Man From Tennessee (15 page)

Each mile increased her determination to find him. She braked once, backed up to where she could see between two crevices in the cliffs; in the far distance was smoke, the beginnings of a ravaged forest. People, like brown-uniformed ants, were walking around bare tree trunks, and even from where she had stopped there was the sickeningly sweet smell of new ash. The sun blazed cruelly down on that glimpse of hillside, showing off stark, pitiful destruction.

She drove on, the rock face too high for several miles on both sides to see anything. That desperate calm had suddenly clotted inside her. The instinct to reach Kern, see him, know he was all right, was like a monumental force that surpassed any other emotion.

About five miles from Kern’s, a brown-uniformed ranger guarded a makeshift roadblock. Sweat was pouring from his brow as he marched the few steps to lean on her windshield. “We’re diverting traffic to another route, miss. I’m afraid there’s been some road damage up ahead, trees and rocks down. If you just turn around and head south about two miles, we’ve mapped out an alternative route—”

She interrupted him. “My husband is Kern Lowery.” Suddenly her throat was so dry she could hardly get the words out. “Our home is just ahead a few miles. If you by any chance…if you know…”

Compassion touched the dark brown eyes of the officer when the question faltered on her lips. “Sure, ma’am. Last I knew he was fine. Known Kern for a few years, I have. Fire tickled his northern slope, I hear, but it jumped on by him for the most part. You must have been away?”

“Yes. Can I get through? I
have
to get through! I could walk from here—”

“It’s just not safe, ma’am.” He shook his head sympathetically. “And there’ll be road crews that don’t need a car in the way, neither. It’s not like you’d be likely to find your husband home, ma’am. Everybody around here has been helpin’ as they could. The damage—” He shook his head sadly. “Well, we help each other around here. We always have. People been workin’ around the clock for some thirty, forty, hours now—”

“Is it finally out? I saw some smoke a while back—”

“Smoldering mostly. There’s a few places still blazing, but the flames finally tuckered out.”

“There must be camps set up. Coffee and food for the men working—”

He nodded. “All over the place. Down the road a mile is one—”

“I can get to that then?”

The ranger adjusted his hat to scratch his balding head, squinting in that direction. “I don’t rightly know. Jeeps have been getting through, of course, four-wheeled-drive vehicles—”

“I can get through,” Trisha said firmly and restarted her car.

Stumbling a little awkwardly on the rocky path, Trisha crested the rise and stopped. The camp was chaos: three makeshift tents with army-cot beds, kerosene burners where huge coffee pots steamed in the middle of the sun, a pair of Red Cross Jeeps. There was one long picnic table where some twenty people or so were eating, and another table where two men were standing making sandwiches, their fingers like fan blades in ceaseless motion. Each face had the same story to tell: physical and mental exhaustion. Soot-stained foreheads, ripped clothes, a mixture of uniforms and regular locals, a few with bandages in one place or another that gleamed white against the general grime of everyone’s person. Trisha let out her breath when she was certain Kern was not among them. For another full sixty seconds she stood surveying the scene, unnoticed, and then she strode forward and rolled up her sleeves.

At dusk a new shift of women came. Trisha barely noticed. The why, when or how of people coming and going was long irrelevant by then. There was always a reason. Hunger, rest, transportation, first aid. Very little talking went on because no one had that kind of energy, and after six hours Trisha knew she looked no different than anyone else—vacant-eyed, exhausted, dirt-smudged, harassed by mosquitoes. It didn’t matter. It was two hours after that before the workers were assured the siege was over. The fire was well and truly out and it was just a question now of hauling in the people involved. Trisha was refilling a heavy pot of coffee with both hands when she felt a hand on her shoulder. She whirled, “Kern” on her lips before she even saw who it was.

“Sorry, not Kern,” Rhea said with a wry tone that was not without compassion. “He’ll be here in an hour or two from now, I should think. Do you know I’ve been working next to you for over half an hour without even recognizing you?”

Trisha smiled ruefully in greeting, wiping a damp strand of hair from her forehead. “There’s hardly been time to worry about looks,” she admitted. “He’s all right?”

Rhea, setting out cups in front of her so that Trisha could pour, looked at her curiously. “Well, you’ve probably seen him since I have. I caught two minutes of him this morning when he got a spot of breakfast here. Said hello to him and had my head bitten off—not that we’re not all tired. But he wasn’t talking to anybody, like he was fighting his own personal war.”

Trisha frowned. It didn’t sound like Kern, who was always cool in a crisis. And obviously from her comments Rhea was unaware she had left, so it was all the more awkward to try and talk. “I don’t know the last time you saw Julia,” she said, probing carefully.

Rhea laughed. “She is something, isn’t she? So determined not to leave, you could have heard her in California yesterday afternoon. But the Carolina coast’s only a couple of hours’ drive, and that professor from the camp looked like more than a good Joe. A full week on the ocean and everything will be back to normal around here, Kern had said.”

So Kern had packed Julia off with Mr. Michaels, out of harm’s way and in safekeeping. Her heart was suddenly singing. They were all right, both of them…

Rhea moved off and Trisha switched jobs. The drinks were poured but the last mountain of sandwiches, almost impossibly, was gone again. It was time to make more. Someone set a lantern down on her table, a beacon of welcoming light as the night darkened.

Her hands kept moving but the smile on her face suddenly stilled. All right. She knew almost for certain that he was well; she was not nearly as certain that she could actually face him. It would be altogether easier on both of them for her to just slip away again…

“Hey, sweetheart, we have any more sugar stored anywhere?”

Sugar and dry cream. It hadn’t taken even the first hour to know where supplies were stored.

Well, in a while she would go. She was caught up in the scene, the tales of horror and the tales of heroism, the faces so exhausted, laughter without complaining, a community caught up in its cause. The discomforts were mounting: mosquitoes and aching limbs, the smoke smell burning in her eyes after so many hours of it, sticking clothes and light-headedness from sheer exhaustion. But there was joy, too, at being needed. It was her cause, her country, too.

“One more group coming in. Should be the last. Hey, has anybody looked straight up recently? Clouds!”

And there were restless white-gray swirling patterns low in the night sky. Trisha’s hands served a dozen more makeshift dinners, but her face kept flickering up. A breeze suddenly whispered through the camp, tossing up a paper cup and sending it soaring.

“That has to be the last group,” Rhea said wearily from behind her. “And it’s nearly midnight, high time. I didn’t see Kern, Trisha. You want to ride out with me?”

“No, I’m fine. But thanks, Rhea.”

Only a half dozen people were left after that to handle the last of the cleanup. The Red Cross cleared out and the tents were being taken down; paper plates and cups had to be stacked in boxes, the food organized. A sudden gust of wind brought the first hint of dampness—and a joyous shout from one of the men. Rain would destroy the last threat of fire, bring relief from the heat and oppressive haze; they all understood.

The sky seemed to hesitate, and then it happened. Drip to sprinkle to spray to downpour. Trisha dropped the folded blanket in her hands and was helplessly caught up in the laughter of the rest. From adults with weighty responsibilities one minute to children the next—they were all the same, punch-drunk tired, arms spread wide to embrace the rain, tongues out to lap up the taste.

Trisha’s blouse soaked to her skin, the cool liquid dribbling down her neck, down her breasts. Her hair was matted to dark gold, her face raised to the dark sky for the blessed freshness. Like silk on her skin, just like silk. The others forgotten, she inhaled the new fresh air, her eyes closed in sheer sensual enjoyment…

The fingers that clenched her arms bit. Trisha’s eyes blinked open, lashes too matted with rain and mascara even to see. Her heart lurched, recognizing Kern.

His shirt gaped almost to the waist, smudged with soot and grime and torn. He smelled of sweat and smoke, and Trisha had never seen such hollows beneath his eyes, such a white pallor of exhaustion beneath his tan. The rain pelting down matted his hair; even his beard and shaggy brows were dripping. Black coals for eyes seared down to her face and the fingers clenching her shoulders half shook her. “
What
are you doing here?”

She drew back, almost frightened by the towering rage that vibrated from him.

“Don’t you pull that trembling act with me! If I had you alone right now—”

“Kern…” Her voice was soft to his roar. She had expected anger when he saw her again and perhaps she was even prepared for it. But that was hours before, when she wasn’t limb-aching tired, emotionally strung out herself. The rain kept streaming down on both of them, but what a moment ago was blessedly cool now chilled. Soaked, wary, exhausted, Trisha trembled and raised her hands to release his from her shoulders.

“We ready to get moving, Kern?” someone called out from behind them.

“Right now,” Kern snapped back, but he was still staring at Trisha. Her eyes flickered, scanning his features for any sign of tenderness, but the dark night and rain blurred his expression.

“You have to drive the others,” she said awkwardly.

“Everyone who’s left.” His hand on her shoulder slid down to her wrist, his grip so tight that it bit into her tender skin. She shivered again, holding back when he tried to pull her behind him.

“I’m not coming, Kern. I didn’t walk here. I rented a car. Just—”

“Don’t bother. You must be basket-case tired if you think you’re getting away like that.”

“No—”

“I’m too damned tired to argue.” His mouth silenced her with raw emotion that bruised her like a punishment as he picked her up. She was vised to his chest so tightly she could hardly breathe, a fire of protest and panic racing through her bloodstream as he strode toward the Jeep with her.

Enthusiastic catcalls greeted them from the five men packed inside, even more enthusiastic when she was all but threaded through the opening and deposited onto a variety of male laps in the back, deserted while Kern vaulted into the driver’s seat.

The ride was a nightmare. A Ray and a John identified themselves; the rest of the names she didn’t catch. The rain kept pouring down on the canvas top to the Jeep and the air was all but steaming from the packed damp bodies in such a close space. She couldn’t balance without touching someone’s thigh or stomach, and the four men packed in the back with her were just as exhausted as they were momentarily boisterous, teasing the lone lady in their midst. They’d have to share her, they said. And then it was thank God she was just a bit of a package, and Kern, how did he manage at night with such a squirmer?

The Jeep was finally braked in front of the neon signs of a motel in Gatlinburg. Kern grabbed up the keys and finally looked back at her. “You’re going to keep her safe for me for a moment, boys?”

“We decided to keep her, period,” one of the men quipped and the others laughed. Kern, expressionless, simply strode off into the motel office and returned a few minutes later to hand the room key to the man sitting in the passenger seat. “I took care of your transportation in the morning, ten o’clock. And breakfast’s on the house. It’s only one room, but there’ll be extra blankets. You guys can make do.” His words were clipped, and then the others were rapidly unfolding from the Jeep, following the lead of the first from the passenger seat.

The last hesitated. “Kern, I thought you were coming with us. There’s still no power beyond the valley, is there? And the roads weren’t clear…”

“We’ll manage,” Kern said curtly. “Just go on, get out of the rain. Get some rest. We all need it.” When the door closed and the last of the men were racing for the cover of their room, Kern turned back to Trisha, huddled and shivering in the backseat. “Get up here, Tish.”

She crawled forward obediently, not willing to be bounced any more than she had to be in the crude back compartment, too tired to argue anyway, and wordlessly grateful she did not have to pass the night in a room with the five other men. It didn’t take much intelligence to gather that there were simply no rooms left in the valley. Emergency accommodations only stretched so far in the thinly populated area, and the rain would have made it that much worse.

She glanced at Kern as he started the engine and put the Jeep in gear. Her arms were huddled across her chest from the increasing chill of damp clothes, but the real shivering came from inside. Her nerves felt like rubber bands, stretched to the breaking point, an absolute wretchedness that was beyond tears and beyond trying to calm herself down rationally. There’d been three days of stress and high-powered emotions, and she simply couldn’t cope with anything more.

He didn’t talk. He glanced at her once and switched on the heater, his face almost gray-white under the few streetlights they passed. They passed through the town and started the familiar climb of the mountain road. It was less than half an hour before they came to the spot where she had parked her rented car. It seemed a year.

“Kern…”

He must have seen it, too, for his answer was rapid and his speed didn’t alter. “We’re going home. If I were you, I wouldn’t argue.”

It wasn’t that. In her car were clothes and her purse—and she looked back, watching the little red car disappear when they rounded the curve. And then just ahead there was a barricade where rocks had fallen. Kern stopped the car and she saw his figure by headlights pushing aside the barrier so they could get through. A huge rock had tumbled in the road along with other debris; the Jeep vaulted over them obediently, cocked just for one minute at a tilted angle that made her clutch the seat for balance.

They had just cleared that and turned a curve when Kern jammed on the brakes, throwing a hand in front of her to keep Trisha from falling forward. “Damn it,” he murmured as he slammed out of the vehicle again. It was a tree this time, stretched too far across the road for him to get over or around. She saw again his towering figure in the headlights trying to push the bulky obstruction, and something—finally—calmed inside. With a flick back of her hair she opened her door and ran out to help him, the rain drenching her all over again.

“Get back in there!” Kern shouted at her.

She paid no attention, trying to see in the darkness what they had to do. The trunk of the tree wasn’t so very large, but it was tall, and the little mountain of wet black branches seemed insurmountable, far too heavy to actually move for two or even four people. But they didn’t have to move it, just get around it…if they wanted to get home. And Trisha felt a momentum inside that brooked no other rational thought: she was going to get home.

Kern was pulling from the opposite side and Trisha waded in to help, involuntarily calling out when a rough sharp branch caught and scratched at her side.

“If you get hurt, I’m going to darned well murder you, Tish!”

“That was the intention anyway, wasn’t it. Kern? To murder me when we get home?” she shouted back. “Why don’t you tell me what to do instead of just glowering at me?”

Gasping, breathless, fifteen minutes later she raced back again for the cover of the Jeep with Kern just beside her. When she slammed the door she reached with both hands to lift the heavy weight of drenched hair from her face, but there was exhilaration in her expression. They had managed to move enough debris to get through, and Kern beside her sat a ridiculously long minute just looking at her before he started the Jeep again. There was just a twist of an unwilling smile guarded in that dark beard, the first she had seen since he’d found her, but it was there.

“You look like absolute hell!” he said, growling.

“Next time I’ll wear something more appropriate for a fire,” she promised lightly.

He started the Jeep. “Pardon?”

“Nothing, Kern. I don’t understand what all of this is about—why everything’s in the road—”

“A good-sized fire makes its own wind; trees start crashing into trees. There can even be an earthquake effect if it’s a good enough blaze. This one, thank God, wasn’t that bad. But bad enough.”