The Big Burn Read Online Free Page B

at mixing in."
    "How do you know? You can't just wait around to be asked."
    Though that's where Abel proved wrong. In the mess tent, one of their tent mates hailed them. "Abel! Junior!" he called. "Here's seats."
    Seth couldn't remember that happening before, his fitting into any army place that easy.

Cool Spring Ranger Station
July 15, Afternoon
    Near Placer Creek, on the Wallace side of the Coeur d'Alene divide, Jarrett strode into a forest clearing where an American flag flew at the peak of a log cabin. A huge, barking German shepherd ran out and took a menacing stance between Jarrett and the building. Jarrett halted and yelled, "Hello!"
    It appeared that Sam, or at least someone, was around. A cabin window stood open, and a harness and some leatherworking tools had been left by a rocking chair on the porch. A couple of axes leaned against a grindstone mounted on a three-foot-wide stump.
    Jarrett was near enough the building to read posters nailed up beside the front door. One of them, made on a printing press, said WARNING: PROPERTY OF THE UNITED STATES GOVERNMENT . The other notice, hand-lettered, read Wife Wanted. He guessed the second must be a joke.
    "Hello!" he yelled again, causing the dog to break into a fresh round of barking.
    Someone whistled from the direction of the corrals, and a firm voice called, "Boone! Stand down!"
    The broad-shouldered man who walked out to greet Jarrett looked so much like Pop that Jarrett took an involuntary step back. Jarrett had expected the Logan hair, but Sam also had Pop's wash-blue eyes and bushy mustache. He'd be twenty-eight now—Jarrett had figured that out on his trip up from Avery—but he seemed to wear authority as though he were older.
    "Jarrett," he said, making it a statement. He put out a hand to shake.
    "Sam."
    "I go by Samuel now."
    For a moment it seemed to Jarrett that maybe they'd just said all they had to say to each other. Then he managed, "The people in Avery told me you're a ranger."
    "That's right."
    "I met them when I went to sign up for fire fighting."
    "Yeah. They said." Samuel seemed stuck for talk, too, until he asked, "You hungry? Thirsty?"
    "Not really," Jarrett answered, beginning to wish he hadn't come here. "Thanks anyway." This man really
was
a stranger. "I just stopped by ... I mean, I'm my way up to Wallace..."
    Samuel's eyes flickered amusement. "And you don't have time for a cup of coffee?"
    ***
    While Samuel heated water, Jarrett looked around the main room of the station, where his brother apparently lived as well as worked. Samuel had put bearskins on the floor and moose antlers on the walls. Stuffed birds and piled-up books and a framed photograph that Jarrett recognized as his parents filled a shelf. By a curtained-off doorway that probably led to a bedroom, a telephone, a tacked-up map, and a desk stacked with papers formed an office area.
    "I didn't guess you'd have a telephone out here," Jarrett said.
    "It's new," Samuel said. "This is one of the first stations to get one."
    "You like it?"
    "It's a change."
    Along the opposite wall, where Sam—
Samuel,
Jarrett reminded himself—was working, a sink with a hand pump, a woodstove, and a screen-covered pie chest made a kitchen.
    A round table, a few wooden stools, and a comfortable-looking reading chair took up pretty much the rest of the room. Samuel pushed aside scrapbooks to make space for coffee mugs, and then he set out a box of crackers. He said, "I've never been much for cooking, and these days, with fires acting up all over, I'm too busy to do any at all."
    "Crackers are fine," Jarrett said.
    The talk bumped along as the two of them felt each other out.
    Samuel asked, "And how have things gone for you?"
    "Not much to tell," Jarrett answered. "After Mother died, Pop and I moved around the Midwest with his transfers. Then after the Milwaukee line pushed through the St. Joe, Pop took a senior job when one opened up in Avery. He even bought a house."
    "Up till then you