AFTER HOURS

Portia woke to a noise, a peculiar roar, and for a second she thought, Why did Todd start up the tractor? But then she saw the light flicker against the windows, and her heart contracted.

She lunged out of bed and ran to the window. Flames shot up in malignant blossoms, orange and yellow and red, staining the night sky.

The barn. She gasped, and her breath stopped in her throat, and later she would think an eternity passed before she grabbed the phone by the bed and pressed 911. Her hand was shaking, and it seemed endlessly long again before there was a reply.

"A fire! Wellspring Ranch, County Road One Eighty Seven, five miles south of Colt!"

"Yes, ma'am, I have that. Are there any injuries?"

"No...I'm not sure. I have to go now. Wellspring Ranch!"

Then she was running, down the stairs, across the living room, slamming open the front door. Her feet were bare, and she wore a tank top and pajama bottoms, but she didn't stop. She ran.

The flames licked upward, and as she got closer, her heart beating a terrible cadence, and she could hear the crackling of burning wood under the roar.

My god, the barn. What was in there? Nothing alive, no, no cattle, the horse with the foot abscess turned out yesterday. But the hay. Half of the barn filled with the early hay crop.

The heat hit her like a blow, and she couldn't go any closer. She stopped, panting. She heard the panicked whinnies of horses, and she remembered the half dozen in the pen near the barn.

Dogs barked frantically. Randy's dogs, black and white bodies streaking toward her. Then Randy, yelling something to her she couldn't hear. And over it all the noise and flames sucking all the air from the world.

Todd raced up wearing only pajama bottoms. His eyes were wide, his mouth open, red flickering on his face like watered-down blood. She was deaf, she couldn't breathe, her eyes stung. Smoke burned her nostrils and lungs.

Lynette appeared with the three kids. Everyone was screaming, but you couldn't hear over the freight-train roar. Portia got to Randy and grabbed his arm, said into his ear, "The horses in the pen!"

He nodded, took off for the gate, gesturing his dogs to follow. He'd open the gate, get the dogs to herd the frantic beasts out. They could run free for now.

The security men Jerry and Lev were there, standing back, Lev talking on a cell phone. They seemed stunned, their faces blank. Maybe Lev was reporting to Aaron. Oh God, she couldn't think about that now.

Thick black smoke billowed up from the roof, and in the jaundiced light bits and pieces of hay could be seen floating upwards, carried on superheated air.

Where were the fire trucks? But they couldn't have gotten here by now; it'd only been a few minutes. The barn was a loss. No one could save in any case, not even if the tanker trucks drove up this very second.

Randy was back. Out of the corner of her eye, she could see the shadowed forms of horses galloping off into the night.

The hay. Some tools. Oh God, was the baler in there, or had Randy parked it by his house? The tack—saddles and bridles and blankets. Had the barn cats escaped?

And then—she'd always swear it was like the trailer for that movie Backdraft, the character materializing as if by magic—a person came out of the barn, through the big open doors, emerging from that inferno, a misshapen form, staggering, under some kind of burden. Who? Oh dear God, had someone been in the barn?

She put her hand up to her mouth, too dazed to move. Then Randy was dragging at the figure, and they staggered together. Todd was helping, too, and she could make out a man, and he'd been carrying saddles, big heavy Western saddles, and the three of them got beyond the fire's reach and dropped their burdens, and the strange man fell to his knees, head hanging, trying to breathe.

Then she did move, going up to them, tugging at Todd' arm. "Are you all right?" she yelled, drowned out by the fire. Todd nodded, his face blackened.

She saw Randy grabbing a hose connected to the water pump, pushing the handle up. Was he crazy? Was he going to try to put the fire out with a hose?

But, no, he turned the spray onto the man on the ground. Who was it? Juan...Hernando? But they wouldn't be here at night. They'd be...

The man ran a hand over his face, and the water mixed with soot turned his skin glistening black in the firelight. There was something familiar about that face, even running with water, sooty, grimacing...

She stepped closer, buffeted by the unholy heat, and she looked at him. Nick? Nick Sinestra? Here? Now? A vast confusion held her. Nick Sinestra. Here?

Then her brain clicked on again, and her first thought was that he'd set the fire. The bastard. He'd set the fire!

He was standing and yelling something at Randy, and she caught some of his words: "...back in. Wet me down and..."

He half turned, ready to return into the mouth of hell. For what? For whom? If he set the fire, why...?

She ran to him and snatched at his arm, shook her head vehemently. No no! No blood on her hands. Not even his.

By then surely he could see it was no use. The roof blazed, shooting fire thirty, forty feet into the air. The barn doors were a ravening yaw of flame. Every board stood out in sharp relief, red-hot. The fire seemed to burn even hotter, and they all stepped back, Randy still holding the hose.

She heard something above the fire's din, turned her head. Lights, sirens, three fire trucks, two of them tankers. An ambulance.

Some of the firefighters hooked up their hoses to one of the tankers, training them on the barn, moving everyone back, while other men from another truck put out several small fires that had ignited downwind in the field.

Portia looked back at the barn, and as she'd known it was past saving. The flames wavered and expanded and expanded and collapsed upon themselves finally in an explosion of smoke and sparks and tatters of straw floating over everything like a blizzard of blackened snow. The barn caved in upon itself, a pile of smoking, flaming wreckage, hissing back at the streams of water the firemen aimed at it.

By the time the firefighters had doused the pile of wreckage, and the noise had stopped, and the only light was from the fire trucks, Portia was sitting on the ground, an arm around Todd, shell-shocked, disbelieving.

More tankers appeared, and men clambered over the site, searching for hot spots, roaming the field and still finding flare-ups. Lynette was crying, holding her children tightly, and her tears made furrows through the soot on her face.

Cab Whitefeather drove up just before five in the morning.

"You okay?" he asked Portia.

"Yes," she said dully.

"Well, no one's hurt, that's good. And the horses?"

"They're out there somewhere." She waved her hand.

"It's a pisser, ain't it? Got the call from dispatch, but I was over at the Aikers place. They got a wildfire up on their north section."

"Oh God," she said.

Cab nodded. "Hope to contain it, but who knows." He stared at the ruins, then pivoted. "I see that New York cop's here."

Her head snapped up. "You know him?"

"Met him, that's all."

"What in hell is he doing here?"

"Told me he was looking for a place to retire."

She stared uncomprehendingly at Cab then shook her head, pushed herself to her feet and strode over to where Nick was talking to a fireman. The ground was hot and wet, and her bare feet were tender. There was a burn on her arm.

"You," she said, standing before him.

He turned to her, his face drawn and blackened, very still, dark eyes leveled on her. "Ms Wells," he said, nodding.

"How in God's name did you get here?"

"It's a long story."

"Can you make it short?"

"I saw the flames." He shrugged. There were holes burnt in his white shirt, an angry red patch on his neck.

"What are you doing here?"

He ran a hand through his hair, and she could see the singed ends. But he said nothing, as if he wasn't even sure himself why he was there.

"Did you burn down my barn?" she asked angrily.

He stared at her for a moment longer. Then he gave a short laugh. "Just about got myself fried in there. Why would I...?"

"I don't believe in coincidences."

"My being here is no coincidence."

"Well, did you set the fire?"

"Hell, no."

She gazed up at his face, searching for answers, but she got nothing from his expression. He was right about one thing, if he'd set the fire it was highly unlikely he would have run into the inferno to save what little he could—then tried to go back in a second time.

That still didn't answer what he was doing here. She started to say something, but he cut her off.

"Look, make me some coffee, I'll explain everything," he said. "And maybe you have something for this burn."

"Coffee?" she asked, incredulous. "My barn burned down, and you want coffee?"

"And a Danish, if you got one."

She became cognizant of the scene then: an overpowering sodden stench, water running over the ground, fat hoses snaking everywhere, men combing the pile of charred timber in the quickening light. Todd sitting dejectedly on the ground. Lynette sniffing, and Randy standing in the shadows glowering. Everyone shaken, sooty, hair singed, clothes ruined. She herself practically undressed, her face no doubt as black as everyone else's.

Then Randy walked over. Oh God, she thought. "So who the hell are you?" He stood chest to chest with Nick, taller and heavier across the shoulders.

"Friend of Portia's."

She swiveled her head. A friend?

"You just tell me what you're doing on my ranch at this hour," Randy said.

"Saw the flames. Thought I could help."

"Just happened by?"

"Yeah, just happened by."

"Randy," she tried.

"Is this guy really a friend of yours?"

"He's a...yes, I know him."

Randy narrowed his eyes. "You sure he wasn't just happening to leave at that hour?"

"Hey, wait a minute, pal," Nick said.

"You butt out of this." Then, to Portia, "It's your damn fault. You and your threats, and that reporter. This is all your fault!"

"I thought that threat was a big joke," she retorted. "You said..."

"You shouldn't have had that reporter here. You pissed someone off, that's for damn sure." He swept an arm at the smoldering rubble.

Lynette, the kids following her, tried to take Randy's arm, but he shook her off. She burst into tears again.

"Randy," Portia tried, "for God's sake."

"It is your fault. You don't belong here, never have, never will. By the time you're done there won't even be a ranch! Why couldn't you leave well enough alone! Just had to take that fancy spot with the NPS, you did, and now look, look what you're..."

"Randy!" Lynette cried.

And Nick stepped up to the plate. "I think that's probably enough for tonight," he said. "We've all had a bad time."

"Bad time." Randy snorted.

"Take it easy, pal. Everyone's upset."

"I told you to butt out," Randy said.

"Sure, fine. Just about got roasted saving your frigging saddles..."

And then as if there weren't enough pandemonium, Jerry and Lev approached. Lev put a hand on Nick's shoulder, and Nick slowly and deliberately removed it, his dark eyes fixed on the security man. "Don't touch, buddy, okay?"

Lev hesitated then just stood there, but Jerry got in Randy's face, Randy not giving an inch, saying, "And where the hell were you two, anyway?"

"Just what are you getting at?" Jerry began.

"You know damn good and well what I'm getting at."

Randy slashed a hand through the air, seemed about to say something else, but Cab strode up, and said, "Whoa there, son, let's all cool down now." Cab waited a minute to see if Randy was getting the message, then he said, "I'm going to need statements from everyone. You can do them now, or call them in, if that suits."

"Jesus," Randy said, chest heaving, kicking at the soaking mess on the ground.

Portia could barely think. No way could she make a statement right now. Nick. She glanced at him. And what would his statement be? Oh God, she thought, this wasn't happening.

Cab put away his notepad when no one was forth coming, and then he eyed Randy, whose shoulders slumped.

"Come on, Randy," Cab said, "I'll get you and Lynette and the little ones on home. Come on."

Beaten, Randy followed him.

But, apparently, Nick wasn't quite through. He eyed Lev and Jerry and said, "So, where were you boys?"

"Nick," Portia said. This was absolutely none of his business.

He ignored her. "Didn't see a thing, huh?"

Lev took a step toward him, but Jerry got in between them, saying. "Come on, let's split. We'll give our statements to the sheriff. Come on, Lev." Then Jerry paused. "You all right, Ms Wells?"

She was not all right. But she couldn't deal with them now. She just nodded.

"We'll be at the entrance if you need us," Jerry said, and they left.

After a minute, his eyes still on the security men, Nick glanced in Randy's direction. "So who's he?"

"Randy."

"Oh, the brother."

"My husband's brother."

"That your house?" He gestured with his head.

"Yes."

"You got that coffee?"

"I can't believe you. I can't..." She put a hand to her forehead.

'"Come on. No use standing around here anymore."

What should she do? Order him off the ranch? Take the hand he held out? Laugh hysterically? Cry?

She did none of those things. She called to Todd and told him to come home. She started walking toward the house, picking her way across the ground, her bare feet smarting. If Nick followed, so be it. Right now it didn't seem to matter, one way or the other.