Under the Dome

Other volunteers had come to the smoke. Fourteen men and three women stood on either side of Little Bitch, some still holding the spades and rubber mats they'd been using to put out the creeping flames, some with the Indian pumps they'd been wearing on their backs now unslung and sitting on the unpaved hardpack of the road. Al Timmons, Johnny Carver, and Nell Toomey were coiling hoses and tossing them into the back of the Burpee's truck.Tommy Anderson from Dipper's and Lissa Jamieson—a little New Age-y but also as strong as a horse—were carrying the sump pump they'd used to draw water from Little Bitch Creek to one of the other trucks. Brenda heard laughter, and realized she wasn't the only one currently enjoying an endorphin rush.

The brush on both sides of the road was blackened and still smoldering, and several trees had gone up, but that was all.The Dome had blocked the wind and had helped them in another way, as well, partially damming the creek and turning the area on this side into a marsh-in-progress. The fire on the other side was a different story. The men fighting it over there—were shimmering wraiths seen through the heat and the accumulating soot on the Dome.

Rjomeo Burpee sauntered up to her. He was holding a soaked broom in one hand and a rubber floormat in the other. The price tag was still clinging to the underside of the mat. The words on it were charred but readable: EVERY DAY IS SALE DAY AT BURPEE'S! He dropped it and stuck out a grimy hand.

Brenda was surprised but willing. She shook firmly. 'What's that for, Rommie?'

'For you doin one damn fine job out here,' he said.

She laughed, embarrassed but pleased.'Anybody could have done it, given the conditions. It was only a contact fire, and the ground's so squelchy it probably would have put itself out by sunset.'

'Maybe,' he said, then pointed through the trees to a raggedy clearing with a tumbledown rock wall meandering across it.'Or maybe it would've gotten into that high grass, then the trees on the other side, and then Katy bar the door. It could have burned for a week or a month. Especially with no damn fire department.' He turned his head aside and spat. 'Even widdout wind, a fire will burn if it gets a foothold. They got mine fires down south that have burned for twenty, thirty years. I read it in National Geographic. No wind underground. And how do we know a good wind won't come up? We don't know jack about what that thing does or don't do.'

They both looked toward the Dome. The soot and ash had rendered it visible—sort of—to a height of almost a hundred feet. It had also dimmed their view of the Tarker's side, and Brenda didn't like that. It wasn't anything she wanted to consider deeply, not when it might rob some of her good feelings about the afternoon's work, but no—she didn't like it at all. It made her think of last night's weird, smeary sunset.

'Dale Barbara needs to call his friend in Washington,' she said. 'Tell him when they get the fire out on their side, they have to hose that whatever-it-is off. We can't do it from our side.'

'Good idea,' Romeo said. But something else was on his mind. 'Do you reckonize anything about your crew, ma'am? Because I sure do.'

Brenda looked startled. 'They're not my crew.'

'Oh yes they are,' he said. 'You were the one givin orders, that makes em your crew. You see any cops?'

She took a look.

'Not a one,' Romeo said. 'Not Randolph, not Henry Morrison, not Freddy Denton or Rupe Libby, not Georgie Frederick… none of the new ones, either. Those kids.'

'They're probably busy with…' She trailed off.

Rorneo nodded. 'Right. Busy wit what? You don't know and neither do I. But whatever they're busy wit, I'm not sure I like it. Or think it's wort bein busy wit. There's gonna be a town meeting Thursday night, and if this is still goin on, I think there should be some changes.' He paused. 'I could be gettin out of my place here, but I think maybe you ought to stand for Chief of Fire n Police.'

Bfenda considered it, considered the file she had found marked VADER, then shook her head slowly. 'It's too soon for anything like that.'

'What about just Fire Chief? How bout dat one?'The Lewiston on park coming on stronger in his voice now.

Brenda looked around at the smoldering brush and charred trashwood trees. Ugly, granted, like something out of a World War I battlefield photo, but no longer dangerous.The people who had shown up here had seen to that. The crew. Her crew.

She smiled. 'That I might consider.'

12

The first time Ginny Tomlinson came down the hospital hallway she was running, responding to a loud beeping that sounded like bad news, and Piper didn't have a chance to speak to her. Didn't even try. She had been in the waiting room long enough to get the picture: three people—two nurses and a teenage candy striper named Gina Buffalino—in charge of an entire hospital. They were coping, but barely. When Ginny came back, she was walking slowly. Her shoulders were slumped. A medical chart dangled from one hand.