saw Torgeson looking, and held up one hand, all the fingers splayed. Wait, the gesture said. Something big.
'I'll see that someone takes a ride out there before the end of the day,' Torgeson said. 'I'll go myself if I can, but - '
'If I was to come over to Derry, could you pick me up?'
'I'll have to call you,' Torgeson said. 'Something's happening here. Dawson looks like he's having a heart attack.'
'I'll be here,' Bright said. 'I'm seriously worried, Andy.'
'I know,' Torgeson said - there had not even been a flicker of interest from Bright when Torgeson mentioned something big was apparently up, and that wasn't like him at all. 'I'll call you.'
Dawson came out of the dispatcher's office. It was high summer, and, except for Torgeson, who was catching, the entire complement of troopers on duty was out on the roads. The two of them had the barracks to themselves.
'Jesus, Andy,' Dawson said. 'I dunno what to make of this.'
'Of what?' He felt the old tight excitement building in the center of his chest -Torgeson had his own intuitions from time to time, and they were accurate within the narrow band of his chosen profession. Something big, all right. Dawson looked as if someone had hit him with a brick. That old, tight excitement - most of him hated it, but part of him was a junkie for it. And now that part of him made a sudden, exhilarating connection - it was irrational but it was also irrefutable. This had something to do with what Bright had just called about. Somebody get the Dormouse and the Mad Hatter, plop the Dormouse into the pot, he thought. I think the tea party's getting under way.
'There's a forest fire in Haven,' Dawson said. 'Must be a forest fire. The report says it's probably in Big Injun Woods.'
'Probably? What's this probably shit?'
'The report came from a fire-watch station in China Lakes,' Dawson said. 'They logged smoke over an hour ago. Around two o'clock. They called Derry Fire Alert and Ranger Station Three in Newport. Engines were sent from Newport, Unity, China, Woolwich -'
'Troy? Albion? What about them? Christ, they border the town!'
'Troy and Albion didn't report.'
'Haven itself?'
'The phones are dead.'
'Come on, Smokey, don't break my balls. Which phones?'
'All of them.' He looked at Torgeson and swallowed. 'Of course, I haven't verified that for myself. But that isn't the nuttiest part. I mean, it's pretty crazy, but - '
'Go on and spill it.'
Dawson did. By the time he finished, Torgeson's mouth was dry.
Ranger Station Three was in charge of fire control in Penobscot County, at least as long as a fire in the woods didn't develop a really broad front. The first task was surveillance; the second was spotting; the third was locating. It sounded easy. It wasn't. In this case, the situation was even worse than usual, because the fire had been reported from twenty miles away. Station Three called for conventional fire engines because it was still technically possible that they might be of some use: they hadn't been able to reach anyone from Haven who could tell them one way or the other. As far as the fire wardens at Three knew, the fire could be in Frank Spruce's east pasture or a mile into the woods. They also sent out three two-man crews of their own in four-wheel-drive vehicles, armed with topographical maps, and a spotterplane. Dawson had called them Big Injun Woods, but Chief Wahwayvokah was long gone, and today the new, non-racist name on the topographical maps seemed more apt: Burning Woods.
The Unity fire engines arrived first . . . unfortunately for them. Three or four miles from the Haven town line, with the growing pall of smoke still at least eight miles distant, the men on the pumper began to feel ill. Not just one or two; the whole seven-man crew. The driver pressed on . . . until he suddenly lost consciousness behind the wheel. The pumper ran off Unity's Old Schoolhouse Road and crashed into the woods, still a mile and a half shy of Haven. Three men were killed in the crash; two bled to death. The two survivors had literally crawled out of the area on hands and knees, puking as they went.
'They said it was like being gassed,' Dawson said.
'That was them on the phone?'
Christ, no. The two still alive are on their way to Derry Home in an amb'lance. That was Station Three. They're trying to get things together,