Chasing Fire

by Нора Робертс

  Wasn’t at least part of the zip because of what they both did here, the training, the sweat, the anticipation, the intense satisfaction of knowing only a select few could make the cut and be what they were?

  And, hello, wasn’t that the reason she didn’t get sexually or romantically involved with other jumpers? How could you trust your feelings when they were pumped through the adrenaline rush? And what did you do with those feelings when and if—and most likely when—things went south? You’d still have to work with, and trust your life to, somebody you’d been sleeping with and weren’t sleeping with anymore. And one or both of you had to be fairly pissed about it.

  Entirely better to meet somebody, even if he sold you tokens in an arcade, have a nice, uncomplicated short-term relationship. Then go back to doing what you do.

  She kicked up her pace to hit the last mile, then eased off to a cooldown jog. Her eyebrows lifted when Gull fell into pace beside her.

  “You still here?”

  “I did five. Felt good.”

  “No tequila haze this morning?”

  “I don’t get hangovers.”

  “Ever? What’s your secret?” When he only smiled, she shook her head. “Yeah, yeah, if I sleep with you, you’ll tell me. How’s the jaw, et cetera?”

  “It’s okay.” Banging like a drum after the five miles, but he knew that would subside.

  “I heard Dobie nixed the overnight for observation. L.B.’s got him off the jump list until he’s fit.”

  Gull nodded. He’d checked the list himself. “It won’t take him long. He’s a tough little bastard.”

  She slowed to a walk, then stopped to stretch. “What were you listening to?” she asked, gesturing to the MP3 player strapped to his arm.

  “Ear-busting rock,” he said with a smile. “You can borrow it the next time you run.”

  “I don’t like music when I run. I like to think.”

  “The best thing about running is not thinking.”

  As he stretched, she checked out the body she’d been thinking about. “Yeah, you’re probably right.”

  They started the walk back together.

  “I didn’t come out here because I saw you on the track.”

  “Well, hell. Now my day’s ruined.”

  “But I did admire your ass when you were whizzing by.”

  “That’s marginally satisfying,” he considered, “but I find it doesn’t fully massage my ego.”

  “You’re a funny guy, Gull. You tend to use fancy words, and read fancy books—I hear. You’re mean as a rattler in a fight, fast as a cheetah and spend your winters with foosball.”

  He bent to snag her jacket off the ground. “I like a good game of foosball.”

  As she tied the sleeves around her waist, she gave his face a long study. “You’re hard to figure.”

  “Only if you’re looking for one size fits all.”

  “Maybe, but—” She broke off as she spotted the truck pulling up in front of Operations. “Hey!” she shouted, waved her arms, then ran.

  Gull watched the man get out of the truck, tall and solid in a battered leather jacket and scarred boots. Silver hair caught by the wind blew back from a tanned, strong-jawed face. He turned, then opened his arms so Rowan could jump into them. Gull might have experienced a twinge of jealousy, but he recognized Lucas “Iron Man” Tripp.

  And it was a pretty thing, in his opinion, to see a man give his grown daughter a quick swing.

  “I was just thinking about you,” Rowan told her father. “I was going to give you a call later. I’m on the second stick, so I couldn’t come by.”

  “I missed you. I thought I’d check in, grab a minute and see how it’s all going.” He pulled off his sunglasses, hooked them in his pocket. “So, a strong crop of rooks this year.”

  “Yeah. In fact...” Rowan glanced around, then signaled to Gull so he’d change direction and join them. “Here’s the one who broke the base record on the mile-and-a-half. Hotshot out of California.” She kept her arm around her father’s waist while Gull walked to them.

  “Gulliver Curry, Lucas Tripp.”

  “It’s a genuine pleasure, Mr. Tripp,” Gull told him as he extended a hand.

  “You can drop the mister. Congratulations on the base record, and making the cut.”

  “Thanks.”

  She had her father’s eyes, Gull noted as they covered the small talk. And his bone structure. But what made more of an impression was the body language of both. It said, simply and unquestionably, they were an unassailable unit.

  “There’s that son of a bitch.” Yangtree let the door of Operations slap behind him, and came forward to exchange one-armed hugs with Lucas.

  “Man, it’s good to see you. So they let you skate through again this year?”

  “Hell. Somebody’s got to keep these screwups in line.”

  “When you’re tired of riding herd on the kids, I can always use another instructor.”

  “Teaching rich boys to jump out of planes.”

  “And girls,” Lucas added. “It’s a living.”

  “No packing in, packing out, no twenty hours on a line. You miss it every day,” Yangtree said, and pointed at him.

  “And twice on Sunday.” Tripp ran a hand down Rowan’s back. “But my knees don’t.”

  “I hear that.”

  “We’ll get you a couple rocking chairs,” Rowan suggested, “and maybe a nice pot of chamomile tea.”

  Lucas tugged her earlobe. “Make it a beer and I’m there. Then again, I heard the bunch of you had plenty of those last night, and got into a little ruckus.”

  “Nothing we couldn’t handle,” Yangtree claimed, and winked at Gull. “Or you couldn’t handle, right, Kick Ass?”

  “A momentary distraction.”

  “Did the momentary distraction give you that bruise on your jaw?” Lucas wondered.

  Gull rubbed a hand over it. “I’d say you should see the other guys, but it’s hard to be sure how they looked since they ran off with their tails tucked.”

  “From having them rammed into your fists.” Lucas nodded at Gull’s scraped and swollen knuckles. “How’s the man they ganged up on?”

  “Do you know everything?” Rowan demanded.

  “Ear to the ground, darling.” Lucas kissed her temple. “My ear’s always to the ground.”

  “Dobie’s a little guy, but he got some licks in.” Yangtree turned his head, spat on the ground. “They beat on him pretty good until Kick Ass here came along. Of course, before all that, your girl put two of them on their asses.”

  “Yeah, I heard about that, too.”

  “I didn’t start it.”

  “So I’m told. Starting it’s stupid,” Lucas stated. “Finishing it’s necessary.”

  Rowan narrowed her eyes. “You didn’t come by to check in, you came by to check on.”

  “Maybe. Want to fight about it?”

  She gave her father a poke in the chest, grinned.

  And the siren went off.

  Rowan kissed her father’s cheek. “See you later,” she said, and took off running. Yangtree slapped Lucas’s shoulder and did the same.

  “It was good to meet you.”

  Tripp took the hand Gull offered, studied the knuckles. “You’re off the list because of these.”

  “Today.”

  “There’s tomorrow.”

  “I’m counting on it.”

  Gull headed to the ready room. He was off the jump list, but he could lend a hand to those on it. Already jumpers were suiting up, taking their gear out of the tall cabinets, pulling on Kevlar suits over the fire-retardant undergarments. By the time he spotted her, Rowan had dropped into one of the folding chairs to put on her boots.

  He helped with gear and equipment until he could work his way to her.

  Over the sound of engines and raised voices, he shouted at her, “Where?”

  “Got one in the Bitterroots, near Bass Creek.”

  A short enough flight, he calculate
d, to warrant a buddy check prior to boarding. He started at her bootstraps, worked his way up. He’d already gotten past the state of his knuckles, and his temporary leave from the jump list.

  No point in regrets.

  “You’re clear.” Gull squeezed a hand to her shoulder, met her eyes. “Make it good.”

  “It’s the only way I know.”

  He watched her go, thought even the waddle enforced by the suit and gear looked strong and sexy on her.

  As he walked out to watch the rest of the load, he saw Dobie hobbling over. And in the distance Lucas “Iron Man” Tripp stood, hands in his pockets.

  “Fuckers screwed our chances.” Puffing a little, his face a crescendo of bruises, his brutalized eye a vivid mix of purple and red, Dobie stopped beside Gull.

  “Others to come.”

  “Yeah. Shit. Libby’s on there. I never thought she’d catch one before me.”

  Together they stood as the plane taxied, as its nose lifted. Gull glanced down to where Lucas stood, saw him lift his face to the sky. And watch his daughter fly toward the flames.

  5

  The heart of the wildfire beat hot and hard. Cutting through it loosed a waterfall of sweat that ran down Rowan’s back in constant streams. Her chain saw shrieked through bark and wood, spitting out splinters and dust that layered her clothes, gloves, hard hat. The roar and screams of saws, of cracking wood, crashing trees fought to smother that hard, hot beat.

  She paused only to chug down water to wet her throat and wash out the dust and smoke or to swipe off her goggles when the sweat running down her face blurred them.

  She stepped back when the ponderosa she’d killed to save others whooshed its way to the forest floor.

  “Hey, Swede.” Gibbons, acting as fire boss, hailed her over the din. Ash blackened his face, and the smoke he’d hiked through reddened his eyes. “I’m taking you, Matt and Yangtree off the saw line. The head’s shifted on us. It’s moving up the ridge to the south and building. We got spots frigging everywhere. We need to turn her while we can.”

  He pulled out his map to show her positions. “We got hotshots working here, and Janis, Trigger, two of the rooks, flanking it here. We’ve got another load coming in, and they’ll take the saw line, chase down spots. We’ve got repellent on the way, should dump on the head in about ten, so make sure you’re clear.”

  “Roger that.”

  “Take them up. Watch your ass.”

  She grabbed her gear, pulled in her teammates and began the half-mile climb through smoke and heat.

  In her mind she plotted escape routes, the distance and direction to the safe zone. Small, frisky spot fires flashed along the steep route, so they beat them out, smothered them before continuing up.

  Along their left flank an orange wall pulsed with heat and light, sucked oxygen out of the air to feed itself as it growled and gobbled through trees. She watched columns of smoke build tall and thick in the sky.

  A section of the wall pushed out, skipped and jumped across the rough track in front of them, and began to burn merrily. She leaped forward kicking dirt over it, using her Pulaski to smother it while Yangtree beat at it with a pine bough.

  They beat, shoveled and dug their way up the ridge.

  Over the din she caught the rumble of the tanker, pulled out her radio to answer its signal. “Take cover!” she shouted to her team. “We’re good, Gibbons. Tell them to drop the mud. We’re clear.”

  Through the smoke, she watched the retardant plane swing over the ridge, heard the thunder of its gates opening to make the drop, and the roar as the thick pink rain streaked down from the sky.

  Those fighting closer to the head would take cover as well, and still be splattered with gel that burned and stung exposed skin.

  “We’re clear,” she told her team as Yangtree gnawed off a bite of an energy bar. “We’re going to jag a little east, circle the head and meet up with Janis and the others. Gibbons says she’s moving pretty fast. We need to do the same to keep ahead of her. Let’s move! Keep it peeled for spots.”

  She kept the map in her head, the caprices of the fire in her guts. They continued to chase down spot fires, some no bigger than a dinner platter, others the size of a kid’s swimming pool.

  And all the while they moved up the ridge.

  She heard the head before she saw it. It bellowed and clapped like thunder, followed that with a sly, pulsing roar. And felt it before she saw it, that rush of heat that washed over her face, pushed into her lungs.

  Then everything filled with the flame, a world of vivid orange, gold, mean red spewing choking clouds of smoke. Through the clouds and eerie glimmer she saw the silhouettes, caught glimpses of the yellow shirts and hard hats of the smoke jumpers, waging the war.

  Shifting her pack, she pushed her way up the ridge toward the ferocious burn. “Check in with Gibbons,” she shouted to Matt. “Let him know we made it. Yo, Elf!” Rowan hailed Janis as she hurried forward, waving her arms. “Cavalry’s here.”

  “We need it. We got scratch lines around the hottest part of the head. The mud knocked her down some, and we’ve been scratching line down toward the tail. Need to widen it, and down the snags. Jesus.”

  She took a minute to gulp some water, swipe at the sweat dripping into her eyes. The pink goo of repellent pasted her hat and shirt. “First fire of the season, and this bitch has a punch. Gibbons just told me they’re sending in another load of jumpers, and they put Idaho on alert. We gotta cut off her head, Swede.”

  “We can start on widening the line, downing the snags. Hit a lot of spots on the way up. She keeps trying to jump.”

  “Tell me. Get started. I got the rooks up there, Libby and Stovic. Keep ’em straight.”

  “You got it.”

  Rowan dug, cut, beat, hacked and sweated. Hours flashed by. She sliced down snags, the still-standing dead trees the fire would use for fuel. When she felt her energy flag, she stopped long enough to stuff her mouth with the peanut-butter crackers in her PG bag, wash it down with the prize of the single Coke—nearly hot now—she’d brought with her.

  Her clothes sported the pink goo from a second drop of repellent, and under it her back, legs, shoulders burned from the heat and the hours of unrelenting effort.

  But she felt it, the minute it started to turn their way.

  The massive cloud of smoke thinned—just a little—and through it she saw a single hopeful wink of light from the North Star.

  Day had burned into night while they’d battled.

  She straightened, arched her back to relieve it, and looked back, into the black—the burned-out swatch of the forest the fire had consumed, the charred logs, stumps, ghostly spikes, dead pools of ash.

  Nothing to eat there now, she thought, and they’d cut off the supply of fuel at the head.

  Her energy swung back. It wasn’t over, but they’d beaten it. The dragon was beginning to lie down.

  She downed a dead pine, then used one of its branches to beat out a small, sneaky spot. The cry of shock and pain had her swinging around in time to see Stovic go down. His chain saw bounced out of his hands, rolled, and the blood on its teeth dripped onto the trampled ground.

  Rowan let her own drop where she stood, lunged toward him. She reached him as he struggled to sit up and grab at his thigh.

  “Hold on! Hold on!” She pushed his hands away, tore at his pants to widen the jagged tear.

  “I don’t know what happened. I’m cut!” Beneath the soot and ash, his face glowed ghastly white.

  She knew. Fatigue had made him sloppy, caused him to lose his grip on the saw or use it carelessly enough, just for a second, to allow it to jerk back.

  “How bad?” he demanded as she used a knife from her pack to cut the material back. “Is it bad?”

  “It’s a scratch. Toughen up, rook.” She didn’t know either way, not yet. “Get the first-aid kit,” Rowan ordered when Libby dropped down beside her. “I’m going to clean this up some, Stovic, get a better look.”r />
  A little shocky, she determined as she studied his eyes, but holding.

  And his bitter litany of curses—a few of them Russian delivered in his Brooklyn accent—made her optimistic as she cleaned the wound.

  “Got a nice gash.” She said it cheerfully, and thought, Jesus, Jesus, a little deeper, a little to the left, and bye-bye, Stovic. “The blade mostly got your pants.”

  She looked him in the eye again. She’d have lied if necessary, and her stomach jittered with relief she didn’t need the lie. “You’re going to need a couple dozen stitches, but that shouldn’t slow you down for long. I’m going to do a field dressing that’ll hold you until you get back to base.”

  He managed a wobbly smile, but she heard the click in his throat as he swallowed. “I didn’t cut off anything essential, right?”

  “Your junk’s intact, Chainsaw.”

  “Hurts like hell.”

  “I bet.”

  He gathered himself, took a couple slow breaths. Rowan felt another wave of relief when a little color eked back into his face. “First time I jump a fire, and look what I do. It won’t keep me grounded long, will it?”

  “Nah.” She dressed the wound quickly, competently. “And you’ll have this sexy scar to impress the women.” She sat back on her haunches, smiled at him. “Women can’t resist a wounded warrior, right, Lib?”

  “Damn right. In fact, I’m holding myself back from jumping you right now, Stovic.”

  He gave her a twisted grin. “We beat it, didn’t we, Swede?”

  “Yeah, we did.” She patted his knee, then got to her feet. Leaving Libby tending him, she walked apart to contact Gibbons and arrange for Stovic to be littered out.

  Eighteen hours after jumping the fire, Rowan climbed back onto the plane for the short flight back to base.

  Using her pack as a pillow, she stretched out on the floor, shut her eyes. “Steak,” she said, “medium rare. A football-size baked potato drowning in butter, a mountain of candied carrots, followed by a slab of chocolate cake the size of Utah smothered in half a gallon of ice cream.”

  “Meat loaf.” Yangtree dropped down beside her while somebody else—or a couple of somebody elses by the stereophonics—snored like buzz saws. “An entire meat loaf, and I’ll take my mountain in mashed potatoes with a vat of gravy. Apple pie, and make that a gallon of ice cream.”