Javier's eyes went wide. "You can't. For every student of yours who dies, there are the rest you taught something to save their life . . . and the lives of others. I'd back you up on the hose any day."

Behind him, one of the firefighters pointed to the southwest, where a towering column of smoke looked like a nuclear weapon had exploded over the horizon.

Javier pointed toward the inferno. "We need every hand we can get." He lifted hers and looked at them. "There are a h.e.l.l of a lot of folks alive today because these are some of the best hands in the business."

The roiling firestorm was the kind of enemy that called for somebody, anybody, to rise up and fight. Clare shook her head. "I can't."

"The h.e.l.l you can't!" Steve said from behind her. She thought he'd gone to the snack bar.

She turned. His eyes looked like flint chips.

Javier dropped her hands and stood back.

Her eyes held Steve's for a long moment while his softened.

His look of encouragement spoke volumes, but he simply said, "Frank and Billy would want you to." Putting a quick grip-and-release on her shoulder, he walked away.

Javier waited.

Clare stared at the pavement, sprinkled with little marble-sized chunks of obsidian. As she had done so many times, she ached for a sign from Frank. Was it possible that he was irrevocably gone? Could all those people who believed in ghosts and portents from beyond be wrong? She closed her eyes and sent her own message winging, knowing it was yet another futile one-way effort.

By now, several others had joined her and Javier. Clare heard, " . . . planning to foam the cabins."

Another man said, "Hose down the roof of the inn."

Straining memory, she could see Frank at work, his back to her while he lifted and dragged a hose. All their training, repeating drills until reaction became instinctive. Working at A & M and at the fire academy in Houston, they had faced fake situations, but the flames had been real.

The North Fork was out there and this was definitely not a drill. In her mind's eye, Frank never turned to look at her, but wasn't it enough to know that if he were here, he'd lead the charge?

Steve approached and gave Clare a c.o.ke and two Hershey bars. She popped the top and drank. "Thanks. I should have had supper, or at least some breakfast."

He shifted his weight from one foot to the other. "I've run into some fellow scientists," he said slowly.

Clare saw three people waiting for him outside the cafeteria. A tall dark man talked with a younger Asian fellow who wore gla.s.ses. A girl a few years older than Devon sat cross-legged on the sidewalk. She rooted in her backpack and came up with a cigarette pack.

"My neighbor Moru," Steve said, "and our summer graduate students. They could use my help cataloguing some areas in the path of the burn, but if you need me . . . "

"I don't need you right now." She touched his arm so that he would understand the "now" aspect of the statement. Later, she reserved the right to need much more.

Clare turned and faced the southwest, staring directly into the face of the North Fork. Silhouetted against the smoke, tankers dropped r.e.t.a.r.dant and helicopters ferried water.

"You help your friends," she told Steve. "I've volunteered to join these guys."

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX.

September 7 For the second time this summer, Deering found himself flying blind, trapped inside turbulent smoke. Luckily, he'd already released his load of water and was turning back toward the Firehole River to refill the bucket.

Deering hoped that Mark Liebman in the lead plane had not seen him. Flying into zero vis was strictly verboten. He corrected course, pulled up and to the right, which should have brought him into clear air. Instead, he was still within the cloud.

He straightened out to avoid putting the chopper into a tight spiral that would result in flying in circles. Using his compa.s.s, he flew in the opposite direction from which the North Fork was approaching.

Seconds pa.s.sed. Deering fought to keep the craft steady and checked his altimeter. He tried not to dwell on the fact that there were a number of aircraft in the area, all flying VFR, or visual flight rules. If someone else blundered into the cloud, there could be a midair.

He stared through the windshield. The murk snugged right against the gla.s.s.

This was bad business. Today showed all the signs of being another one like Black Sat.u.r.day. If the wind kept rising with the dry cold front, Old Faithful Inn was going up.

"Okay, Deering," Mark Liebman radioed in his habitually cheerful manner, "no playing peek-a-boo."

"The h.e.l.l you say," Deering gritted. Was there a barely perceptible thinning of the smoke?

Before he could decide, a harsh droning drowned the Huey's engine noise. As Deering broke in a patch of clearer air, a C-130 tanker flashed past. The enormous plane dove earthward, on approach to dump r.e.t.a.r.dant.

Deering's hands stung as adrenaline rushed to them. The Huey plunged, caught in the vortex from the tanker's four great propellers. Struggling to arrest the dive, he realized that smoke kept him from seeing the ground and that he could smash into it at any second. He kept his eyes glued to the artificial horizon and altimeter, trying not to think about instant annihilation in a fireball of fuel.

In the midst of maybe dying, he couldn't help but think of Georgia. He'd thought of her that day in Yellowstone Lake, too, when he'd longed to be home.

He cajoled the controls and forced himself not to imagine the ridge top studded with treacherously sharp pine trunks, G.o.d only knew how far below. Finally, the Huey began to respond.

Once in open air, Deering was able to see he'd been only a few hundred feet off the deck. He let out a shaky breath and wiped his sweating palms, one at a time, on his pant legs. Thank G.o.d, he wouldn't have to tell Georgia he'd crashed twice in one summer. He thought of her arms around him, and found that the stinging in his eyes was not all from smoke.

As he headed toward the Firehole to pick up more water, along with the tattered remnants of his self-control, the radio crackled with a message from West Yellowstone Air Control. He was wanted to meet Garrett Anderson and fly recon.

All the way west, he kept expecting controller Jack Owen or Mark Liebman in the lead plane to ground everyone. For the first time in his life, he was ready.

Once on the West Yellowstone tarmac, Deering climbed out of the Huey and slammed the door.

"Hey," Garrett called from beside the fence near the Smokejumpers' Base.

Deering waved, but did not alter his course toward the charter trailer. Inside, Demetrios Karrabotsos sat at the Island Park desk with the phone against his salt-and-pepper head. Deering knew he'd be out flying later, for the cast had come off his foot the day before yesterday.

Down the narrow hall, Deering went into the office of Johnny Arvela of Eagle Air. He dialed, his hand trembling like it had on the collective when the C-130's wake buffeted him.

On the third ring, Georgia said h.e.l.lo in a small voice that said she wasn't smiling.

"Please," Deering said, "don't hang up."

She didn't, but neither did she speak.

"Babe, I'm sorry. Sorry for everything about this summer. That I . . . chased another woman. Jesus . . ." He gripped the edge of the metal desk. This was harder than he'd imagined. "I went after her . . . but nothing happened, not what you think, anyway."

Still silence on her end.

"I'm begging you to forgive me." He was sweating like a wh.o.r.e in church. "Let me come home. I swear I'll make it up to you."

"Did she throw you over?" Georgia dripped ice water.

"No! I'm the one who wants our life back together. Babe, I can't do this anymore without knowing you're there for me."

The hum on the line underscored that she was far away. The trailer shook as someone came up the steps.

"When?" Her voice sounded small.

The pressure changed in his ears as the outer door opened, then slammed. "As soon as I can . . . " From the front room, he heard Karrabotsos talking and Garrett's deep baritone.

"What does 'soon' mean?" Georgia asked.

"Tonight," Deering promised, "I'll be there tonight." He'd breathe the blessed smokeless air and listen to the Portneuf's peaceful chatter.

Heavy footsteps came down the hall. "Deering?"

"A minute," he called, and more softly, "I love you, hon. I'll see you this evening."

Garrett rapped on the door. "Where are you? I thought you were taking a leak."

"Who's there with you?" Georgia went suspicious.

Garrett opened the door and boomed, "We need to get in the air."

"I see," she said.

"See what?" Deering held up a hand at Garrett, who nodded and pulled the door closed.

"I have to go, Georgia. The North Fork is going to hit Old Faithful today and I have to fly Garrett Anderson . . . "

"It's always the same, isn't it? No matter what I need from you, there's always a fire somewhere that's more important."

For a moment, Deering thought she'd hung up, but there was no dial tone. He heard muted strains of music from the little stereo he'd given her a few years ago to listen to while she quilted. There was a subtle change in the sound, as though she'd put the receiver down on the table and walked away. "Georgia!" Deering shouted.

She hadn't hung up, but he did, slamming Johnny's phone onto the cradle.

He sat for a long moment with his head in his hands. He had to fly. His livelihood depended on it, and whether Georgia liked it or not, hers did too. He'd make this one flight, he bargained, like he'd planned, and then go home to her. He'd made a promise.

When he came out, Garrett was polite enough not to ask questions. They walked in silence to the Huey, where Deering did his preflight and runup and hoped his hands weren't trembling noticeably.

Devon thought that if Clare were still at the geyser basin, she would be out there with the firefighters. Through the gla.s.s rear door that led out of the Old Faithful Inn lobby, the sky looked even darker than it had when she'd come inside just after one p.m.

Her mother's accusations still made her chest ache. For years, both her parents and Elyssa had believed the worst of her. According to Annalise McIntyre, whose folks had dumped her in the loonie bin for acting out inappropriately, group therapy was full of "dysfunctional families."

Last night when it had gotten too cold and scary, Devon had sneaked, shivering, into the hotel. Near dawn, a patrolling security guard had rousted her from a couch on the lobby balcony. "Go on now, miss, we don't have no sleeping in here."

He'd thought she was a vagrant.

This afternoon the smell of smoke permeated even inside the Inn. Members of the press came out from filming the vacant dining room. With a small shock, Devon saw they wore white napkins tied around the lower half of their faces as filters.

"You think maybe we should get out of here?" she asked a red-haired woman reporter in a jeans jacket. Maybe she and her ponytailed companion with the video would give her a ride out. She'd looked for Mom until all the buses had gone.

The reporter shook her head and headed with the others toward the stairs. Devon checked out their conversation.

"Superlative vantage point . . . "

"Special exception . . . "

Devon ducked into the cavernous dining room with wagon wheel chandeliers and a huge fireplace. Like the others had, she grabbed a napkin off a table setting. Hurrying to keep up, she chased the press upstairs.

On the third floor, she followed the journalists as they stepped over a chain and went up rickety-looking stairs through the open atrium. Devon didn't look down as she climbed. At the top was a tree house, complete with gingerbread scrollwork. Out through a door so small she had to duck, and onto the inn's roof. Forceful gusts of wind struck. She stopped and stared at the column of smoke pouring up from the fire that seemed to be just beyond the horizon. One more set of wooden stairs took her to the widow's walk astride the highest peak of the inn.

A mounting roar announced the approach of a plane from the west. Flying low, the tanker dumped a load of red liquid in a long sweeping pa.s.s. A rosy fog hung, streamers emerging from the bottom of the cloud as it fell to earth. The smoke lay down and Devon breathed relief.

In a moment, it swirled up black with the fire's renewed fury.

The North Fork couldn't be half a mile away.

With the rising wind and deepening darkness, it grew colder. On the opposite side of the roof, the ponytailed man videotaped the people wearing napkin masks. Even though the smoke stung her eyes and throat, Devon clutched her own napkin in a sweaty hand.

The woman reporter began taping. "This is Carol Leeds, Billings Live Eye," she intoned importantly. "Only a handful of tourists remain to watch the geyser's show at Old Faithful Inn this afternoon, where formerly there were hundreds of spectators." A double ring of empty benches surrounded the geyser. "The evacuation was announced at dawn. All morning, busloads of visitors and employees have pulled away from the loading zone in front of this landmark hotel. This does not mean that all is quiet, though, for firefighters have ringed the inn."

From below, they sent flaring arcs of water to break on the roof and sheet down. Farther away, another group covered small wooden cabins in foam that looked like shaving cream.

Devon looked for her mother, checking for a firefighter who was a lot smaller than the others. Last night she'd slipped up and admitted to being scared when Mom went to the fire station. Pretending it didn't matter had been part of her defense. That had worked pretty well . . . until back in July when Mom came home and said she'd seen a man die. Thinking it could have been Mom who had burned to death had shocked Devon, so much she hadn't known what to say.

She'd said nothing. Gone to her room and cried. Come out later with her eyes kohl-rimmed to hide the evidence.

If her parents hadn't cared enough about her to stay together, she sure wasn't going to let them know anything bothered her. Her Dad had prissy, flat-a.s.sed Elyssa who sat on his knee and acted like Devon had bad breath when she went to hug her h.e.l.lo. Now, Mom had taken up with some Steve guy who lived thousands of miles away.

That scared her more than anything else. She'd seen Mom go on some dates since the divorce, but there was something very different about the way she looked at Steve.

And he at her.

The sky grew more garish by the minute. The sun appeared as an occasional b.l.o.o.d.y disc. Behind the southwest ridge, Devon caught a glimpse of orange, the barest tongue of color licking forth and then being swallowed by smoke.

The reporter continued. "The employee dormitory stands in the shadow of the larger inn." The cameraman filmed the dark shingled barracks. "If it survives this day, the summer workers will not be back until spring, for the Park Service has determined that no matter what happens, they will close the Old Faithful complex for the season."

Devon heard the roar of a plane, but she couldn't locate it. Another flame leaped the ridge, and she realized that the sound was coming from the fire, an unearthly shriek that sounded as though she were standing in front of a jet engine. There were plenty of firefighters here, but the fire didn't look as though anybody could do anything about it.

Some still tried. Helicopters ferried back and forth, dipping their canvas buckets into the Firehole River, then flying to dump their loads and return. As the North Fork crested the ridge, the choppers looked like angry insects, impotent before the screaming monster.

Deering took off into the wind and was reminded of Black Sat.u.r.day when he'd flown Garrett and been forced to turn back. As before, they flew into the park along the Madison River, with blackened forest beneath. To get to Old Faithful, he made a wide swing northwest around the fire front. He still felt shaky after his close call with the tanker.

Garrett sat stolidly in the left seat, swiveling his bald head. From the h.e.l.lroaring at the far northeast corner of the park to the Snake River Complex in the Teton National Forest, the entire horizon had exploded with mushroom clouds.

Deering tried to concentrate on flying. He came in toward Old Faithful from the northwest, crossing the Firehole and flying along the open meadows crisscrossed with boardwalks. Garrett pointed to the lower parking lot where several TV vans were parked, satellite antennae on their roofs. "Look at those bloodsuckers. Hoping this place burns so they can get their shot at the big time."