Firewolf. Jenna Kernan

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      “Hey, wait.” She trotted to catch him, wishing her sandals were less cute and more practical. Wearing a wedge that showed her slim calves to best advantage seemed unnecessary when her legs were streaked with soot and covered with grit and sand. She caught him and grabbed at his arm, her hand covered with the long sleeve of his shirt. “Do you know how crazy you sound?”

      He kept walking toward the road and the twisted remains of a bit of the blackened skeletal metal infrastructure that survived the blast. She let her gaze travel over the place where the eighteen-million-dollar home had been. She had not seen the explosion. The flash had been so bright and the earth had been shaking. He was right. It had been an explosion. What had caused the blast?

      He was a firefighter, and even he had admitted that a gas tank could be the cause. But, as she looked at the ridgeline that she had been filming on and off for months, she realized the size of the demolition. It could not have been caused by a small propane tank or reserve tank for gas. She knew it in her heart.

      Which meant someone had gone up there with explosives and set charges and pushed some kind of detonator and let the fires and rock spray down on the pine trees in the driest, hottest month of the year.

      “Who would do this?”

      He looked back. “You believe me now?”

      She nodded. “It’s just too big. I need to look at the footage. Maybe I can see something.”

      “I’d imagine the FBI will want to see that footage, as well.”

      “It’s up on my feed. Anyone could have seen it live. But the entire thing, it’s only recorded on this.” She lifted the camera. “And on my server.”

      “Can’t the social media sites recall it?”

      “I don’t know.”

      He started walking again.

      She spotted a phone sticking out of his back pocket and jogged to come even with him again.

      “You have a phone,” she said, pointing at his pocket.

      “No service,” he said without slowing.

      “You think you’ll have service up there?” She pointed to the ridge.

      “Maybe. I know Rustkin’s got a well. Only water within ten miles. The fire started there and moved with the wind. Top of the ridge and the far side will be untouched.”

      She looked at the climb ahead of them. Meadow already felt dizzy, and the prospect of the hike made her stomach twist. Maybe she should wait for help. A glance back showed the billowing smoke off to the east. How long until anyone could drive out here. The road they were on dead-ended at the mansion that had once occupied the ridge. Emergency and Fire would concentrate on the threatened town of Pine View and the larger community of Valley View, which lay between the fire and Flagstaff. But her father. He’d come for her. He knew where she was.

      When she glanced back to Dylan, it was to find him another two hundred feet along the road. The man was quick as a jackrabbit.

      She stretched her legs and walked. By the time she drew even with him, her mouth felt like cotton.

      “I need some water.”

      “No.”

      Now that was a word she didn’t hear very often.

      “Are you crazy? I’m thirsty.”

      “We don’t have much left. We need to make it up there first. Then, if I find the well, you can have a drink.”

      She stomped her foot, raising dust and his brow.

      He was walking again. Meadow closed her dry mouth and lifted her stubborn chin. If he could make it up that mountain, then so could she.

      * * *

      SHE WAS TOUGHER than she looked, Dylan gave her that. The hike had to be four miles uphill, and she made it in those wedge sandals without another word of complaint or request for anything. In fact, it appeared that she would not even have taken the time of day from him if he had offered to give it to her.

      Perhaps her strength was born of orneriness, but he still gave her credit for making the trek unassisted. He would have bet good money that she was going to start bawling like a branded calf or just stop so he’d have to bring water back to her.

      Dylan glanced at the landscape surrounding them. He’d seen such a view before. Too often. The ground was scorched black and stank of charred wood. The fuel here had all been expended, the fire so hot that it had taken the crowns of every tree. The forest was gone, leaving denuded smoking trunks. The pristine view of the mountains, purchased at great expense, had now become bleak and ruined and would remain so for years to come.

      Dylan lifted his phone and found a signal. He called Jack first, before his family and before his friend Ray, who was still a newlywed. He’d attended the ceremony in May. He knew now what no one but Ray and Morgan had known then. His new wife was already carrying his child. Seeing Ray happy for once, and settled with a wife and child, had been the deciding factor for Dylan. He wanted that. A wife. Children. And a job that didn’t smell of charred trees and animals.

      Jack picked up on the first ring. “Dylan!”

      Dylan could tell from the echo on the connection that Jack was in his truck.

      “Yes!”

      “Where are you?”

      Dylan gave him their position.

      “Sit tight. I’m on my way.”

      It was over a 120 miles from Turquoise Canyon to Flagstaff and most of it on winding mountain roads.

      Dylan told him he had a companion and relayed the name. Silence was his answer. Finally Jack spoke.

      “Not good.”

      “Did you contact Kenshaw?” asked Dylan, inquiring about their shaman and the leader of Tribal Thunder, the warrior sect of Dylan’s medicine society.

      Jack said he had and that Kenshaw had been unable to reach Cheney Williams. “Kenshaw said he was there, right at the epicenter.”

      “What is the news saying?” asked Dylan.

      “Forest fire. Evacuations. No mention of the explosion yet.”

      Dylan told him about the live streaming.

      “I should be able to get that feed,” said Jack. “Have to submit a request. If it captured a major crime, they’ll release it.”

      Dylan scanned the smoking landscape. He’d call it major.

      “Cheney Williams’s death qualifies,” said Jack. “Was the home owner up there?”

      “I don’t think so. Cheney said it would just be the two of us and a caretaker.”

      “I’ll look into that. You have the caretaker’s name?”

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