Chasing Fire
Page 31

“I scouted this area yesterday. We’ve got a couple of safe spots. And they’re sending in more jumpers this morning. We’ll be up to forty. I want ten on the water team, and for you to head that up, Gib. You’re damn good with a hose. Take the nine you want for it.”
“All right.” He glanced back at the fire. “Looks like recess is over.”
“Where do you want me?” Gull asked her when Gibbons stepped off to pick his team.
“Saw line, under Yangtree. You hold that line, or you’re going to need those fast feet. If she gets behind you, you make tracks, straight up the ridge and into the black. Here.” She looked into his eyes as she laid a finger on the map. “You got that?”
“We’ll hold it, then you can buy me a drink.”
“Hold the line, cut it up and around to the water team, and maybe I will. Get your gear.” She walked over toward the campfire, lifted her voice. “Okay, boys and girls, time to kick some ass.”
She caught a ride partway on a bulldozer, then hopped off for a brutal hike to check the hotshots’ progress firsthand.
“Winsor, right? Tripp,” she shouted at the lean, grim-faced man over the roar of saws. Fire sounded its throaty threat while its heat pulsed strong enough to tickle the skin. “I’ve got a team working its way up to cross with you. Maybe by one this afternoon.”
A scan of the handcrew told her what she’d suspected. They’d downplayed injuries. She gestured to one of the men wielding a Pulaski. His face glowed with sweat and showed raw and red where his eyebrows had been singed off. “You had a close one.”
“Shit-your-pants close. Wind bitched on us, and she turned on a freaking dime, rolled right at us. She let out that belly laugh. You know what I mean.”
“Yeah.” It was a sound designed to turn your bowels to ice. “Yeah, I do.”
“We RTO’d. Couldn’t see a goddamn thing through the smoke. I swear she chased us like she wanted to play tag. I smelled my own hair burning. We barely got clear.”
“You’re holding her now.”
“These guys’ll work her till they drop, but if we don’t knock that head down, I think she’s going to whip around and try for another bite.”
“We’re pumping on her now. I’m going to check in with the team leader, see if he wants another drop.” She faced the fire wall as ash swirled around her like snow. “They underestimated her, but we’re going to turn this around. Look for my team to meet up with yours about one.”
“Stay cool,” he called after her.
She hiked back around, filling her lungs when she moved into clearer air. Moving, always moving, she checked in with her teams, with base, with the fire coordinator. After jumping a narrow creek, she angled west again. Then stopped dead when a bear crossed her path.
She checked the impulse to run, she knew better. But her feet itched to move. “Oh, come on,” she said under her breath. “I’m doing this for you, too. Just move along.”
Her heart thumped as he studied her, and running didn’t seem like such a stupid idea after all. Then he swung his head away as if bored with her, and lumbered away.
“I love the wilderness and all it holds,” she reminded herself when she worked up enough spit to swallow.
She hiked another quarter of a mile before her heart settled down again. And still, she cast occasional cautious looks over her shoulder until she heard the muffled buzz of chain saws.
She picked up her speed and met up with the fresh saw line.
After a quick update with Yangtree, she joined the line. She’d give them an hour before hiking up and around again.
“Pretty day, huh?” Gull commented as they sliced a downed tree into logs.
She glanced up, and through a few windows in the smoke, the sky was a bold blue. “She’s a beauty.”
“Nice one for a picnic.”
Rowan stamped out a spot the size of a dinner plate that kindled at her feet. “Champagne picnic. I always wanted to have one of those.”
“Too bad I didn’t bring a bottle with me.”
She settled for water, then mopped her face. “We’re going to do it. I’m starting to feel it.”
“The picnic?”
“The fire’s a little more immediate. You’ve got a good hand with the saw. Keep it up.”
She headed up to confer with Yangtree again over the maps, then, ripping open a cookie wrapper, headed back into the smoke.
While she gobbled the cookie, she considered the bear—and told herself he was well east by now. She clawed her way up the ridge, checked the time when she met the hotshot line.
Just noon. Five hours into the day, and damn good progress.
She cut up and over, her legs burning and rubbery, to check on the pumpers.
Arcs of water struck the blaze, liquid arrows aimed to kill. Rowan gave in, bent over, resting her hands on her screaming thighs. She couldn’t say how many miles she’d covered so far that day, but she was damn sure she felt every inch of it.
She pushed herself up, made her way over to Gibbons. “Yangtree’s line is moving up well. He should meet up with the hotshots within the hour. She tried to swish her tail, but they’ve got that under control. Idaho’s on call if you need more on the hoses.”
“We’re holding her. We’re going to pump her hard, go through the neck here. If you get those lines down, cut them across, we’ll have her.”
“I want to pull out the fusees, start a backfire here.” She dug out her map. “We could fold her back in on herself, and she’d be out of fuel.”
“I like it. But it’s your call.”
“Then I’m making it.” She pulled her radio. “Yangtree, we’re going with the backfire. Split ten off, lead them up. I’m circling back down. Keep drowning that bitch, Gib.”
Rowan stuffed calories into her system by way of an energy bar, hydrated with water as she backtracked. And considered herself lucky when she didn’t repeat her encounter with a bear. Nothing stirred in the trees, in the brush. She cut across a trail where the trees still towered—trees they fought to save—and the wildflowers poked their heads toward the smoke-choked sky. Birds had taken wing so no song, no chatter played through the silence.
But the fire muttered and growled, shooting its flames up like angry fists and kicking feet.