CHAPTER 31

July 15

11:00 a.m.

A steady rain—sans lightning—began to fall on July 14, and the Flatiron Fire became officially 100 percent contained at 10:00 a.m. on July 15, opening up the river road and clearing the sheriff’s department and ATF to follow up on the search warrant they had now served to John Fallows. According to Mel, who had heard it from Lewis, Fallows still sat in county lockup, unable to make bail.

True was thankful; the reprieve from worry of retaliation had given the Bishops time to access emergency funding provided to Carbon fire victims, which enabled them to replace Annie’s lost prescriptions and pay for the upcoming trip to Seattle for surgery. Holding that voucher in her hands had felt a whole hell of a lot better, Mel had told True, than depositing Fallows’s payments ever had. And if Mel had felt any prickling of doubt over handing over perfectly functional cash, True was certain it was easily offset by the relief at knowing Annie’s breathing became steadier each day, her energy returning in the fresh air as she awaited surgery in the city. According to Sam, she had even taken to jumping on the bed in the hotel.

True had been there in person to witness the ATF raid of Fallows’s property, rolling up to the Outsider the moment she was granted official access, her rapid tag finally put to legitimate use. To say it was a satisfying moment would be the understatement of the year. Just as Fallows hadn’t been able to get at them in the past two days, he certainly couldn’t touch them now. He couldn’t even get his grubby grip on his son; according to Sam, who’d heard it at the Eddy, Chris Fallows had fled north to the Alberta oil fields before the smoldered remains from the Flatiron Fire had even cooled, and could any of them blame him? Sam said he just wondered if it was even far enough ... After all, he himself had to put more than one international border between himself and trouble back in the day.

Mel always found it strangely poetic that mop-up—the practice of ensuring every ember was out—could prove as taxing and as tedious as fire containment in the earliest stage. A fire was handled with painstaking, tender care at its conception and at its death, with a desperate pummeling in between.

As a result of her pending disciplinary review and potential investigation after the events on the river road, she’d been assigned to cold trailing, a tedious task that had her guiding the rookies over every square inch of the fire perimeter on foot, putting out every live ember along the western slope of Flatiron Peak. It also kept her from her family, but only for the short term. She’d join Sam and the girls in time for Annie’s surgery.

“We have to make sure there is absolutely no heat left to escape,” she told Deklan, who had regained most of his previous swagger, confidently stomping out hot spots again. The sight was a balm to Mel’s tender, singed soul.

As they traversed the mountain, they rehabilitated fire lines, laboriously shoveling and raking back the soil they had displaced only days ago in order to offset the risk of erosion in the coming weeks and months. The ash mixed with the mud from the rain to produce a thick, heavy sludge that resembled brown-gray cement.

“This is bullshit,” Deklan declared, newly released back to fieldwork by Carbon General, and while Mel agreed wholeheartedly, she threw herself into the backbreaking task, relishing each protest of her muscles. She’d probably be pulling this grunt-work duty for a long time to come, but it beat losing her job by a mile. And it was the least she could do after putting Deklan’s life at risk. After abandoning her crew.

The drizzle finally let up as demobilization began, the sky a stark slate of gray that blended with the still ever-present smoke as each interstate agency, private hand crew, and celebrated hotshot crew rolled out of Carbon one by one to the waves and cheers of the community. Most residents who had sheltered at the high school and then at the fairgrounds had spent their idle time making posters on sheets of cardboard repurposed from emergency food shipments, which they now displayed proudly. Thank you, firefighters! read most of them, with a smattering of Keep Oregon Green! (double meaning implied) and We love you, hotshots!

The ammo box of money True had stashed in the crook of the tree at Temple Bar was never found. Mel went down to the raft take-out at her first opportunity, only to find the tree hollow empty. Maybe Fallows had sent one of his crew members down to retrieve what was his, or maybe one of the first responders to clear the river road had spotted it first. Mel didn’t care which. She, and Annie, had what they needed.

At the Outsider, True turned from the sight of the red and blue lights still pulsing over at the Fallows property and looked northeast, where she could already make out a swath of charred forest through the haze of the smoke. It still smoldered, gaping like an open wound, and she knew it would hurt like one, too, at least until the earth began to heal itself.

Her property was intact, right down to the chicken wire lining her garden fence and her welcome mat at her yurt door. Just a half mile down the road, the Eldersons’ place had been wholly consumed, while next door to them, the Chandlers’ home still stood. What stroke of luck spared some Carbon residents but not others? She worried the green rapid tag in her hands. So many folks had never been able to use them, Sam included. It gave True an idea, just a little sprout of one, but that was enough to give her a sense of doing . Of helping, in some small way.

Retreating to her neglected art studio, she pawed through her many half-welded metal pieces, trying to find just the right ones. It felt weird to fire up her welding torch, the heat and the fire feeling altogether too soon , but the end result proved worth it. Wiping the sweat from her face as she lifted her welding mask, she surveyed the 3D iron sculpture of a mountain she’d created. It stood taller than her.

She carefully separated the ends of the cheap twine attached to her rapid tag and affixed the tag to one of the interconnected bars of iron that formed the mountain. Stepping back to survey her work, she smiled, then hopped back into her truck to drive into town.

At the River Eddy, as she’d predicted, residents filled the bar on this first day back to business as usual in Carbon, mostly just trading war stories and commiserating with one another. True explained her idea to Kim, who silenced the crowd with one of her earsplitting wolf whistles.

“Any of you all who have rapid tags you couldn’t use, give them here,” she announced. “Truitt is collecting them for a ... What is it for?” she asked True.

“An art installation,” True said. “A memorial of sorts ... to acknowledge all the town lost.”

Some residents looked skeptical, most just looked battle-worn, but many dug into their pockets or went out to their cars to retrieve their sheriff’s-department-issued rapid tags. Most were wrinkled, soot- and ash-stained from being pressed into use at road junctions, allowing residents reentry to their homes, but some still looked painfully brand-new, the shiny green cardstock stiff. Those, True knew, belonged to residents who never used them, their homes taken completely by the blaze.

Back at the Outsider, she affixed all these rapid tags to the mountain sculpture, until the peak, previously a cold metallic gray, looked alive with fluttering green paper. If only Flatiron’s rebirth would be as swift, True thought. She added Sam’s rapid tag last, at the very tip of the metal peak, the name Bishop, 2303 Highline Road still visible in smudged Sharpie ink.

She’d just finished when she heard the crunch of tires on her drive, and she tensed before remembering that it couldn’t be Fallows. Still, she couldn’t have been more surprised to see who did roll down her drive. Emmett bounded out of the passenger side of the rental car first, followed by his mother, alighting onto the gravel with more restraint.

“True!” Emmett had crossed the tiny yard, leaped up the steps to the deck, and flung his arms around True’s torso before she could even brace herself for the tackle. They both stumbled a step or two, Emmett laughing, True clutching him so they wouldn’t fall, before she could recover enough to look over his head at Vivian.

“What are you guys doing here?” She hoped her surprise didn’t sound like a lack of hospitality. How had they even found the place?

Vivian stepped up onto the deck of the yurt to join them. “I’m sorry to just show up like this,” she said. “We asked around in town, and I wanted to call first, but, well ... cell service doesn’t seem to work out here.”

True nodded. It most certainly didn’t.

“We’ve been in a hotel,” Emmett offered.

“We got as far as Ashland,” Vivian filled in, “before I-5 closed due to the secondary fire.”

True felt a lurch of misgiving. With all that had been going on, it hadn’t occurred to her that the Wus might have gotten caught in the clutches of Carbon’s emergency as well. But the highway was open now, and they could have gone home. Yet they were here. Why?

“We’ve been watching all the news,” Emmett said, spinning away from True to gaze out over the property. Smoke still lingered in the air, but she could tell when he spotted the river by his quick smile of recognition. He raised his gaze to study the blackened mountainsides next, parts of Flatiron Peak still smoldering, and when he twisted back around to address True again, his face was solemn. “It was a megafire, just like you said.”

Vivian took a step closer, joining them on the deck. “I was so scared, True.”

“I’m sure,” True agreed. “You must have been terrified, waylaid like that.”

Vivian gave a breathy little laugh, like she was slightly embarrassed, but held True’s gaze as she said, “I wasn’t scared for us , True.”

It took a second for her implication to sink in. “Oh.” Vivian still wore a self-conscious smile, and True glanced down first, because what if she was misreading this whole thing? She addressed Emmett again. “Oh, well, I’m just fine, as you can see.” She wiggled her feet at him. “Even my river-sandal tan remains intact.”

Emmett smiled, then peered curiously around her toward the yurt. True remembered her manners. “Come on in.”

Emmett didn’t need to be asked twice, taking in the circular room, from the pine lattice work around the canvas to the river rock and the ladder to the small loft space. “Go ahead and explore,” she told him as she held the door open for Vivian.

“We saw other news reports, too,” Vivian said more quietly, once Emmett had begun the climb up to the loft. “A big illegal marijuana bust was made not far from here. Arms, cash, and ammo, too.”

True’s gut tightened, and she took a step back without quite realizing it. What was Vivian implying now?

But she laid a hand on True’s arm, and that subtle but unmistakable current of electricity flew between them again. “You were credited by name as crucial to the success of the arrest,” she continued, then took a breath like she needed to get out whatever else she had to say before True could interrupt, or maybe even Emmett. “And I don’t know the details, and I’m not asking for them, but I want to tell you how sorry I am. For how I acted, that last day on the river. I shouldn’t have doubted you. You gave me no reason to.”

“Well, that’s debatable,” True joked-not-really-joked, because relief was rolling from her in waves. Vivian didn’t blame her. Vivian didn’t see her in the same light she must see people like John Fallows, and True hadn’t even realized quite how devastated she’d been to think otherwise until right now, with these two people in her Outsider.

Maybe that vision she’d had at the Fallowses’ fence line hadn’t been just a smoke-induced dream. Maybe the spark she felt with Vivian was real, and the connection she had with Emmett could last. Just maybe, she could have what Sam and Mel had, her yurt retreat serving as more than just a backup plan for when she hung up her river sandals for good. Stranger things happened.

The Wus spent the rest of the afternoon at the Outsider, Emmett most enamored with the path to the river, Vivian lingering in the welding and art studio, admiring True’s rapid-tag sculpture with such genuine amazement that True’s heart nearly burst from her chest. When the sun set, a vibrant red in the still-hazy sky, they walked back to the rental car, Emmett dragging his heels at the prospect of being stuck in his seat for the six hours back to Marin County.

“I really am sorry you and Emmett had to experience what you did on the river,” True told Vivian, dragging her heels herself. “It wasn’t exactly the Oregon I wanted to show you.”

“Well, about that,” Vivian answered. “I was hoping I could give you a deposit for next season.”

“What . . . now?”

Because Vivian already had her phone open to True’s rafting website, the payment tab displayed. “Well, yeah. I don’t want to lose my spot.”

True smiled. “Let’s aim for June next year,” she told her. “Much better weather forecasts in June.” She went to remove her hand from where it rested on the open car window, then paused. “Of course, autumn here in Oregon is pretty nice, too. Winter as well, when the snow falls.”

Vivian laughed. “It’s a date,” she told her.

In spring, the morels emerged. Outside Carbon, they popped right up out of the ash between the scars of the firebreaks and the blackened Douglas fir trunks still oozing their bloodred-hued sap. Even as the trees wept for what they’d lost, the soil looked forward, with spiraled, tightly furled sprouts nodding toward the sun.

The ferns and mosses had recolonized the ground first, some as early as two weeks after the Flatiron Fire stopped smoldering, the species with rhizomes—horizontal stems tucked away under the earth—poised to repopulate in the rich post-fire soil earliest. The aptly named fireweed followed, then stubborn milk thistle, peppering the barren ground with pops of color.

Mel took measure of the regrowth every time she and Sam visited True at her Outsider, which was often, now that Fallows no longer cast his shadow over the place. True seemed less guarded these days in every regard, actually, opening her door wide for the first time. Maybe, Mel thought with a smile, it had something to do with the frequent visits from Vivian Wu and her son, despite the fact that their next rafting trip wasn’t for another month.

The girls loved it there. Astor had become a regular apprentice in True’s art studio, helping her create the miniature fire sculptures it seemed every Carbon resident now wanted for their mantel or front yard. What had started as a fundraiser for the fire victims had exploded; word of True’s mountain sculptures had spread and were now in demand all over the West.

“I wish they ‘spoke to’ fewer people,” True said often, a sentiment Mel certainly shared.

“Fire season isn’t going away anytime soon,” she had to admit.

Which was why it was probably just as well that she and Sam couldn’t afford to rebuild on Highline after using the entirety of their home-insurance payout to settle Annie’s medical debt, including the deductible and out-of-pocket costs following her final successful surgery. But he’d just shrugged when Mel had voiced her regret over his lost home.

“Nothing to regret,” he’d said, giving Annie an extra squeeze. “Maybe we should follow Claude’s lead and rent a little place on the Oregon coast.” He’d lobbed this suggestion lightly, but the meaningful glance he sent Mel’s way had her giving the idea serious consideration; a transfer to a less tinder-dry county might just offer the family-work balance she’d been craving for far too long. He turned to the girls. “You kids want to take a break from morel hunting and learn how to go crabbing?”

“Yes!” Astor and Annie had chorused.

“’Course you do. You’re Oregonians,” he’d said. “Born and bred.”

For now, he chased them—yes, Annie included—around True’s yard, leaping over logs and sliding around garden fencing.

“Hey! Watch my herbs!” True yelled, laughing with a lightness to her tone Mel hadn’t heard in ... actually, she couldn’t remember the last time she’d heard True sounding so free.

“You seem really good,” she told her, because one thing Mel had learned in the last six months: You never knew when flames would lick at your door. Best to say things to people you loved when you could.

“I am really good,” True told her, smiling at her in a way that made Mel suspect she was thinking of Vivian again. It made Mel smile, too. Perhaps, just like her, True had let go of something that she had been holding for far too long, and that had not been serving her.

The community of Carbon was also trying to learn the art of liberation. Gone was the high school; it would be two years before the Carbon High kids could return, bused an hour each way to schools out of district in the meantime. Gone was most of the west side of downtown. After the mop-up, Mel hadn’t been sure what she’d been expecting, but it hadn’t been nothing . But for almost six straight months in the downtown sector, blackened foundations sat abandoned and exposed to the elements while insurance companies haggled with business owners, the process to make good on their claims proving even more arduous than for private homeowners.

The charred framework of the grocery store, the Quik Save, the pharmacy, and so many other businesses stood waiting, their foundations littered with random remains: a half-melted plastic pink-glazed doughnut the size of a horse outside what used to be the local Winchell’s, the metal safe in what used to be the center floor of the Chase Bank, a stone chimney all that was left of the Log Cabin restaurant.

The Eddy still stood miraculously intact, nestled between the charred remains of the gas station and the previous site of the East Carbon Apartments, which now housed FEMA trailers. A blessing, Sam had said, that he intended to pay forward, selling half the business to Kim so they could both continue to profit from it, wherever the Bishops decided to settle.

“It will all come back,” he reminded Mel, gesturing out over the cauterized foundations of Carbon businesses and homes between swings of a hammer as he helped neighbors and friends of the Eddy. Beyond the back deck, the Outlaw weaved between charred trees, bare and brittle as blackened toothpicks. Across the street, new cars sat parked beside burned-out shells, and children played along the fluttering remains of hazard tape warning residents away from eroded creek beds and ravines.

She knew he was right. In addition to the morels and weeds poking their way up through the ashen soil, a surprise harvest of blueberries emerged as if overnight in the cold black that continued to scar the land, carpeting the ground in between knobs of charred madrone and tree trunks, flourishing in the lack of competition on the forest floor. The girls combed the hillsides beside True’s property, once even accompanied by Emmett, buckets in hand, their mouths stained blue after only a few minutes of picking, their shoes immediately dusted in dark black ash.

If Mel knew True, pancakes would be on the menu the next morning, and next week blueberry pie. By next month, True would be back on the river with the Wus, and by next fall, Annie would be healthy enough to start kindergarten. Whether the Bishops were still here or on the rugged coast, the scouting troops and elementary school kids would take field trips to Flatiron, planting seedlings to prevent rivulets of erosion, and those small trees would entice back the smaller forest-floor inhabitants, the burrowers and the nesters, which in turn would bring back the hawks. Within a year, tender new shoots of sage and madrone would follow, and with them, the deer and the larger predators. Nature would reset itself in this blank slate of burned land, and so would Mel and Sam. Mel as a woman who needed to prove herself a little less. Sam trusting in his family and in the universe a little more.

Today, however, the front-facing slope of Flatiron Peak was still an ugly slash of blackened earth, and Mel allowed herself a moment to remember the heat. The chaos. The all-consuming fear. She always would. But she also remembered that scars—on the earth, on one’s psyche, on one’s skin—did not represent weakness. Like the fresh ones on Annie’s slight chest, scars on this land represented survival. And survival meant life.

Mel stood in the cool, clean air, looked up at a perfectly blue sky, and breathed it all in. They wouldn’t just survive, she corrected. Like the new growth finding a foothold in the scarred soil, she, True, Sam, and her girls would thrive.