Summer of the Burning Sky

by Susan May Warren

  “I was a deputy. I knew how to handle myself. Or…I thought I did. Hold up.”

  Tucker stopped, and she pulled the binoculars from his pack. Scanned the forest. “Nothing.”

  “We’ll climb up the ridge and see if we can spot them.” He was pointing to a bald spot in the forested mountainside.

  She handed him the glasses.

  “If you hadn’t noticed, the only place in town to go to watch the game or unwind is Vic’s. Chad and I were there, and I saw my dad walk in, so I wanted to leave. Chad thought I meant something else…”

  Tucker handed her back the glasses after scanning the forest, and she put them back in his pack. “I’m feeling a lot of empathy for what I think your dad is about to do.”

  “He was coming out of the bar just around the time I pushed Chad away. Just about the time Chad came back at me—”

  “And they didn’t call it self-defense?”

  “Dad shouted his name right when Chad took a swing at me. Which, by the way, I deflected. Give me credit for being quicker than that.”

  “Did your dad lose it?” Tucker’s jaw had ground tight.

  “No, actually. He was completely calm. Called Chad out. Probably to give me a chance to get away, but I suddenly didn’t want my dad fighting my battles. I told him to go away—that I could handle it. He ignored me completely. Walked up to Chad, who decided he wanted a chance at him. Then Dad lowered his voice so I couldn’t hear him. Whatever he said, Chad freaked out and took a swing at him. Dad ducked, then hit him so hard he dropped Chad right there. Except Chad hit his head on a cement parking curb.”

  “Wow. That’s dark. But again, self-defense.”

  “Nate saw it—said Dad had provoked Chad. It only took a couple seconds for Nate and a couple other guys to pin Dad, and by the looks of it—well, I couldn’t just stand there and let them beat him to death.”

  “Nate’s a cop, right?”

  “Yeah, but not back then.” She shook her head. “Nate had run against Dad in the last election for sheriff and lost. Nate quit the department—didn’t come back until after Dad was sentenced.”

  “What did you do, Stevie?”

  She drew in a breath. “I arrested my dad. Right there in the parking lot with blood running down his face, his nose broken, and the stench of death in the air.”

  “Which meant your testimony was compromised.”

  “I couldn’t testify as the victim, no. But…well, even after I told my side of the story, I didn’t know what Dad had said to Chad, and that, plus the fact that Dad had been drinking…he got three years.” They stood at the edge of the ravine, the forest gathering on the other side. “And I left town.” Punk. Stop. Don’t run away!

  She couldn’t look at Tucker, even when he reached out and lifted her chin. “Stevie.”

  She winced, pulled herself away. But he found her hand. “Stevie, listen to me. We’re going to find him. And Skye. I promise—”

  A gunshot cracked across the blue of the sky. She all but tackled Tucker, yanking him down into the ravine, behind a boulder.

  More shots and she reached for her gun. Tucker put his hand on her arm. “Save your shots! C’mon!” Then he grabbed her hand and took off across the ravine, right into the protective wall of the forest.

  5

  Tucker wanted to crawl away and lose it on the soft, piney loam as he handed Stevie the binoculars. “Skye’s there. And from what I can tell, she’s not hurt.”

  Next to him, hidden behind a range of well-placed boulders, Stevie took the binoculars and surveyed the homestead where March and the fellow escapees had stopped.

  “It looks like they’re trying to get that old Ford running,” Stevie said. A well-used, rusty Bronco sat in a cleared patch of forest that also hosted a tiny cabin and an open shed. From here, it looked like a hunting setup, with a drying rack of antlers and even a bearskin hanging inside the building. An older model four-wheeler sat in the shadows.

  He half expected another member of America’s Most Wanted to emerge through the rough-hewn door affixed with graying antlers, as if in omen.

  He and Stevie had followed the sound of the shots, working their way through the forest like they might be army rangers. In fact, after realizing that he wore the bright yellow, here-I-am-now Nomex shirt, he took it off and shoved it into his pack, leaving just his black T-shirt on.

  Never mind the wind that had begun to stir off the western mountains, as if by bringing fugitives into its shadow, Tucker had awakened something angry and feral.

  Yeah, well, he understood the feeling. His anger burned deep, a coal embedded in the soil of his regrets. Especially when he spotted Skye. Alive—thank You, God—and sitting a few feet away from Eugene on the porch next to Rio. She looked bedraggled. And sure, Tucker had seen her bone tired before—but this was different. Her disheveled appearance—hair down and matted, a terrible scrape on her chin—had his gut in knots. She kept glancing up toward the forested hills, as if she knew he might be out here, looking for her.

  Rio sat next to her, too close in Tucker’s opinion, talking to her. Also surveying the forest.

  Rio looked downright beat-up, sporting a bruise on his face. He held a cloth and kept pressing it to his nose, checking for blood.

  So maybe those shots hadn’t been directed at Tucker and Stevie. Interesting.

  Darryl, the redhead, still wearing his bright orange shirt, stood a little way away from where March held a gun on the mercenary, the tall, quiet one. He was bent over the hood of the truck. Tucker searched for his name and couldn’t remember.

  Occasionally, Skye glanced over at Rio, as if afraid of him, and Tucker knew he shouldn’t have trusted the guy.

  Yeah, he was definitely going to lose it. He even turned away, onto his hands and knees, and did a little deep breathing.

  He’d never been this scared. Not when they’d picked him and all his debris off the slope after his epic Olympic trial wipeout. Not even when he’d stood at his mother’s bedside, watching her slip into the beyond.

  That had been different. Something almost expected after years of cancer treatments. Rough, but different than watching a woman he’d helped train, had worked alongside, who was as tough as any of the guys, looking battered and terrified.

  “I should have never agreed to let those guys work with us.”

  “Stop,” Stevie said. “Believe me, I’ve been what-iffing my way through the woods for the past six hours. Right now, we’d better hope they don’t get that truck running.”

  He glanced at her.

  “That’s the McGinty place. I dearly hope Jim and Kathy aren’t there, but…well, I didn’t realize we were that far west. We’re only a couple miles from the highway. If we don’t stop March now, he’ll disappear again, and…”

  “We have to get Skye back,” Tucker said. “I’m not letting that guy disappear with her.” He took the binoculars again. “And who knows what those other guys are up to.”

  Stevie nodded, a grim look on her face. “My dad won’t let anything bad happen to her.”

  “Where is your dad?” He scanned the yard. “I didn’t see him.”

  She stared at him a second too long. Took the glasses from him and lifted them to her eyes. “I don’t see him. I don't…” She drew in a breath. “What if that was the shot we heard? What if he did something to escape and got himself shot!” Her eyes widened, and he grabbed her wrist.

  “Stop. Maybe he’s just in the house. You said you knew these people—what if he’s inside with them, keeping them safe?”

  She swallowed. Nodded. Closed her eyes and winced.

  “We gotta stay calm, Stevie. Just…one thing at a time. Right now, let’s get somewhere where we can get reception and see where our backup is.” They’d tried calling in to the team, but either the distance or the terrain had cut off their communication.

  She bought into that idea—he saw it by the way her mouth tightened.

  “We could hike up to the top of this ridge,” T
ucker said. “But I don’t want to lose sight of Skye.”

  Stevie seemed to consider his words. Nodded. “Okay. I’ll stay here, keep an eye on them, and you try to find reception and get ahold of your team.”

  He caught her eyes, the dark pinch of her mouth. “Okay.” Grabbing his radio, he climbed to his feet and cast one more look through the trees to the homestead. “Stay right here.”

  She gave him the barest of nods, and he took off.

  Never mind that his body felt like he’d landed hard on a bad fall from the sky. His knee screamed with every step, his bones tender from the fall off the bike. But he let Skye’s expression fuel him as he hiked up the ridge, where the land turned from heavily treed to mostly granite, bald and dangerous. Sweat dripped down his back as he fought for footholds, the scree falling from his steps.

  He finally turned around, sat on a ledge that overlooked the valley, and tried the radio.

  “Jude County, Tucker. You there?”

  Static. Please.

  “Tucker, this is Seth.”

  Seth? “Where’s Riley?”

  “Injured. We had to chopper him out. Snag fell—he’ll be okay. Broke his arm, maybe. Have you found Skye?”

  Wow. But he didn’t have time to catalog another catastrophe. “We have eyes on her. She’s alive. But we need backup.”

  “Confirm. The Marshal’s office sent in a couple guys from Anchorage, but they’re on foot, so it’ll be a while before they get to you. Where are you?”

  A couple of guys? For an entire crew of fugitives? Tucker wanted to throw something. “About two clicks southwest of you. Stevie identified the cabin as belonging to someone named McGinty.”

  “Got it.”

  “You guys bugging out?”

  A pause and in it Tucker read the weather, the gusts off Denali, and knew the answer.

  “We’re still wrangling the blow-up, but we’ve got it.”

  Shoot. “How bad?”

  “The wind shifted, and she’s burning down into the valley to the east, outside the burn.”

  Tucker should be there. The smoke had thickened in the distance, a burr of gray against the blue sky. “Keep at ’er. I’ll be back as soon as I can.”

  He signed off, not sure what, exactly, he intended. Because frankly, he just wanted Skye back. Leave the apprehension of a murderer to the feds.

  To Stevie?

  Yeah, she wasn’t giving up on March. Not with her father missing or hurt or maybe just an accomplice, but that might be worse.

  He didn’t want to suggest that her father might have been on the plotting side of the escape, but it had been nagging him. Archer knew where the McGintys lived. What if he’d directed them there?

  What if he was not a hostage but an instigator of the prison break?

  Tucker worked his way back down the mountainside, easing off his knee as much as he could—going down just might be worse. Still, he made decent time, and when he reached Stevie, the sun had moved farther behind the range, casting a fiery, ethereal glow against the peaks, leaving a murky haze in the forest.

  It couldn’t be called dark, but shadows fell over Stevie as she tucked behind her lookout.

  “Any movement?”

  “The truck has turned over a couple times. It backfired once, threw out some exhaust, but nothing. My guess is that the fuel filter is clogged. Which, if they figure out, can be fixed with some carburetor cleaner and a little elbow grease.” She handed him the binoculars. “I spotted my dad. He’s not hurt. He was in the house getting food. They downed a couple MREs.”

  She offered a tiny smile, and he met it before he lifted the glasses to his eyes. “I got hold of Seth. A couple of your guys came up from Anchorage, but they’re coming in on foot, so they won’t be here anytime soon. I told them where we are, but we need to keep our eyes on these guys until they get here.”

  “They’re never going to get here in time. We need to get down there—”

  “Are you kidding me?” He stared at her. “We’re two people. There’s a gang of five guys down there, and sure I’m angry enough to take on a few of them, but from what you told me about March, he’s not going to be shy about shooting you, or me. Or Skye.”

  “So we just let them get away?” Stevie’s voice emerged low but sparked. “I’m a federal marshal. Our job is to track down fugitives. And let’s not forget that my dad is down there—he’ll help us.”

  “You hope.”

  She blinked at him. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  Aw, shoot. He didn’t want to go there. “I’m just saying…of all the places for these guys to find, they go to a place you know.”

  She stared at him, her mouth agape. She closed it. Shook her head.

  “I’m sorry, Stevie—”

  “No. You’re…you’re right.” She pressed her hand to her mouth. “What if he was in on this?”

  “Stevie—”

  “No.” She held up her hand, as if to stop his words. “He’s a criminal, just like the others, and yeah, you’re right. I don’t know what happened.”

  “Actually, I think you should give him the benefit of the doubt here. I mean—I was just saying, we’re up against some big odds, so we need to be sure about what we do. Your dad could have gone along with them to track them, make sure they didn’t all just vanish into the mountains.”

  She nodded, as if she wanted to believe that. “But we can’t just sit here and let them get away.”

  “I agree. So…I have an idea.” He reached over to his pack. “I have a couple fusees in here. I don’t normally keep them in my PG pack, but we deployed so fast, I shoved them in here.”

  “What’s a fusee?”

  “We fight fire with fire sometimes—like we did yesterday. And a fusee is a firing device, something like a flare. It’s made of phosphorous and is very, very hot. It’ll ignite grasses and leaves and light fuels.”

  “So it won’t burn the cabin down?”

  “Not if I throw it into the far side of the yard, where there’s mostly grasses. It creates a lot of smoke, hopefully panic—”

  “And in that panic, I take down March and you grab Skye.”

  He hated the way she said that, because the idea of her grappling with March, alone…except, if they took down March together, Skye would be free. “We take down March.”

  “And the others? What if they run off?”

  “I dunno. I just know Skye is in danger. And I have to save her.”

  Stevie offered a slow nod. “We have to get much closer.”

  This was never going to work, she could feel it in her gut. And if her father, let alone her cohorts back in the office, knew she was crouched behind a pile of firewood with a smokejumper who was just about to light a fire bomb, they’d wave her off.

  Maybe. Because just twenty feet away, Eugene March stood, a bear gun—Seth’s?—trained on his fellow prisoners, the redhead and Thorne, who had both turned into mechanics. It looked like they were trying to reattach the now cleaned carburetor into the rusty Bronco.

  Hopefully that hadn’t been her father’s suggestion, either.

  No. She simply couldn’t bear the idea that her father might be a mastermind, or even a willing participant, in this jail—or rather, chain gang—breakout.

  Tucker’s suggestion had rattled her, however.

  What if the man she had known, loved, even admired…well, wasn’t the man she had known, loved, and admired?

  No. Prison couldn’t have changed him that much. Please.

  At the very least, her father wouldn’t stop her, even if he took off in the chaos. But she was counting on his cooperation to plead his case.

  Hostage, not the hunted.

  “Normally, you use the fusee for a controlled burn, with a handle. It’s toxic, so you need protective gear, but we’ll throw it. And I don’t have to throw this far. They won’t want to put it out, so it’ll burn and smoke and hopefully give us the cover we need to take March down.” Tucker crouched next to her, and
for a moment she felt his hand in hers, a remnant of last night’s grip.

  Tucker had taken off his bright yellow shirt, effective for firefighting, not so much for sneaking around in the woods. His black T-shirt skimmed his lean body, his biceps stretching out the sleeves, the bottom tucking into his Nomex pants. He’d taken off the bandanna, too, and his brown hair lay in sooty tousles. He glanced at her, those brown eyes fierce with determination. The man was honed and powerful and yes, they just might stand a chance.

  They just needed to separate March from the others. Disarm him. Hope that no one came to his defense.

  Just…

  But their plan just might work, with Tucker positioning himself behind the truck, ready to throw the fusee. Once he threw it, she would surprise March, then Tucker would run behind him, and tackle him.

  It sounded so simple when they’d sketched it out, she’d bought into Tucker’s confidence.

  Ignored the fist in her gut.

  Although, she did have to confess— “I’ve never shot anyone before.”

  Tucker had been studying the layout of the compound through his binoculars. He drew them away and looked at her. “That’s a good thing, right?”

  “Yeah. I guess, but…” She shook her head. “It’s one thing to shoot a paper target. Another to shoot a person.”

  He touched her hand, the one holding the revolver. “This will work,” he said. “You won’t have to.”

  This will work. She clung to his words now as he turned to her.

  “Ready?”

  Oh boy. “I’ve actually never done anything like this,” she said quietly. “I’ve never had to chase down a fugitive before. And we always train as a team. I’m never alone—”

  “I’m your team,” Tucker said, his voice low, finding her bones. “And you’re not alone. So trust me a little, okay?”

  And it struck her again how she already did, really.

  The sun had fallen to just above the mountains, tufting the sky in striations of blood red and fire, pitching shadows into the yard. Not enough to hide them, but with the scrim of tall black spruce and birch edging the property, the shadows fell thick and abundant.