Page 27 of Into the Fire

Hitting the ground, I rolled and came up with grass in my helmet and the smell of hay blending with smoke from up the slope.

Clean.

I was out of the harness and hauling in canopy before it hit me that I’d just made my first fire jump in five years. By the time I’d daisy-chained the lines, I could hear the Otter coming around for the second stick. Boone was collapsing his canopy fifty yards down the meadow. He looked up its length at me, one look, and went back to his gear.

Hollis landed on his feet.

Shep came in hot, overshot his turn, and arrived in the meadow mostly sideways. He was on his feet before the canopy finished settling.

“That was intentional,” he said.

“Which part?” Hollis asked.

“The landing.”

“Which landing?”

The cargo chutes came down on the next pass, and we broke down the boxes: saws, water, rations, and hand tools. We parked the jump gear at the north end of the meadow, well clear of the timber and the fire.

Boone had the radio out, talking to air attack in a flat, unhurried voice. I stood in the sun with a Pulaski in my hand and sweat already starting under the suit.

No ghosts lurked in the timber. I didn’t have visions of Dutch. I just had a small fire to put out before dinner.

Boone put the radio away and picked up his saw. As we walked uphill into the smell of smoke, I was filthy already and happier than I’d been in years.

We worked through the timber onto the fire’s flank. It was burning downhill through the duff, a layer of old needles and decaying vegetation, at a walking pace. The flames were knee high, and one snag smoked hard at the upper edge. Routine.

For the next few hours, Whitmore Creek gave me back my trade. The fire behaved. It crept downhill into our line exactly as it should. Wind pushed it. The slope shaped it. Dry needles and grass gave it fuel. No surprises.

Boone and Hollis ran the saws, clearing brush and small trees ahead of us. Shep and I followed with hand tools, scraping away needles, grass, and roots until we hit bare mineral soil. Nothing burns when there’s nothing left to burn.

It had been five years since Boone and I had worked a fire together. Watching him ten feet ahead of me, sure hands on the saw, sweat down the middle of his back, I had the same thought I’d had after the kiss. This is what we should have been doing.

By mid-afternoon, we’d stopped the fire’s advance. We stood on the trail eating in the shade, watching smoke curl from the burned ground below us. Whitmore Creek was nearly done.

Shep looked from Boone to me and back. “Did you two used to work together like this?”

“No,” I said. “We used to be much better-looking.”

“Speak for yourself,” Boone said, without looking up from his sandwich.

I was filthy. Sweat had dried and started over twice. My shoulders ached, and my gloves had gone stiff. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d been this happy.

Late in the afternoon, the wind changed. It had blown steadily up the draw all day; now it dropped away and then came back stronger. It was hotter and drier, but nothing we hadn’t planned for. I leaned on my Pulaski and looked over the country because Dutch had taught me to look when conditions changed. I saw the creek below and the band of rock above. Our line held.

Then, uphill, the fire changed its sound.

It was a low tearing note coming down through the timber, in the wrong register. It came from a direction where we hadn’t seen anything burning.

I straightened up and saw orange in the timber uphill. It was the wrong height off the ground.

A pocket of fire had gotten into the crowns of the trees above the band of rock. Torching happens. A tree candles, throws sparks, and its neighbor goes. After a summer this dry, that by itself wasn’t strange.

Then the crowns ran.

The flame moved through the treetops in a line, one crown lighting the next. It moved fast. The run was going down-drainage, into the wind. That was wrong.

I stood with my hands on the Pulaski and watched treetops burn in a direction that the wind on my face said was impossible. Somewhere under the noise was Dutch, looking up the draw. The slope under my boots tilted.