They called it that because they could not put the damn thing out and the hyperbole, that Hell should thrust its emblems beyond the traditional Old Testament fire and brimstone, seemed appropriate. All was perdition and preordination: Faith Kelly, after weeks of ceaseless work and lack of sleep, saw a figure walking in the flames which harkened to Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego; a long summer of dry winds and drier thunderstorms punctuating the season with patchwork flameups foretold of greater things to come; all about the western Sierra, from Desolation Valley through the Devil's Postpile to as far south as Tehachapi, lay plague demons of old, dead undergrowth, and rotting planks leaning against fishing cabins, and matches tossed like firebrands into fields of crisp grass, all ready to bound into diabolical service at the approach of their master. Some anonymous wit, in a spasm of macabre playfulness, had even tacked to a tree beside the road entering the advance camp at King's Lake, a sign scribbled on plywood which read, "Abandon hope, all ye who enter here."

The soul known as Faith Kelly revealed the lie in the stereotypes that firemen were obtuse beefheads and that firewomen were manlike; she was an intelligent and quite pretty firefighter. She was, however, inexperienced, having fought no fires previous to Hell's Burning, and therefore took no notice that she was fatigued beyond common endurance or that a man surviving a walk through burning lodgepole pine was an idea beyond the absurd. Yet she saw such a man pace about and dodge back into the flames. Struck cold with fear, she pulled the radio from her belt and called for help.

Ramona arrived first and barked, "Where!"

"In there."

"Are you sure?"

"He walked to that log that's cracked in half, then he turned back."

Ramona peered at the trees. "I see some rocks back there. Maybe he found a place to hide."

They beat the fire with shovels and two bush tankers summoned from farther up the line, but found no hiker cowering in a rocky crevice with third-degree burns over ninety percent of his flesh, and when with the last of the water they fought the flames another ten yards, neither did they find the smoking ruin of a body seared into a gesture of salvation with arms outstretched and eyes raised to the blue sky just beyond reach. One hour later they rotated D Company off the line.

Faith dozed on the ride back, but Ramona woke her halfway to King's Lake. Blinking at the weary firefighters bouncing around in the back of the truck, then at Ramona's face blackened and sweating with eyes red from stinging smoke and hair pulled back into a knot, Faith thought she could just as well have been surrounded by mirrors.

"Are you sure you saw someone?" Ramona whispered. "Maybe it was a mistake."

Faith grasped her shoulder. She pulled Ramona close and said, "It was Aidan."

Now Ramona blinked. "But Faith, Aidan is..."

And she faltered. Which seemed inappropriate to Faith, who in her wearied mind thought the sentence should not lie as dead as its subject.

* * *

They showered in the hotel, then ate lunch at tables set up across the parking lot from the aid station and the rescue helicopters. Though not quite scrutinizing Faith, Ramona seemed troubled enough that Faith finally said with impatience, "Quit staring at me. Please?"

Ramona replied in her most deliberate manner, "He's dead, Faith. You can't save him now. You never could."

Faith glanced at her plate, then glanced about at the clamorous street. "I'll never get any sleep here. I'm going out to the bluff."

They walked the main road out of town and turned onto a trail so little used it was discernable only as patches of earth worked bare through layers of dusty pine needles. They soon came to a small field carpeted in clover and mint-scented pennyroyal. On three sides were