Conflagration

LV (Tuesday)

Bill sat in the Jeep and studied the pistol lying in his lap until the old man walked out of the VFW Hall's front door and into the small walkway that led to the street. The morning sky was bright and was no longer interrupted by the veil of smoke drifting in from the east. He could tell that they had brought the fire there under control during the night by the lack of activity which had almost entirely shifted to the scene of the campsite near the highway.

His eyes still stung from fatigue despite the long sleep he'd had the night before. After leaving the girl at the hospital he hitched a ride home with the man who had taken them there, fixed himself a bowl of cereal and crawled into bed. He could not remember exactly when he fell asleep but he could tell that it was midafternoon by the way the sun bled through his curtains. He did not wake until an hour or so before dawn. The room around him was filled with shadows and it took him a long time to remember that he was home. When he'd calmed himself he took a shower and as he stared at the wall tile, he thought about what he would do next.

Sam had left the mail truck about a mile away from the house and Bill walked to it under the day's first light. He drove it back and then called Miss Elaine to see if she could give him a ride across town. The old woman said she had been awake for hours and it was no trouble and to stop yappin and worryin about puttin her out. Bill hung up the phone and walked out back to the toolshed and found what he was looking for inside. When he came back into the house he grabbed the duffle full of money and his travel bag from school along with a sharpy and a bottle of water for the road. He collected these items on the kitchen table and then went outside to wait for his ride on the porch.

She drove him across the highway onto a side road and stopped when the traffic began to thicken. Bill listened to her go on about all that had happened around town but when she caught her bearings she suddenly fell silent. What remained of the campsite was only a few hundred yards ahead.

"You can drop me here. It's just a bit further up."

She looked at the pooling crowd of police cruisers and black government SUV's. Then she turned back to him.

"I wouldn't go too much further, child."

"It's just up here on the right. You get going fore you get stuck."

"You promise me you'll be alright."

"I'll be alright."

"Cause if you ain't I'll have your momma whoop you for me."

"Well I guess I'll have to be extra careful then."

"And maybe I'll come over and whoop you too."

"You take care."

"You too, child."

He turned off the road onto the trail that led to the Troop. Up ahead he could see a police barricade and a handful of onlookers standing against it, trying to get a look at the devastation ahead. A reporter from a Knoxville news station was running through her lines as the cameraman across from her made his adjustments. He located the path he'd turned on the day before and after another several minutes of walking he stumbled into the alcove and found the Jeep where he'd left it.

He drove back to the road with the windows down, looking out at the surrounding terrain. The tilting tree was about a half mile to the south. He pulled off onto the curb in front of it and walked around to its base. The Glock was half covered with dirt and after looking around he dusted it off and put it back in his waistband. When he walked back to the road he saw that the girl's blood was still on the cement from where he had waved down the truck and he did his best not to acknowledge it. There would be a time and a place to reconcile such things, but that moment existed in a future too dim and distant to see.