Jed said patiently, “Mr. Glode, I believe I did. I said it was possible the trail might be washed out in places. This is the first time I’ve been up this way this year, so there was no way to know for sure. Even the Park Service doesn’t send many rangers down where we’re going until hunting season when they try to guard against poachers coming up from Wyoming. There were really heavy snows last winter and big runoff this spring and the rain this summer. I don’t think there’s been anyone down that direction yet this season to provide a report.”

“So what changed your mind?” Tristan asked. There was an edge to his voice.

19

The ignition of the lighter fluid had been instant, less than a second after Cody heard the match strike. There was a whump that sucked most of the air out of the room and his lungs, which left him gasping. Bitter smoke lit hellishly with the orange and blue tongues of flame. His eyes filled with water and his lungs screamed from smoke he inhaled rather than air and he thought he knew how Hank Winters and the others must have felt if they were conscious in their last moments.

Outside the door, he heard footfalls thumping down the hallway so quickly he knew he’d never be able to catch who did it.

The flame seemed to burn away his sense of time as well. He had no idea if it was seconds or minutes before he scrambled out of the bed and stood naked. Since it was pushed against the wall, the only way he could get out was toward the fire. It had likely been a few seconds since the whump; he felt sluggish and cloudy-headed and blind due to the thick smoke. He felt around his feet for the saddlebags because he needed to save them. As he reached toward one of them it ignited, the fire eating up the nylon exterior as if starving for it. He managed to snatch the other one off the floor before it went up, too, and he backed around the foot of the bed into the bathroom. He stood trembling, his back against the sink, gasping, looking through the doorframe at the violent orange glow in the bedroom. He squatted to his haunches and he was able to get below the roiling bank of black smoke. He sucked in the superheated air and was thankful his lungs didn’t explode. The fire had consumed the rug near the door and was curling the flooring. It spread to the sheets and comforter of his bed. He gathered his discarded clothes in his arms.

Then he remembered why the smoke detector didn’t trigger an alarm or activate the sprinkler system, and thought, Shit!

He reached behind him into the bank of smoke for the sink. When he found it he turned on both taps, then stood and jammed down the stopper with the heel of his hand so the sink filled. While the fire in the bedroom was snapping angrily, he grabbed two towels off the rack and plunged them into the water to soak it up.

His riding boots were within reach in the bedroom near the bed and he found them and pulled them on. The soles were hot. He shoved his arms into a hotel bathrobe that was hanging from a hook behind the door and cinched the tie. Then he dropped down toward the floor again to get a gulp of air. Retrieving the wet towels from the sink, he wrapped one around his head and the other around his hands and ran toward the door using the bag out in front to help block the heat. As he bolted through the flames he felt the hairs on his legs and forearms burn down to the skin and the soles of his boots melt into gel. He could smell the awful acrid smell of his own burning hair.

Cody prayed that whomever had set the fire hadn’t blocked the door so he couldn’t get out, then remembered it was unlikely since the door opened in. In the time it took him to run from the bathroom across the bedroom the heavy water in the towels heated up.

He hit the door hard with the saddlebag out in front of him to cushion the impact. He couldn’t see through the smoke but he reached around the bag for the handle. When he turned it the deadbolt rescinded and he threw himself out into the hallway. The rush of fresh air flowed into the room and fed the fire and the heat from it on his back and neck was instant and intense. Particularly, he felt it on his buttocks.

The hallway was empty except for the round bland face of a disoriented woman who’d just opened her door to peek out. Her eyes fixed above him at the roll of dark brown and yellow smoke that was advancing across the ceiling.

“Get out,” he said to her, “there’s a fire.”

“My things!” she said, her eyes welling with tears.

“Buy new ones,” he said, grasping her hand and pulling her out her door. “Is there anyone in there with you?”

“Sam!” she cried, and turned and tried to wrench her hand free.

Cody shouldered her aside and thumped into the room. Sam, who, like her, was in his midseventies, was sitting up in bed in a pair of boxers and a threadbare wife-beater, rubbing his face.

“Who are you?” Sam asked.

Cody didn’t take the time to answer, but jerked Sam to his feet and pushed him toward the door.