gone. See if anyone recognizes his features, so we can identify him, notify any kin.'
'That was a brave thing you did, Dr. Coran, pulling him back in like that,' said one young ranger. 'I never seen anything so gutsy before in my life.'
Jessica was helped back to the walk, her crutches handed over to her, onlookers blocking her view of the steaming corpse, what remained of the old man who'd taken her place out there in Hellsmouth.
Now a kid ranger called for assistance over his handheld radio, telling headquarters, 'We got another dead body out at Hellsmouth, and there's been some sort of explosion. Best get out here, sir.' Through the confusion of noise, Jessica heard a young woman who worked at the lodge say that she thought the dead man was a Mr. Harmon, who'd only come in on a bus the day before.
Jessica found her feet, her bandaged wrists and ankles dirty and sodden now. She next struggled along the walkway with her crutches to the area where the flaming man had come from. She located bits and pieces of canister, briefcase, and flesh remaining in and around a bench where he'd obviously stopped to tear open the case. Debris littered the area on and off the walkway here where the man, consumed by his greed, had snatched open the case to reveal its contents, only to be met with a chemical bomb that spewed forth butane and gasoline and flame over him. Unfortunately, it was not over in an instant for the elderly gentleman.
Jessica would have to live with this ninth and final death in the Dorphmann case, just as she had to live with the deaths of eight others destroyed by Feydor Dorphmann's mania as prerequisites to her death. Even in death, Dorphmann had reached out a final time, only to miss her once again. Still, he had not failed to fill the ninth level in his personal inferno with the death trap he'd set for her.
All along the way, Dorphmann had known her steps, and so he still did. He'd somehow known, in the event of his death, that she'd return to this place; and he had somehow known she would discover his final calling card.
She cautioned herself, however, saying aloud, 'I dropped my crutch, which led to the discovery of the case. Nothing supernatural in that.' But why had she dropped her crutch over the side at exactly the spot where the killer had left the firebomb? Because that was the place I wanted to see again, she cautioned herself. That's all there is to it.
More rangers from the Lodge began arriving, some instantly recognizing her, some keeping their distance. She saw Sam Fronval, who'd made a remarkable recovery, rushing out to her, his arms outstretched to take her in.
Sam had returned to finish out his final tenure before retirement, and to turn over his headquarters to veteran ranger Charlie Venable, a man of Native American parentage whom Jessica remembered from her first visit to Yellowstone.
Venable stood alongside them where Sam held Jessica and her crutches in an enormous one-armed bear hug, his left arm and shoulder in a harness. Venable, his ranger hat covering his brow, looked squarely into Jessica's eyes and gave a little gasp, as if he saw something dark and sinister in her. Seeing her return his stare, Venable gathered in the scattered debris about them with equal awe. Then he looked beyond Jessica, as did Sam, to take in the body still lying on the crusted earth between Hellsmouth's bubbling waters and the boardwalk path, some twenty yards from where they now stood.
Out of breath, Jessica nonetheless found voice to say, ''Sam, we need to throw up a barricade around this debris and call in a bomb expert.'
'What in God's name've you got yourself into now, Dr. Coran?' asked Charlie Venable with a little shake of the head.
''Moments ago, I was almost killed by a dead man, Mr. Venable, Sam. That's what's up. Buy me a cup of coffee at the lodge and I'll tell you all about it.'
Fronval smiled and said, 'Sounds like a plan. Take care of things here, Charlie, will you? Jessica and me, we have some catching up to do.'
'Please wait for a bomb squad to get here,' Jessica cautioned Venable. 'I'd like to recover as much of the incendiary device as possible to reconstruct the attempt on my life from a dead man.'
'Yes, ma'am, of course,' replied Venable, a hearty-looking, weatherblown man whose wild shock of hair waved in the wind here. Jessica and Fronval, each with wounds given them by Feydor Dorphmann, walked into the mist and away to the lodge, Jessica's crutches tapping out an anthem.
Venable turned and stared at the debris, seeing parts of it off in the distance, far from the safety of the boardwalk. They also had the old man's body to recover. It seemed to Venable, as it did to the other rangers, that the solemnity and peace of the park had been destroyed since the moment of Coran's arrival here, and it appeared that loss would continue until she left for good. No one would be more pleased to see her leave than Venable, just as he'd be pleased to see the last of old Sam.
The park was entering a new era, and new leadership was required, so far as Venable was concerned. Sam knew his feelings on the matter. There was no hiding anything from a man like Fronval. For now Charlie would take Sam's orders to oversee the men and the mess left by Coran here, but soon Charlie would be overseeing his men and calling the shots.
Jessica wanted to cast aside her crutches, wanted to make her way back to the lodge on her own two feet, but she still couldn't bring her full weight down on the burned feet and ankles, still in cumbersome bandages. It wasn't the first time she'd been left scarred by a killer; she prayed it would be the last.
'You'll have to pardon my savages, Jessica,' he told her, apologizing for the stares and the underlying fear his rangers displayed of her. 'They don't know how to behave before a living legend.'
Jessica laughed at this. ''Then Sam, how can they possibly ever behave properly around you?''
He laughed in return. 'They don't! Let's go find that coffee, Jess. Then maybe you'll be up for a hunt?'
'On these crutches, sure!' she complained.
Sam laughed even harder and said, 'You on crutches will do better than most men I know on two good legs.'
