The First Freedom Church of the Rockies did not in fact burn to the ground. But with its roof caved in and its stained glass windows blown out and every tree, shrub, and outbuilding on the hill leveled to cinders, the shot of its mournful bell tower that made the front page of the Gazette the morning after the fire was finally conquered looked like something a lazy photo editor may have re-run from a retrospective on the Dresden fire-bombing.
That’s the trouble with working with a church that’s actually motivated by Christian principles, Ethan had ruefully joked at the hastily convened board meeting at the Village Inn over by I-25: while Free Rock had blown all their cash assets on literacy programs and after-school kid care and the most comprehensive food bank in the Mountain time zone,
