Falls Like Lightning (12 page)

Rocklin set his clipboard on the table. “Lack of resources is only the beginning. Even if we had more guys, the fire is . . .” He brought his hands up over the large red shaded area on the map. “It’s growing a huge anvil head out of the smoke column. Enormous. By this time tomorrow it’ll be making its own weather.”

Weathers nodded. “Leaving us a short window.”

Silas raised his eyebrows. “A short window for what?”

Shivner stretched his hand out over the map and turned to Silas. “Anything we want to fly over this terrain will have to do so by fourteen-hundred hours tomorrow afternoon. That’s our visibility window.”

“What happens after two o’clock?”

“Beyond that time frame, all of this”—Rocklin circled a finger around an area twice the size of the fire perimeter—“will be impassable due to smoke, lightning, and erratic high winds.”

They wanted more jumper crews in there now, while they still could get in. Once on the ground, they’d be on their own for a bit. “How long will my crew be without a means to fly out?”

“Three days.” Weathers pocketed his hands. “We might be able to get a helicopter to you in two. That’s a best guess. Conditions are too unpredictable. It will be bad. We’re just not sure to what extent.”

Great. All Silas had to do was leave his mentor and trusted crew, join up with guys he’d never trained with or fought fire with who just suffered the loss of their spotter, fill a leadership role he’d never fully performed on his own before, and do all that without the possibility of reprieve or rescue from the outside world should things go bad, which they were most certainly predicted to do.

He cracked his knuckles. “All right, then. Sounds like the kind of thing I signed up for.”

Weathers smiled at Warren. “Very good. Captain Westmore will fly you and your new crew in first thing tomorrow. Warren, she’ll fly your crew in as soon as she returns from that drop.” Weathers looked over Silas’s shoulder. “Elle, hello. Good to have you here.”

Elle stepped into the light beside Silas, catching his eye. “Nowhere else I’d rather be, Chief.”

“Gentlemen, I’m sure you don’t need me to introduce Captain Westmore. Many of you were part of the rescue effort to find her father a couple years back. She knows this terrain better than any of us.”

Elle produced a smile, folded her arms, and looked at the map. “You looking to do a drop along the northern edge?”

Weathers leaned over the map. “Somewhere in that radius. If we can corral the front early, we should be able to direct it away from structures and keep it in the wilderness. Warren’s crew will be dropped on the southern flank, Silas and his crew to the north.”

“If I remember right”—she traced along the topographic lines—“there’s a number of small meadows on the way, and there’s a lake up . . . here.” She spread her fingers like a compass, leaving the middle one on the small body of water and landing the index on a blank square inch devoid of geographic changes. “And an appropriately larger landing zone for the north end jumpers here.”

Weathers nodded. “At this point, Kent, I recommend you grab some chow. See if you can tie in with your new crew, and then get rested up.”

“Copy that, Chief.” Silas picked up his rucksack. He looked to Elle, but she kept her eyes fixed on the map. He turned and worked his way across the room.

Warren walked with him in the shadows. Conversation resumed around the planning table behind them. Warren spoke in a low voice. “You know she really is the best. If anyone can get you in there safely it’s her.”

“I don’t doubt it.”

“You seem concerned.”

“Do I?” They walked on toward the exit door. “I just don’t like leaving our crew.”

“I know. It wasn’t my plan to give you the responsibility this soon. Believe me. But, Silas . . . ?”

“Yeah.”

“You can do this. I wouldn’t recommend anyone else more highly for the job.”

“Okay. Thank you.”

“So, how was the flight?”

“What do you mean? You were on the same—”

“No, down to Oakland. What’s the history with you two anyway?”

“Elle? Oh, we dated for a summer.”

“So
she’s
the one.” He gave a knowing nod.

“What do you mean?”

“She’s the one you left in McCall. The one that had your insides all tangled up in Alaska.”

“It was a long time ago.”

“Before her little girl.”

“What happened there anyway? Is the father still in the picture?”

“You don’t know?”

“It didn’t come up. Like I said, it’s been a while.”

Silas regretted asking. He didn’t need more of a guilt trip. He had a world of other things to focus on.

Warren cleared his throat. “My info is secondhand and kind of old. I used to fly with her father at McCall’s, and we kept in touch. Great pilot. Didn’t have much in the way of kind words to say about her ex-husband though.”

“So she’s divorced?”

“No, actually.”

“What then . . . ? Widowed?”

“Not that either. The marriage contract was nullified.”

“Nullified? Why?”

“Turned out the guy was already married. Had a family in Boise under a different name. Closet polygamist, I guess.”

“How did she find out?”

“Somehow it came out on the day their daughter was born. He told her he was leaving, right there in the hospital. She filed for nullification.”

Silas blew out a breath and ran his hand through his hair. “They couldn’t have been married long.”

“Maybe a year.” Warren studied him. “What happened between you two that summer?”

Silas stopped beneath the glowing exit sign and rested his hand on the door handle. “We fell in love.”

CHAPTER

17

W
arren left to tie in with their crew. Well, Warren’s crew, at least. Silas strolled down the hall, his heart heavier than his rucksack. He couldn’t shake a sudden weighted and gaping sense of loneliness. Was it just nerves at leaving his old team? The prospect of jumping into a big complex with guys he’d never met? Or perhaps it had more to do with seeing Elle again, with reopening wounds he’d fought hard to ignore.

He knew how to do the spotter job. In the air he would scout the fire, find the best landing zone for the jump, and send off his crew members each in turn. Once they were down he’d coordinate communications for the paracargo drop. He could do it all. Just like Warren. Instead of returning with the pilot and continuing as a liaison officer at the base, though, he’d make the jump too and be back in his element as part of a team on the ground.

A slim man about his age walked up to him in the corridor. He had short brown hair like leaning spikes, eyes tinged red at the corners, and a face colored by the sun. “You’re the new spotter, right?”

Had to be a member of his new crew. Silas extended his hand with a respectful smile. “Silas Kent.”

He shook. “Caleb Parson. I just learned that we’d been reassigned a spotter and are to head out again tomorrow. You’ve been briefed on the whole situation, I imagine.”

“It’s a blow to all of us, but I can’t imagine how it must be for you and your crew. You have my sincere condolences.”

Caleb nodded and looked aside.

Silas scratched his head. “Is there anything I can do to help take the load off?”

“No, thank you. We’re good. I’m just surprised they’re sending us out again.”

“If it’s too soon, I can see what I can—”

“No, no. It’s better this way. Keeps us from sitting around and stewing on everything. You know?”

“Sure. Yeah. This whole complex is unlike anything I’ve ever seen.”

“Pile that on top of the budget cuts. More work for everyone. Must be the call of the wild that keeps us coming back, huh?”

“Jack London.”

“You like to read?”

“When I’m not launching myself out of things.”

“Yeah, it’s hard to see the words through your face mask.”

Silas smiled. “And the wind . . . hard to keep your page.”

Caleb nodded to him. “You planning on staying with the plane?”

“No. I’ll make the jump. They’ve assigned an incident spotter to coordinate for all the crews.”
He should know that.
Perhaps he was just testing his new leader’s resolve.

Silas adjusted his rucksack. “Look, you can count on me to be your eyes and ears here at Command staff meetings before we take off tomorrow. Just let me know if you need anything.”

Caleb ran the back of his hand beneath his nose and nodded. “All right.”

Silas cleared his throat. “So, what did you do before getting into wildland?”

“I was a medic. In San Francisco.”

“No kidding. I kind of grew up a little south of there.”

He raised and lowered his eyebrows. “Yep, nearly didn’t make it out of that trap.”

“No love for the city?”

“It’s either that or for people.” Caleb shrugged. “I got tired of the work. Tired of working codes in the middle of the night when you know full well the guy is dead. You know what I mean?”

“I can imagine. But my EMS experience is pretty limited.”

“It’s in the eyes. You can always tell they’re gone from the eyes. It’s like you can see when their soul has left them.”

He held Caleb’s gaze. “Well, hey, like I said, if you need anything let me know. I’ll do the best I can to be an advocate for the team.”

Caleb pulled an arm across his chest to stretch. “Sounds good. I’m pretty sure each of us will need a new fire shelter. And we’re low on MREs.”

“Got it.” Silas pulled a notepaper and pen from his shirt pocket. He jotted down,
MREs
and
Shelters.
“Hey, when things cool down, we’ll make sure Pendleton gets a proper funeral procession and service. Give guys a chance to pay the proper respects.”

“Sounds like you have a plan, Mr. Kent.”

“Please, it’s Silas.”

Caleb flashed a quick smile and brought out his hand to shake. “I think we’ll get along just fine.”

———

Silas strolled onto the tarmac, the sky the color of sliced grapefruit. A fresh and erratic wind lifted heat from under his arms, wicking the sweat from the bridge of his nose. The smell of fire hung in the air like the ominous cloud bank over the nearby hills.

Elle had finished securing the plane in the hangar for the night. Silas watched her kneel down to kiss Maddie. An older woman standing next to them took Maddie’s hand and led her away. Maddie clutched a bulging backpack with a doll’s upper torso sticking out between the top zippers. She walked backwards, staring at her mother and stretching a hand out for her. Elle waved and nodded and smiled, aviators atop her hair.

Elle.

Compared to her, fire was easy.

Predictable. Impersonal. Silas could watch a fire and see the course of the land and the laddering of the fuels and their moisture content and know what the fire would do. How it would suck wind into canyons like a chimney and puff the smoke out like an old man with a pipe.

Silas understood fire. He knew it like one knows when it’s about to rain.

But Westmore . . .

She could navigate erratic air as well as anyone Silas had flown with. Some pilots handled the aircraft with impersonal calculation, executing a succession of algorithmic steps with geometric and mechanical precision. The job got accomplished. The plane took off and made its drops safely. And at the end of the workday the plane was chocked and tied down for the night in the cold dank recesses of a hangar or lined up along the edge of the tarmac.

But for Elle, the plane was like an extension of herself. Its movements became as fluid as her walking, like a dancer knows how to control a hundred different muscles in the course of her movements. Elle flew with the elements. She became one of them, at home in the sky.

Silas only felt at home falling from it.

He pocketed his hands and strolled out to her. Her eyes stayed fixed on Maddie. He stopped beside her and waited until her little girl disappeared from view. “Grandmother?”

Elle seemed to just notice him. “Hey. No. Carol Weathers.”

“IC Weathers’s wife?”

She nodded then brought a hand to the bridge of her nose.

Silas cocked his head. “You going to be okay?”

She took a deep breath. “Yeah. I’m fine. Just emotional. She’ll be fine. They have two grandchildren for her to play with. She’ll be fine.”

“Of course. She’ll be in good hands.” What did he know about it? Silas kicked a pebble across the blacktop. “You know, they’ve got dinner fired up. You feel like grabbing a bite?”

She pulled her glasses off her head, careful to thread them out from tight strands of hair.

“Sure. Maybe that’s what I need.”

CHAPTER

18

L
ogistics had converted an old airport restaurant into the fire-camp mess hall. A twenty-person hotshot crew filed along the buffet, faces soot streaked and dirt lined. Silas learned that they had just arrived, coming off the radio tower fire. Elle found a place at the back of the line and kept quiet for the most part.

Ceiling fans waved, circulating air conditioning just cool enough to take off the heat’s edge. The last slivers of sunlight glinted off windows facing the runway.

“You know . . .” Silas started. “You’ve done well.”

Elle folded her arms, listening.

Silas glanced at the tiled floor. “I mean, Maddie’s great. You’ve done a wonderful job. It must be tremendously difficult—trying to work a job like this and build a home.”

“What do you know about building a home?”

Ouch.
“I know. Right? I guess I’m saying that I just imagine it’s got to be a difficult thing.”

“You don’t have to feel guilty or responsible.”

“Right. I mean, I don’t.” He exhaled and looked away. “I don’t even know what I’m trying to say.”

“Don’t stress yourself out about it, all right? It’s not your concern. Maddie and I have our life, and you’re free. Just like you always wanted.” She stepped forward with the line.

“That’s not what I wanted.” His voice came out louder than he intended, drawing curious glances from the firefighters in front of them. He lowered it. “I mean, look at you. Here you are telling me it’s not my concern and you’re doing it with a guilt trip.”