Chapter 11 - Fire on the Limestone
Nora hauled the steering wheel hard to the left, using the natural curves of the limestone canyon to break their line of sight. Rounds pinged off the heavy steel tailgate, ringing like discordant bells through the rocky chasm. She knew this creek bed better than any surveyor Vance could hire—she had spent her entire childhood riding horses along these exact chalk bluffs.
Half a mile back up the wash, there was an old cattle path that climbed steeply up the southern rim, leading to the abandoned rail spur that bordered the county line. The old farm truck groaned as she threw it into four-wheel drive and pointed the hood directly up the thirty-degree scree slope.
Tires spun, throwing dirt and burning rubber smells into the cab. The engine temperature needle spiked dangerously into the red zone. With one final, shuddering heave, the front tires crested the rocky lip of the plateau, pulling the truck onto the abandoned gravel railbed just as the engine sputtered, coughed, and died in a violent hiss of escaping steam.
Nora didn't waste time trying to restart it. She grabbed the canvas bag, scooping up the three loose shotgun shells from the floor mat, and kicked the driver’s door open.
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Standing on the high railway ridge, she looked back toward the farm. A thick column of black smoke was rising into the pale afternoon sky from the main homestead. The barn—her family's lifeblood for three generations—was burning.
Tears of pure fury tracked through the grime on her cheeks, but she didn't stop. Across the rail tracks, less than a quarter of a mile through the dense scrub pine, sat the old county signal station, a concrete outpost that had housed the regional telegraph and early landline telephone relays since the 1940s. If the emergency line was still live, she could bypass the corrupt local dispatch and reach the state environmental protection agency directly.
