Solomon Creed. Simon Toyne

of his teeming brain he regarded any knowledge that didn’t come easy to him as significant. ‘No,’ he said. ‘No, I don’t.’

      ‘It was Jack Cassidy. He designed the whole church then painted the frescoes too. He was what you might call a renaissance man. Could turn his hand to anything: miner, businessman, architect, painter, author – you name it, he tried it. And most likely mastered it too. Not bad for a man who started life as a locksmith.’

      ‘Quite a troubled man too, I think. A man with his fair share of demons.’

      ‘Well, he … maybe so, but … what makes you say that?’

      ‘The figures in the fresco. The black words he wrote on a dark, dark sky. The fact he painted hell so vast and vivid and heaven so small and distant.’

      ‘He was complicated, I would say. A serious man. You should read his memoir.’

      Solomon pulled his copy from his pocket and turned it over in his hand. ‘I have.’ He opened it to the dedication page, felt the familiar stab of pain in his arm when he read James Coronado’s name. ‘What about James Coronado, was he a troubled man?’

      ‘Jim? No, I wouldn’t say so. I would call him pretty straightforward.’

      ‘Was he in some sort of trouble?’

      ‘No.’

      ‘You sure?’

      ‘He was very well liked.’

      ‘That’s not what I asked. What about his death – is there any question hanging over that?’

      ‘No,’ Cassidy snapped, a little too quickly, then took a hold of himself. ‘Listen, I don’t know what ideas you have about how you might save him, but he’s gone. Jim Coronado is dead. It was an accident, is all. A terrible, terrible accident. He was driving at night, he crashed his car. That’s all there is. There ain’t no point in raking up the mud searching for something that ain’t there. You’re only going to hurt people who been hurt bad enough already.’

      He said it as though he was pushing a door closed and Solomon left it shut. The mayor clearly didn’t want to talk about it and Solomon didn’t think he’d get anything out of him anyway. The person he really wanted to talk to was James Coronado’s widow. Maybe she would be at the city limits along with everybody else, lining up to try and save the town from the fire.

      They rounded a corner and started dropping down towards the edge of town. Beyond it the whole world was on fire. The smoke was so high it blotted out the sun, and the flames at the base twisted and leaped in the air as the bright line of fire slithered closer. The fire crews were positioned half a mile out of town and about the same from the fire, working in lines, their forms smudged almost to nothing by the dust they were stirring up with rake and shovel as they cleared the ground of anything that might burn in an attempt to stop the flames from advancing. To the left of the road a tractor was creeping like a clockwork toy, ploughing up the ground behind it. It was making its slow way towards a concrete storm drain that cut across the ground in a straight line all the way to the slopes of the mountains. To the right a grader was struggling over uneven terrain it wasn’t built for towards the anaemic piles of crushed stone that rose sterile and ugly around a tall skinny tower with a lifting wheel at the top. Between the mineworks and the storm drain the flanks were pretty well protected, but there was nothing in the centre but a mile or so of clear ground and dry vegetation. Two vehicles and maybe a hundred men against an army of flame.

      ‘You should tell everyone to clear out,’ Solomon said.

      ‘Be a waste of breath,’ Cassidy replied. ‘The folks here are kind of stubborn that way. Most of ’em would rather burn than abandon their town.’

      ‘Then they may well get their wish.’

      They pulled off the road and came to a halt next to a line of parked cars and trucks. Cassidy cut the engine and Solomon was already out of the door, desperate to feel the ground beneath his feet again. The wind gusted a greeting, roaring out of the desert and bringing the smell of the fire with it.

      ‘Now I appreciate you volunteering to help here, Mr Creed, I really do,’ Cassidy said, climbing out the driver’s side and fixing his Stetson on his head. ‘But if you want to help us fight this fire, then you’re going to need something on your feet.’ He pointed to a pick-up parked over by an ambulance that had lots of activity buzzing round it. ‘See that man in the green shirt? His name’s Billy Walker. Tell him I sent you over and ask if he’s got a pair of work boots he can loan you, then report to one of the fire crews. Sorry to cut and leave, but I’ve got a town to try to save and people look to me to lead.’ He walked away, heading over to where Chief Morgan was standing by a tow truck, his own stricken truck perched drunkenly on the back.

      Shouts drifted out of the desert. Out on the control line someone was pointing up at the sky where the yellow tanker was levelling out and getting ready for another run. It settled into position and the sky behind it turned red, as though the wings had sliced through the flesh of it and made it bleed. A bright scarlet cloud spread and fell on to a section of desert, then the vapour trail sputtered out. The red line had covered a little less than a quarter of the leading edge of the fire on one side of the road and the air around Solomon was already starting to thicken with ash and embers falling softly around him like black snow. He held out his hand and caught one, rubbing it to nothing with his fingers. It was warm, most of the heat blown out of it by the wind, but the ashes falling closer to the control line would be fresh from the fire, maybe even still glowing as they settled on the dry grass. Soon there would be spot fires breaking out all over the control zone. It would only need one to take hold and the fire would have breached the thin line they were drawing in the sand. They were in the wrong position, wasting time and energy with what they were doing. At this rate the whole town was going to burn, along with everything in it. Then where would he be? What answers might he sift from the embers?

      The wind roared again, twisting the distant flames into columns of orange and red, and Solomon felt as if the fire was sniffing him out, searching for him. He headed over to the ambulance and into the welcome shade of the billboard.

      The man in the green shirt was helping set up a makeshift field hospital around the ambulance. Men and women in green scrubs and white rubber clogs were weaving in and out of each other, checking lists, carrying boxes of supplies, filling movable stands stacked with suture packs and dressings. Solomon recognized Gloria. She was unpacking boxes of gel dressings and FAST-1 infusion kits.

      ‘Billy Walker,’ Solomon said, and the man in the green shirt turned round. ‘Mayor Cassidy sent me over to see you.’

      The man looked him up and down, his eyes lingering on Solomon’s bare feet. ‘Lemme guess – pair of boots, right?’

      ‘Actually no, I was hoping you might have a hat.’ Walker shook his head then loped off towards his truck.

      The wind surged again, so hard it rocked the billboard and drove the smell of smoke into Solomon’s face like a threat. There was something else there too, something ominous and familiar.

      Gloria appeared at his side. ‘You feeling OK now, Mr Creed?’

      ‘I’m fine,’ he said, sniffing the air again. ‘How ready are you here?’

      She looked around at all the activity. ‘About as ready as we’ll ever be, I guess.’

      ‘Good. You’re about to get busy, I think.’ The sound of a distant siren whooped out in the desert and the radio in the ambulance crackled to life.

      ‘Incoming,’ a voice said with an urgency that made everyone else go silent. ‘The grader got caught in a fire surge. The driver’s hurt bad. We’re bringing him to you now.’

       18

      Mulcahy’s eyes never left the Jeep.

      The angle of the sun and the tinted windows turned the two men inside into dark