Нора Робертс - Chasing Fire

He took a moment—maybe half a moment—to catch his breath, to congratulate himself on getting down in one piece, then rolled up to gather his chute.

“Not bad, rook.” Cards gave him a waggling thumbs-up. “Ride’s over, and the fun begins. The Swede’s setting up a team to dig fire line along the flank there.” He pointed toward the wicked, bellowing wall. “And you’re elected. Another team’s going to set up toward the head, hit it with the hoses. Mud knocked her back some, but the wind’s got her feeling sexy, and we’re getting lightning strikes out the ass. You’re with Trigger, Elf, Gibbons, Southern and me on the line. And shit, there goes one in the slash and the other in the trees. Let’s haul them in and get to work.”

Gull trooped over to assist Southern, but stopped when his fellow rookie got to his feet among the jagged, jack-sawed trees.

“You hurt?” Gull shouted.

“Nah. Damn it. A little banged, and my chute’s ripped up.”

“Could’ve been worse. Could’ve been me. We’re on the fire line.”

He maneuvered through the slash to help Southern gather his tattered chute. After stowing his jumpsuit, Gull headed over to where Cards was ragging on Gibbons.

“Now that Tarzan here has finished swinging in the trees, let’s do what we get paid for.”

With his team, Gull hiked half a mile in full pack to the line Rowan had delegated Cards to dig.

They spread out, and with the fire licking closer the sounds of pick striking earth, saw and blade slicing tree filled the smoky air. Gull thought of the fire line as an invisible wall or, if they were lucky, a kind of force field that held the flames on the other side.

Heroic grunt work, he thought while sweat ran rivulets through the soot on his face. The term, and the job, satisfied him.

Twice the fire tried to jump the line, skipping testing spots like flat stones over a river. The air filled with sparks that swarmed like murderous fireflies. But they held the flank. Now and then, through the flying ash and huffing smoke, Gull spotted a quick beam of sunlight.

Little beacons of hope that glowed purple, then vanished.

Word came down the line that the hose crew had to fall back, and with the flank under control, they would move in to assist.

After more than six hours of laying line, they hiked their way up the mountain and across the black where the fire had already had her way.

If the line was the invisible wall, he thought of the black as the decimated kingdom where the battle had been waged and lost. The war continued, but here the enemy laid scourge and left what had been green and golden a smoldering, skeletal ruin.

The thin beams of sun that managed to struggle through the haze only served to amplify the destruction.

Limping a little, Southern fell into step beside him.

“How’re you holding up?” Gull asked him.

“I’d be doing better if I hadn’t landed in that godforsaken slash,” he said in the fluid Georgia drawl that gave him his nickname. “I thought I knew what it was. I’ve got two seasons in on wildfires, and that’s before we’ll-whoop-your-ass recruit training. But it’s shit-your-pants hard is what it is. I nearly did just that when I saw I was going to miss the jump spot.”

Gull took a heat-softened Snickers out of his pack, pulled it in two. “Snickers really satisfies,” Gull said in the upbeat tone of a TV voice-over.

Southern grinned, bit in. “It sure enough does.”

They hit the stream, veered northeast toward the sounds of engines and saws.

Rowan came out of a cloud of smoke, a Viking goddess through the stink of war.

“Dry lightning’s kicking our ass.” She paused only to chug down some water. “We’d beat the head down, nearly had her, then we had a triple strike. We got crown fire along the ridge due north, and the head’s building back up west of that. We gotta cut through the middle, stop them from meeting up. Hold here until we’re clear. They’re sending another load of mud. We got another load from base coming in to take the rear flanks and tail, keep them down. Bulldozer made it through, and he’s clearing brush and downed trees. But we need the line.”

She scanned faces. “You’ve got about five minutes till the drop. Make the most of it—eat, drink, because you won’t see another five minutes clear today.”

She went into a confab with Cards. Gull waited until they stepped apart, then walked to her. Before he could speak, she shook her head.

“Wind changed direction on a dime, and she just blew over. She melted fifty feet of hose before we got clear. Then boom! Boom! Boom! Fourth of July. Trees went up like torches, and the wind carried it right over the tops.”

“Anybody hurt?”

“No. Don’t look for clean sheets and a pillow tonight. We’ll be setting up camp, and going back at her tomorrow. She’s not going to die easy.” She looked skyward. “Here comes the tanker.”

“I don’t see it.”

“Not yet. You can hear it.”

He closed his eyes, angled his head. “No. You must have super hearing. Okay, now I hear it.”

She pulled her radio, spoke with the tanker, then with the crew on the ridge.

“Let it rip,” she mumbled.

The pink rain tumbled down, caught little stray rainbows of sunlight.

“We’re clear!” Rowan shouted. “Let’s move. Watch your footing, but don’t dawdle.”

With that, she disappeared into the smoke.

They hacked, cut, beat at it into the night. Bodies trained to withstand all manner of hell began to weaken. But resolve didn’t. Gull caught sight of Rowan a few times, working the line, moving in and out as she coordinated with the other teams and with base.

Sometime toward one, more than twelve hours after he’d landed in the clearing, the fire began to lay down.

To rest, Gull thought, not to surrender. Just taking a little nap. And hell, he could use one himself. They worked another hour before word came down they’d camp a half mile east of the fire’s right flank.

“How’s the first day on the job going, rook?”

He glanced over at Cards’s exhausted face as they trudged. “I’m thinking of asking for a raise.”

“Hell, I’d settle for a ham on rye.”

“I’d rather have pizza.”

“Picky Irishman. You ever been there? Ireland?”

“A couple times, yeah.”

“Is it really as green as they say, as it looks in the pictures?”

“Greener.”

Cards looked off into the smoky dark. “And cool, right? Cool and damp. Lots of rain.”

“That’s why it’s green.”

“Maybe I’ll go there one of these days, take Vicki and the kids. Cool and damp and green sounds good after a day like this. There we are.” He lifted a chin to the lights up ahead. “Time to ring the supper bell.”

Those who’d already arrived had set up tents, or were doing so. Some just sat on the ground and shoveled their Meals Ready to Eat into their mouths.

Rowan, using a rock near the campfire as a table, worked over a map with Gibbons while she ate an apple. She’d taken off her helmet. Her hair shone nearly white against her filthy face.

He thought she looked beautiful, gloriously, eerily so—and was forced to admit she’d probably been right. He was, under it all, a romantic.

He dumped his gear, felt his back and shoulders weep with relief before they cramped like angry fists.

No Box to crawl into this time, he mused as he popped his tent. Then like the others, he dropped down by the campfire and ate like the starving. The cargo drop included more MREs, water, more tools, more hose and, God bless some thoughtful soul, a carton of apples, another of chocolate bars.

He ate his MRE, two apples, a candy bar—and stuffed another in his PG bag. The vague nausea that had plagued him on the hike to camp receded as his body refueled.

He rose, walked over to tap Rowan on the shoulder. “Can I talk to you a minute?”

She stood up, obviously punchy and distracted, and followed him away from the campfire, into the shadows.

“What’s the problem? I’ve got to hit the rack. We’re going to be—”

He just yanked her in, covered her mouth with his and feasted on her as he had on the food. Exhaustion became an easier fatigue as he fueled himself with her. The twinges in his back, his arms, his legs gave way to the curls of lust low in the belly.

She took back in equal measure, gripping his hips, his hair, pressing that amazing body against him, diving straight into those deep, greedy kisses.

And that, he thought, was what made it so damn good.

When he drew back he left his hands on her shoulders, studied her face.

“Is that all you have to say?” she demanded.

“I’d say more, but the rest of the conversation requires more privacy. Anyway, that should hold you for the night.”

Humor danced into her eyes. “Hold me?”

“The crew boss works harder than anybody, to my way of thinking. So, I wanted to give you a little something more to take to bed.”

“That’s very considerate of you.”

“No problem.” He watched her eyes shift from amused to puzzled as he tipped down, brushed a kiss on her sooty brow. “’Night, boss.”

“You’re a puzzle, Gulliver.”

“Maybe, but not that hard to solve. See you in the morning.”

He went to his tent, crawled in. He barely managed to get his boots off before he went under. But he went under with a smile on his face.

Rowan’s mental alarm dragged her out of sleep just before five A.M. She lay where she was, eyes closed, taking inventory. A world of aches, a lot of stiffness and a gut-deep hunger, but nothing major or unexpected. She rolled out of her sleeping bag and, in the dark, stretched out her sore muscles. She let herself fantasize about a hot shower, an ice-cold Coke, a plate heaped with one of Marg’s all-in omelets.

Then she crawled out of her tent to face reality.

The camp slept on—and could, she calculated, for about an hour more. To the west the fire painted the sky grimy red. A waiting light, she thought. Waiting for the day’s battle.

Well, they’d be ready for it.

She rinsed the dry from her mouth with water, spat it out, then used the glow of the campfire to grab some food. She ate, washing down the rations with instant coffee she despised but needed while reviewing her maps. The quiet wouldn’t last long, so she used it to strategize her tasks, directions, organizing teams and tools.

She radioed base for a status report, a weather forecast, scribbling notes, quick-drawing operational maps.

By first light, she’d organized her tools, restocked her PG bag, bolted another sandwich and an apple. Alert, energized, ready, she gathered in her small pocket of alone time.

She watched the forest come to life around the sleeping camp. Like something out of a fairy tale, the shadows of a small herd of elk slipped through morning mists veiling the trees like wisps of smoke. The shimmer of the rising sun haloed the ridge to the east, spreading its melting gold. The shine of it trickled down the tree line, flickering its glint on the stream, brushing the green of the valley below.

Birds sang their morning song, while overhead in that wakening sky a hawk soared, already on the hunt.

This, she thought, was just one more reason she did what she did, despite the risks, the pain, the hunger. There was, to her mind, nothing more magical or more intensely real than dawn in the wilderness.

She’d fight beyond exhaustion alongside the best men and women she knew to protect it.

When Cards rolled out of his tent, she smiled. He looked like a bear who’d spent his hibernation rolling in soot. With his hair standing up in grungy spikes, his eyes glazed with fatigue, he grunted at her before stumbling off for a little privacy to relieve his bladder.

The camp began to stir. More grunts and rustles, more dazed and glassy eyes as smoke jumpers grabbed food and coffee. Gull climbed out, his face shadowed by soot and scruff. But his eyes were alert, she noted, and glinted at her briefly before he wandered off into the trees.

“Wind’s already picking up.” Gibbons came to stand beside her, gulped coffee.

“Yeah.” She looked toward the smoke columns climbing the sky. Orange and gold flared through the red now. Like the sky, the magic, the camp, the dragon woke. “We’re not going to get any help from the weather gods today. Wind’s variable, fifteen to twenty, conditions remain dry with the temps spiking past eighty. She’ll eat that up.”