Wildfire on the Skagit (Firehawks Book 9) (4 page)

Once the helo peeled off, he could hear chainsaws chewing away at the trees above him, but they were out of sight in the smoke.

Had another team jumped in while he was gone to get so much done?

But as he trudged up the line, the crew slowly resolved into view. There were just four of them. Two sawyers, one swamper, and one who appeared to be everywhere at once.

Clearly in her natural element, Krista moved about the fireline like a blond ballerina in a hardhat. One moment she was digging line, the next she was helping Ox catch up with the sawyers. She ran a gas can up the line when one of the saws sputtered to a stop and they had it running again before Evan had closed half the distance.

Krista spotted him.

“Took your time, Rook.”

“Brought you a present,” Evan made a show of lifting the jerry can and the water cube though his arms wept when he did.

“Whoo-ee!” She hooted out. “Better than a bouquet of roses. We just might keep you, Rook.” She hustled down the last of the slope and grabbed the jerry can.

He was about to protest about the weight, when she turned and trotted back up to the sawyers with it as if it was as light as that rose bouquet.

Roses for Krista? Evan was pretty sure he’d never given a woman other than Mom a bouquet of roses—and that had been for Mother’s Day at a girlfriend’s prompting. It wasn’t until the girlfriend was long gone that he understood he should have given her flowers once in a while too. He just never thought of it. And his mother didn’t deserve them. Neither of his parents had—ever.

By the time he reached the other near-empty water cube to set down his full one, Krista was back beside him.

“Take five, Rook. You earned it.”

He wanted nothing more than to throw himself on the ground. Instead, he dug out a packet of electrolyte and dumped it into a dry water bottle. It was a challenge as his hands started shaking with the burn of lactic acid buildup in the muscles.

Krista watched him for a moment as he filled it from the cube.

“Nah,” he did his best to make it sound casual. He slugged back half the bottle, knowing that would help more than any rest.

Clearly none of them had rested even a second of the time he’d been gone. It was the only way they could have gotten so much done. So resting wasn’t an option, but he bought himself a few moments for the shakes to stop by giving his report. It also let him keep Krista to himself for a few moments. That was a feeling he definitely liked.

“The line below is clean. Only two small flare-ups and I buried them. Nick and Lee are moving well, though they need more hose dropped within the hour or they’ll be down to a single line.”

She hopped on the radio with that and one of the helos promised to make a drop.

He was as rested now as he was going to be on this fire. “Think I’ll give Ox a hand.” He took a step to go around Krista and she rested a hand on his shoulder.

She squeezed it hard, hard enough to rub bones together if he hadn’t been muscled up for a fire season. “Thanks, Evan. You done good,” her voice was surprisingly soft and smooth.

He flipped her a finger and grin just as she had done to him right after his jump into the Black.

As Evan moved up the slope he felt lighter than any other time during his entire first day with MHA.

It shouldn’t matter that much that Krista had complimented him and used his real name. But it did.

And that smooth and silky tone in her voice…who knew a smokejumper could sound so sexy.

Chapter 3

The next time Evan
was conscious of anything other than the fire, the sun was setting—for the second time.

The first afternoon’s wind had brought flare-ups. Pitched battle had been engaged to keep the line. They were in country too steep for dozers and all the arrival of the Hotshot team had done was take over the flanks to free up MHA for the battle of the ridge.

One moment he’d be digging line, the next across the ridge and down in the unburned valley to the north with Ox killing off a spot fire. As the wind kicked harder, they’d spent more and more of their time scrambling up and down the treacherous terrain killing nascent fires that embers were trying to spark on the next slope.

In the quiet of the night they’d desperately cut more line trying to save the next valley over and then spent the entire second day defending that line.

It was the evening of Day Two when he ground to a halt.

The smokies all finished together high up in the saddle between two peaks. They just stood in the high clearing and looked dazedly about. Evan knew he was no better off than those around him, blinking hard in surprise at the sudden lack of anything to do.

In front of them, the fire snapped and spat.

But they’d contained it and it wasn’t going anywhere.

The MHA helicopters were already down for the night—Forest Service contract said they were out of the sky from a half hour before sunset to a half hour after sunrise. Sometimes night operations were authorized, along with the stiff extra fee, but it wasn’t needed on this fire. All the fire needed tonight was a lookout, making sure it didn’t escape as it finished burning the woods inside the fireline.

Behind them was a hundred thousand acres of untouched forest lands except for a few charred spots where they’d beaten down spot fires—not one of them bigger than an acre.

“Camping here,” Akbar croaked in a voice hoarse with firesmoke and exhaustion.

Still there was little movement. Nick the Greek may have been the first one to drop to one knee, but in the next second everyone was down on the ground except Krista.

Evan watched as she started gathering kindling and firewood.

He forced his own legs—rubbery from two days and a night on the line—into motion and clambered down across the fireline to fetch a brand from the sputtering fire. He chose a well-burned branch still flaming hot enough at one end to start a campfire easily.

He made it back up the hill—barely—and rammed it into Krista’s pile of wood before sitting down. He wound up next to Krista.

She’d shed her hardhat, jacket, and long-sleeved fire shirt. All she wore now was a sweat-stained cotton t-shirt that clung to every curve and outline. Stretched wide across her breasts the shirt declared, “Smokejumpers do it best in a fire.”

He was staring. He knew it, but damn.

# # #

“Good first fire, Rook,” Krista could see Evan battling to look her in the face rather than the chest. It was kind of sweet actually. Most men either talked directly to her breasts or took one gander at her solid frame and went looking somewhere else.

She’d been built to be on the football team, not the cheerleading squad. Not that the high school in Concrete, Washington had much of either one, but they tried. She’d been told to go out for shot put and she’d told them to go to hell.

And here was this guy, looking her in the eyes now, like she was something special. Absolutely no one had ever done that. Not even her father, though he was so meek he never looked anyone in the eye, and spoke only rarely. It was likely she’d inherited all the brass Pop had never found.

“First fire. Yeah,” Evan’s voice sounded as tired as she felt. “The Zulies never let me actually fight a fire before. I was just a water boy for them.”

“That’s what they told us, too.” Krista knew he’d been top five over there. Top five jumper with the Zulies meant MHA was damned lucky to get him.

She pulled her big knife out of its thigh sheath, a well-worn, Vietnam-era K-bar. She sliced open a pair of MREs with the ease of long practice and slipped it back into the sheath.

“There’s a
Don’t Mess With Me
message if ever I saw one,” Evan pulled out a much newer but equally worn K-bar Becker and did the same to a couple of MREs of his own.

“Grandpop’s,” she explained tapping her sheath.

“Mine,” he resheathed his blade.

She could see it in him. It wasn’t posturing or bragging; it was just part of who he was. She’d barely glanced at his resume because she didn’t trust such things, preferred her own judgments about people. But she recalled some stretch of U.S. Army time before he’d gone to smokejumping.

One of his meals was the Mexican Style Chicken Stew. He pulled out another packet of that hot chocolate and sprinkled it into the pouch.

“What the hell, Rook?”

“Mole sauce,” he finished sprinkling. He picked out the dehydrated marshmallows and, popping them into his mouth, began sucking on them like candy.

“Got some extra?” She’d drawn a Chili with Beans which was okay, but she liked the idea of Mexican.

He handed her the half empty packet which she dumped in.

They each set their foil packets on a rock around the campfire and sat back to wait for the meals to heat from totally disgusting—the way they were normally eaten on a fire—to warmly awful.

The others were doing the same. Ox had four fat frankfurters that he was cooking on an alder branch.

“Hey,” Nick the Greek called out. “Where the hell you get those?”

“Stuffed ‘em into my PG bag hard frozen before we jumped. They’re thawed now.”

“Two days, dude. In your Personal Gear? More like ripe!”

“Just the way I like ‘em.”

“Got any ants this time?” Nick called to Lee, looking for the next target.

“Not a one,” Ant-man said proudly. “Might have slipped a small snake into your bag though.”

Krista let the banter run back and forth across the fire without joining in. Normally she’d be right in there, egging on whoever was at a disadvantage at the moment. But she felt surprisingly mellow and simply let it flow by. Soon Akbar joined in about his super-squad versus Krista’s lame-ass crowd; he’d beat her to the ridgeline by twenty minutes in a two-day battle. Ox rose to the challenge on that one and Krista still floated along.

“The joys of the season’s first fire,” she said softly to Evan.

He nodded, picked up one of his MREs and stabbed a plastic spork down into the pouch before leaning back against a rock and taking a mouthful. “First one always feels good. Mid-summer will be harsh and by fall it’ll totally suck.”

“’Bout right,” she agreed.

“Can’t wait.”

Krista inspected him more carefully as he watched the fire. Every multi-season smokie jumped fire for a different reason, but if it really drove them, you could see the mark of it on their faces. Evan definitely had the mark, and not just of a multi-year jumper; every single person in MHA’s crew had that. For Evan Greene it was something special, something deep drove him to the fire. Krista had seen that same look in the mirror her whole life.

Most guys, even most of the ones at MHA were gonna be gone after five or ten years in. Enough pain, enough broken relationships, a blown knee that surgery could no longer put back together, a broken back or worse—they’d be gone.

Akbar wouldn’t. Two-Tall Tim had been a lifer—still was, just up in Alaska. Ox and Ant-man maybe. Nick the Greek would last this season, but probably not next.

Krista had found her dream career and would jump until they carried her out on a flaming backboard. And she suspected that Evan would also.

“Why did you cross over?”

“Well,” Evan made his voice high and squeaky. “I was never happy as a woman and—”

A laugh burst out of her. She almost snorted her mouthful of chili and beans—which really was a bit more palatable with the powdered hot chocolate though the barely rehydrated marshmallows that she hadn’t picked out were a little strange. Evan might be many things, but he was about as male as she’d ever seen—transgender hung out nowhere near this boy-o.

“Why did you?” he asked her.

“Born this way, Soldier-boy.”

“Yes, ma’am, Master Sergeant.”

“It’s not gonna stick, Rook. Give it up and try again.”

# # #

“Hey, Great One,” Evan shouted across the conversation to Akbar.

“What you want, Rook?” he called back.

Evan groaned.

Krista smirked at him and he ignored the fact that he felt some strange urge to kiss it off her face.

“Master Sergeant Krista claims not to have a tag. What’s up with that?” Maybe he could get the group to pick up the theme.

“None of ‘em stick,” was all the help Akbar gave him.

“We tried, lord knows,” Ox complained.

“They just slide off the woman,” Nick the Greek replied. “They run away like the flames do when she faces down a fire. She don’t even have to fight it when she’s on a roll. Just glare and gone.”

“Keep it up, though,” Akbar offered cheerfully. “She might stick you with ‘Rook’ permanent-like which would be funny as hell.”

“I’m so afraid,” Evan did a woman-in-a-horror-movie voice.

Krista laughed beside him, which was the whole point. She had a damn fine laugh; it just wrapped around you and invited you in. Which only made him want to find more ways to bring it out.

Conversation turned, as it always did around post-jump campfires, to stories of bad burns. Later in the season it would turn into bad jumps that left a smokie injured or worse. Then burnovers. Though Evan had never been in one, he’d heard the stories and they sounded like true hell. After that it would get personal and Evan would once again have to fight against his inner demons. But tonight it was about triumphant firefights.

Krista kept her peace more than she joined in which didn’t surprise Evan. She was like a mama hen watching over her chicks. “Mama Krista.” It wasn’t bad, but she was more than that too. He’d find it.

When questions of keeping watch on the fire arose, Evan volunteered for first shift. Lee the Ant-man raised a hand for who Evan should wake in two hours. Already, half the camp was asleep sitting up, but Evan was wide awake yet; as if sitting close beside Krista had electrified his system.

He went to the far side of the saddle and found an uncomfortable rock to sit on that offered him an excellent view over the firescape below but wouldn’t let him sleep once the exhaustion slammed in. Smoke still climbed lazily upward in enough volume to shroud all but the brightest stars. Yet the smoke was thin enough that fire was no longer the only smell on the air. Small night breezes mixed in the scent of the conifer forest sleeping the night away to either side of the Black.

Below him, out in the Black, ranged dozens of small sporadic fires and minor flare-ups. The Hotshot crew had sacked out down by the stream, ready to hike back out as soon as the local cleanup team came in tomorrow to make sure the Black was truly dead.

There was a sudden flare-up, almost bright enough to read by for a moment. Deep in the Black, it soon settled due to a lack of fuel. From what Evan could see, this fire wasn’t going anywhere.

“I always love this moment.”

Evan spun around. He hadn’t heard Krista’s approach. His Special Forces senses had failed him; but they never failed him, even five years out of the service. Maybe she was military to move so stealthily. But he’d been so sure she wasn’t.

Little more than a shadow, she settled onto the rock beside him.

“It is good,” he spoke to cover his sudden unease. “When the battle has been won and the forest can lay down to sleep.”

“Until the next fire.”

“Until the next battle,” he agreed. But there was a part of him that hated this too. An old part that ran far deeper—one thick with anger that rose up dark inside him and he was unable to avoid. He loved the adrenaline, the challenge, and the triumph. But he hated the aftermath even more than he hated the war.

He did his best to focus on Krista and the day’s victory.

Focus on the positive,
he reminded himself for all the good it ever did him.

They sat in an easy silence; easy despite another battle now raging inside him. The soft crackle of the distant flare-up the only sound in the night air. Even the night breeze had gone silent here with no leaves to whisper through.

From long practice he could normally shove the darkness, the anger aside. For some reason tonight it wasn’t working. He hated the war in the Afghan Dustbowl where he’d spent five out of his six years in the service. So why had he signed up for the wildfire war at home? To avoid thinking about the past. He feared that internal darkness more than the enemy’s bullet.
Say something, Ev. Anything.

“I crossed over from the Zulies because the winters were hard,” he answered her earlier question, with a little too much truth. “I missed the fire,” and the distraction of it. “MHA promised year-round action.” And he did like the action.

“Might be hotshotting as a ground crew in Australia or jumping a fire in Argentina,” Krista warned him from the dark. “But it does make the time flow by.”

And just like that, it was as if she had understood why he’d entered firefighting in the first place, even though there was no way she could. He’d done his time in the Special Forces, lost good friends, good men to rag-head Taliban—and he’d be damned if he could figure out if the world was any better for all the blood they’d shed.

He’d gotten out when he no longer trusted himself to stay “on the reservation.” There was a part of him that wanted to step out and just destroy the whole country, along with its innocents, in order to eradicate the fanatical infestation. He knew that was a bad headspace for a soldier with heavy weapons and command of a dozen-man Operational Detachment-Alpha team—a single Special Forces ODA could do some serious damage. When they tried to bump him to command of a full company of six ODA teams, he knew it was time for another career.

Now, as Krista had said, he was just letting time flow by. There had to be more than that. But he’d started to suspect there wasn’t. And those long, dry winter months had not sat well with helping the time pass. The weight had grown on him. Now even these quiet moments between fires were becoming a burden.