. Embers flew in the
air, and the spray of water onto the roof stopped. Larson ran
toward the sheriffs, yelling at them to get farther away as a pine
tree caught fire. Larson and Stokola ran for the boats but Young
ran up to the house.

He grabbed Dale by the arm. “We need to get
out of here until reinforcements arrive!” Dale dropped the fire
extinguisher as Young led him to the pontoon boat and ushered him
onboard. Larson motioned for Shawna to get onboard as well; she
hesitated so Stokola guided her onto the boat. Larson and Stokola
stayed onshore, next to their boats.