FIRED UP(12)

Morning brought one more fire. Smoke curled up from a nearby canyon. The small puff of smoke was almost cheerful, more Santa Claus working his pipe or cotton balls than anything ominous. Looks were deceptive. “Fresh.” She was talking to herself and she probably should have been concerned. Instead, she followed the smoke up, then examined the origin. “No haze yet.” The way that smoke went straight up with no telltale drift up canyon meant the fire hadn’t been burning for long. She’d watch for a few and see what happened. Sometimes, after a lightning storm like the ones that had struck Widow’s Peak the other night, you got little sleeper fires. This might be a few flames inside an old tree and it might burn itself out quickly. Twenty minutes later, the column was twice as wide and growing. Her gut screamed this fire was going to be a bitch. And it was close, only four or five miles from Widow’s Peak. The smoke drifted over the ridge and hung low over the trees on the edge of the clearing