“I don’t give a shit about the elk,” Henry said.
“Why did you swerve then?” Susan asked.
“I wanted to protect the car,” Henry said.
Susan raised an eyebrow and looked down the hillside at the crunched Crown Vic. “Oh,” she said.
Something caught her eye across the road and she ran over to it and picked it up. “Hey, look,” she said happily. “My water bottle.”
“Excellent,” Henry said.
“We’ll see how sarcastic you are when you’re dying of thirst,” Susan said, brushing the dirt and crud off the plastic bottle. She dug two Advil out of her pocket and washed them back with a swig from the bottle.
“We’re not going to die of thirst,” Henry said. He pointed up ahead where a mile post sign read: 90. “We’re almost there. We just need to walk four miles.”
“On foot?” Susan said, looking down at her Frye boots. Her throat hurt, and the choking pink haze wasn’t getting any thinner.
“By the time we get there the entire cavalry will have arrived. If they’re not there already.”
“So, tell me the story,” Susan said.
“What story?” Henry asked.
“About how you ended up married to the Lummi Indian princess.”
CHAPTER
64
They had walked out of the fire zone into the green forest of ponderosa pines. A scorch mark on the road marked the dividing line. On one side, burned ruin, on the other, pine needles and pinecones, purple flowers and prairie grasses. The air was still heavy with smoke and the only sound was the occasional engine of a Forest Service plane or helicopter flying overhead. No police cars. No sirens.
Susan noticed that Henry’s skin, hair, and clothes were coated with ash. She wiped her own face and her hand came down smeared with dirt.
Darkness fell fast in the mountains. The setting sun looked like a streetlight obscured by orange fog. Half the sky was bejew-eled with stars, half the sky was blank, the stars hidden by soot and particulate matter. They didn’t have much time. On foot, without a flashlight, they would be blind in another hour.
Susan’s eyes felt raw from the smoke and she rubbed at them, which only seemed to make them more irritated. She looked at her hands. They were covered with ash. She rubbed them on her jeans.
“This must be it,” Henry said, stopping near mile post 92, where a gravel road snaked up into the wooded hillside.
Henry flipped open his cell phone, a pale blue glow in the violet dusk. “Still no service,” he said. “Tower must be down.”
Susan peered up the road. The smoke made everything look soft and oddly still. “Where’s the cavalry?” she asked.
Henry drew his weapon from his shoulder holster and looked up and down the highway, and then up the gravel road. “They’re not here yet.”
“Why?” asked Susan. They’d called Claire an hour ago. Something was wrong. They should be here by now.
“The fire,” Henry said. “The Sisters cops are probably evacuating the town. Airport’s maybe closed so the others can’t get in. I don’t know. You should wait here. A fire crew will come by.”
Susan shook her head. “No, one won’t. We’d have seen them by now. They’re fighting the fire somewhere else. You’re not leaving me.”
“The fire’s headed north,” Henry said.
Susan looked up at the sky. “What if the wind changes?”
Henry turned his head in both directions down the abandoned highway, then turned and started up the gravel road, his gun at his thigh. “Fine.”
Susan got in step behind him. “Okay,” she said.
It took a half hour to get to the house. It wasn’t hard to find if you were looking for it. It was the only place up the long, dark road. They saw the mailbox first. Then the lights through the trees.
The house wasn’t that old. It was Northwest lodge style, with cabin logs and a stone fa?ade around a big front double door. The silver Jag was parked out front.
“Stay here,” Henry said, lifting his gun and starting toward the house.
Susan scrambled to stay behind him, pinecones and twigs crunching under her feet.
“Oh, for fuck’s sake,” he said, turning around.
“I’m not staying out here alone,” Susan said. The glow of the western sky had faded to purple.
Henry took her by each shoulder. “I need you to stay here, so that if Archie’s in there, and something happens to me, you can go get help.” She didn’t know how she was going to do that. Walk to Sisters? Flag down a helicopter? But the seriousness in Henry’s expression made her nod her consent.
Henry lifted his gun again and moved toward the house, ducking as he made his way by the front windows. He reached the porch and moved toward the door.
“Do you need a warrant?” Susan called in a whisper.
Henry didn’t seem to hear her. He opened the door and moved inside the house. Susan was alone.
A few minutes passed. A squirrel scrambled up the tree Susan was standing next to. It reached the top in four clawed hops, then froze.