Lake of FIre Read online

  Lake of Fire

  Mark Stevens

  Praise for Lake of Fire:

  “Engrossing." - Mystery Scene Magazine

  "A complex tale of murder, mayhem and misguided patriotism." - The Denver Post

  “Lake of Fire swirls into an environmental inferno that reads all too true—Mark Stevens writes like wildfire.” - Craig Johnson, author of the Walt Longmire novels, basis for the hit series Longmire

  "The harsh and beautiful conditions of the West can spawn independent thinkers or crazy conspiracy theorists, depending on your viewpoint. The thrilling, irresistible fourth in Stevens’ series (Trapline, 2014, etc.) has plenty of both." - Kirkus Reviews

  "Trapline author and former reporter Mark Stevens is no stranger to following a lead for a story, and he weaves a brilliant tale that makes it difficult to put the book down. Find this clever read at local bookstores and online." - Colorado Country Life Magazine

  "Stevens crafts a tight thriller with a wonderful sense of the characters and atmosphere of the Colorado mountains – Western Slope readers will no doubt see their friends and neighbors and themselves in the rag-tag team of individualistic high-country sleuths of Lake of Fire ... Many readers, of course, turn to mystery novels as diversions from fears about things like global warming. Instead, in Lake of Fire, Stevens uses those fears to drive a gripping gumshoe narrative." - The Aspen Times

  "Going straight to the fourth book in the series was not seriously problematic, but I would recommend starting at the beginning to better enjoy Allison and Trudy’s character development. I am so excited to have found a well-written, suspenseful mystery series set in our own gorgeous backyard." - Steamboat Pilot & Today

  “A gripping story of a Western wildfire linked to the fires that rage in the human heart. Don’t miss it.” - Margaret Coel, author of Night of the White Buffalo

  Lake of Fire: An Allison Coil Mystery © 2015 by Mark Stevens. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission from Third Line Press, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

  Copyright 2019 by Third Line Press

  Originally published 2015 by Midnight Ink

  Cover design by Jody Chapel

  Cover photos via Shutterstock 1404004928 and by Mark Stevens

  Editing by Patti Frazee

  Library of Congress Number: 2019918312

  ISBN: 978-1-7342437-0-3

  Third Line Press

  45256 Road J.8

  Mancos, CO 81328

  The Allison Coil Mystery Series

  Antler Dust

  Buried by the Roan

  Trapline

  Lake of Fire

  The Melancholy Howl

  This one is for Mark Graham, my longtime pal in words and stories

  "And the beast was taken, and with him the false prophet that wrought miracles before him, with which he deceived them that had received the mark of the beast, and them that worshipped his image. These both were cast alive into a lake of fire burning with brimstone."

  —The Book of Revelations

  Where do bad folks go when they die?

  They don't go to heaven where the angels fly

  They go down to the lake of fire and fry

  Won't see them again 'till the fourth of July

  —The Meat Puppets

  Contents

  Lake of Fire

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  Chapter 50

  Chapter 51

  Chapter 52

  Chapter 53

  Chapter 54

  Chapter 55

  Chapter 56

  Chapter 57

  Chapter 58

  Chapter 59

  Chapter 60

  Chapter 61

  Chapter 62

  Chapter 63

  Chapter 64

  Chapter 65

  Chapter 66

  Chapter 67

  Chapter 68

  Chapter 69

  Chapter 70

  Chapter 71

  Chapter 72

  Chapter 73

  Chapter 74

  Chapter 75

  Chapter 76

  Chapter 77

  Chapter 78

  Chapter 79

  Chapter 1

  Wednesday Late Afternoon

  Nature kills as mean as man.

  A 100-foot spruce exploded like a giant sparkler. Smoke flowed thick like London or San Francisco fog. Take your fucking fog pick. The cloud stung her eyes and for a moment the burning lollipop bubble of orange on the tree faded behind the wall of smoke and she slowed to a walk, unable to see much beyond Sunny Boy’s snout.

  Pincers of flame threatened to close off the mouth of the ravine that she needed to clear in order to not become a fleshy morsel of skin and bone amid the fire’s otherwise steady diet of crispy-dry timber.

  Her heart flared. Sweat coated her forehead. Smoke whipped around and another tree caught the lollipop disease with a snarling crackle. High-definition, 3D movies rolled in her head that showed various scenarios for how the next minutes might play out. None of the clips ended well.

  The gap with the lobster claw pincers of flame might, in fact, be a trap. She might be getting seduced by the appearance of an exit—an opening—when in fact the best route out would be where the two fires on her flanks converged.

  Allison Coil tugged the reins and turned Sunny Boy around, back uphill.

  “Trust me,” she said out loud. With authority. “And I’m not saying you don’t.”

  Sunny Boy’s ears flattened. He jerked his head up like he’d seen a snake.

  “I know,” she said.

  She shoved away the rising dread. At least, she faked it. She needed Sunny Boy’s complete dedication. He would sense her uncertainty. She pulled her kerchief up over her mouth, put her head down. She turned one stinging eye in the direction she had pointed Sunny Boy, shot the gap between two trees that cooked in relaxed fashion like a couple of logs at a campfire. From the ground up, fire wrapped each tree in wicked bursts of orange. Dragon’s breath. Dragon in the form of climate change and beetle kill and aberrant, menacing storms. And her demise. A minor loss in the big scheme of things. Katrina to Sandy to the monster tornados from Missouri to Oklahoma.

  In flashes, the heat surged with intensity. Trudy’s bread-baking oven times three. More bite. More weight. Less room to back away.

  Allison inhaled a lungful of heat. Sunny Boy jerked his head from side to side. No doubt his eyes st
ung too.

  All smoke. White-gray smoke. Chewy smoke. Fresh thick gobs of the stuff.

  Allison found an open patch. A clearing. She stole a glance up—blue sky. Happy-normal grass under Sunny Boy’s feet. Fire on all sides and still the smoke, but this scrap of oasis, like the way some tornados leave one house unscratched in a city of devastation, offered proof that fire and nature and man-made accidents were all capable of unexplained bits of random kindness.

  No time to linger.

  She kicked Sunny Boy toward the thickest, smokiest exit. Smoke charged her. Sunny Boy tensed. She may as well have coaxed a whale to the beach. His front legs stiffened. He had the urge to rear up, to shake off his parasite, determine his own fate.

  Allison contemplated her own. Colin flashed—and Trudy too, right there. Her parents and family. Was this it? What would she miss? Time before birth was as unknown as the time after death—shouldn’t you also be afraid of what you didn’t experience before your birth? Or as jealous of what you missed? Why was one’s birth the starting point for zealous ownership of life?

  Family obligations kept Colin out of this pickle. No doubt spotters would have reported the fire. Maybe a response was already being organized. Maybe Colin knew she was in this area, given the timing and her anticipated trip over. Maybe she should say goodbye to him, even though he wouldn’t hear. To Trudy, too. She coughed to relieve the ache in her lungs. To no avail. Should she climb down, press her nose to the ground and hope for a smoke-free snort of air?

  If a human caused the fire, did that disqualify it as a natural event?

  Sunny Boy relented.

  He shot forward as if to say, “Get this over with.”

  Allison ducked. The smoke was so thick she could be heading for a low branch. Or smack into a tree. She hoped Sunny Boy’s sonar was up and running.

  “Go,” she said, head down. “Go.”

  A hand on his withers came away soaked from worry and sweat.

  Chapter 2

  Wednesday Evening

  Finding the edge of the burn scar was a snap. On one side of the random line, trees thrived. Their tops shuddered in the breeze. They showed no sign of remorse for their doomed brethren.

  On the other side of the random line, blackness reigned. Still-smoldering blackness. Smoke oozed from the pores of the dying trees. Stray wisps—last gasps.

  Devo marveled at the thoroughness of the destruction.

  And it pissed him off.

  The fire was no act of nature. Or lightning.

  He had been up on the flank of Rat Mountain when the orphan thundercloud rolled through the valley. It generated mist, not rain, and it produced occasional and lazy lightning. But none of the strikes were down here where he had seen the first puffs of smoke.

  The cloud had stayed to his left, rolling in from the west. The fire had started in the sun-splashed timber a solid five miles of woods and scrubby undergrowth to the north. He had taken his bearings and headed off.

  By the time he had reached the ignition point, the fire was a blowup. Full-sized trees snapped like cracking bones. He caught glimpses of flame as he followed the general direction of Marvine Trail. Devo had stayed off the trail. He wasn’t fit for civilization. He avoided contact. He cut his own path, as he was prone to do. The fire had started on the west side of the Marvine Trail. Devo had started on the east. He crossed the trail when the line he’d chosen brought him to it. He could hold a straight line better than a crow. He could hide better than a well-fed wolverine.

  The risk of being spotted up here, even around the well-travelled Marvine Trail, was remote. Traffic in the Flat Tops was minimal—hikers, campers, fishermen. Horse riders, too. The drought made the wilderness no fun. And no campfires. Devo didn’t need the newspaper to know that much—he hadn’t seen a campfire in weeks.

  But you couldn’t be too careful.

  At the spot where the fire started, the trees had not burned completely around the circumference. It wasn’t untouched bark on the downwind side, but the burn wasn’t as thorough. It was easy to see which way the fire had blown. What he saw here lined up with what he had seen from the ridge—yellow-orange sheets of flame that had kicked up twice the height of the tree tops and then the frenzy churned to the northwest with an unlimited supply of its favorite food ahead.

  A normal west-to-east weather pattern might have put his camp—their homestead—in the crosshairs. “Camp sounds so temporary,” Cinnamon always insisted. “It’s a homestead. Our place on the edge of the new frontier.”

  The wind direction was a fluke.

  He looked for signs of where lightning might have struck the trees, even though he knew it hadn’t. He knew lightning could travel a long way, but the thundercloud had been so confined and distinct, and its lightning shots so straight down, that he knew something else was responsible. He looked for a shattered or exploded trunk or any black, linear gouge in the bark. Nothing. It was possible a lightning scar could get concealed by the fire itself but not here. There had been no goddamn lightning.

  Devo stood and took in a deep breath. He was alone. He’d slipped away, pre-dawn. He usually had a cameraman or camerawoman who followed every move. The television show captured every burp and scratch. But not today. He had made it look like a routine walk to take a pee and then he slipped off. It was his right. The show was his idea. Occasionally he needed the break. He needed breaks to think. And relax. Around-the-clock cameras were exhausting.

  Devo stopped. His senses were so keen that his body seemed to know things ahead of his brain. His nose knew. His eyesight had sharpened, but his nose led the way. The shift had been subtle. It wasn’t overnight or anything like that. He once sensed a herd of elk slipping through the forest a full half hour before he had come up behind them. He had known they were there. His nose told him the size of the herd. It sensed the weight of their collective smell. Elk were a fairly easy test, however. Their funk could linger in bedding areas for at least a day or two. He once stalked a pool of elk pee for hours. The elk? Long gone. He could smell bear and deer, both before and after the rut. He had long since merged his scent with the land. He hadn’t used a manmade product to clean himself since he had left the city. At some fundamental level, he emitted a human scent. He hoped the elk thought, oh that animal. But his ability to move softly, coupled with a growing sixth-sense about the patterns and movements among the animals, made him feel at times utterly at home.

  It worked.

  Devolution worked.

  Shedding the city worked.

  When the new recruits arrived, he could see the difference, too—how far he’d come. They were up to nineteen now. Twelve women, seven men. The new recruits were hardly unfamiliar with outdoor life and outdoor survival, but committing yourself to the habitat, year-round, changed the dynamics. He could see them look around at the camp—the homestead—and study the more experienced tribesmen and start to process the fact that all their food would come from their work and prowess, that their survival would depend on their skills, smarts, toughness, teamwork. And that they were each other’s only source of friendships. They would have to work together.

  Devo could see them look.

  For now, the fire bugged the living shit out of him. In these conditions, the idea of a firestarter on the loose was worrisome, to say the least. While lush and dotted with lakes, the Flat Tops looked now like they had been forgotten in a kiln. Lakes and ponds sported shores triple the normal width. The remaining water in the lakes and ponds looked inert and dying. For ideal working conditions, a firestarter could ask for nothing better than this summer in the Flat Tops.

  If this had happened near their camp—their homestead—they wouldn’t have had time to outrun it. He shuddered to think.

  He found no signs of lightning. He drifted into the burn scar, zigged and zagged along line between healthy and blackened trees. He was forty yards east of the Marvine Trail and that, too, suggested something other than lightning.

  Convenience. Access.
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  He was in a dense stand of lodgepole pine, weaving along the random line of fate, when he almost walked right into the small fire ring. It was no bigger than a dinner plate—seven stones in all. The inside was flat and, of course, black. It still held heat. And so did the trees.

  Ignition point.

  Devo stood back, walked away. The barn scar ran in a wide V-shape, fanning out and away.

  Carelessness? Somebody so desperate for a campfire that they had to sneak off and light one? There was no obvious sign of where any tents might have been pitched and no sign of a campsite at all except for this pint-size ring.

  Something was not right.

  Devo inhaled, turned his nose up and turned his head off to the side, trying to pick up something on the breeze.

  Something cooked. Like goat. A roast on a spit. But not quite. Heavier. A metallic whiff in the mix, too. He turned his nose up like a dog getting the news off a flow of morning air. The whiff reminded him of a city barbecue.

  Frying fat.

  He straddled the line at the edge of the fire—pristine wilderness to his left, utter blackened devastation underneath and for miles on his right—and dropped down in a crouch. He moved on all fours. His compact frame liked the change. He’d grown more flexible and lean, of course, and the position didn’t bother him, even if a stranger spotting him now might think the Flat Tops had long hidden the lone ape in North America. The move worked. His knuckles enjoyed getting in on the tactile action.

  Nose inches off the ground, the odor of crispy goat or pork hung to the air. The trail dissipated and he backed up, course-corrected. Followed further.

  Maybe the firestarter had gotten caught in his own blaze.

  Devo stood.

  He had smelled enough, seen enough.

  This was the spot.

  The investigators would have no trouble confirming what he now knew—as long as they made it up here in the next day or two. An arson investigator would nail this as the spot, the V where it all began. Maybe there was a way to test the shattered bits and blackened remnants of wood.