“Fine,” Butch said. “Suit yourself. Have you ever heard of the Mann Gulch fire in Montana?”

“The what?”

“That’s right, you’re from West Virginia,” Butch said. “In 1949, smoke jumpers got caught in a situation like this and thirteen died. Those that didn’t suffocate from the smoke tried to hunker down and ride it out like you were describing. They were baked like potatoes.”

At that moment, a long and heavily muscled mountain lion appeared out of nowhere and ran right through the three of them, threading silkily around their legs, and ran toward higher ground. Farkus was astounded.

“He didn’t even care we were here,” Farkus said.

“Okay,” McLanahan said to Butch. “I’ll go with you.”

“You can stay,” Butch said. “Mountain lions have to eat, too.”

“I’m going with you,” McLanahan said, defeated. “But no one knows how to get across. I can see us standing there on the edge as the fire comes straight at us.”

“I know that canyon has been crossed.”

“That’s Indian hokum,” McLanahan said. “Have you seen it?”

Farkus had, that time he was hunting with Butch. They’d stood on the rim and looked down. Butch had pointed out the knife-sharp walls, a terrifying distance from the rim to the narrow canyon floor, and virtually no breaks or cracks through the rocks to assure a crossing. The canyon was so steep and narrow that sunlight rarely shone on the surface of the Middle Fork. Butch said it cut through eight different archaeological strata before it hit the bottom.

“It’s been done,” Butch said, holding McLanahan’s eye. “Once by those Cheyenne back in the old days when the Pawnee closed in on their camp, and they did it at night. And Joe Pickett did it.”

McLanahan shook his head in disgust. “He claims he did it. He’s a pain in my ass, you know.”

“If Joe says he did it, he did it,” Butch said.

“And there he is,” Farkus said, doubting his eyes, as Joe appeared on horseback through a haze of smoke and rode right toward them.

31

“YOU’RE NOT GONNA SHOOT ME, ARE YOU, BUTCH?” Joe called out, after reining Toby to a stop. He knew the answer, though, because Roberson was lowering the rifle he’d raised instinctively when Joe appeared.

“I don’t think so,” Butch responded, “or I’d have already done it.”

“That’s good,” Joe mumbled aloud to himself, and nudged Toby’s flanks toward the three men who stood staring at him from within a sparse stand of twisted and ancient mountain juniper that was just a little taller than themselves.

Through burning eyes, he noted that Farkus wasn’t dead after all, and that both Farkus and McLanahan weren’t cuffed or bound. They stood on either side of Butch Roberson, who squinted at him through the haze and waves of heat, wearing his backpack and cradling his AR-15.

—

HE’D FOUND THEM more by intuition and strategic luck than anything else, Joe thought. After he’d left Underwood and the agents, he’d ridden south, cutting across the face of the mountain from clearing to clearing so he could look back and down and see the progress of the fire. He tried to skirt dry grassy areas and stick to the shade and rock on the side of the meadows because he knew how fast fire could consume it and he didn’t want to be trapped.

The fire was amazing and terrifying to behold, and as he rode he got the clear feeling that all rules had been suspended, all bets were off, all was forgotten, and it was suddenly every man for himself. Even the wildlife had jettisoned its instincts and caution, and ran across his path up the mountain with no more than a passing glance. Elk, mule deer, mountain lions, bobcats, three black bears (two with cubs), and a lone black wolf he thought he’d seen before. Only the wolf hesitated as it loped along, and locked eyes with Joe for a momentary and primal exchange of information—run—before vanishing into the timber.

“You again,” Joe had said.

—

WHEN HE COULD SEE clearly from the edges of the meadows, which wasn’t often, Joe noted how the fire was racing up and across the mountain in what looked like reverse molten rivers of flame. It was ravenous and craven, without thought or mercy, and it either roared up ravines from the ground up or jumped from crown to crown of high dead pine trees like a manic gremlin, consuming everything it wanted to consume. The fire was so huge and so voracious that it seemed to be creating its own weather; hot blasts of air rocketed up the mountain and primed the dry timber for oncoming destruction. Long-standing trees went whumpf and exploded into flame, and the underbrush snapped and crackled with a high-pitched fury.

At one point he saw a wall of flame shoot through a stand of aspen, linger a moment among the live green trees as if taking a breather, then squirt out the side onto low-hanging dead pine boughs and continue its course. Ash behaved like snow, either swirling horizontally along the ground as if in a ground blizzard or floating down softly through the air, depending on the wind speed and direction of the moment.

It was a maelstrom. The hot dry wind blew steadily to the east, but at times it swirled and reversed direction and blew like a blowtorch and blew north, then west.

Twice, he witnessed fire whirls that emerged from the trees in thirty-foot columns of flame. The whirls whipped back and forth as if they were being shaken. One fire whirl was slapped down by a gust of wind but continued to burn as a horizontal fire worm that ignited all the grass in its path.

Joe knew from the speed of the fire’s advance that there would be no putting it out. This fire, in perfect conditions of hot, dry weather with an endless supply of dead and low-moisture fuel, would burn until it burned out. Joe had heard of fires that burned so hot they literally sterilized the ground for years after they’d passed through, and he guessed this was going to be one of those.

He could only speculate how big the fire would become, because it was already out of control and growing. If it found enough fuel at the summit, it could flow over the top and into Big Stream Valley. Airborne embers could be blown through the wind to land on dry trees hundreds of yards from the source. He felt both sick to his stomach and humbled by the awesome power of nature at the same time. It wasn’t the first forest fire he’d seen—far from it—but it was already the biggest and fastest. Previously, he’d observed fires from a safe distance.

Fire was natural, he knew that. Forests had to regenerate, and fire jump-started the process by opening the canopy, clearing debris, and activating aspen shoots and pine seeds. The mountain had burned countless times over the ages, long before there were humans to run from it.

Yet . . .

So he continued to head south, toward Savage Run Canyon. Not only because he’d speculated that Butch had chosen the same route and everything else was misdirection but because it was the only terrain that wasn’t yet in flames.

—

AS JOE RODE UP on the three men, he said, “Butch, when this is over I’m going to place you under arrest. You understand that, right?”

Butch nodded.

Joe said, “Just so we’re clear. I’m going to try to get this handled aboveboard and locally. I’ll get Dulcie involved, and we’ll do our best to keep the Feds out.”

“I appreciate that.”

“But right now we’re going to put that all aside and try to survive this. Does that sound like a deal to you?”

“Yes, Joe.”

“Okay, then.”

“How far from here to the canyon?” McLanahan asked Joe, without any preamble.

“Couple of miles,” Joe said.

“Can you get us across?”

“I can’t promise it,” Joe said. “It’s been years and I haven’t been back.”