Endangered Species by Nevada Barr Read Free Book Online

belt.  Firefighters, like fire
    horses, stamped and snorted at the first sniff of smoke.  Anna felt the
    excitement but hers was tempered with the tragic memories of the
    jackknife fire the summer before.  Like the sea, fire was elemental.  It
    would be many years before she would again underestimate its power.  Or
    its indifference to human life.
    C K D R 0 V E like a madman, dropping from gear to gear, revving Rthe
    tired engine as if more gas could give it a new lease on life .f
    Bouncing like a bean in a tin cup, Anna fought to buckle her seat belt.
    Between them, ricocheting from thigh to thigh across the vinyl, the
    portable radio crackled for attention.  Finally secured, Anna caught it
    as it skittered toward the floor, and thumbed down the mike ." This is
    Pigeon.  Yes.  We see it.  We're about three quarters the way to the

north end of the island due east of the smoke.  Maybe two miles."
    The truck nosed over a lip of water-sculpted sand and Anna's chin
    smacked into the King radio.  Anna 4, Rick I, she thought as she grabbed
    at the armrest for stability.  Over the airwaves Dijon added to the
    racket.  He and AI were on the southernmost tip of the island near
    Dungeness, about ten miles from the smoke.  They wouldn't reach the fire
    for at least twenty minutes.  The frustration in Dijon's voice made Anna
    smile ." Don't put it out till we get there," were his parting words.
    Anna looked at the fanatic grin on Rick's face and laughed .
    They would try their damnedest to kill it before the others arrived.  It
    was part of the game, the competition, the testosterone follies.  She
    loved it.
    "Yee-hah!" she mimicked Rick, shouting over the engine ." Are we having
    fun yet?"
    Guarding the woodlands from the Atlantic was a rampart of dunes running
    the length of Cumberland.  Near the tips of the island, where they were
    always being rearranged by the tides, the dunes were only four or five
    feet high.  In the center they climbed to forty and fifty feet, great
    slow-moving waves of fine white earth.
    In several places along the oceanfront weathered wooden boardwalks
    snaked out from the jungle and across the barrier of dunes providing
    access to the beach.  For Anna, these, more than the crumbling mansions,
    symbolized the island's heyday, a time when it glittered with wealthy
    holidaymakers escaping the confines of the cities.
    Vehicle access was less nostalgic.  Roads had been hacked into the
    relatively dependable floor of the forest, but egress over the dunes was
    always chancy.  Anna braced herself as Rick gunned the engine, building
    momentum to carry the heavy truck up through soft and sliding sand.
    Speed increased, the truck shuddered and screamed.  Near the crest of
    the dune, when Anna thought surely Rick was going to roll the top-heavy
    pumper, he forced another few horses into the carburetor and they plowed
    through the peak of the shifting mountain.
    "Well done!" Anna yelled as they fishtailed down the far side .
    Rick had his shortcomings but timidity was not among them.  More than
    once Anna had gotten hopelessly stuck by chickening out and letting off
    the gas too soon.
    From the vantage point provided by forty-five feet of altitude, she
    concentrated on the smoke, the tag end of road protruding from the
    greenery, the sun.  Once the trees swallowed them, all sense of
    direction would be gone.  Until they were right on top of the fire they
    would be unable to see-or probably even smell-the smoke.
    judging from the size of the gray smudge, the fire was still small,
    probably less than a tenth of an acre.  The pumper truck carried two
    hundred gallons of water and a hundred feet of hard hose line .
    There was virtually no wind.  Barring unforeseen circumstances, she and
    Rick should be able to at least contain the blaze until the others
    arrived.
    Cushioning her chin with her finger lest Rick score another point, Anna
    raised the King and put in a call to Guy Marshall.  He was on