His boots stepped on something that snapped. He stopped, looked down, saw bone and quill. The remains of a porcupine. It never had a chance. It had probably taken shelter in a tree. There’s no way it could have outrun a conflagration like this on its stubby little legs.
Damn it!
Fire was a natural part of this ecosystem. Austin knew that. But he’d become a ranger because he loved the mountains, the forests, and all the creatures that lived here. This felt like standing over the corpse of a murdered friend.
God, he hoped the sheriff caught the bastard who’d started the blaze. All of this death and destruction because some asshole refused to follow the rules.
“I’m sorry, buddy,” he said to the porcupine.
He moved on, stepping over charred branches, avoiding patches of brush that were still burning and trees that looked like they might topple. He climbed up the embankment toward the road. It would be easier and safer to follow it back to the truck than clambering around through the charred and smoldering remains of the forest.
He reached the road, and then he saw it clearly. “Son of a bitch!”
His truck was burned out, a smoking hulk.
He jogged toward it, hoping to find the radio still intact despite the damage. He reached the vehicle and glanced through a shattered window, holding his breath against the toxic fumes of methyl-ethyl-badstuff coming from burned wires, plastic, and upholstery.
Fuck!
The radio was slag.
He hoped Hawke or Sutherland had sent help. If not, it was going to be a long damned walk back to Scarlet Springs.
Kenzie handedthe cage with the adorable little skunk kittens to Jack. The little creatures were curious, glancing around them, but they didn’t seem afraid—thank goodness. No one wanted to get sprayed.
“Where’s your mama?” Jack asked them.
“She was hit by a car.” Winona walked up behind Kenzie, holding an aquarium with a snake inside. “Someone found them sitting near their mother’s body up on the highway and brought them in.”
“What happened to him?” Jack motioned toward the snake with a jerk of his head.
“A bicyclist ran over his tail—on purpose, they say.”
“What the hell is wrong with people?” Jack disappeared inside his trailer with the baby skunks, Winona following him with the snake.
The trailer was almost full of animals of all kinds—mountain lion cubs, baby skunks, rabbits, raccoons, raptors, and now a snake, too. Kenzie didn’t know what she and Winona would have done without Jack and Nate West or Marc, Julian and their friend Zach, for that matter. She and Winona wouldn’t have been able to move all the animals on their own.
The plan was to transport the wildlife to the fairgrounds in the trailer, together with two dogs from Kenzie’s vehicle, who would ride in Jack’s cab, making room for Shota’s crate in the back of Kenzie’s truck. The wolf wasn’t going to fit in Winona’s old car. That much was certain.
Julian stepped out of the clinic carrying a large crate in which rested a wounded bald eaglet, a hood covering its eyes to keep it calm. “I think this is the last of the carriers. Hunter and McBride should be coming along in a moment with the moose calf.”
He grinned, as if the thought of this amused him.
Then Harrison pulled up to the curb in his SUV.
Thank goodness!
She smiled, and waved to him, relieved to see that he was safely back from the rescue. But one look at his face told her something had gone terribly wrong.
He climbed out, walked over to her, the anguish in his eyes making her pulse skip.
“What is it? What happened?”
He looked behind her as if searching for someone, then lowered his voice. “We never made it. The fire burned through the camp, chased us out.”
Kenzie’s heart sank, her stomach knotting. “All those children.”
“Most of the kids got out. One is missing. But Belcourt, his grandpa, Rossiter, and three camp counselors volunteered to stay behind because there wasn’t room for everyone in the vehicles.”