Breaking Point

brush.
    “I’m looking forward to getting into that cold water,” Butch said with a tight mouth. He was obviously in pain because of the intense heat he’d endured waiting on top for Farkus and McLanahan to lower themselves to the trail. Heat blisters rose everywhere his skin had been exposed.
    Joe grunted. He was pleased the trail wasn’t broken, but there was still a long way to go.
    —
    T HEY FOUND M C L ANAHAN’S body plastered facedown on an outstretched boulder just below the trail. He was absolutely dead. His arms and legs were splayed out as if he were trying to make a snow angel, but his body was oddly misshapen. There was very little blood, but Joe didn’t doubt that most of his bones had been broken on impact. The ex-sheriff’s head sagged toward the downhill side of the boulder like a water balloon propped on a sloping table.
    “At least it was quick,” Joe said, removing his hat for a moment. Butch did the same.
    “Just for the record,” Butch said, “I didn’t push him, in case anyone was wondering.”
    “I wasn’t,” Joe said.
    “Not that I’d blame you,” Farkus said. “After all, he did come up here to kill you.”
    “If I wanted to kill him, he’d already have been dead,” Butch said.
    “Poor fat idiot,” said Farkus. “He should have stayed back in West Virginia.”
    Joe hated to leave McLanahan’s body splayed out like that. It wouldn’t take long for the local scavengers—rodents, ravens, even the bald eagles that nested in the canyon—to locate and feed on the remains.
    “We’ve got to try and take the body with us,” Joe said.
    “How?” Butch asked.
    “I’m not sure.”
    “Leave it, I say,” Farkus said flatly.
    Instead, Joe and Butch flattened out on the narrow trail and reached down to the body, each grasping an ankle.
    Joe said, “One-two-three . . .” and they heaved.
    McLanahan’s body was heavy, though, and severely broken. Joe realized to his horror he was pulling on the leg but it was elongating and narrowing as he did so because the bones were broken inside and the trunk of the body wasn’t lifting. Joe grunted and pulled and so did Butch, but all they managed to do was upset the equilibrium of the body until it slipped over the side of the boulder toward the river below.
    “Let go!” Joe shouted, so they wouldn’t be carried down with it.
    The body thumped against another rock outcropping on the way down, and cartwheeled into the river with a booming splash.
    Joe gathered himself up. He was winded and couldn’t shake the sensation he’d had when the leg stretched.
    “That probably wasn’t my best idea,” he said.
    Butch simply nodded in agreement.
    —
    “O H, NO,” Butch said in a whisper a few minutes after they’d dropped McLanahan’s body. Joe turned to him to find out the source of his concern.
    Butch stood rigid on the trail, looking straight up.
    Joe followed his gaze.
    Twists of orange flame—fire whirls—could be seen darting over the rim of the canyon where the trailhead began. Like snake’s tongues, they shot out into the opening and snapped back.
    “The wind must really be whipping up there,” Joe said.
    As he spoke, flaming embers crossed the slice of sky above them from the south rim to the north. A moment later, the brush on the northern rim ignited with a flash.
    “It jumped the canyon,” Joe said.
    “How are we gonna get out of here?” Farkus wondered aloud.

33
    THE CORE OF HIS BODY WAS SO HOT FROM THE FIRE that when he lowered himself to his chest in the Middle Fork of the Twelve Sleep River, Joe expected the water to sizzle and steam to rise, but it didn’t. Clamping his hat on tight so it wouldn’t float away, he slipped beneath the surface. It was instantly quiet, and the water was clear and cold. Joe opened his eyes to see the multicolored riverbed of smooth potato-sized rocks, and three fat cutthroat trout finning in the current near an undercut bank. The fish just held there with a minimum of effort, something Joe wished he could do.
    He lowered his boots to the riverbed and stood up. When he broke the surface the sounds came back: the well-muscled flow of the river, the roar of the fire hundreds of feet above. Joe let the cool water chill and soothe him.
    “Oh, God,” Butch said after resurfacing, “it feels so good.”
    Joe looked over to see Butch standing with his eyes closed and a smile of sweet relief on his face. He imagined how wonderful the cold water must feel on the open blisters