“Great,” he groaned.“The last thing we need is Lucas Shoemacher finding out his secretary has gotten friendly with someone studying fire science and his crime investigator brother.”
Cooper’s smile faded.He tapped the folder.“Once this is in Helena, our part is done.The investigation belongs to the state.We don’t interfere, we don’t push, we don’t tip off Shoemacher.Bonnie keeps going to work and acting normal.You keep studying and backing up the engine without destroying public property.”
“I haven’t hit a cone in two weeks.”
“Cassidy told Rose you hit a trash can on Thursday.”
“A man just can’t have a secret in this town, can he?”Gray grumbled.
“Welcome to small-town living.Everyone knows everything about everyone.How bad was the trash can hurt?You flattened some of those cones pretty good.”
“It’ll make a full recovery,” he retorted sarcastically.He paused for a moment and then burst out, “It was in the wrong place.The garbage man didn’t put it back where it belongs.”
“Fire engine’s rear view mirrors quit working?”Cooper asked dryly.
Gray rolled his eyes, conceding the point in grumpy silence, which was the Lawton brothers’ preferred method of acknowledging defeat.
Cooper picked up the folder and hefted it in his hand, feeling the weight of it.“Eight men,” he said soberly.“Eight families.Four years of lies.And now this.”
“Now this.”
They sat together in the truck for a while, watching clouds scud across the sky.The snow on Wheeler Mountain was shrinking by the hour, its dark rock emerging, unchanged and unscathed by yet another winter in an unending cycle of seasons stretching back millions of years.
The pinochle group was abuzz over the change in weather.
Gray stepped into Rose’s for a coffee before he headed back to the ranch and walked into a lively discussion about wind speed, grass height, and the relative merits of various fire prevention techniques practiced by local ranchers, very few of which bore any relationship to actual fire science.
Walter Meeks was holding forth.“Last time we had a Chinook this late in March was ’94.Burned six thousand acres between here and the town of Crystal Lake before they got a handle on it.Silas Barker lost a dozen head of cattle.”
Ruth piped up.“It was ’93, Walter.”
“It was ’94.I remember because it was the year my youngest graduated.”
“Your youngest graduated in ’95.”
“Ruthie, I was at the graduation.”
“You have six children and probably don’t even know how many grandkids you have, Walter.It’s not a crime to misremember which one finished when.”
“I have nineteen grandchildren, thank you very much.And I can name every one of them.”
Ruth retorted slyly, “I’ll bet you can’t tell me how old each one of them is.”
Walter harrumphed and went back to studying his cards.But Gray got the impression Ruth had bested Walter on that one.
A crusty rancher named Harlan leaned in from the adjoining booth.“Doesn’t matter what year it was.Point is, the wind’s gonna keep blowing and the grass up on those ridges is dead dry.Somebody drops a cigarette or a power line comes down in all that wind, and we’ll have a problem.”
“We don’t have a fire department,” Walter pointed out.
Ruth said, “We have a fire station.Gray’s been cleaning it up, haven’t you, Gray?”
He shrugged not thrilled at being drawn into the gossip.
Harlan replied, “A clean building isn’t a fire department, Ruth.You need trained people and working equipment.”
“The boy’s studying fire science,” Ruth said.“He told me himself.”
Walter looked over at Gray, who was standing at the counter silently begging Irma to fill and cap his to-go cup faster.“That true?You’re studying fire science?”
