Нора Робертс - Chasing Fire

“Bet your ass. And watch yours.”

As she worked her way through the fire, she coordinated with Gibbons, with base, kept her ears and eyes peeled for the tankers. She cut east, eyes smarting with smoke, then jumped back, skidding onto her back as a burning limb thick as a man’s thigh crashed to the ground in front of her.

It caught fresh fuel on the forest floor, ignited with a whoosh to claw at the soles of her boots before she scrambled clear.

“Widowmaker,” she shouted to Gibbons. “I’m good, but I’m going to be busy for a minute.”

She beat at the fresh flames, chopping at the ground to smother what she could with dirt. She heard the thunder of a tanker, muttered curses as she fought her small, personal war.

“I’m clear.” Shoveling, stomping, she signaled Gibbons, then the tanker pilot. “I’m clear.”

And ran.

The thick pink rain fell, smothering flame, billowing smoke, thudding onto the ground, the trees, with heavy splats. She sprinted for shelter as globs of it struck her helmet, her jacket. A volley of firebrands sent her on a zigzagging dash for higher, clearer ground.

She heard the telltale roar at her back, felt the ground shimmy under her feet. Following instinct, she leaped through the undulating curtain of fire, all but heard it slam shut behind her before the blowup burst. Rocks skidded under her feet as she pushed herself up an incline above the hungry, murderous blaze.

“I’m clear.” She shouted it as her radio popped with voices. “Had a little detour.”

She wheezed in a breath, wheezed one out. “Give me a minute to orient.”

A wall of fire, solid as steel, cut off her route back to her team.

She pulled out her compass to confirm direction, accepted that her hand shook lightly.

Cut across to Trigger’s line, she calculated, regroup, then circle down and around to her own.

She relayed her plan, then took a moment to hydrate and settle her nerves.

Back on the line, Gull looked straight into Gibbons’s eyes.

“Is she hurt?”

“She says no. She’s playing it down, but I think she had a close one.” He swiped at sweat. “She’s cutting over to Trig, then she’ll circle around back to us. The mud knocked it back some on their flank, and they’re working the pumps up toward the head. They’re in good position.”

He shook his head. “We can’t say the same. The wind’s whipping her up this way. Elf, take Gull, Stovic and Dobie and get these pumps up there. Follow the Cat line. Start drowning her. I’ll send you up four more as soon as we get the men.”

“Spot!” Libby shouted, and two of the team leaped to action.

“We’re getting hammered over here,” Gibbons told Trigger over the radio. “Can you spare anybody?”

“Give you two. That’ll be three when Swede gets around.”

“Tell them to hump it!”

Gull manned the hose and swore the force of water only made the fire dance. The wind chose sides, blew flames into massive walls.

“L.B.’s sending in another load, and pulling in jumpers from Idaho,” Janis told him.

“Did Rowan make it to Trigger?”

“Rowan changed tactics. She’s doubling back to Gibbons. We’ve got to catch this thing here, catch her here, or fall back.” She yanked out her radio. “Gibbons, we need help up here.”

“I’m waiting on Matt and Cards from Trigger’s line. And the Swede. Fresh jumpers coming. ETA’s thirty.”

“Thirty’s no good. I need more hands or we’re pulling back.”

“Your call, Elf. I’ll get locations and come back. If you’ve got to move, move.”

“Goddamn it, goddamn it. Stovic, get those snags. If she crowns, we’re screwed.” As water arced and sizzled, she looked over at Gull. “We can’t hold her for thirty without more hands.”

Something stirred in his gut. “Rowan, Cards and Matt should’ve gotten through by now. Radio her, get her location.”

“Gibbons is—”

“Radio her, Janis,” he interrupted. “This has been going south since the jump.”

And maybe it wasn’t just nature they fought.

He listened to her try to raise Rowan once, twice, a third time. And with each nonresponse his blood ran colder.

She tried Matt, then Cards, then answered swiftly when Gibbons hailed her.

“I can’t reach any of them on the radio,” Gibbons told her. “I’m going to send somebody in to their last known location.”

But Janis had her eye on Gull. “Negative. Gull’s going. He’s the fastest we’ve got. Send me somebody. We’re going to try to hold it.”

“Libby’s heading up now. I’ll get more mud, call in another Cat. If you have to retreat, head southwest.”

“Copy that. Find her,” she said to Gull.

“Count on it.” He turned to Dobie. “Hold it as long as you can.”

“As long as you need,” Dobie vowed, and took the hose.

He ran, using his compass and the map in his head to gauge direction. She’d been forced west, then south before she’d angled toward the left flank. He tried to judge her speed, her most probable route before she’d reversed to head east again to assist the right flank.

She’d have met up with Matt and Cards if possible, he calculated, but she wouldn’t have wasted time waiting for them or changing from the best route back, not when her team needed help.

A spot burst to his left, flames snaking from ground to tree. He ignored the instinct to deal with it, kept running.

But she wouldn’t have, he thought. She’d have fought the fire as she went, and doing so shifted her direction at any time.

And if another enemy had crossed her path, she wouldn’t have recognized him. She would see a fellow soldier, a friend. Someone trusted, even loved.

He jumped a narrow stream, pushing himself through the heat and smoke and growing fear.

She was smart, and strong, and canny. She’d fight, he reminded himself—maybe more fiercely when the enemy had disguised himself as friend.

He forced himself to stop, check his compass, reorient. And to listen, listen, for another under the growling voice of the fire.

North, he decided. Northeast from here, and prayed he was right. A tree crashed, spewing out a whirlwind of sparks that stung his exposed skin like bees.

The next sound he heard came sharper, more deadly. He raced toward the echo of the gunshot, even as his heart leaped as if struck by the bullet.

When she could, Rowan moved at a steady jog. She’d bruised her hip avoiding the widowmaker, but the pain barely registered—just a dull, distant ache.

They were losing the war, she thought, had been losing it since Yangtree’s chute failed to open.

Everything felt off, felt wrong, felt out of balance.

The wind continued to rise, to shift and stir, adding to the fire’s speed and potency. Here and there, small, sly dust devils danced on it. The air remained dry enough to crack like a twig.

She’d never made it to Trigger’s crew to judge the progress or lack of it for herself, to check that flank, sense just what the fire was thinking, plotting. No, she thought now, not when she’d heard the urgency in Gibbons’s voice. No choice but to reverse.

She’d cut north, through the fire, to carve off a little distance, and calculating her path might cross with Matt and Cards.

Spots sprang up so fast and often, she began to feel like she was playing a deadly game of Whac-A-Mole.

She gulped down water on the run, splashed more on her sweaty face. And resisted the constant urge to call into base, again, for a report on Yangtree.

Better to believe he was alive and fighting. To believe it and make it true.

Under that remained the nagging fear that it hadn’t been an accident but sabotage.

How many others harbored that same fear? she wondered. How did they bear down and focus with that clawing at the mind? How could she when she kept going over every minute and move in the ready room, on the flight, on the jump sequence?

Had something been off even then? Should she have seen it?

Later, she ordered herself, relive it later. Right now, just live.

With her stamina flagging, she pulled an energy bar out of her bag, started to tear the wrapper.

She dropped it, ran, when she heard the scream.

Smoke blinded her, disoriented her. She forced herself to stop, close her eyes. Think.

Due north. Yes, north, she decided, and sprinted forward.

She spotted the radio smoldering and sparking on the ground, and the blood smeared on the ground at the base of a snag that burned like a candle. Nearby a full engulfed branch snaked fire over the ground.

Alarmed for her friends, she cupped her hands to her mouth, started to shout. Then dropped them again with sickness countering fear. She saw the blood trail, heading east, and followed it as she slowly drew her radio out of her belt.

Because she knew now, and somewhere inside her she wondered if she’d always known—or at least wondered. But loyalty hadn’t allowed it, she admitted. It simply hadn’t allowed her to cross the line—except in dreams.

Now with her heart heavy with grief, she prepared to cross the line.

Before she could flick on her radio, he was there, just there, a lit fusee in his hand, and his eyes full of misery. He heaved it when he saw her, setting off his tiny bomb. A black spruce went off like a Roman candle.

“I don’t want to hurt you. Not you.”

“Why would you hurt me?” She met those sad eyes. “We’re friends.”

“I don’t want to.” Matt pulled the gun out of his belt. “But I will. Throw away the radio.”

“Matt—” She jolted a little when Gibbons spoke her name through the radio.

“If you answer it, I’ll shoot you. I’ll be sorry for it, but I’ll do what has to be done. I’m doing what has to be done.”

“Where’s Cards?”

“Throw the radio away, Rowan. Throw it!” he snapped. “Or I’ll use this. I’ll put a bullet in your leg, then let the fire decide.”

“Okay. All right.” She opened her hand, let it drop, but he shook his head.

“Kick it away. Don’t test me.”

“I’m not. I won’t.” She heard Janis’s voice now as she kicked it aside. “We’ve got to get out of here, Matt. The place is coming apart. It’s not safe.”

She struggled to keep her eyes level with his, but she’d seen the Pulaski hooked in his belt, and the blood gleaming on the pick.

Cards.

“I never wanted it to be you. It wasn’t your fault. And you came to the funeral. You sat with my mother.”

“What happened to Jim wasn’t anyone’s fault.”

“Dolly got him worked up, got him all twisted around. Got us both all twisted around so the last things we said to each other were ugly things. And Cards was his spotter. He should’ve seen Jim wasn’t right to jump. You know that’s so.”

“Where’s Cards?”

“He got away from me. Maybe the fire’s got him. It’s about fate anyway. I should’ve shot him to be sure of it, but it’s about fate and destiny. Luck, maybe. I don’t decide. Dolly fell. I didn’t kill her; she fell.”

“I believe you, Matt. We need to head north, then we can talk when—”

“I gave her money, you know, for the baby. But she wanted more. I was just going to talk to her, have it out with her when I went by her house. And she was just driving off, without the baby. She was a bad mother.”

“I know.” Calm, agreeable, understanding. “Matt, who’d know better than me about that? About Shiloh being better off now? I’m on your side.”

“She went to that motel. She was a tramp. I saw him, the preacher, come to the door to let her in. My brother’s dead, and she’s balling that preacher in a motel room. I wanted to go in, but I was afraid of what I might do. I waited, and she came out and drove away.”

She heard another tree torch off. “Matt—”

“She got that flat tire. That was fate, wasn’t it? She was surprised to see me—guilt all over her—when I pulled in behind her. I told her to pull off onto the service road. I was going to have it out with her. But the things she said... If she hadn’t been screwing around, hadn’t been a liar, a cheat, a selfish bitch, I wouldn’t have pushed her that way. She was just going to up and leave that baby. Did you know? What kind of mother does that?”

“We have to move,” she told him, keeping her tone calm but firm. “I want you to tell me everything, Matt. I want to listen, but we’re going to be cut off if we don’t move.”