Burning Man Read Free Page B

light on the suspect and then scope out the area around him. Sirius’s attack had knocked his gun out of his hand, but not before it had done its damage. I pushed aside some brush and pocketed the weapon.
    “This is all a misunderstanding,” he said. “I came out here to set a backfire. I thought you were the arsonist.”
    “If you say another word without my leave to speak I will shoot you dead.”
    He could hear that I meant what I said. All my attention was on Sirius. “What a good dog,” I told him, and he wagged his tail once more, but this time the motion was weaker.
    “ Aus ,” I said, telling him to let go.
    Sirius released his hold on the hand, and then let his head drop to the ground. His body language told me he was pleased he had done his job. It also told me what I didn’t want to see.
    “No,” I said to him. “You are not going to die!”
    Sirius didn’t understand my words but heard their urgency. He tried raising himself up but couldn’t do it.
    “You’re going to help me carry him out,” I told the Strangler. “If you try to escape, I will shoot you. If you stumble, I will shootyou. If he dies before we make it out of here...” My voice caught a little, but I managed to finish the sentence: “I will empty my gun into you. Do you understand what I’m saying?”
    It wasn’t Miranda, and I didn’t give a damn. He nodded.
    The fire was closing in all around us. I didn’t give a damn about that either. My partner was dying.
    We lifted Sirius up and started moving in what I thought was the direction of the houses. It was a guess, though; the smoke was that thick. I didn’t even notice my bleeding leg. Time was precious. With every step my partner was losing more and more blood. The smoke was a thick, stinging curtain. We were walking in a blinding fog that allowed no clue as to where we were, or which way to go. It was possible we were walking around in circles, wasting time we couldn’t afford to lose. Sirius was making sounds I’d never heard before—scary sounds that came from a body failing him—and then he had a seizure or a series of seizures, and we had to stop walking to put him down. He fought through his spasms and I felt his chest; it was still rising and falling. The seizure wasn’t a death rattle. My partner was still with me.
    “It’s all right,” I told him. “I’m here. You hold on, you hear me? We’re going to get you help.”
    Just behind us, a stand of pampas grass torched up in flames. The Strangler screamed, “We have to leave the dog!”
    He started to move away, and I raised my Glock and aimed at where his heart was supposed to be. “No!” he yelled, just in time.
    The murderer spared me from murder.
    We picked up Sirius once more. His breathing sounded like an overheating radiator. Blood was filling his lungs. I motioned the way to the Strangler with my gun. There was no path to go but through fire. We stumbled forward, and it was so hot our flesh began burning, but I wasn’t about to leave my partner. The Strangler screamed as his clothes and skin smoked and burned, but he knew I would shoot him if he dropped Sirius.
    We avoided fire as best we could, but there was no getting away from it. The inferno was everywhere. “Trailblazing” took ona whole new meaning. I tried to see through the flames, but my eyes had been pummeled by the smoke and were puffy to the point of closing up on me. The Strangler began coughing violently, but even over his paroxysms I could hear the horrible wheezing of my partner. Show me the way, I thought. Maybe I croaked the words aloud. There was a part of me that recognized my flesh was on fire, but that didn’t stop me. I couldn’t let my partner down. I looked around, trying to see anything. The smoke had blotted out the heavens save for two stars.
    “We’ll go past the second star and straight on till morning,” I said, and the Strangler didn’t object.
    It was the route to Neverland, at least according to Peter