Summer of Fire Read online

  TABLE OF CONTENTS

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Epilogue

  Afterword

  Authors Note

  Dedication:

  This book is dedicated to the men and women of emergency services everywhere.

  And always, to Richard.

  Published 2005 by Medallion Press, Inc.

  225 Seabreeze Ave.

  Palm Beach, FL 33480

  The MEDALLION PRESS LOGO

  is a registered tradmark of Medallion Press, Inc.

  If you purchased this book without a cover, you should be aware that this book is stolen property. It was reported as “unsold and destroyed” to the publisher, and neither the author nor the publisher has received any payment from this “stripped book.”

  Copyright © 2005 by Linda Jacobs

  Cover Illustration by Adam Mock

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without written permission of the publisher, except where permitted by law.

  Printed in the United States of America

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Jacobs, Linda.

  Summer of fire / Linda Jacobs.

  p. cm.

  ISBN 1-932815-29-5

  1. Yellowstone National Park—Fiction. 2. Forest fire fighters—Fiction. 3. Women fire fighters—Fiction. 4. Fire fighters—Fiction. 5. Forest fires-Fiction. 6. Montana—Fiction. I. Title.

  PS3610.A35645S86 2005

  813’.6—dc22

  2005008883

  Foreword:

  My love affair with Yellowstone Park began in 1973, when I spent the first of three summers studying the field geology of Wyoming for my master’s thesis. I have since returned to the park in every season, accessing the archives for the rich history of both the land, and man’s brief tenure there.

  While researching a historical novel set in Yellowstone, I was continually distracted by references to the fires of ‘88. Like much of the nation, I had tuned in, spellbound, to the nightly reports of America’s first National Park in flames. Like many of Yellowstone’s three million annual visitors, I held my breath, dreading the destruction being depicted, yet seduced by the beauty of wildfire.

  Over lunch in the Houston Public Library, I examined Ross Simpson’s The Fires of ‘88, published by American Geographic and Montana Magazine. After an hour’s perusal of choppers ferrying water, tankers spraying retardant, and the faces of the men and women on the lines, I came to a conclusion.

  There was a story here … one that over thirty-two thousand firefighters had shared. There was a vivid setting of beauty and peace, where a forest must go through the crucible of fire to achieve rebirth. To this place came my fictional characters.

  A female firefighter troubled by the loss of a comrade-in-arms, a park biologist scarred by grief over his wife and baby daughter, and a Vietnam veteran helicopter pilot who seeks the adrenaline high … each find that in a world turned upside down, they cannot escape their greatest fears. Only through their private trials can they emerge reborn from their summer of fire.

  With the help of a number of people and references, I have attempted to create as authentic a reconstruction as possible of Yellowstone’s 1988 fires. Clare, Steve, and Deering do not exist, but the backdrop against which their story is told most definitely did. Some public figures such as the Secretary of the Interior, Park Superintendent, and the fire’s Incident Commanders have been fictionalized; their characters are intended to bear no resemblance in word or deed to real persons. Any errors or omissions are my own.

  My husband, Richard Jacobs, a founder of a Fort Bend County, Texas, volunteer fire department in 1975, served as consultant on structural firefighting, and assisted in preparing the fire maps. These are the authentic reports released daily by the Greater Yellowstone Unified Area Command of the Forest Service and National Park Service to the three thousand journalists who covered the fires’ story.

  My visit to the Texas A & M Brayton Firefighter Training Field was an eye-opener. Beneath the blazing July sun, fighting fire in full turnouts, I found the men and women to whom society owes a debt.

  Dr. Catharine Raven, who is both biologist and wildfire fighter, gave valuable insights into many themes of the book. She fought the fires of ‘88, a life-altering experience that set her on the path to becoming a scientist. Eleven years later, she was still fighting the summer battles of the west. In addition to helping me get in touch with major characters, she also has ties to the Native American community, as the character of Clare does. The magic is that the book was largely complete when we met.

  I thank Dr. Lee Whittlesley, of the Yellowstone archives, for showing me around on my several visits there. In 1996, Ken Davis, who was manager of the town of West Yellowstone, revealed the fascinating story of a community under siege, and opened my eyes to the lives of the summer migrant workers of the West. Gayle Mansfield of the West Yellowstone News and Ronald Diener of the Jackson Hole Historical Society helped me through their stores of information. Workers at the Jackson Hole News were also courteous and helpful in letting me review back issues of the paper. The jumpers at West Yellowstone Smokejumper’s Base gave me an extensive tour and told tales of leaping out of their Beech at one hundred ten miles per hour.

  Several nonfiction books were of great use in my research, including Michael Thoele’s Fire Line: Summer Battles of the West, and former Chief Ranger Dan Sholly’s Guardians of the Land. In addition, I was fascinated by the photojournalist’s eye view of the fires in Yellowstone’s Red Summer by Alan and Sandy Carey, Yellowstone on Fire by the staff of the Billings Gazette, and Ross Simpson’s previously mentioned work.

  My primary consultant on helicopter warfare in Vietnam was Michael Harvey, an oil industry entrepreneur, who served two tours as a front line Huey pilot. In addition, Robert (Dick) Vaughan, noted author and another chopper veteran, provided insight as to aircraft terminology. Any errors are mine.

  For commentary and editorial assistance on various drafts, I thank Charlotte Sheedy, Greg Tobin, Robert Vaughan, Elizabeth Engstrom, Sarah Lazin, Ann Close, John Byrne Cook, Caroline Lampman, and Deborah Bedford. Rita Gallagher helped me to understand the structure of a novel and Sam Havens how to present the story.

  Lastly, there is the late Venkatesh Srinivas Kulkarni, consummate writer and teacher, beloved friend, and citizen of the world. I also acknowledge the steadfast support of my Rice University critique group, Marjorie Arsht, Kathryn Brown, Judith Finkel, Bob Hargrove, Elizabeth Hueben, Karen Meinardus, Joan Romans, Angela Shepherd, Jeff Theall, and Diana Wade.

  PROLOGUE

  Houston, Texas

  July 1, 1988

  Black smoke billowed from the roof vents. At any second
, the flames would burst through, adding their heat to the already shimmering summer sky. Wood shingle, Clare Chance thought in disgust, a four-story Houston firetrap. She drew a breath of thick humidity and prepared for that walk on the edge … where fire enticed with unearthly beauty, even as it destroyed.

  Fellow firefighter Frank Wallace, over forty, but fighting trim, gripped her shoulder. “Back me up on the hose.” Although he squinted against the midday glare, his mustachioed grin showed his irrepressible enthusiasm.

  “Right behind you,” Clare agreed. In full turnouts and an air pack, she ignored the sultry heat and the wail of sirens as more alarms were called. Helping Frank drag the hose between gawking by-standers and shocked apartment residents, she reflected that the toughest part of the job was watching lives inexorably changed.

  A commotion broke out as a young Asian woman, reed thin in torn jeans, made a break from the two civilians holding her. She dashed toward the nearest building entry crying, “My baby!”

  Frank dropped the hose, surged forward and grabbed the woman. “Javier,” he grunted. “Take over.”

  Javier Fuentes, lanky, mid-twenties, took the handoff and restrained the woman from rushing into the burning building. Her dark eyes went wide as she screamed and struggled. Her short legs kicked at Javier’s shins.

  Adrenaline surging, Clare demanded. “What floor?”

  “4-G …” the woman managed. “He’s only two. “

  “Let’s go,” Clare told Frank without bothering to ask why the child had been left alone. As she bent for the hose, her sense of purpose seemed to lighten the weight of her equipment.

  They headed in.

  The building’s peeling doorframe had been defaced by purple graffiti and the interior stairwell smelled faintly of mold and urine. New and sparkling in the seventies when oil jobs had enticed northern immigrants to Houston, the housing had fallen into disrepair.

  At the second floor landing, Clare and Frank met smoke. She tipped up her helmet, covered her face with the mask, and cranked the tank valve. Beside her, Frank wordlessly did the same.

  As they moved up, Clare made sure the hose didn’t snag around corners while Javier and others fed slack. Business as usual, so far, and they would find that young mother’s child.

  At the third floor and starting blindly toward four, Clare felt the smoke grow hotter. She crouched below the deadly heat and told herself that she could breathe. Positive pressure prevented fumes from leaking into her mask, and the dehydrated air cooled as it decompressed.

  In, out, slow …

  Isolation pressed in with the superheated atmosphere. She couldn’t shake the feeling that Frank had left her, belied by his tugging on the hose. At times like these, she had to keep her head on straight. No giving in to claustrophobia and no thought of turning back.

  If you misguessed the dragon in the darkness, you would pay with your life.

  Fourth floor hall, and Clare went onto hands and knees. Darkness and disorientation complete, she concentrated on keeping the hose in line and her breathing steady. The worst humiliation was if she sucked her tank dry and had to make an ignominious exit.

  Ahead, Frank cracked the nozzle for a bare second. Heat slammed down as the spray upset the thermocline. He hit the valve again. A glimpse of not quite midnight winked from the shadows, now there and then gone. Clare ground her teeth and her chest tightened as they approached 4-G.

  The door stood ajar. A good omen, she hoped, as she and Frank accepted its invitation and crawled inside.

  Drapes and couches blazed, giving off toxic gases that made her glad for filtered air. The ceiling sheetrock was burned away, revealing the space beneath the roof where storage boxes blazed. Did they contain old clothes and junk, or precious family heirlooms from Southeast Asia, belonging to the young woman who waited below?

  A thousand degrees from above drove Clare and Frank onto their stomachs. While hot water rained onto shag carpet, she inched along, one gloved hand feeling the way and the other on the hose. If you let go of your lifeline, you could lose orientation, the sure first step to a mayday situation.

  Through the drop-spattered mask, there was no sign of life in the living room and nothing that looked like a crib or playpen. Clare looked toward a door that must lead to a bedroom, but flames licked at the frame and walls. No haven there. Sick with the possibility of failure, she dragged herself toward Frank. She had not yet told a mother that her child had died in a fire.

  If hell existed, this must be its antechamber. Frank lay ahead of her, directing the hose. By the tugs, she felt him move forward, risking the dragon backing around and coming down with searing breath. Clare found herself staring at the constantly changing colors of combustion, unable to resist the inferno’s splendor. Her love-hate relationship with fire hurt most at times like these.

  An ominous rumble began, the vibration resonating in her chest as though the dragon cleared its throat. Cold horror cut the heat.

  Through the steam cloud from the power cone, she caught a shifting in the rafters, a barely perceptible sideways slide. She couldn’t grab Frank’s collar to warn him, couldn’t do a thing except scream his name into the maelstrom.

  One moment, Clare was crawling toward him. The next, he disappeared in a shower of light.

  CHAPTER ONE

  Yellowstone National Park

  July 25, 1988

  Extreme Fire Danger.

  Clare Chance gave a bitter smile at the warning sign on the Grant Village Laundromat. The lodgepole pines behind the building burned like merry hell. With the drought that had parched Yellowstone since May, moisture in the forest fuels had ebbed, making the park a two million acre tinderbox. The wind that came with the dry fronts completed the equation for disaster.

  Clare hooked a hose to a hydrant and dragged the other end across the parking lot to water down the Laundromat roof. Beneath the heavy coat of the Houston Fire Department, sweat ran between her breasts and down her sides. At least it wasn’t as hot as it had been in Houston on that ill-fated July afternoon, over three weeks ago.

  Quick agony swelled her chest until she felt it would burst. The flaming forest became a wavering vermilion blur as she blinked hard and hoped Javier Fuentes and the other men of HFD didn’t notice her tears.

  Coming to the West to fight wildfire had seemed a convenient escape after she’d witnessed Frank Wallace’s death. If it could happen to him, it could happen to anybody. He was … had been … one of the good guys, an older veteran who’d acted blind to the fact that she wasn’t one of the boys.

  Since becoming a firefighter, Clare had learned she didn’t qualify as a bona fide adrenaline junkie, but she’d tried to match anybody’s bravado. People who hadn’t seen her coach basketball or yell at her trainees at the Texas A & M fire school were surprised to learn what a thirty-seven-year-old woman did for a living.

  Today, at Grant Village, she watched the younger men from Houston with a warning on the tip of her tongue. The wind shifted continuously, first a puff on the back of her neck and then relief for her heated forehead.

  Watering down the buildings was a last ditch effort before they would have to fight the approaching flames face-to-face. Clare didn’t know what she’d been thinking when she’d assumed wildfire was somehow tamer than structural fire. Less collateral damage, maybe. In the forest, the odds were against her having to face another distraught mother.

  A single look at Clare’s face when she emerged from the burning apartment house told Tammy Nguyen that her small son Pham was gone. Strangers, yet kindred in loss, the two women had gone into each other’s arms and sobbed. Channel Two News had carried it at six and ten.

  Clare had forced herself to face Frank’s wife, Jane, too, beside the closed casket. Within the older woman’s kindly embrace, she had thought her heart would break.

  On this, another sizzling afternoon, her hand on the rough-textured hose felt familiar, yet somehow distant. She was still getting used to the pungent incense of burning ev
ergreen, so different from the grassy aromas of the Texas coast.

  The two-way Motorola radio at her belt gave a crackling sound. She passed off to Javier Fuentes, who’d been first to sign on with her to fight wildfire. “Chance here.”

  “We’ve got to get those civilians out of Grant Village.” Garrett Anderson’s deep Atlanta drawl came over the airwaves. She imagined him behind a desk in West Yellowstone, his ample stomach hanging over his belt while he chomped on Fig Newtons and drank mugs of creamed coffee. One of the seasonal bosses of big fire, he’d been the first black to make fire general at the training center in Marana, Arizona. He was also the man who’d arranged through Clare’s boss at A & M for her and the men from Houston to be here.

  She put her foot onto the running board of the fire truck and pulled off her hard hat. God, her sweat-soaked head itched. The side mirror revealed heat-reddened cheeks beneath bloodshot amber eyes. “I thought the evacuation was proceeding as planned, Garrett.”

  There’s a bottleneck on the road out. Harry Gaines’s crew set a backfire that got away.”

  “You mean that’s not the Shoshone trying to burn down the Laundromat?” She considered the wildfire fighters’ eccentric habit of tagging fires with a name. It was as though naming their adversary made the fight a more personal one.

  “When you see the Shoshone, you’ll know.” Garrett sounded grimly certain. “The backfire’s jumped the road and nobody will drive into the smoke. I’m trying to raise a chopper to drop water, but I need you to get those cars moving before the Shoshone gets there.”