Plain Jane & The Hotshot (10 page)

He shouted to her, his anger and frustration growling through his words, “Napoléon was dead right. ‘The only victory in love is to walk away.'”

J
o gave little thought to the river-rafting expedition awaiting them just past dawn on their last day in the Bitterroot National Forest. She knew, of course, that it was an important and final rite of passage for the Mountain Gals Rendezvous. But mostly she welcomed it for the opportunity to focus on something immediate and demanding.

Something besides Nick Kramer and her emotional torment. She didn't want to just push him out of her life, yet neither could she make herself open her arms to him and accept his leavings. Need warred with pride, and so far neither one seemed up or down. Just a miserable limbo of indecision.

The women set out for the river and missed hearing the radio news bulletin flashed throughout the region:

“We interrupt regularly scheduled programming for this emergency fire bulletin from the national weather station at Eagle Pass. Contrary to all expert predictions of a routine fire season in the Bitterroot Forest, ideal fire conditions have emerged in the past few hours. Known as an atmospheric inversion, the freak wind currents have already sparked several new and dangerous blazes in the north end of Crying Horse Canyon.

“All visitors to the Bitterroot National Park, as well as residents east of Hanover Creek, are now under immediate evacuation orders. Only essential park employees and firefighting personnel are authorized to remain in the designated area until further notice.”

Shortly after the first broadcast of this warning, ranger Mike Silewski showed up to warn the women personally.

He found both cabins deserted.

Silewski shouted into the surrounding trees, but got no response. Frowning, he tacked an official evacuation notice to the door of each cabin. Then he thumbed on his handheld radio and “broke squelch,” alerting Nick Kramer's radioman.

“Better put Nick on the horn, Jason,” Mike said grimly. “I think we have a situation developing here.”

 

“There they go, out of sight around Dogleg Bend,” Dottie reported, watching the younger women's progress through field glasses. “They'll hit their first rough stretch soon.”

“They'll be fine,” Hazel insisted as the three older women headed back toward their summit camp. “I personally think this is the best bunch of gals we ever brought up here. True grit.”

“Well, now,” Stella said. “Will you look who's headed our way.”

“Nick Kramer,” Hazel said quietly, watching the grim-faced smoke jumper hurry toward them along the path. Three of his men were with him.

“I think I might give that young man a little piece of my mind,” Hazel added.

But Nick gave her no time for that. In fact, he started speaking without even greeting them.

“Hazel, the park's being evacuated. We've got big-time wind inversion over the north canyon, fires breaking out all over down there. Have the girls taken off yet?”

At his words, an icy hand squeezed Hazel's heart. She exchanged a shocked look with her companions. The north end of the canyon was well out of sight, although Dottie had fretted earlier about the new smoke forming in that direction.

“Oh, no,” Nick muttered quietly, reading the look on Hazel's face.

“They just went around the bend,” Hazel replied. “No calling them back now.”

“Hazel, I won't sugarcoat it,” Nick said urgently. “That north end of the canyon is thick with old growth that burns like rocket fuel during a wind inversion. And even being in the water won't save
them, because flames aren't the chief danger. In a box canyon like that, once the trees higher up start to burn, you get complete oxygen depletion at the bottom.”

So they'll asphyxiate, Hazel realized in horror. The girls were in a dirty corner, all right, and look who put them there. She thought of the old saying: Success has many fathers, but failure is an orphan. Well, this orphan was her baby, and she owned up to it. She'd had misgivings about the fire signs, yet ignored them. How many times had she told herself to heed that little voice at the back of her mind?

But blame wasn't the issue right now. Saving the girls was.

“So what's the plan?” she demanded.

“It'll have to be Monument Rock,” Nick answered. “That's the last place accessible along the river before they hit the Chute. Once they pass Monument Rock, they
must
go on to the canyon floor. There's nothing but sheer rock walls on both sides.”

Hazel nodded. “Monument Rock it is. We were just now heading up to get our cars and drive there on the fire trail.”

“Good. We'll go with you. Once we get there, though, you ladies will have to hang back beyond the treeline while we work our way down to the river.”

“They'll be moving fast by then,” Tom Albers pointed out. “If smoke's thick down there, they may never see us.”

“We'll run a rope snare,” Nick decided as both groups, women and smoke jumpers, began hurrying
up the path to the summit. “We can't let them slip past us. The way that timber was going up just before our team was pulled out of the north canyon, no living thing will have a chance on that canyon floor.”

 

The four rafters had easily weathered two stretches of white-water rapids within their first hour on the river. Now, feeling more confident, Bonnie bent close so Jo could hear her above the roar of the water.

“Piece of cake so far,” the hairdresser said. “But look how thick and dark those smoke clouds ahead of us are getting.”

“Yeah, I didn't notice those when we took off,” Jo replied. “It's hard to tell from here just where they're coming from.”

“We'll know better in a few minutes,” Kayla shouted from the thwart behind them. “When we get through the bend coming up, we'll be able to see well into the canyon.”

To her surprise, Jo had quickly learned that Hazel was right; so far, anyway, the “swoop” downriver had indeed been fun. The four women had proved a competent team with their paddles, and the exhilaration of hurtling along, plunging and weaving and bobbing, at times made them laugh like little kids in bumper cars.

Even so, Nick stayed on the fringe of her mind, a presence too important to be forgotten. But at least now, as her confidence built rapidly, she could rationalize the beginnings of acceptance.

A thistle cannot produce figs, she reminded herself, and a narcissist can truly love no one but himself.

“Get ready back there!” Bonnie called as they edged closer to the end of the long S-bend they'd entered. “I hear more rapids up ahead!”

“Oh, my God!” Kayla exclaimed as their raft shot through the last of the turn, giving them a panoramic view of the canyon below them.

And the fire that raged through it like Armageddon.

Jo glanced ahead and felt her heart plummet and her blood seem to carbonate with fear.

“What are we going to do?” Kayla cried.

“We can't keep going!” Bonnie yelled, close to the verge of outright panic. “It's like a blast furnace down there!”

“Quick, Jo,” Sheryl asked urgently. “What do we do?”

Jo had read the phrase “rendered witless by terror.” Now she knew exactly what it meant.

Below them, spot fires raged on both sides of the river, and farther down, past the Chute, a huge inferno covering dozens of acres roared out of control.

“We can't keep going!” Bonnie repeated. “Look, the fire is even jumping the river! We'll be literally floating in flames!”

“We can't head to shore here,” Jo said, somehow finding her voice. “Look how steep the banks are—we'll never get tied off. But the current is getting stronger as we descend toward the Chute, so we'll
have to make our try soon—the first place we see where we can nose in and get to the shore.”

Even as she spoke, dark, acrid smoke wafted to her nostrils, bitter and sharp, carrying with it the hint of a terrible death.

“O
kay, Hazel,” Nick said tersely from the back seat of her Fleetwood. “This is as far as you ladies go. Do
not
drive beyond the treeline. This whole area could go up like a fireworks store.”

Nick and Tom piled out of Hazel's car, Jason and Brian out of Dottie's station wagon right behind.

“Look!” Jason shouted, pointing out over the river. A news helicopter was circling the area. “The vultures must have been monitoring the radio and heard about this.”

Ahead of them, still out of sight, the otherwise steep banks of the Stony Rapids River leveled out briefly on the east side, site of the tall sandstone pinnacle called Monument Rock. About fifty yards
downriver from there, however, began the steep final descent of the Chute—“final” in every sense of the word right now, for the entire north canyon was a roaring wall of wind-whipped flames.

The searing heat and oxygen depletion could kill a human being within minutes.

The only hope for anyone on the river was to detour here and escape to the high ground while there was still oxygen.

Nick only hoped they'd reach them on time.

At first, after they entered the trees, Nick and the other smoke jumpers made good progress as they made their way toward the river, easily avoiding the hot spots. But suddenly Jason called a warning. “Nick! The fire's closing in behind us! Pincers drift!”

Despite the adrenaline spiking his blood, Nick felt his heart turn over in dread.

All smoke jumpers had one rule drummed into them from their first day of training:
Never surrender your escape route.
“Pincers drift” was code meaning that the only way to safety was being pinched off. Under the usual rules, at this point smoke jumpers gave up and retreated while they could, fire be damned.

But rules didn't matter now to Nick. Jo and three others were about to die a terrible death if they weren't stopped at Monument Rock. He knew he could never live with himself if he let the woman he most wanted to spend his life with perish.

He coughed as burning smoke filled his lungs, then
exchanged a quick glance with the others. He knew they were thinking about the same thing he was: the deadly Mann Gulch and South Canyon fires, charred graveyards littered with the ashes of smoke jumpers who'd surrendered their escape route.

“You guys get the hell out!” he shouted. “You ain't paid to go on suicide missions!”

“What, and let you get all the glory? We're dogging your heels, sweetheart!” Tom hollered. “Let's get it done!”

Time was not on their side.

As they neared the river, more and more hot spots forced them to keep seeking safe routes. Nick began to fear the girls would shoot past before he and his crew even got to them.

“Screw it!” he finally shouted when yet another detour sent them in circles. “Go to foil, gents, and follow me!”

Without hesitation, all four smoke jumpers broke out their foil ponchos and threw them on. Then, with a silent prayer to Saint Jude, patron saint of lost causes, Nick led his men at a full charge into the teeth of the fire.

 

“I'm jumping out!” Kayla cried. “It's our only chance.”

“No!” Jo snapped without hesitation. “That current will take you all the way down to the canyon floor.”

“We've got life vests, and—”

“Jo's right,” Bonnie argued. “Look, Kayla, look at those banks! Even if you could fight your way to the side, you'd never be able to climb out. You're better off in the raft.”

“At least it's a plan!” Kayla said, nearly hysterical now. “All we're doing now is waiting to die.”

“We have a plan,” Jo insisted above the gathering roar of the approaching Chute. “But it's going to take every one of us acting as a team, Kayla, do you understand that?

“We're only gonna have one shot at getting off the river at Monument Rock,” Jo went on. “We do it just like we practiced, sharp turns up above. On my command, we all stick our paddles straight down, close to the raft on the right side. With luck, that will throw us toward the east bank.”

“You with us, Kayla?” Sheryl demanded.

“Kayla, are you
with
us?” Jo repeated, on the verge of slapping the panicking Texan.

Something in her voice must have gotten through.

“Yes,” Kayla promised. “On your command.”

Jo had begun to notice some alarming bodily symptoms as the river carried them lower: increasing headaches, dizziness, difficulty breathing, requiring deeper and deeper inhalations to satisfy the lungs.

“Oh, God,” Bonnie said beside her, so low only Jo could hear. “We're running out of oxygen.”

“Just a few more minutes, Bonnie,” Jo encouraged her. “Stay focused, we'll be making our move. We're only getting one quick shot at it, so be ready.”

 

Nick's desperate gambit paid off. All four smoke jumpers made it to the river with no serious burns. He had no idea yet, however, if they were on time to intercept the raft.

“There's nothing to tie the rope to on the other side,” he told his companions. “So two of us are going to hold it. Tom, you take this bank. I'll swim across and brace myself in that clutch of rocks. We've got to keep it about one foot above the water, so it grabs the raft but doesn't knock the girls into the river.”

He coughed again, blinking smoke from his eyes as he turned to the other two. “Brian and Jason, you guys wade out as far as you can. If we can slow the raft, you two can help wrestle it in. Main thing is, make sure that if any of them fall into the river, you grab them.”

Nick pointed downstream, where a plume of mist marked the beginning of the Chute. “Unless we can pull a rabbit out of the hat, guys, they're screwed, glued and tattooed. So are we if that current takes us.”

Nick was already wading out into the swift-running river as he issued these words. Just before the current began to bowl him off his feet, however, he saw the raft suddenly shoot around the bend ahead, its four whey-faced passengers poised to plunge their paddles.

Good, they were planning to try an escape here.
But damn it, they were approaching too quickly! He'd never get the rope across.

“Forget it, Tom!” he shouted above the roar of the river. “Here they come!”

Nick realized now that his plan was no good, anyway, for the current was too strong. It took all his strength to keep from being washed down.

There could be only one plan now: wait for the women to do their thing, then try to block the raft if they failed.

But in fact, Jo's plan worked too well. Nick heard her shout, “Now!” and watched all four of them move as one, plunging their paddles. However, the motion did not just send the raft right toward the flat bank—it threw it into a spin.

At least they were closer to shore. But Nick saw they were in danger of being sucked right back out into the middle of the river.

“Jump!” he screamed, fighting hard now just to stay afloat.

All of them leaped into the churning water, and Nick saw Tom and the others racing out to help them.

Jo, however, had been the last one into the water, and she was farther out by the time she jumped.

A flailing tumble of arms and legs, she hurtled past Nick.

In a desperate effort, he lunged, grabbed hold of one of her ankles and began the struggle of his life to break the death grip of the raging current.

Then, inch by torturous inch, Nick fought his way
toward the bank, Jo in tow. By the time they collapsed in the shallow water, safe, he was so exhausted that every breath ended in a little groan.

Kayla, her nerves stretched tight, began to sob almost hysterically when she realized they had survived the river. But tired as they all were, the most dangerous part still lay ahead. Wordlessly, the four smoke jumpers put their foil ponchos around the women.

Nick took Jo's hand. “Hazel's waiting just past the trees. One quick run and we're safe. Ready?”

She squeezed his hand. The lump of fear in her throat made it difficult to talk just then, but she nodded.

“Ready,” she managed.

In her eyes, Nick was all hero during the difficult climb out of the canyon. His instructions to the other men were swift and absolute, and through years of trust and experience, the men followed him as if he were their god.

Bonnie and Jason got caught in a sudden flare-up. Nick raced down the incline and fought for their escape route. Then and there, Jo realized she'd fallen in love with him. Steadiness or not, when he'd disappeared behind the curtain of flames, he was all she wanted.

And when he reappeared with the two through the smoke, it was all Jo could do not to run to him and leap into his arms like a schoolgirl.

At the top of the ridge all media hell had broken loose. Ambulances were arriving in case they were
needed, and two helicopters battled to see who could get the best shot of the rescue.

But the eight who had fought their way to safety barely noticed. They were too exhausted.

Hazel shooed the cameras away and made sure for herself no one was injured. Then she hustled Jo and Nick away from the media circus to the back seat of her car.

The matriarch drove her Caddy like a skilled barrel racer, dodging ambulances and satellite trucks in her haste to put them behind her.

Jo was grateful for the peace. Staring at Nick, she knew she had something to say that was long overdue.

“Forgive me,” she whispered to him.

His eyes looked impossibly beautiful in a faceful of soot. “Forgive you for what? You didn't know about the inversion.”

She shook her head. “No, forgive me for being so selfish. I do want someone steady in my life and if you're the one, I really think we could be happy.” Her heart tightened. “But if you don't want that, if you can't make that work for you, then I want you to know I understand. You're a hero, Nick. What you do out here is important. If you need five women to take the edge off, I can understand that now.” She gave him a sad little smile. “I just wish I didn't care for you so much so I could be one of them.”

He reached out his hand.

She pressed his palm against her cheek. The cal
luses felt good. Just another indication of how capable and strong he was.

“I've never needed five women, Jo. Just one.” His voice grew husky. “Just you.”

She stared at him, hardly daring to hope. “I'm not good at sexual games, Nick. It needs to mean something—”

He didn't let her finish. Pulling her to him, he kissed her deeply, stroking her face with his scraped knuckles. “I've always dreamed of one woman to love, and one woman to love me, forever. You're the first woman I've ever met, Jo, who let me see forever.”

With that, he wiped away the tears from her cheeks. Then he kissed her and kissed her, never seeing the smug satisfaction on Hazel's lined face in the rearview mirror.