Page 78 of Into the Fire

He pulled hard on the left side, trying to force it open. The collapsed canopy half-filled for a second, then folded again. Dante tried once more. This time the turn slowed.

For half a second, I thought he had it.

Then the canopy twisted him around faster.

He was descending faster than he should. Twenty-two hundred feet, if I estimated right.

He tried again. He had the altitude for one more attempt, and he was doing exactly what he’d been trained to do.

He pulled hard. The left side filled—

And collapsed.

The spin tightened.

Beside me, Hollis was still.

“Can he clear it?” someone behind me asked. Nobody answered.

Eighteen hundred feet.

The radio on my chest was quiet. Fellhauer was in the door of the Otter with the best view of Dante and the sense not to fill his ears while his hands were busy. There was nothing to transmit. Dante knew everything the radio could have told him.

He was running out of altitude.

There wasn’t time to try again. Dante had to get rid of the main and trust the reserve.

I knew it.

He had to know it.

Fifteen hundred feet, and the canopy came around again, dragging my man across the sky in a circle.

Everybody standing in the meadow knew what they were watching, and no one said a word.

Fourteen hundred.

Every rotation swept Dante across the same piece of sky, a little lower than the last. The Otter held its orbit high and wide. The engine was the only sound in the meadow.

Twelve hundred.

He was still trying.

Dante pulled hard on the left side again as the canopy carried him through another turn.

I couldn’t reach him. I couldn’t pull the handle for him. I had checked his harness at the racks with two fingers and a tug.

Now all I could do was stand in the grass and watch.

Eleven hundred, and his hands moved.

A thousand feet was the number. I’d taught it to him hanging from a beam. Below that, every second he stayed under the main took altitude away from the reserve.

“Cut it away.”

I called out the instruction even though I knew he couldn’t hear it.

His right hand crossed his body. The main released, and the canopy snapped away above him, still spinning.