Read Online Nest in the Ashes by Christine Goff - Free Book Online Page A

of a man. Then, from a stone’s throw, the white hard hat on the ground and the blue-handled Pulaski identified the victim as Wayne.
    Eric dropped one knee to the ground and sucked in great gulps of air in spite of the smell. His boss lay faceup on the ground, bloated and puffed like a turkey after eight hours in a hot oven. The fire had cooked him.
    Tears stung Eric’s eyes. Wayne had been more than his supervisor, more than a mentor, more than a friend. Wayne had stepped in and taken the place of the father Eric had barely known.
    Leaning against a rock, Eric ignored the hard edges gouging his spine. Images filtered through his mind. Wayne at the office, a coffee cup clutched in his hand. Wayne catch-and-release fishing at Lily Lake, lounging in the hammock in the backyard, flashing his famous hundred-watt smile at a tourist before stopping traffic to let a herd of Rocky Mountain sheep cross the road.
    “Damn it, Wayne.”
    They’d been friends for seventeen years, since Eric had applied to work in the park. Wayne had seen past the young man who carried a chip on his shoulder and had helped Eric land a job in the park. For that alone Eric owed him.
    Eric’s first season had been spent building campfires at the Moraine Park Campground. He enforced nightly noise curfews, policed bathrooms, and rousted raccoons out of the trash. Wayne had shown his face only once that summer, in August, when a mother bear and two cubs had hunkered down in the campground. Wayne had chased them off by shooting rubber bullets at the mother bear.
    Eric smiled at the memory. The gun’s first round had clicked dry, and the mother bear had charged. Jacking the slide, Wayne explained how he always left the chamber empty for added safety.
    Now Wayne was dead. Eric exhaled, then licked salt from his lips. There would be plenty of time to grieve. Right now he had a job to do, people to care for. Harry and Lark. Jackie and Tamara.
    Eric tugged at his radio. “Butch, Nora, do you copy?”
    “Yeah,” replied Butch.
    “I found Wayne Devlin. He’s dead.”
    “Where? How?” Nora asked. Eric hadn’t heard her voice on the radio since Trent had hollered for her well over an hour ago. He resisted asking her where she had been.
    “Welcome back,” he said.
    When she didn’t respond, he gave his approximate location. “From the best I can tell, Wayne got caught in the spot fire.”
    “I’ll get someone up there as soon as I can,” replied Nora.
    “What about Jackie?” Eric asked, worried Linda Verbiscar or some other member of the press might grab hold of the story and start snooping around.
    “I’ll send someone over to tell her.”
    “Sounds like a plan.”
    “Are you okay?” The question sounded sincere.
    “I’m numb.” Blood pounding in his ears filled his head with a dull roar. “I left Lark and Harry digging fire line. I need to catch up to them.”
    “Maybe you need to stand down.”
    Was she ordering him off the job? The roaring grew louder, and he realized that what he was hearing was not the pulsing of blood, but the wind driving fire. “Shit.”
    “What?”
    He stared up at the ridgeline. A column of black smoke spiraled toward a sky tinged yellow by advancing flame. He watched as fire crowned in the trees to the left of him. He dropped the radio. It caught on its hook and slammed against his chest, knocking the wind out of him. Scrambling up the north slope, binoculars banging against his ribs, he yelled for Lark and Harry. Brush tore at his clothing, scratching his bared wrist. Jumping over a fallen log, he scraped his shin. Hand over hand, he clawed his way up the mountain.
    “Eric?” Nora’s voice blared from the radio.
    He ignored her, shouting for Lark.
    “Up here,” she answered.
    He caught a flash of yellow through the trees. The arc of her arm. She and Harry had hacked their way twenty-five yards up the hillside.
    Behind Eric, heat wafted up from the bottom of the gulch. Oppressive, unbearable heat. Arid and