Page 139 of The Fire Line

A message from Priya confirmed that the footage had been backed up twice and the equipment was ready to move. Beneath it sat an older production note: just under three weeks remaining at Shaw Ranch.

Jay stared at the number. Three weeks, then New York. Editing. Post-production interviews. Months constructing the film from pieces of a place he would no longer wake inside. Yesterday, three weeks had seemed like time. Now it looked absurdly small.

The reaction was probably caused by the fire. Everything felt temporary when a county alert announced that permanence had become conditional. That was a reasonable interpretation, and Jay almost believed it.

“You all right?” Harris asked.

“Fine.”

“Your face did somethin’.”

“My face does lots of things.”

“Unfortunately.”

Jay smiled and put the phone facedown.

They stopped for fuel outside Livingston. Jay returned from the store with water and coffee and found Harris at the far edge of the lot, smoking while he watched a flag snap hard in the wind. Harris rarely smoked this openly. Usually he did it when stressed or when he believed nobody was paying enough attention to identify the pattern.

Jay held out the coffee. “You’re worried.”

Harris took it. “Got things to worry about.”

For Harris, that was close enough to an admission. Jay leaned against the truck beside him, and neither spoke while Harris measured direction and force from the way the flag pulled against the pole. The smoke was not visible from there. The wind supplied evidence of what might bring it closer.

When Harris finished the cigarette, he crushed it beneath his boot, immediately picked up the butt, and dropped it into his empty cup.

The landscape began changing after that. Two wildland engines passed heading west, followed by pickups stacked with equipment and a fuel truck. Harris grew progressively quieter. Every call ended with less information than he wanted and more work already underway without him.

Jay had learned that Harris possessed several distinct forms of silence: irritated, grieving, thinking. This was calculation. He watched roads, trees, and distant ridges, assembling information Jay could see but not interpret—the wind moving in the grass, the western horizon becoming less blue, the intervals between emergency vehicles and phone calls.

Then smoke entered the frame—a brown-gray smear low on the western horizon. As the highway curved, it widened.

“Harris.”

“I see it.”

Evan called again. “North group’s down. Pete’s trailer is here. County expanded the warning zone past North Fork.”

“When?”

“Five minutes ago. Wind’s still southwest, but it’s picking up faster than forecast.”

Harris’s hand tightened on the wheel. “Move the east section now. Don’t wait.”

“I already sent Noah.”

Harris nodded once. “Good. Get the guests gone and stage the trailers along the south track. I’m about an hour out.”

“We’ve got it until you’re here.”

The words loosened something in Harris’s grip. Evan was not challenging him or asking to be rescued. He was telling his brother the ranch remained in capable hands even with Harris on the highway.

When the call ended, Jay asked, “The warning area reached the ranch?”

“Not yet.”

Yet was doing an extraordinary amount of work.