Silver Creek Fire (Silver Creek #1) - Lindsay McKenna Page 0,2

she folded the canvas apron, putting it away beneath the large, long table. “There’s so much more to do.” She straightened. “If you’d told me that one incident could wreck a person’s life, I wouldn’t have believed you. But”—her voice grew hoarse—“I do now.”

Paddy stood and came around the table, giving his only daughter a strong, loving hug. “A day at a time, colleen, a day at a time.” He released her, clasping her upper arms. “Just think, you’re going to Wyoming, the place you’ve dreamed about. That has to excite you and make you happy. Everything is packed and we’ve put it in the back of your truck with a waterproof tarp over all of it. Your carpenter tools are in there, as well. Your sculpting tools are in your black nylon bag sitting on the front seat. You’re ready to go.”

Lea forced a smile for her dad’s benefit. She hated being a wet blanket to her parents and often masked her reaction for their benefit. “You’re right. Off on a new and glorious adventure.” So why didn’t she sound more enthusiastic?

May 24

Dread was replaced with excitement as Lea drove her Ford three-quarter blue and white truck closer to Silver Creek, Wyoming. The valley sat south of Thermopolis, below the archeological and dinosaur area of Wyoming. She’d just driven through Bighorn Canyon National Recreation Area and it was spectacular! There were plenty of mountains around the huge canyon area, but right now, the highway leveled out, descended several thousand feet to a huge plain below. Silver Creek Valley was filled with lush grass, ranches, and rolling hills dotted with stands of pine and deciduous trees here and there.

Her gaze was always on the types of trees in the area, most of them pines of the species she’d identified so far. The mountains were still clothed at the very top with white, gleaming snow.

It snowed often in May, she was told by a waitress when she’d stopped at a restaurant several hours ago. She’d seen several bighorn sheep, males and females, which had been thrilling. Lea had stopped and photographed them whenever she could safely pull over and take the shots. She’d never seen bighorns before!

With every mile, her heart lifted with a carefully shielded and closeted joy. The southern half of Wyoming was plains, desert, and some gorgeous sedimentary buttes that looked like torte cakes created by soil, in white, red, and cream layers. She’d taken photos of them, too. Then, she’d rolled into central Wyoming where the Wind River mountains and Indian reservation inspired her. Her hometown of Brookings was surrounded with thick, green, old-growth forest; that part of Wyoming reminded her deeply of it, soothing some of her homesickness. She could see huge natural gas rigs dotting the area the farther north she drove. If she didn’t miss her guess, they were fracking, which she disliked and didn’t believe in. That bothered her because she was environmentally oriented. Each rig, and she lost count of how many dotted the landscape, reminded her that it was an oversized hypodermic needle slammed through the skin of the Earth, sucking life blood out of her, harming her. She knew not everyone looked at it like that. Natural gas was a cleaner fuel than oil or coal, no argument. But she’d heard about the many earthquakes created by fracking, breaking through the layers of sedimentary rock beneath the surface in Oklahoma, and the damage it was doing above and below ground to get to this natural resource. Oklahoma had more earthquake tremors than nearly anywhere else in the U.S.

As she approached the town of Silver Creek, the plain flattened out and she left the mountains behind. Now the hills were softly rounded, clothed in dark, thick, green grass, ranches to her right and left off the highway. This was a lush, verdant valley. To her artist’s eye, it reminded her of a dark green emerald, faceted into the earth, full of life, vigor, and vitality. She saw many herds of Herefords in different pastures along the way, all heartily eating the nutritious fare. There were some patches of snow here and there, but the green grass had the say and Lea was sure the cows were very, very happy with their lives at the moment.

Traffic increased as she drove past the SILVER CREEK sign at the right side of the two-lane asphalt highway. It said: POPULATION 10,000. Below it, the sign said that the town was incorporated in 1905. She’d seen