S. Stirling - Dies The Fire

Havel pointed and grinned. "The ranger cabin's just through there," he said. "I figure we can get your mom into a real bed and start the stove in about twenty minutes."

Clean underwear, even, Michael Havel exulted the next morning.

What was more, he was clean; it made his gamy clothes repulsive, but he pulled them on and padded out into the hallway carrying his boots and followed his nose to the kitchen, gratefully taking a cup of bad instant coffee from Astrid at the doorway.

The four-room log cabin had been built by the WPA back in the thirties, and it had a big woodstove with a water heater, plenty of stacked firewood, a meat safe and even some food in the pantry-flour in a sealed bin, canned fruit and vegetables, salt and pepper and baking soda-left for just this sort of emergency. There were blankets in a cupboard too; even in this year of grace 1998 you didn't have to assume vandals and thieves would be by, not in the middle of the Selway-Bitterroot, you didn't. That kind usually didn't have the stamina for a three-day hike through frigid mountain forest from the nearest road.

For castaways like Havel and his passengers, the Forest Service would be forgiving.

The radio was thoroughly dead, and the batteries too- not even a tickle from the tongue taste-test, which didn't surprise him although it was annoying as hell. Right now he was satisfied with something besides MREs or cold rabbit stew for breakfast.

Signe Larsson was cooking; he'd done ribs and steaks last night, and started a big pot of "perpetual stew" that still simmered on the back plate. If you brought it to a boil now and then, you could add fresh ingredients and water daily and keep it going indefinitely.

"Flapjacks," she said over her shoulder; her wheat-blond hair was loose, and still slightly damp and tousled from washing with a scrap of soap. "And canned peaches to go with them-yum!"

"Food for the gods," he said sincerely, accepting a plateful; his body craved starch, and sugar only a little less.

Eric and Astrid were concentrating on eating; like their sister, they'd bounced back with the resilience of healthy youth.

I did too, Havel thought. Only the rubber's just the slightest touch less resilient at twenty-eight!

Ken Larsson was looking less like walking death; partly due to a night on a real mattress, even if there were only blankets rather than sheets, and mostly that his wife seemed to be doing a lot better too.

"OK," Havel said, looking out the window after he'd cleared his plate the second time. It was just past dawn, with sunrise turning the snow on the peaks opposite rosy pink; if he hadn't quit soon after he'd left the Corps, this would be the perfect time for a cigarette. It was a pity tobacco was so goddamned bad for you!

"We can make it in two days if we push hard," he said to Ken Larsson. "The emergency people ought to get help back here a lot faster than that; there's a year-round crew at the Lochsa Ranger Station, and Lowell's only a ways down I-12."

"Good luck," the older man said. When Havel rose, he stuck out a hand. "And thanks, Mike."

"Hell, just doing my job," Havel said, flushing a little- and being careful not to squeeze too hard, because Larsson's hand was as mucked-up as Signe's or Eric's. "You and your family are my responsibility; I've got to see you safe."

"I won't forget it, Mike," Larsson said.

Havel grinned. "We'd better get going, before everyone gets all soppy," he said.

"Yeah," Eric said indistinctly through a last mouthful of pancakes. "Got to get Mom to a hospital."

He glanced sidelong at Signe, who was just setting down her own plate. "Though sis here is going to be real disappointed we're not going to Montana."

"It's amazing how repulsive you get when you're not starving," Signe said.

Eric laughed, and went on to Havel: "The ranch next to our place there uses our pasture, and pays us by doing the maintenance and looking after our horses when we're not visiting," he said. "They're real ranchers. And the owner's son isn't a bad guy, except that he had the bad taste to let my worse half here go mooning around after him making a spectacle of herself like a-hey!"

Signe Larsson held the opened salt shaker over his coffee cup. "More?" she said sweetly.

"You ruined it!"

"Salt for bacon, Eric," she said in a tone that could have cut crystal. "And you are a pig." She was smiling when she said it, but her eyes were dangerously narrowed.

Ken Larsson cleared his throat: "You two, can it. Remember that your mother's hurt."

They both looked abashed; Havel grinned mentally. Not that ragging each other does their mother any harm, but guilt is the Ultimate Parental Weapon, he thought.

The two sisters and Larsson accompanied their brother and the pilot out onto the veranda; everyone's breath showed, smoking silver in the rising light, but with warmth and food that was exhilarating, not depressing. Havel set his pack with a shrug and a grunt; they could take the remaining MRE, three bouillon cubes, and the chocolate bar; it was enough to keep them comfortable all the way there.

"See you in three days, Ken," he said. Then he looked at Astrid and Signe. "Hey, Astrid, you really did good with that elk. That was important."

The girl glowed. Good, he thought, and went on: "So now you'll all have plenty to eat. Do not go hunting,"-which she showed a natural aptitude for, now that she'd lost her inhibitions-"and in fact, I'd very much prefer it if none of you went out of sight of the cabin. It would really hurt my feelings if any of you got eaten by a bear before we got back."

He caught Signe's eye. The older girl nodded.

"I'll keep an eye on her, Mike," she said.

"Let's get going!" Eric Larsson said impatiently. "We can't stop now!"

"The hell we can't," Havel said, setting his pack down against a rock; it was two hours before sunset.

Right on cue, he thought wearily. Christ Jesus, we males are predictable sometimes.

They'd made better time than he'd expected: twenty miles at least, and they might make four more before sundown. At that speed, they could reach Highway 12 sometime around noon tomorrow.

If they didn't wreck themselves today.

He went on: "We'll walk fast for an hour, and then we'll rest fifteen minutes, and then we'll do it all over again. A man can walk a lot further than he can run. Right now we're at the fifteen-minutes-rest stage. We'll keep going till moonrise, eat, sleep, and get going again at dawn, and make it by lunchtime tomorrow."

"Who died and made you God?" the youth asked.

"I know what I'm doing here," Havel said shortly. "You don't."

"I think you're the hired help," Eric spat back. "And that means what I say goes."

Havel surprised him by laughing, deep and obviously genuine. "Kid, if there's anyone I work for here, it's your dad-and he has enough sense to listen to an expert."

"And I don't like the way you look at my sister!"

Havel laughed again: this time the sound was a little taunting. "It's 1998. If you try to play whup-ass with every guy who looks at Signe Larsson with lust in his heart, you're going to have to be a lot better at it than I think you are."

Eric came forward an inch, then jerked to a halt, looking at the rabbit stick in the older man's right hand. Havel grinned.

"That shows some sense."

He tossed it to rest by the side of his pack, then held out both hands and made a beckoning gesture with curled fingers.

"Let's get this over with, kid," he said.

Eric flushed-the disadvantage of being so blond, even with a tan-and came in with his fists up in a good guard position, moving lightly for someone his size: he was six-one, long-limbed, broad in the shoulders and narrow in the waist. Very much like his opponent, except that Havel was built in nine-tenths scale by comparison.