WILD INFERNO
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Synopsis:
Wild Indigo introduced rough and ready Bureau of Land Management agent Jamaica Wild. Now she returns—deployed to a wildfire on the Southern Ute reservation, where a puzzling plea whispered by a burning man points to a mystery more menacing than murder…
When wildfire erupts on the Southern Ute Reservation, Jamaica Wild risks danger to go after a Ute man named Grampa Ned who wandered into the area, leaving no trace. But before she can find him a firestorm forces her to run for her life. As she escapes, Jamaica discovers a firefighter smoldering on the side of the road. The man, part of a hotshot crew trapped in the burn area, sputters a cryptic message to Jamaica before losing consciousness.
As the fire rages out of control, it threatens an encampment of determined Pueblo people at nearby Chimney Rock—including Tanoah elder Momma Anna and Jamaica’s wolf, Mountain. Since ancient times, the Puebloans have gathered to celebrate a sacred celestial phenomenon: every eighteen years, the moon hangs suspended for a few breathtaking moments, ensnared between Chimney Rock’s twin spires. Even an all-consuming wildfire won’t keep them from upholding their tradition.
Jamaica’s relentless pursuit of clues plunges her into peril. While the fire blazes unabated and the area becomes a war zone with thundering helicopters and armies of firefighters, Jamaica unravels riddles while eluding a stalker with a gun. When she finds a blackened body, the FBI enlists her help. To ensure that the Native Americans and her wolf are safe, Jamaica must decode the burning man’s whispered words and answer the questions that haunt her: What was Grampa Ned doing on the mountain—and why didn’t the burning man stay with his crew? What would make them risk incineration in a wild inferno?
Book Excerpt:
WEDNESDAY, 1100 HOURS
In his last conscious moment, the burning man spoke three words. I got there just in time to hear them.
It was mid-July. High temperatures and months of drought had parched southern Colorado. For days, waves of dry storms had pounded the peaks and mesas with lightning, sparking dozens of wildfires. Local crews were unable to respond to all the smoke reports. One small fire smoldered in a remote part of the Southern Ute Reservation. As soon as the Three-Pueblos Hot Shots got there, they were sent in to quell the blaze.
But high winds had driven the flames of the fire up into a huge convection shaft, surging with sparks, embers, and smoke. Airborne incendiaries rocketed across the hotshots' burned-out buffer lines and colonized dozens of new spot fires in the adjacent patchwork of national forest, private property, and Indian lands. The head of the Chimney Rock Fire began to expand on two sides. The northern lip advanced rapidly, sending flaming emissaries across narrow washes. On the eastern front, embers caromed across rocky outcroppings and erupted into a maze of arroyos, each of these drainages a potential new head for the fire and a perfect chute to feed the flames up the steeply-escalating, heavily forested slopes to the National Historic Site known as Chimney Rock.
When I arrived, my first order of business was to find an old man—a Ute known as Grampa Ned, who had reportedly snuck around barricades and entered an area to one side of the fire. My name is Jamaica Wild. I work for the Bureau of Land Management, and I was the Liaison Officer for the team that had been called in to take over the fire's management.
At the staging area, Bob Pinsler, the acting Incident Commander from the local agency, helped me pinpoint Grampa Ned's last known location on a map. "A woman from the Ute tribe saw him go down this dirt road toward that old mine. You flag the turns you take, and don't get off the road. If you don't see him, come on back out."
I pulled onto the highway, drove a mile to the east, and turned left onto a gravel track, skirting the barricades. Torn yellow caution tape fluttered in the wind. An orange cone lay smashed in the center of the path. I swerved around it and went on. A sign at the bridge crossing Stollsteimer Creek warned:
SOUTHERN UTE INDIAN LAND
NO TRESPASSING
VIOLATORS WILL BE PROSECUTED
UNDER TRIBAL OR FEDERAL LAW
"Not today," I muttered as I drove past it; "a fire doesn't care who owns the land." As I crossed the bridge, the twin spires of Chimney Rock loomed high above me, topping a narrow, rising ridge. To the west, a roiling cloud of thick, gray smoke engulfed the sky.
At a fork in the road, I turned left, and the path played out at the entrance to the abandoned mine. No sign of anyone nearby. I turned and followed the road back, taking the other fork, and stopped to tie pink flagging to a tree. I followed this track for a quarter mile until it, too, gave out. But this time there was a white pickup parked on one side, its tailgate down. I plowed to the end of the gravel, hooked a U-turn, facing my Jeep out in case I needed to make a quick exit. I got out and crossed the road, checked out the white pickup. The truck was unlocked, the windows down, the seat and floor littered with empty cigarette packs and candy wrappers.
I cupped my hands around my mouth. "Hello?" I called. "Anybody here?" I climbed up on the running board, pressed the truck's horn and gave three short blasts. "Hello?" I called again, louder.
Looking around, I noticed a footpath leading up through the pines. I yelled up the path, "Hello? Grampa Ned? Ned Spotted Cloud? Are you up there?"
No answer.
You're not going to make this easy for me, are you, Grampa? I opened the rear hatch of my Jeep, snatched up my helmet and shoved it on my head, grabbed my fire line pack and strapped it on. Then I pulled on my gloves and tied a tail of pink flagging to a pine branch at the head of the path, went twenty yards into the forest, and flagged the trail again. I took my radio off scan, dialed to Tactical Channel 1 and opened the mic. "Liaison Wild to Command," I said.
Author Comment:
Reviewers Love it: "The fiery descriptions of the blaze’s terrifying power are worth the price of admission, but Ault also keeps the pages turning...A writer with a flair for the outdoors, Ault deserves a large following." —Rocky Mountain News “This second installment in Sandi Ault's new outdoor mystery series comes at you as fast and furious as did her debut, ‘Wild Indigo.’ The mystery deepens with every page. If you enjoy the outdoors, the mysticism of Indian cultures, along with breakneck adventure, Ault's Wild series might just get your heart racing.” —The Charlotte Observer "The vivacious Ault knows whereof she writes in Wild Inferno…Where Ault excels is in developing a suspenseful, action-filled mystery on rugged Southwest terrain." —New Mexico Magazine
Topics/Categories:
BLM, Colorado, Incident Management Teams, Native American, New Mexico, Pueblo, Resource Protection Agent, ruins, Southwest, Ute, Wildfire, Wildland Firefighting, wolf
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Purchase From:
SandiAult.com Author's Official Website
Barnes and Noble
Amazon
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Original Publish Date:
February 5, 2008
Publishing Notes:
"Sandi Ault's WILD INDIGO is a smashing debut. BLM Range Rider Jamaica Wild (and her wolf, Mountain) are formidable new players in outdoor mystery fiction, and Ault's intense knowledge of Pueblo culture is an added bonus." — C.J. Box, author of IN PLAIN SIGHT and FREE FIRE "Sandi Ault uses her knowledge of the high-dry West to give us a look at Pueblo Indian Culture." — Tony Hillerman
Formats:
Hardcover regular and large print Audio CD and Audio Cassette Ebook
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