Wild Inferno (20 page)

Friday, 1430 Hours

An instant later, I swam upward from a fiery, molten red world. “Mountain?” I sputtered with a hoarse, cracking voice.

I turned my head to the side and realized that it was still attached to my body. I felt the wolf's tongue lick my face. Mountain was doing his best to sit up in the cargo space behind the driver's seat, but he was too tall, and his ears splayed out against the head liner. He was trembling.

“Are you all right?” the truck driver called as he scrambled out of the cab.

I stared through the windshield. The Jeep was facing directly into the cliff wall on the inside edge of the road. “I'm good,” I mumbled.

“Can you move…you know, your hands, your legs?” I turned slightly and saw a brown-skinned man peering in the window at me.

I wiggled my fingers, then lifted my palms to the steering wheel. I leaned forward and felt the shoulder harness scrape my neck. I reached down and unbuckled the seat belt, then tapped the toes of my boots on the floor of the car. “Everything…” My voice sounded as gravelly as the road. I cleared my throat. “Everything seems to be working so far.”

“You want to try to get out of there?” He put his hand to the door handle.

“Is my wolf all right? Does he look like he's all right?” Mountain nosed the back of my head over the top of the headrest.

“He's really shaking. He looks like he's worried about you.” The man opened the car door. “Let's see if you can get out,” he said, reaching to try to help me.

“I'm okay, I can get out.” I swung my legs to the side and climbed out of the Jeep. I pushed the back of the driver's seat forward and grabbed hold of Mountain's leash, still attached to his bridle. “Are you all right, baby wolf?” I asked.

He clambered cautiously out the driver's door and leaned into me, ears down. I dropped to a squat and began probing his body with my hands, groping his muscles, feeling for broken bones, cracked ribs, sore places. The wolf continued to quiver, his whole body vibrating rapidly, but he never flinched. I knew from experience that wolves could be very stoic; they could be in great pain and not let on. But I found nothing by palpating his exterior. Even if we had both somehow miraculously escaped major injury, we would be plenty sore in the morning, I was certain.

While I examined Mountain, the truck driver left briefly, then returned. “Listen,” the man said, reaching into the Jeep and turning off the ignition, “it's a good thing you were able to stop. I thought I was going to T-bone you with the old poop-pumper.” He attempted a smile. “I got the right front wheel of my truck into the cliff there, tore up the tire.” He held out my keys and dropped them into my palm. “And I don't think you'll be able to drive that car anymore unless you get a new transmission.”

“Yeah, I know. It was the only way I could stop. I had no brakes at all.”

“Yeah?” He got to his knees and tried to peer under the car, then turned on his back and pushed himself under it beside the front wheel.

“Don't worry about…” I started to say, but I stopped and waited.

He wiggled out on his back, then rolled over and pushed himself up. He brushed the dirt off his hands. “Well, it was good thinking, what you did. That brake line right there has been cut. You wouldn't have been able to stop with it like that, just using the brake pedal. There's not a drop of brake fluid in that line.”

“What?”

“You want me to show you?”

We both dropped to our knees, this time checking the rear brake on the driver's side. “See?” he said, pointing to a nearly severed line. “That's been cut. Looks like somebody took a hacksaw to it.”

My first impulse was a surge of confusion and fear. But right behind it came a wave of seething rage.
Someone is trying to kill me! And Mountain!
“I need my sat phone out of my Jeep,” I said. I clambered over the driver's seat. “Bunch of Ute kids taking potshots, my ass,” I muttered as I reached into the floor where my radio harness had landed.

“Beg pardon?” the truck driver said.

“Never mind.” I straightened and strapped on the harness, pulled out the sat phone. “I have to make a call.”

My first call was to Roy. “Are you all right?” he asked.

“I'm okay. We—Mountain and I—just got tossed around a little inside the car. I need to walk him and watch his gait, make sure he's all right.”

“Do you need to have someone come? An ambulance? A vet?”

“No, I don't think so. I think we're both okay.”

“You think someone tampered with the brakes?”

“The brake lines have been cut—front and back.”

“Call the sheriff's office.”

“I will. And the FBI.”

“You get back to me on this.”

“Can you get Ground Support to bring me a car? I have to go get Delgado Gonzales at the airport.”

“Don't worry about Gonzales, his flight's been delayed a couple hours. Are you all right to drive?”

“I'm okay, Roy. We didn't crash. The truck stopped and I slid but I pulled up before hitting him. I'm going to be all right.”

“Well, hell! This is—what?—three incidents on this fire now?”

“I know.”

“Do you have any idea who got to your Jeep?”

“I'm going to talk with Ron Crane about that.”

“Maybe you ought to at least report to the medical tent.”

“I'm more concerned about Mountain. Let me walk him and watch him until he settles down. If I need to get him to a vet, I'll call you back. Otherwise, I'm going to pick up Gonzales in Durango.”

“Well, that might be the safest place for you—away from Fire Camp. And I'll get someone else to come up to Chimney Rock for the night. But you be careful. Watch your back. You tell your FBI pal to report directly to me on this.”

“There's just one more thing.”

“What now?” the Boss snapped.

“I'm not sure if you understood that this happened on the road to the top of Chimney Rock. Both vehicles are disabled. The way is completely blocked.”

Roy was silent for a moment. Then he clicked right into gear. “Well, that's a major complication. I'll send my deputy safety officer over there. We've got winds picking up and shifting, and they've still got some reburning and spotting over on that east flank. I finally got an air tanker coming tomorrow, and we're going to bomb that slope with mud—but today or tonight, we could still have to evacuate the Native Americans.”

“Well, until the tow trucks come…”

“Listen, if it comes down to it, we'll just have to walk them out.”

My second call was to Ron Crane.

“You say what?” he asked, not believing what he'd heard.

“Someone cut my brake lines. I'm okay, but I had to grind up the transmission on my Jeep to bring it to a stop. I almost bought the farm.”

“Any idea who it was?”

“I have a couple ideas. Could you find out something for me?”

“Probably. There's not much I can't access if I want to.”

“You know where we found Ned Spotted Cloud's body? I want to know if he was working for the Forest Service or anyone else connected to that site when it was excavated twenty-three years ago. Or if the Forest Service needed permission from the Southern Ute Tribal Council to excavate—and if so, if Grampa Ned was on the tribal council then.”

“I'm way ahead of you.”

“And?”

“It's Southern Ute land. They had to get the approval of the tribal council. Ned Spotted Cloud was a huge advocate for the deal. And a paid advisor.”

“Advisor?”

“Yes. The Forest Service hired him—a way of swinging the deal. He got to stand around and look out for tribal interests, which pretty much meant collecting a paycheck for showing up every once in a while and watching them dig.”

“And maybe picking up something if it interested him.”

“Possibly so.”

“Okay, thanks. There's one more thing: can you find out if Nuni Garza has had an abortion?”

“Ooh. You got me there. Unless they directly concern a crime victim, medical records are real hard to get without a court order. That can get complicated.”

I was quiet, thinking.

“You still there?” Crane asked.

“Yeah, I'm here.”

“This about motive?”

“I think so.”

“Clara White Deer?”

“Yeah.”

“I'll see what I can do.”

“Thanks.”

“Where are they taking your Jeep?” Crane asked. “I want to have a look at it.”

“Probably someplace in Pagosa Springs. There's a public lands ranger station there. I'll get back to you with that information.”

“And where were you with it today?”

“Besides Fire Camp? I was in Ignacio, you saw me.”

“And you went straight from Ned's house to Fire Camp?”

“No. I stopped in to talk with Mary Takes Horse. And while I was in her shop, somebody fired a rifle through my passenger window and blew the head off Ursula.”

“I heard.”

“You already knew? Why'd you ask?”

“I wondered if you would tell me, or if you were going to stay a loose cannon.”

“But the tribal police said that several Forest Service trucks—”

“Yeah. They called me about that deal. I don't think yours was a random potshot, though.”

“Well, now I don't either.”

“So, I'll go take a look at the vehicle when they get it to Pagosa. And you're looking at Clara White Deer then?”

“Maybe. I'll get back to you on that. I just need one more piece of the puzzle to be sure.”

“Are you armed?”

“No, they don't allow weapons on a fire, unless they're issued.”

“They issue weapons on fires?”

“Not very often. But every once in a while. We've got a few crews here that have shotguns with beanbag rounds because there's been a bear out on the fire lines.”

“You need to be careful. Where are you going next?”

“To pick up one of the hotshots that got burned over. I'm meeting him at the Durango airport.”

“You call me once you get your hotshot.”

“I will.”

After I called the sheriff's office, I left the truck driver at the scene and told him I'd be back as soon as I got my wolf taken care of. Mountain and I hiked back up the road, and I let him off his leash so he could romp a little. He was clearly shaken by the event and stayed close by me, rather than scampering in the brush and sniffing at the vegetation. I watched his gait, but saw no signs of injury, and I was tremendously relieved.

When we got to the top, the winds had shifted straight out of the west, and the smoke from the Chimney Rock Fire made the air thick and heavy. The color of the sky was brown, and tinges of orange formed a fiery circle where the light from the sun seared through the smoke particles.

I looked for Momma Anna and found my medicine teacher at the Great House. She was alone in the kiva, performing a ritual. I stood on the rim and put Mountain on a heel, and we waited and watched her.

Momma Anna held a pinch of something in the fingers of her right hand. She offered this from her heart, reaching outward to the east, dancing four steps in place, lifting her knees high. She turned to the south and made the same gesture of offering, dancing four more high steps. Then to the west, then to the north, and once again to the east—what the Tanoah called the five directions, with the east being both the beginning and the end. Then Momma Anna danced in place with her head lowered, facing the ground as she swirled her offering in a circle above the earth four times—this was for Mother Earth. Next, she raised her offering high above her head to Father Sky, turning her face upward, dancing her four steps in place, making four high circles with her hand. And finally, she circled her own heart—the Within—with her offering, dancing four steps, her eyes on her moving hand.

When she had finished the offering, she stood still and swirled the pinched fingers over her head, sprinkling the corn pollen and sage into the air. Then she rubbed her two hands together vigorously above her crown to disperse the last of the pollen, and clapped her hands together powerfully above her head.

She looked up at me as if she'd known all along that I was there. “You have question,” she said.

This surprised me. Ordinarily, she saw questions as demanding and arrogant. I was not prepared for her to invite me to ask her for information. “Did you tell a story the other night about your ancestors being star watchers here at Chimney Rock?”