dark hair?”
“Nobody.” His fingers twitched at the accelerator. “I have to get home, Mr. Evans . . .”
“I need your help, Bryn,” Evan put a hand on the handlebar. “Young Terry’s up there somewhere and a man’s trying to kill him.”
Bryn swiveled to stare up at the hillside. “Terry’s up there?”
“He probably went into the tree plantation.”
“Oh no, Mr. Evans, don’t say that!” Bryn leaped off the bike and flung it down on the grass. “We’ve got to get up there, fast, before it’s too late.”
He started scrambling up the hill with Evan at his heels. “I hope we’re not too late, Mr. Evans.” Evan could hear the boy sobbing. “I didn’t mean any harm. Honest I didn’t. It was a bit of fun really . . .”
“What are you talking about, Bryn?”
“We’ve only got a few minutes before the fuse burns through, then the whole forest will go up.”
Evan grabbed his arm and spun him around. “What are you talking about, boy?”
Bryn was really crying now. Large tears were welling out of his eyes. “I set a fire up there, didn’t I?”
Chapter 23
Evan grabbed the boy’s arm. “You set a fire? Are you out of your mind?”
Bryn shook him off and staggered upward. The hillside had become steep. Bryn was scrambling up on all fours, like a dog.
Evan saw how blind he had been—how blind they had all been. Bryn had sounded the alarm both times. Bryn had been first on the scene. “It was you!” he yelled. “You set the fires, so that you could look like a hero and put them out again!”
“I didn’t mean no harm,” Bryn said again. “They said I’d never amount to much—my dad and granddad and the teachers at school . . .”
“So you decided to show them!”
“Yeah. I only set fire to things that nobody wanted anyway. Everyone was glad when that cottage burned down, weren’t they? And everyone hates the Everest Inn and the plantation . . .”
“Do you know how dry it is?” Evan could hear himself screeching. “It won’t stop with the plantation. The whole mountain will go up—sheep and Terry and all.”
The dark line of trees loomed ahead of them.
“We might just be in time,” Bryn gasped. As he ran toward the trees there was an explosion and a ball of flame shot up. The dry bracken crackled as the flames raced along the ground and the dry needles on the spruce trees spattered and sparkled like fireworks. Evan was yanking off his jacket as he ran. He reached the flames and began beating at them.
“It’s no use, Mr. Evans,” Bryn yelled. “I set a line of petrol all the way up. We’ll never put it all out before it takes hold.”
“We’ve damn well got to try,” Evan said.
They worked side by side, beating desperately as the flames rushed up the side of the plantation, feeding on the dry grass and bracken. Evan could feel the sweat running into his eyes. It was hopeless. They’d never do it. A dry twig caught on fire. He yanked it off the tree and stamped out the fire. He did the same with another and another, but it was only a matter of time before a whole tree went up like a torch and then they’d lose.
Out of the corner of his eye Evan saw Bryn flailing at the flames with his jacket, kicking up dirt over the flames. Then suddenly the wind swirled around, sending flame into Evan’s face for a moment. He jumped back and crouched, shielding his face with his arms, feeling the heat envelop him. Then the fire passed them. It was gone, over to their left and racing up the mountain away from the trees. The wind had changed.
Evan grabbed Bryn’s shoulder. “With any luck it will burn itself out when it gets to the rocks if the wind holds,” he yelled over the roar and crackle. “Anyway, there’s nothing more we can do about it. We have to find Terry.”
He plunged into the forest. Dark smoke wreathed around the slim trunks and stung his eyes, making it nearly impossible to see where he was going. He wondered if the Frenchman had seen the fire and decided to abandon his quest and get out of harm’s way. He scanned the hillside below but it was too dark to pick out a person among the scattered rocks and sheep. He could hear Bryn’s labored breath behind him, but their footfalls made no sound on the thick