Terry turned his attention back to the garden hose in his hand, which trailed from the gas tank of one of the trucks to Samantha, who calmly dispensed gasoline into a Gatorade bottle.
“Hey Jason,” Terry called out. “How do you want us to use this stuff? I mean, are we just going to pour it in the grass and spark it up?”
Jason hesitated at the question. He really hadn’t thought much beyond getting the gas out of the trucks. “Torches,” he said.
“What?” Terry asked. The entire group stopped what they were doing to look at him quizzically.
“We’ll make torches, soak them in gasoline and use the torches to light the grass.” Jason smiled smugly in satisfaction.
On the other side of one of the trucks, with just their crewcuts and dirt-caked sunglasses visible, Tim and Ray shot back looks of overt disgust.
“What the fuck are we supposed to make torches out of,” Tim asked.
Pinned by their gazes, Jason looked around wildly.
“Branches and … uh … ” He thought hard, mentally dredging the inventory of supplies for anything that could be used to soak up fuel. “Our shirts!”
Chapter 17
Scott considered himself an experienced woodsman. So did Lani for that matter, minus the “man,” of course. Rollo didn’t know anything other than woods, so far as anybody could tell. But you wouldn’t have known it once they were five minutes into the trees.
“Umm … Honey? Where’s the truck from here?” Lani asked.
There was a long moment of silence.
“Honey?”
Scott sighed.
“Behind us. Somewhere.”
“Behind us?”
“-ish. Rollo … ?”
“Don’t fucking ask me. I’m just following that dust cloud.”
Lani sputtered.
“Seriously? How do you—?”
“Ssshh. I hear voices up ahead,” Scott whispered. He placed his hand on Champ’s head to calm the dog. “Let me go ahead to take a look.”
Rollo shook his head. Under strain from the movement, his threadbare canvas hat threatened to fly off in multiple directions.
“Hey, I’m the mountain man, city boy. I’ll go ahead.”
Scott glanced at his shaggy buddy, then poked him in the paunch with his right-hand index finger.
“You’re the fat mountain man. I don’t know what you’ve been doing out in these forests, but you’re eating entirely too well.”
Rollo looked like he’d been stung. He patted his plaid shirt-encased belly with both hands
“Hey, there are goodies everywhere if you know where to look,” he grumped. “Just look at the prickly pear—”
“Guys,” Lani interrupted. “Can we get on with it?”
“Sure enough, baby,” Scott answered. “Hey, if there’s anything going on, I’ll capture it on video for both of you so you can enjoy it with popcorn later.” He dropped his pack to the ground and undid the zipper that ran from the base to the top. A smart phone appeared in his hand a moment later.
“You’re gonna call somebody?”
“Nope, Rollo. Video.” Scott tapped at the phone, then swung it around. He briefly pointed the tiny lens on the back toward Rollo. The older man leaned forward to watch the playback of what had just been recorded.
“If you’d venture out of the 19th century from time to time, you’d know that phones these days can take pictures and video. I can even post it online from here.”
He peered at the phone and grimaced.
“Well, I could if there was any service out here.”
Rollo ignored the dig and whistled appreciatively.
“Pretty cool.”
“Yep. Lani and I have found some uses for it.” A big grin played across Scott’s face.
Lani colored and slammed her elbow into Scott’s ribs, but she wore a smirk of her own.
“Oh,” Rollo said. “That is handy. I’ll be damned.”
Moments later, Scott slipped through the tall grass, his head down in an almost unconscious effort to keep it from bobbing above the high ground ahead and revealing his presence.
What am I doing, he asked himself. It’s not stalking. It’s certainly not creeping. Skulking, he decided. I’m skulking toward the enemy. Assuming that they are the enemy, that is.
Which raised another interesting question. Who was up ahead? Were they Rollo’s Forest Service pyromaniacs? Scott didn’t share his buddy’s conspiracy theories, but not because of any inherent respect for government employees. To the contrary, he considered anybody who preferred a life of administering laws and rules and living off of taxes to one of persuading people to buy what you had to sell and living on what you could earn to be more worthy of contempt than fear.
To a large extent, he’d always had a gut-level revulsion toward authority. The idea that some people claimed a “right” to boss other people around at the point of a gun, even if only implied, just struck him as absurd.
Then, years of writing about business had crystallized his convictions. So far as he could tell, government regulators were good primarily at tripping up the competent and propping up the screw-ups. Especially if the screw-ups were their buddies.
Different agencies had slightly different cultures, but it was like choosing from a menu of bloody-minded dysfunction and self-importance.
His musings had to share brainpower with his concern for the terrain. The grass through which he … skulked … scratched his bare legs below his shorts and caught in his hiking socks.
As he approached the ridgeline, he dropped to his hands and knees and began crawling through the grass, the phone clamped in his right hand. He grimaced as his knees scraped along the ground.
The air carried the sweet smell of ponderosa pines, a hint of dust suspended on the wind—and a strong whiff of gasoline.
He flopped on his belly and wriggled up the hump for a look to the other side.
What the fuck?
Five, no, six people were in a circle wearing the bottom halves of Forest Service uniforms. Two of the men in the circle looked like unhappy cops at the beach, with short hair, aviator shades and deep scowls to accessorize their semi-undress.
Two of the bare-chested rangers were women, and they clearly weren’t believers in brassieres. The one with curly reddish hair was even worth a second look.
The six rangers surrounded a seventh ranger who stood at their center with a lit match cupped in his hand.
Scott remembered to tap the shutter “button” on his phone, and held it above the grass to record the doings below.
It’s stranger than Rollo knows, Scott thought. The rangers sealed off the area so they could hold some twisted pagan ritual in the middle of nowhere. Jesus Christ, what if they decide to hold a human sacrifice?
He missed the comforting weight of his gun, left behind with Rollo and Lani.
One of the women rangers—the one with chopped, dark hair—turned from the circle, lit torch held forward, and began passing through the grass, setting it aflame. She paused, dropped the torch in the grass, and donned a yellow coat from a pile of similar garments near one of the trucks.
“Not so close,” the one with the matches yelled. “Take it further out, damn it. Burn the forest, not us!”
Scott hoped the phone’s microphone had caught those words. He slowly panned the camera toward the San Francisco peaks towering above Flagstaff in the distance, then back to the firebug jamboree in the grassy field ahead.
Just as he carefully peered up to make sure the phone was capturing what he intended, a sensation like that of an oversized slug curling up in his right ear for a nap diverted his attention from the fiery festivities. Lying on his belly, observing nefarious doings in the forest, fifteen miles from paved road, Scott had received a wet willy.
“Shit,” Scott yelped, slapping his hand to his ear.
He rolled on his back to find the source of the unexpected offense—and stared straight up into the grinning face of Champ. Left ear
pointed to the sky, right ear folded in a salute, slobber dripping from the tongue that had just probed the man’s ear, the dog panted, and then licked his face in canine adoration. His leash hung unattended from his collar.
Scott tilted his head, briefly, toward his friends. Lani had her arms stretched out toward him. She tilted her head and silently mouthed the word “sorry.” Rollo’s pack was open in front of him and he was frantically fiddling with something he’d apparently pulled from the interior.
Remembering where he was, Scott tilted his head back for an upside-down view of the half-dressed firebugs. The first thing he noticed was that the group he’d been watching was now watching him. One of two rangers with matching crew cuts and shades approached. His scowl was even deeper than before and he had a compact gun in his hand that Scott recognized as a Sig.
Is it a 9mm? Maybe it’s a .40. Then it occurred to him that there were better things to worry about.
Scott slowly rolled over, and then rose to his feet with his hands raised high—the smart phone exposed for everybody to see.
“Hey folks. You must be …” He surveyed the gestating inferno in front of him. “… State Department? Anybody have a light?”
Chapter 18
His nerves sizzling with adrenaline rush, Jason watched Ray stalk forward toward the stranger and his dog. He was surprised to see the wannabe G-man draw a gun from a hip holster. So was Tim, apparently, who looked at his partner’s pistol with open envy, and absent-mindedly stroked at his own hip. The group was well-armed, but most of the weapons were in the trucks as befit their just-in-case status.
Jason missed the stranger’s opening comment, but it was obviously a wisecrack, to judge by Terry’s snort and the snarls emanating from Ray and Tim.
“Buddy, you’re in trouble,” Ray said. “This area is closed to the public for your own safety. You’re not supposed to be here.”
The stranger didn’t look impressed. While his hands were up in a gesture of surrender, his face under his ball cap and beneath his sunglasses revealed a barely suppressed smirk. He faced the rangers, medium height and lean in a safari-style shirt with the sleeves rolled up and buttoned in place. But his legs below his shorts looked poised to bolt at a moment’s notice.
Ray must have picked up on the stranger’s disdain. Jason’s ear’s rang as the wannabe cop fired a shot in the air, and he could barely make out the following words.
“Goddamnit! I’m talking to you!”
The stranger’s dog, a big, black-and-white Australian shepherd mix, obviously picked up on the confrontational vibe; happily licking his master’s face just a moment before, now he glared at Ray and growled.
Jason took a quick glance at his team, and honestly couldn’t blame the stranger for his attitude. Bare-chested, bare-breasted and brandishing flaming torches, the gathering looked like… Hell, Jason didn’t know what it looked like, but he suddenly felt like he should have a bone through his nose. The stranger looked too comfortable with the outdoors to be persuaded that this was an official Forest Service operation.
“Crap. Ray, grab that guy and bring him over here. Let’s see what’s on his phone.”
That’s when the popping noises sounded—one, two, three. And three little spurts of dirt erupted in front of Ray.
Tim and Ray immediately hit the dirt. Jason stared at Samantha, who looked at Rena, who peered at Bob, who glanced at Terry. Terry shielded his eyes with his left hand and pointed off into the trees at the far side of the field.
“Hey, somebody over there is shooting at us!”
Two more pops.
Everybody joined Ray and Tim in the dirt.
Chapter 19
Phone in hand, Scott ran like hell back to his friends. He raced across the field, panting and sweating from nerves as much as from exertion. Champ trotted easily alongside with his mouth open in a big grin.
The dog had no idea what was going on—he just knew his human friend had involved him in an adventure, and he was having fun.
Lani threw Scott’s pack at him as he reached the trees. The pack’s blue-gray fabric and yellow bungee cords filled his vision until he caught it one-handed in mid-air and hung a strap over his left shoulder with barely a break in stride. He felt the heavy weight of his gun in its holster slap him in the small of the back, and he vowed never again to leave it behind.
Lani ran ahead of him, runner’s legs pumping, long, blonde hair flying from under her floppy trail hat, and athletic bra straining to do its duty.
Already huffing, Rollo took the lead. He had his pack over one shoulder, and what looked like an undersized rifle bobbed in his free hand.
They ran through the woods, breathing deeply the thick, sweet smell of the trees that was now flavored with a strong hint of smoke. They ran between trees, across a bed of pine needles, and through high foxtails that stuck in their socks, pierced their ankles and caused Champ to yelp.
And they ran without direction, because panic erased whatever vestigial hunch as to the truck’s location they might have retained.
They came out of the trees and ran along a dirt road, preferring a clear path to somewhere over a blind run through forest that might bring them back to the firebugs—the armed firebugs.
They ran until Rollo stopped in his tracks, pivoted to face back the way they’d come, and flopped into a sitting position with his back against a tree. His hat slid back on his head and a spray of graying hair escaped to form an off-color halo around his head. He gasped for breath.
“Can’t-Can’t-Can’t-“
He held the mini-rifle pointed straight ahead.
Scott dropped his own pack and drew his pistol, releasing the thumb safety as he palmed the gun.
“What the fuck was that?” he said when he’d caught his breath. He tried to listen for the sound of runners or vehicles in pursuit, but the way the three were breathing a helicopter could have flown overhead and escaped detection.
“Maybe they’re really pissed about the truck,” Rollo wheezed. He managed a chuckle that dissolved into a cough to let them know he was joking.
“They shot at you,” Lani finally said. She turned to face Rollo. “And then you shot back.”
Rollo rolled his eyes.
“They just fired a warning shot, Lani.”
Scott nodded.
“And Rollo just got them to keep their heads down. Nobody actually got hit.”
Lani just stared, and patted absently at Champ, who leaned against her leg.
“So it was all in good fun?” Her face flushed bright red beneath her suntan.
Scott smiled.
“Well, maybe not ‘fun.’”
He turned his attention to Rollo.
“Is that your Erector-set rifle?”
Rollo grinned.
“I always carry this in my pack. It’s my good luck charm.”
Rollo unscrewed a nut at the base of the rifle’s pistol grip, which was a molded extrusion of the black, plastic stock, and then he separated the receiver from the stock. “The barrel comes off, too, and everything stashes inside the stock. It’s one of my favorite toys.”
“I like it. But why didn’t you grab my pistol instead of putting together your little MacGyver gadget?”
“Hell, Scott. I’ve never shot your pistol. I figured it’d be faster to put this thing together than to figure out that IQ test you call a gun.”
Lani pressed the heels of her hands to her forehead and let out a sigh.
“Guys, I’m so happy you’re having a bonding moment, but what do we do next?”
There was a long moment of silence.
“I mean, bizarre as it is, Rollo was apparently right about rangers setting the forest on fire. And now they’re after—” Her voice broke.
After a moment, she spoke, her voice once again clear and strong.
“Basically, we’re fucked.”
Scott reached around the slim blonde, and then dramatically twirled her into his arms and planted a kiss on her lips.
“But baby, this is your opportunity to see me in action. You can witness my grace under fire—”
“Witness you run your ass off under fire, more like,” Rollo offered.
Scott ignored him.
“This is a chance for genuine heroics, honey.”
“Oh shit. I hope you’re not serious.”
Scott gently returned Lani to her feet.
“Not completely. But I thought it might cheer you up. Anyway, if I’m not gonna look dashing now, I’ll never have a chance.”
He shot his girlfriend what he hoped was a reassuring smile. Then he looked ahead along the rutted track through the forest.
“Hey, where do you think this road goes?”
Chapter 20
With smoke wreathed around his head, Jason barely suppressed a dry cough. He shot a glance down the road toward the spot where they’d seen the stranger—and been shot at by somebody. Fire was spreading at that site, the smoke was getting thicker and he and his friends were very obviously not the only people roaming the woods with guns.
He wanted to go home.
But Van Kamp had other ideas.
“Get that son of a bitch,” the diminutive uber-ranger had ordered him via two-way radio. It was an impressive device—larger than usual and, importantly, supposedly secure from eavesdropping. Jason could visualize the little man standing on his chair and leaning over his desk with spittle flying from between his gnashing teeth. He shuddered.
“Get that SOB, and get whoever his friends are. We can’t have them peddling photographs of you setting a fire.”
“But they shot at us!”
“That’s right! And we can’t let that kind of disdain for Forest Service personnel—well, people who look like Forest Service personnel—go unpunished.”
So here he hunched over the hood of his truck, with a fire creeping close enough to (he shot another look over his shoulder) slow-roast his backside. He smoothed the map with his hands, and traced the outline of a road.
High Desert Barbecue Page 5
