High Desert Barbecue (5 page)

“
Absolutely!” the face said in a voice that, even at the volume’s lowest setting, caused the three men in the room to glance warily toward the door. “The tragedy in Williams proves that there are places where human habitation is doomed.” He dragged out the “oo” in “doomed” like an actor in a late-night horror movie. “The high desert is no place for crowds of people in their houses and SUVs. The forest needs to burn to refresh itself, and it will burn no matter who is there and no matter what is in its path.”

“
So, do you expect more wildfires like this—?”

“
Nobody can predict the future,” the face answered, leaning forward and shaking his head with the certainty of his prophetical demeanor. “But the human population of Arizona’s rural areas has hit critical mass and that means more fire started by nature and by people who have no business in the wilderness, and more homes to be burned by that fire. Nature will take its own course, and that portends an end to mammalian dominance in northern Arizona.”

“
Oh shit,” the BLM official muttered in the fetid motel room.

T
he interviewer blinked blankly with her mouth half open. The moment drew out, uncomfortably long.

“
Thank you so much for your time, Dr. Greenfield. Now, back to—”

A
few seconds later, the motel room door opened inwards, revealing the bearded man and a brief glimpse of the TV interviewer chatting with a cameraman in the motel parking lot. The three men in the room all leaned forward for a glance at the interviewer’s legs below her skirt, Van Kamp almost toppling from the bed in the process.

“
Holy shit,” the bearded man said, stripping off the sports jacket and tossing it toward the head of the bed. “If the TV crews around here get any younger, they’ll need diapers and a changing table in the van.”

“
They’re college kids,” Van Kamp explained. “The station saves money—”

“
Never mind that,” the BLM official said. “What’s this ‘mammalian dominance’ crap? I thought you were going to can the weirdness and stay on-message.”

“
Stuff it, you little bureaucrat. If it wasn’t for me, you’d never have had the balls—”

W
hile the prophet and the BLM official argued, Van Kamp and his Park Service counterpart peeped through the blinds to see the television crew loading their equipment into a van prominently marked with the local TV station’s logo. Free from fear of discovery, they wrestled the room’s two windows open and gasped for fresh air.

R
evived, Van Kamp turned to face the room. “Enough. All Greenfield was supposed to do was set the tone. How he does that is his business.” He turned back to the window for a quick breath, then faced the room once again. “With Williams burned out, people are already on edge. Greenfield’s little performance will scare the shit out of them.”

“
So the next step—” the BLM official began.

“
The next step is the next fire. My office has already put out an alert about a small blaze west of Flagstaff. That gave us a reason to seal the roads out there. I’ve assigned a trusted crew to make sure there
is
a fire. In no time at all, the highway will be clogged with panicked families looking for a soft, safe hidey-hole far from the dangerous forest.”

H
is eyes burning into his colleagues, Greenfield nodded his head and spoke.

“
And all of this beautiful country around us will return to the wilderness it was meant to be, untroubled by wrongful incursions.” After a pause, he added, “Except for the damned mammals.”

“
And the people assigned to protect that vulnerable wilderness are likely to get a lot more money and power than they’ve had in the past,” Van Kamp added.

G
reenfield, Van Kamp, the BLM official and the Park Service man all glanced at each other, then smiled. Visions, respectively, of a human-free utopia and of supplementary budgets danced in their heads.

F
inally, the Park Service man spoke.

“
Can we please turn on the air conditioner?” His voice betrayed a slight whine.

V
an Kamp and the BLM official nodded in relief, each happy to not be the one who broke first.

G
reenfield looked at them all in disgust.

“
Wimps.”

Chapter 10

T
he restaurant at the Weatherford Hotel was unusually crowded for a weekday lunchtime. Three families shuffled around the small, history-laden lobby, glancing at photographs of Flagstaff in its timber-driven heyday and waiting for tables.

S
cott caught the manager’s eye.

“
What’s going on, Ron? Some kind of university event?”

S
hort and slim, with dark hair graying at the temples, Ron shook his head.

“
Lani, Scott, good to see you guys.” Then he leaned in close and spoke in a barely audible whisper.

“
They’re mostly Williams people. The Red Cross has them camped out in the high school gyms, and they’re wandering through town looking for something to do.”

R
on backed up and grabbed two menus.

“
Hang on. I’ll get you guys a table.” He disappeared into the main dining room.

“
Is he actually setting up another table for us,” Lani asked.

“
I think so. Hey, he has a major crush on you. It comes in handy.”

“
You don’t know that,” Lani answered. But she blushed.

“
I have a pretty good idea. It’s OK. I take it as a compliment to you—and to my taste in picking you.”

“
Oh, so
you
picked
me
.”

“
Or maybe it was the other way around. Which would only go to show that you have excellent taste yourself.”

“
Speaking of taste … Today’s meal is on me. Let’s call it a freedom-from-employment lunch.”

“
Well … sure. How can I turn down a celebration of imminent destitution?”

R
on reappeared with the menus in his hand.

“
Come on guys.”

O
ne of the men in the lobby, decked out in boots, a cowboy hat and brown, leathery skin, looked like he was going to protest. His wife, in blue jeans and with an outdoorsy complexion to match, put her hand on his arm. The man’s gaze dropped to the toes of his boots and his entire body seemed to sag. He looked like a deflated balloon. Scott nudged Lani ahead of him and brushed by as quickly as he could.

“
I can’t even imagine,” he said. “That fire took everything.”

“
I can’t either.”

R
on escorted them through the dining room to the outdoor seating area along Leroux Street. A tiny two-top crowded a corner, partially projecting under the light chain that separated the area from the public sidewalk.

“
Thanks, Ron.”

T
he manager’s eyes were spot-welded to Lani as he helped her wriggle into a chair between a post supporting the upstairs balcony and another diner. A goofy grin clung to his face as the woman writhed inside her tight t-shirt in an effort to take her seat.

“
I said thanks, Ron.”

“
Oh, no problem. I’ll have Pam out to take your order.”

S
cott chuckled as the manager disappeared into the dining room.

L
ani blushed again.

“
OK, you’re right. Just shut up about it.”

S
till chuckling, Scott turned his attention to the street. After his conversation with Ron, he viewed the street traffic with a different eye. The usual tourists and college kids still prowled the few scant blocks of Flagstaff’s downtown area. Middle-aged couples popped in and out of trinket shops; teens and twenty-somethings wheeled bicycles along the sidewalk under the bored gaze of two city police officers. But another element was added to the mix.

C
oncentrated in Heritage Square, whole families clustered and wandered about. They mostly had the leathery, sun-soaked look of people who spent lots of time outdoors as a matter of course. Cowboy boots and hats abounded, as did belt-buckles large enough to eat off of and facial hair that proudly spurned any restraint.

T
hese were Williams folks all right.

S
cott didn’t know a lot about Williams, but he knew it was an old railroad town that, in recent years, relied on Grand Canyon-bound tourism to keep itself from drying up and blowing away. He doubted the scorched town’s refugees had much in the way of resources to fall back on with their homes and possessions burned.

H
e started as Lani’s hand closed over his.

“
What do you want to eat, hon?”

“
Oh. Navajo taco, please. And a wheat beer.” The beer was brewed just down the street in one of the town’s three brewpubs.

L
ani ordered a chicken sandwich and an iced tea for herself.

R
on reappeared with the drinks in his hand. He set them down on the glass tabletop to which streams of condensation instantly flowed to form tiny moats.

“
Hey, I meant to tell you earlier.”

“
Yeah?”

“
Your hobo friend—”

“
Rollo?”

T
hat’s him. Rollo. Anyway, he was in earlier, and things got a little ugly in the bar.”

“
Rollo was born ugly.”

R
on emitted a short giggle, his eyes on Lani the entire time. She shot him a brief smile, then sipped at her tea. She flashed a quick wink at Scott.

“
Ron, I’m over here. So there was a problem in the bar.”

“
Uh huh. Some of the Williams people recognized him—I guess he spends some time in town there. Anyway, the word is out that he might have started the fire, and a guy who’d had a few decided he wanted a piece of Rollo.”

“
Was anybody hurt?”

“
The drunk, but not badly. Rollo’s pretty tough. We hustled them both out of the bar.”

S
cott sighed.

“
Thanks. I’ll keep an eye on him.”

“
It’s probably not a great time for him to be wandering around Flag.”

“
I’ll let him know.”

F
or moments after the manager walked away, the table remained silent. Scott sipped at his beer, and Lani watched.

“
You really watch out for him, don’t you?”

“
Rollo?”

“
Yes.”

“
Somebody has to. He’s half feral; he can just about barely function in modern society. If it was 1850, he’d be fine wandering back and forth between town and the forest. But people today like things squeaky clean and tightly regulated. Rollo doesn’t have a regular job or address by choice—he’s not a charity case. That makes people nervous.”

“
Me too, I guess.”

“
Well … you and he have never gotten along. I think at some level you resent him doing what he damned well pleases, and at some level you’re afraid that I’m going to disappear into the forest with him to hunt elk and live like Daniel Boone. I’m not, you know. I like electricity too much, and I love you.”

L
ani extended her hand across the table; Scott took it in his own.

“
Thank you,” she said. “That might be it. You are similar in some ways. You did slash that cop’s tire together.”