July Thunder (22 page)

No, it was best to just pull away now. Keep a safe distance. She couldn't let him get close enough to rip her heart out.

But maybe, she thought miserably, it was already too late. It seemed her heart was going to be in agony no matter what she did. But at least if she distanced herself, she wouldn't have to go through life with a memory of him saying horrible cutting things to her.

The kitchen door hinges creaked, and she turned to see Sam coming into the room. “I smell coffee,” he said with a tired smile.

“I'm sorry, I didn't mean to wake you.”

He looked rumpled and filthy, and not a whole lot better than when he'd fallen asleep last night. It was evident that five hours of sleep wasn't going to make up for all he'd missed over the last couple of days. But he was moving, albeit stiffly.

“I needed to get up anyway. Did you see how big that fire's grown? And it's getting close to the church.”

“It's terrifying,” she said simply.

“Yeah.” He looked at her almost hesitantly. “Listen, about yesterday…what I said…”

“Forget it,” she said, turning her back swiftly.

“No, I'm not going to forget it, and neither are you. Can I have some of that coffee?”

Suddenly embarrassed, she turned swiftly to get a mug from the cupboard for each of them and poured them full. Sam thanked her and sat at her little table, sighing.

“Damn, I think I strained muscles I didn't know I had.”

“How long has it been since you climbed a tree?”

“Twenty-five years, maybe.”

She managed a smile. “That might have something to do with it.”

“Ya think?” But he was smiling a little, too. Just a little. She didn't think she'd seen him look quite as haunted as he did now.

“About yesterday,” he said again. “We need to talk.”

“Not really, Sam,” she said, trying to pull away mentally and emotionally. “What happens between you and your father is none of my business.”

“It's your business when it happens right in front of you. Look, it's no excuse, but I was exhausted and in pain from the burn, and my fuse was way too damn short. And it was like years of stuff just all came bubbling out. Worst of all, I didn't even mean what I said.”

“You didn't?” She felt herself pulling away even more.

“No, I didn't. And I've never in my life said anything so savage and vicious. I'm downright ashamed of myself.”

But he was capable of saying such things, and she would be wise never to forget that, she told herself. Even so, a little voice reminded her that upset, angry, hurting people were all capable of saying terrible things. Her gaze drifted to the back of his hand; it was easier than looking at his face right now. And what she saw made her gasp.

“Oh, Sam, your hand! It's getting infected.”

He looked down at it with a shrug. The huge blister had broken sometime yesterday, and the burn was looking angry, as was the skin around it. “I'll get it looked at after we save the church.”

“You're not going to wait that long. You might get blood poisoning.” Jumping up from the table, she headed for her bathroom. “Pigheaded men,” she said, loudly enough for him to hear. “And you're the most pigheaded of all, Sam Canfield.”

She returned with hydrogen peroxide and a gauze bandage. “You should at least try to keep it clean.”

“Yes, ma'am.”

He sipped coffee while she washed the wound over a bowl, pouring the hydrogen peroxide on it and dabbing it gently with a gauze pad to clean away any dirt. Then she rinsed it again with more peroxide and wrapped his hand with a length of gauze. He managed to get through the experience with only a few winces to betray how much it hurt.

“There,” she said with satisfaction. “You can still work, and it ought to stay cleaner.”

“Thank you. I appreciate it.”

She drew back as quickly as she could from the physical contact and saw from the flicker of expression on his face that he had noticed.

Afraid he might say something, she quickly changed the subject. “I'll go get dressed. Do you want some cereal before I take you home?”

“You've been feeding me on a regular basis. My cereal is as good as yours, so why don't we have some at my place?”

So—finally—she was going to see his place. Too bad it was too late.

 

Sam's house wasn't much bigger than hers, although it did have a second bedroom. It was also as neat as a pin, which surprised her. Somewhere in the back of her mind she must have been expecting a stereotypical bachelor mess. She had a feeling this house would stand up to a white glove inspection. His kitchen was a little bigger than hers, too, and dominated by a round oak pedestal table that showed the scars of many years of use. She wondered if it was some kind of heirloom.

He brought out a jug of milk, a couple of bowls and spoons, and three varieties of cereal. “Help yourself,” he said. “I'm going to shower and change before I die from my own stench.”

While he was showering, she made herself at home, finding the coffee and starting a fresh pot. She might have had enough sleep, but it was still early enough that her biological clock was making her
feel cold. Maybe he had a thermos somewhere so they could take some coffee with them.

When Sam returned, the coffee was ready. And his bandage was gone. Mary looked at his hand and giggled.

“What?” he said.

“I put the bandage on before you showered. Duh.”

He looked at his hand and grinned. “Guess so.”

“But you have to keep it clean and dry.”

“I've probably got some gauze around here I can wrap it with. But let's eat first. All of a sudden I'm feeling like a starving horse.”

Thirty minutes later, with Sam's hand freshly wrapped in gauze and an insulated bottle of coffee on the seat between them, Mary drove them up to the church.

It was still dark, and the closer they came to the church, the angrier the orange glow of the fire seemed. “It's almost there,” Mary said, her voice tight.

“Looks that way. But you know what? It's not covering as big an area as it was when I left last night. They must be having some luck holding it back from the subdivisions.”

“I hope so. All those poor people and their homes… It makes me want to cry when I think about it.”

As she spoke, a plane flew low overhead. One of the fire-fighting planes, Mary thought. It was too
dark to see much except its navigation lights until it got closer to the fire. Then it became a black shape against the orange, and as they watched, it dumped its load of fire-fighting chemicals.

“Well,” Sam remarked, “that's one good thing to come out of the storm's passing.”

“Yes.” But Mary shrunk in on herself again, realizing she was letting Sam charm her into relaxing in the comfort of his presence.

“Mary?” Sam asked.

“Yes?”

“Are you pissed at me?”

“Why?”

“I keep getting this feeling of…I don't know. It's like you keep closing me out.”

Mary bit her lower lip, not knowing how to answer that without revealing too much. “I'm just tired,” she finally said lamely.

“No, it's something more. I see it in your eyes. It's about my dad, isn't it?”

At least he was looking in the wrong direction for answers. Sort of. But she still didn't know how to answer. If she explained how his explosion had frightened her, she would have to explain why. And she didn't know if she could bring herself to do that.

Finally she said the only thing she could think of to avoid the subject. “This isn't a good time, Sam. Let's just focus on saving the church. We can talk later.” And by the time later came around, maybe he would be ready to move on.

The thought hurt so badly that it was as if her heart was being squeezed by a vicious fist. All she could do was cling to the thought that, whether now or later, Sam was going to leave her.

But Sam wasn't going to let her off so easily. “Pull over, Mary. There's a turnout up ahead.”

She wanted to ignore him but couldn't think of any reason that didn't sound unforgivably rude. Okay, she told herself. Let's have it out now.
Now.

But her hands were shaking and her knees felt weak, and her heart was hammering so hard she could hear it. She hadn't told anyone,
anyone,
what had happened since Chet had dumped her over it. She couldn't even bear to let it cross her mind except in the most indirect way. She had grown so good at diverting her own thoughts that her own mind spoke of what happened the way a kind stranger would. “That incident.” “That terrible event.” “That awful day.”

She managed to brake in the turnout. Sam reached over and switched off the ignition. Then he set the hand-brake.

“Okay,” he said. “I have a right to know what's going on. We've been getting pretty close, and if you're going to freeze me out of your life, I think I deserve to know why.”

Maybe he did. She stared out the window at the inkiness of the night, then remembered to switch off her headlights. Only the faint, hellish glow from the
distant fire illuminated them now. So appropriate, she thought almost wildly, as panic filled her.

“Mary,” Sam said kindly. “You can trust me. I promise not to get mad.”

The word trust grabbed her, stilling her panic, filling her with an anger that was born more of fright than rage.

“Trust?” she said bitterly. “I haven't trusted any man in six years. What makes you think I'm going to start now?”

“Your husband?”

“Oh, not just him, Sam. How am I supposed to trust
you?
After all those things you said to your father yesterday? Terrible, terrible things. You're just like him, Sam!”

He sat in silence for a minute or so, staring out the window. “I guess I can see your point. Would it make any difference if I told you I'd apologized? That what I said yesterday was the most unforgivable thing I've ever said in my life?”

Mary was gripping the wheel so tightly that her fingers ached. “I don't know.”

“I lost it, Mary. But it took a lot of years for that kind of anger to build up in me. And I still wouldn't have said those things if I hadn't been so tired and in so much pain. Something inside me snapped. It happens, Mary. To everyone. But that's the first time since I was a kid that it happened to me.”

She wanted to believe him, but she didn't dare. He was talking in generalities, and she had a great
big specific to deal with. “I don't know, Sam. I'll have to think about it.”

“Okay.” His voice was suddenly harsh. “Let's get up to the church.”

She realized he thought she was being unforgiving, that she was refusing to understand that he was only human. The problem was, he
was
human. And so was she. And she was very, very frightened.

T
he swath around the church looked as desolate as a moonscape. It still wasn't eighty feet wide—it was about sixty—but the clearing process had become a race against time, mind-numbing fatigue and the advancing inferno. Relatively simple tasks now took longer than ever, because the men performing those tasks were exhausted. Joe and Louis had reorganized the crews, with one man in each crew as the “safety,” whose sole job was to make sure the others hadn't overlooked some essential precaution. The men rotated the role of safety, and the crews were rotated from task to task to help prevent the workers from being numbed by routine.

And still there were injuries. Clint Stedman had broken an ankle when someone had forgotten to clamp a tow chain. The chain had snapped loose and whipsawed like a scythe toward a clump of men. The others had heard the
pop
as the chain broke free and jumped out of the way. But Clint's back had
been turned, and by the time he realized what was happening the chain had wrapped itself around his ankle and snatched him off his feet. His piercing scream had brought everyone running with an energy they'd thought was long since passed, but Sam knew the adrenaline rush would only be temporary.

“I don't know how much more we can do,” Louis told Sam, as Clint was bundled into the back of a pickup and taken to the hospital. “Between cutting, trimming and towing, it's taking us half an hour to clear a tree now, as tired as the men are. We're having to triple-check for safety, and still things happen.” Louis nodded toward the smoke hanging like a pall in the forest. “And the fire's getting closer. I just…I don't think we're going to make it.”

Sam nodded. “George Patton wrote that a man can only march and fight for sixty hours before he's spent. We're all pushing that now.”

“And he was writing about trained, professional soldiers,” Louis said. “We're all amateurs, and most of us are out of shape to boot. It's reaching the point where we have to ask whether we're risking more harm than good.”

Sam put his hands on his hips and looked down at the ground. Parched ground. More dust than dirt now. “Get the hoses out,” he said finally. “Let's make the church as wet as we can get it before an ember sets it off.”

“Okay.”

“And let's have the freshest men keep cutting. Even if all we do is get the timber down, it might make the fire less threatening if it gets here.”

A rising drone drowned him out as another fire-fighting plane swooped low overhead. Sam looked up and watched the mud drop. It wasn't far away at all now.

“Oh, and, Louis?” he said when he could again be heard.

“Yeah?”

“Make sure all the vehicles are gassed up and ready to go. We might have to bail out in a big hurry.”

“I'll get somebody to do that.”

They were starting to have equipment breakdowns, too. A couple of chain saws had given up the ghost; a few shovels had broken. Work gloves were wearing out. And, of course, with each foot outward they expanded their cutting, the total area to clear went up. At sixty feet out from the church, he figured they'd cut only a third of the area they needed to sweep.

Another plane roared overhead and dropped more mud. A garden hose had been hooked up at the faucet inside the church and run out a window. A man was using it to spray the building's roof.

Elijah, who had been staying far away from Sam most of the morning, now approached him.

“Sam?” His voice sounded drained. “Sam, we can't do any more. The equipment is breaking. The
people are worn-out. They need to go home before someone gets killed.”

Sam was inclined to agree with him. Much as he didn't want to give up, he could see the signs of hopelessness all around him. And what was more, he could see the ash that was falling from the sky. Sooner or later some of it was going to be hot.

“Just send everyone home,” Elijah said. “It's in God's hands now.”

Looking at the moonscape they'd worked so hard to create, Sam wondered if even an eighty-foot clear-cut would be enough to save the church if the woods around it went up in flame. “I can't
make
anyone leave, Dad. They're volunteers.”

“I know. But if you make the suggestion, they might heed you. No building is worth the price we might pay here if we keep going.”

For once he and his father were in agreement. Sam hated to quit, but he knew from experience that his father hated it every bit as much as he did.

Before he could act, however, another plane roared overhead. There was no mistaking that it was dumping the chemicals closer now. Too close.

Sam picked up his whistle and blew it. No one seemed to hear. He walked closer to the edge of the clearing, nearer the workers, and blew it again, sharply. Slowly, as if in a daze, people turned to look at him. One by one, chain saws fell silent.

“Listen up, people. The fire's getting closer. And you're all getting too tired. This would be a good
time for everyone to head out. We don't want to lose anybody.”

Still no one moved. It was as if they were dazed and couldn't quite comprehend what he said. Or as if they were reluctant to stop.

Just then Mary, who was standing twenty feet away, a shovel in her hands, called out, “Sam!”

At that instant Sam heard a loud crack, and felt a stunning blow to the back of his shoulders. He landed facedown in the dirt, wondering what the hell had hit him.

“Oh, my God,” someone said. “Oh, my God!”

Sam rolled over and sat up, then felt his heart stop. His father was lying on the ground nearby, a tree trunk across his legs.

Mary was suddenly there, kneeling beside Sam. “He saved you, Sam. My God, that tree started to tip and he shoved you…. My God!”

Sam scrambled on his hands and knees over to his father. Elijah was lying facedown, the tree across the backs of his legs. “Dad? Dad?”

A groan answered him.

Sam was galvanized. Leaping to his feet, he called out, “Come on, everybody. We've got to get this tree off him.”

Hands were suddenly full of more energy than they had been in hours. Men and women gathered together around each side of the tree trunk and put their hands beneath it.

“On the count of three,” Sam said, grabbing the
trunk along with everyone else. “And don't anybody let go. Back away down toward his feet until he's clear. Got it?”

A chorus of agreement answered him.

“One, two…three!”

They lifted all at once, thirty pairs of hands making the load lighter. It was still heavy enough, but they didn't have too much trouble lifting the trunk and backing it away from Elijah.

They set it down with equal care, making sure no one got a crushed foot. Then Sam hurried back to his father, kneeling in the dirt beside him.

“Dad? Dad, are you awake?”

“Yeah. Yeah. I think my leg is broken.”

Sam wanted to swear, but he didn't swear much around his father. Never had. He was worried sick, though. “We've got to get him to the hospital right away.”

“I'll take him,” Mary volunteered.

“Not in your car,” Sam said. “We'll have to lay him out flat in the back of my SUV.”

Joe spoke. “But first we have to move him carefully. Anybody got a tarp or a blanket?”

That turned out to be an easy request to fill. So was coming up with a couple of branches so they could splint Elijah's legs. The whole time they worked on him, Mary held Elijah's hand and talked soothingly to him. Sam felt an ugly little sting of jealousy, wondering why she seemed to like his father more than him.

But it was an ugly thought, and he drove it away swiftly.

With great care, they carried Elijah to the back of Sam's car. He'd long ago removed the rear seat for more cargo space, and now it made a reasonably soft, protected bed for Elijah.

“My truck,” Elijah said.

“Don't worry,” Joe said. “I'll have Louis drive it to your house. How's that?”

Sam gave Mary his car keys. “I'll be along as soon as I can.”

“I know,” she said simply. “Don't worry. I'll take good care of him. Here are my keys.”

Then, astonishing him, she squeezed his hand before climbing into his truck. He watched them drive off with a terrible sense of foreboding. It seemed the universe hadn't finished playing dirty tricks yet.

 

Some of the volunteers took off, but some remained, as if they were as reluctant as Sam to write off the church. The wind was picking up, indicating that the fire was coming closer and drawing air to its heart. Maybe, Sam thought, the wind would protect them from hot ash for a while. But even as he had the thought, he knew better. The ash was rising on the updraft from the flames, but it would still drift on the upper air currents and eventually be sucked down by the steady draw of the fire. Some of it would wind up here.

“We've got to get out of here,” Sam said to those
who had stayed behind. “Those attack planes are dropping mud two, three hundred yards into the forest.”

“Clint gave an ankle and your dad a leg for this church,” Billy Miller said. “If we quit now, what do we tell them? That what they did was wasted?”

A few men nodded in agreement, but Sam put up a hand. “Look, guys, here's the deal. We have three, maybe four, hours before the fire reaches that tree line. We're down to what? Three chain saws that are still running? So we'd knock down another half-dozen trees. Maybe a dozen, tops. We won't get enough more done to make any difference over what we've done already.”

“So we just give up?” Billy asked. “Some of us grew up here. My kids were baptized in this church.”

Sam nodded. “Look, I hate to quit as much as anyone. But we gave it our best shot, and we came up short. The fire's winning here at the church. Now we have to start thinking about saving our homes. And we can't do that if I lose half of you to the hospital with injuries, smoke inhalation, heatstroke and everything else we're risking by staying here. We've done what we can here. It's time to pack it up and get out while we can.”

“He's right, Billy,” another man said. “How many of us are we gonna lose out here? My house is on the edge of town. This church is a landmark, and we'd all hate to lose her. But dying out here,
when our wives and kids need us back in town…I don't think that's what God would want.”

Billy finally shucked off his work gloves. He and the others gathered up their tools and loaded them into the remaining vehicles. Sam was the last to leave. As they drove off, he stepped inside the church one more time and knelt at the altar.

“I haven't done a lot of talking to you lately, so I don't have room to ask for much. But if you could help the doctors take care of my dad, and if you could save his church…well, I'd really like a second chance with him.” Not knowing how else to end the prayer, he said simply, “Thank you.” Then he climbed into his dad's truck and headed back to town.

 

“He's in surgery right now,” Mary said as Sam walked into the E.R. “Compound fracture of the tibia, they said.”

“How long before…?” His question trailed away as he sank into a chair, resting his forehead in his hands. He hated feeling helpless, and right now he was as helpless as he'd ever been. The fire. His dad. Mary.

“Probably a couple of hours.” Mary sat beside him and touched his hand. “Sam, I know how hard this is.”

“We had to quit out at the church, Mary. All that work. Clint got hurt. My dad. For nothing.”

“Not for nothing, Sam.”

He looked up at her. “What, then? Why were we out there? To save one building?”

“You were out there to save a dream. And a lot of memories. Your father's dream. And the memories of a whole lot of people in Whisper Creek.”

“Maybe if we hadn't stopped everyone while I climbed up that tree to get the bear cub… Maybe if I'd kept working at night, the way some of them did…”

Mary shook her head. “Don't, Sam. That fire is a force of nature. It's bigger than all of us. We can build this hospital and pack it full of high-tech gizmos, but in the end we're just human beings. And that fire…nature…that's bigger than we are. Don't go beating yourself up over things you couldn't control. Take it from an expert, Sam. There's no percentage in it.”

That was one of the most revealing things she had ever said to him. Forgetting his own concerns, he looked over at her, and her eyes fell. “What happened, Mary? What are you beating yourself up over?”

She tried to force a smile. “Oh, we all do it, Sam. That's all I meant.”

“No,” he said, lifting her chin until their eyes met. “No, that isn't all you meant. You've got such a ball and chain attached to your heart, I can hear it clank. I look at you and I see…an angel. Kind. Tender. Thoughtful. Loving. So beautiful. You look in a mirror and see…I don't know what you see,
but it isn't beautiful. What do you see that you won't let me see? What could be
that
bad?”

Her face whitened, but she shook her head. “Nothing.”

“Nothing? Is that why you're so afraid of me? Afraid I might talk to you the way I talked to my father yesterday? Afraid that you can't trust me?”

Her lips tightened even more. “Sam…”

“Look,” he said, “if you're going to ditch me, I at least deserve to know why. You said something about not being able to trust men. I want to know why. I think I'm entitled to know exactly why I frighten you.”

She looked away from him, and he could see that she was beginning to tremble. He wanted to reach out and tell her that everything would be okay, but he couldn't do that until he knew what the problem was. And she wouldn't believe him, anyway. She'd made that perfectly clear to him.

For a long time she didn't say anything. She seemed lost in some anguished memory that he couldn't help her with until she shared it with him. Then he wondered if he could help her anyway. He was such a mess himself. Maybe he wasn't in any state to help another living soul.