Pure Heat

by M. L. Buchman

  “Retardant. We need retardant for this. Foam won’t do it.”

  TJ called over to the tank line, and Evans immediately began rolling out a two-and-a-half-inch hose.

  Henderson walked around the outside of the helicopter, removing engine covers and checking fuel tanks for any water that might have condensed overnight.

  Carly managed to cram down the English muffin and egg sandwich while Steve circled the perimeter of the fire once more.

  She tossed the paper plate in the trash bag and climbed aboard. The moment the radio was up, she was calling for status on the Boise tankers. One aloft, the other ten minutes behind.

  By the time the Firehawk’s engine was humming, Carly could see the small choppers cycling up.

  “Tank full. Hose clear. Preflight good,” Henderson shouted.

  He made a quick hand sign, to which his wife nodded, and they were aloft. “My heart flies with you.” It made Carly’s heart melt when Beale flashed back, “Mine with you.” Carly had learned American Sign Language as a high-school class project, gotten her father to help her, and they’d kept it up for a couple of years. Until he died.

  Carly turned away and checked her watch as Henderson slammed the door shut and latched it.

  By U.S. Forest Service code, it was literally the first minute they were allowed aloft, thirty minutes after sunrise. The fact that the Garden Valley airport was deep in a shadowed valley and wouldn’t see the sun for hours didn’t matter.

  The cup of coffee swung in a gimbal on her door. She could really use it but didn’t have time right now.

  “Steve, where are the crews?”

  He handed the tablet forward to her.

  Even as she looked, he marked the tiny dots of body heat. A twenty-man hotshot crew was scattered down the flanks of the black, working their way along the edges of the burnout to make sure no smolders or spot fires were flaring up. They and the smokies had clearly worked through the night and truly reinforced their line. They’d saved the ridge.

  But the shift in wind, now confirmed from stations up in Canada, was bringing trouble—and bringing it fast.

  Calling in tankers wouldn’t be enough. The D4s could work their way over, but they’d have heavy going. It would be hours before the dozers were in place, if they could cross the terrain at all.

  “I need the smokies to move and move fast.”

  “Hold it.” Steve cut her off over the intercom even as she reached for the radio transmit button.

  Each second itched at her. The display on the tablet swung and zoomed for almost half a minute.

  Steve was looking at something, but she couldn’t discern the pattern to his hopscotching, zigzag views.

  She bit her lip in impatience, easing off only when the pain felt hazardously close to drawing blood.

  “No way,” Steve insisted. “No way can they move that far that fast. Not doubling back through the black and definitely not over the head of the fire. The terrain is too rough, especially now with how exhausted they must be. They worked straight through the night to hold that line. They’re going to be knackered.”

  “I don’t have much ch—”

  Steve cut her off. “Beale. Let’s dump this load, then switch over to helitack. Carly, warn the crews we’re coming to get them and need a space.”

  ***

  Even as the Firehawk crested the ridge and Steve saw the fire come into direct view, Carly was on the radio. She pointed out the line for Beale to follow for the drop while she was informing Henderson of the change in tactics.

  Steve could hear Henderson on the radio to TJ right away, and then he started shifting the tanker drop patterns.

  Carly kept a dead-even voice as she tweaked Henderson’s plan a little west, confirmed the clearing size with the ground boss, and asked Steve for a view ahead on the drone.

  She constantly amazed him. Not the woman in a man’s job thing. He was fairly sure he wasn’t shallow enough for that. Carly simply stood head and shoulders above any other incident commander he’d ever worked with. She was just that damn good at her job.

  She was jumping frequencies fast enough to make his head spin and directing different flights to coordinates so fast he couldn’t keep them straight.

  Steve began tying lines onto the ceiling D rings of the cargo bay, setting up the descending lines to either side for the smokies they’d be picking up shortly.

  With the hum of the motors through the deck, he could feel the helicopter dance more lightly as it shed half its weight in six, long-drawn seconds of retardant drop. Steve hung on as they peeled off toward where the smokies were gathering their gear.

  He looked east out the cargo bay door. If the fire crossed the next valley, the flames would find a dozen directions to expand, rather than being pinched off for lack of fuel as Carly had originally planned.

  The first tanker roared in right behind them, but it wouldn’t be enough.

  Not by a long shot.

  The wind would be picking up in the next hour or so. It would be blasting up the narrowing valley and driving the fire like a blowtorch into an expansive territory. The area was listed on their databases as unburned in thirty years. That meant the forest floor would be covered with dead branches and dying trees. The whole side of Scott Mountain would go up like a single torch. Probably more like a bomb. Home run for the fire gods, a shutout for the home team.

  Even as they moved in over the smokies, the crew felled two more trees. They’d cleared an area just big enough for the Firehawk. Branches that were sticking up from the fallen trunks were trimmed even as the Firehawk descended, cut so that the spinning rotor blades wouldn’t catch them.

  Steve could tell they were a good crew, had trained hard together. They’d probably slept only two or three of the last twenty-four hours, passed out in place on some burned-out hillside in full fire gear. Despite that, they had the landing site prepped by the time Beale brought the chopper in on five minutes’ notice. That was tight work, a good team.

  In a Firehawk, smoke was an occasional thing; a cloud passed through, heating and flavoring the air for a moment before you blew past and circled once more in the clear. Anything heavy was distant. Far away.

  But the smokies were immersed in it. They began piling in, dragging aboard the scents of char and ash. Their yellow Nomex jumpsuits coated half-black with it. Pulaskis with notched edges from where they’d caught a rock. Wooden handles worn shiny by long use. Those with fiberglass handles had black carbon etched into every tiny mar on their surface.

  Steve began tossing fresh water bottles to the smokies before even the first was settled. A dozen guys piled in with all their gear.

  The scent of the fire was a slap to the face, like aftershave, so familiar it was almost home. The extra sweetness of burned sap smoke, the bitter edge of sweat and exhaustion.

  Steve wished, from the core of his being, that he was still one of them. That his suit stank. That the insulating long johns under the fire-resistant clothes under the fire suit itched like murder. That his parachute was a weight on his back that he’d been carting over rock and tree for a full day. His PG bag half-empty because he’d kept pulling energy bars and occasionally an MRE out of his personal gear. Each Meal-Ready-to-Eat was a pound off the pouch but one meal closer to being hungry.

  He pulled out a plastic bin and the guys started digging in. Reloading on trail mix and water. On MREs and chocolate bars.

  “Two minutes,” the ground chief replacing TJ shouted over the rotor noise. “They’re dropping us back in. They tell me there’s a wind coming. The good news, we’re in a notch and just have to cut off a few hundred yards of fire travel. The bad news is we’re going to need a two-hundred-foot break at a minimum. They can’t move the dozers for another three hours; the heavy lifters are tied up in Utah at the moment. So it’s up to the Hoodies. You guys ready.” It wasn’t a question.

  Anyone who wasn’t chewing shouted their agreement. The ones whose mouths were full pounded their boots or the
butt of their Pulaski on the steel deck. The chopper rang with the noise.

  Steve got the attention of the crew chief and directed him to the screen.

  He zoomed back and showed the guy the wide-area view. He superimposed the wind shift since last night.

  “Oh shit.” The guy saw it.

  “We’re dropping you here.” Steve zoomed in. “Your back door is here if the fire gets to you too fast. Over the ridge, then book your asses southwest. It’s counter-intuitive, but the wind will be driving the fire away from you.”

  “Roger that.”

  Beale slid to a hover.

  The nearest big clearing was way too far away. All she’d found for them was a hole between a couple of seventy-foot trees.

  The guys started slipping the ropes through the rappelling brakes hanging from the front of their harnesses. As soon as the chopper stopped, they kicked the lines free and started sliding to the ground, tree branches slapping at them as the wind from the rotor wash beat down upon them. The guys didn’t even wait for one teammate to fully descend before the next one started down. With a rope out each cargo bay door, the cabin was empty in under a minute.

  “We’re clear,” ground control called up.

  It looked like a bomb had gone off in their pristine chopper. Smoke smudges, garbage overflowing the plastic bag hanging on the side, mud coating the deck and the lower parts of the walls. A couple of scars in the paint from a stray Pulaski.

  Steve began pulling up and coiling the ropes. He pictured the leader squatting on the ground so recently trampled flat with everyone’s landing, sketching a strategy in the dirt.

  They were fighting fire while Steve was flying around a damn toy plane. He really was turning into a typical air attack twit. He hadn’t even asked the guy’s name.

  Chapter 16

  That evening, Carly didn’t see Steve at the drone site or the rigged-up chow line at midfield along the Garden Valley runway. She told herself she wasn’t searching for him, even as the setting sun roared down the valley and cast her shadow all the way back to where the helicopters perched at the far east end of the airport.

  She’d probably be better off if she didn’t find him. If she just took her sleeping bag and curled up somewhere on her own, she’d be better off. She’d just go for a walk along the river before crashing out.

  Sure, Thomas. Just pretend you aren’t going where you’re going.

  I’m just taking these blankets rather than my cozy, one-person sleeping bag in case I feel like sleeping outdoors again.

  Uh-huh.

  No, honest.

  Right, Thomas. The woman in the mirror had never been very forgiving, even when there wasn’t a mirror around.

  The winding watercourse led her invariably upriver to “their” spot. She didn’t want to have someone in her life. She didn’t want to have a “spot” with someone. But somehow she did. Somehow they did.

  And, of course, she’d completely avoided it when she’d checked the drone trailer. She’d been only a few dozen paces from the bank of the Payette. But she’d set out to prove something, though she’d be damned if she knew what, by looking for Steve everywhere except where she knew he’d be. And he was.

  He sat as he had the night before, his left leg stretched before him. His arms wrapped around his right leg and his chin on his knee. Right at the top of the riverbank, looking out over the slow-flowing water.

  “The lonely beast banished from the northern sky?”

  He just shrugged and kept staring across the water, though there was nothing to see but the far bank a hundred feet off. Even in the failing light she could see that he hadn’t washed or even eaten. His hands were still dirty, his face darkened by smoke. The fire had fought hard, and they’d done almost as much helitack as they had working as an air tanker.

  His clothes were soot covered as well. They, too, didn’t match the man she’d decided was awfully fastidious, showering to clear off a bit of parking lot and gravel dust. It seemed a strange trait in a smokie, or even a former smokie.

  “Guess I should have returned the favor and brought some dinner.”

  His nonresponse finally had her squatting down to look at him more closely.

  “You okay?”

  That shrug was the last answer she needed.

  “Talk to me, Merks.” It was the first time she’d called him that, but somehow it fit him at this moment.

  She saw the gesture start.

  “If you shrug again, I’m gonna smack you a good one. And I’m just the woman who’ll do it.”

  “Then I won’t.” His voice was tight, rough, even dangerous.

  She stood and half considered leaving him there. It wasn’t as if she wanted to get closer to the man.

  “You’re a mess, Merks.”

  “Yeah, I figured that much out myself. Thanks for your help. I’m fine.”

  She headed upslope, back toward the helibase. The sun was gone now, the heavens gone dark, dark blue.

  She stopped and looked back at the lonely figure by the riverbank. And above his head, the first star shone in the night sky. Steve could probably tell her what it was. It was so bright that it pretty much had to be a planet. Nothing else shone in the sky yet but that lone glittering bit of brightness.

  She wanted to ask, but not when he was in this mood.

  But it wasn’t her mood. They’d trapped the fire at the notch, working the flanks hard to force it to die against the massive firebreak backed up with tons of retardant. They’d have it killed by tomorrow if there were no more overnight surprises.

  Carly didn’t want to celebrate, that could hex things, but she wanted someone to share the triumph of the day with. Someone who understood the fire and understood what it took to beat it into submission. Few enough knew what it took to face a fire day after day and drive it back into the sky where it lived until the lightning drove it down again.

  She headed back down to him, but he must have heard her coming.

  “I said I’m fine.” A true growl this time.

  That did it.

  “So am I,” Carly told him. She dropped the blankets. Then, with a quick squat and shove on her part, Steve was sliding down the bank, hollering as he hit the water.

  “Shit!” His head popped above the surface. “Goddamn, this is cold.” He started clawing up the grassy bank.

  “Get back in until you’re clean. Nothing worse than a dirty, stinking grouch.” Carly moved above him and shoved down against the top of his head. Even as his feet went out from under him, he reached and snagged her wrist.

  She didn’t even have time to cry out before she plunged into the water half on top of him.

  She surfaced and spit a mouthful of water in his face. “It’s not that cold, you wimp.”

  “The woman is a goddamn polar bear.”

  It was cold, though not bitter. But she sure wasn’t going to admit even that. She ducked underwater to pull off her sneakers and chucked them up on the bank.

  To prove her point, she moved out into the chest-deep current and swam lazily upstream, just fast enough to counteract the current so that she stayed in place.

  Steve sloshed to the bank and pulled off his boots. He rinsed them free of mud and tossed them up onto the grass.

  “C’mon, tough guy. Let’s go for a swim.”

  He stepped into the current, reached out a long arm, and shoved down hard on her back, submerging her completely on a squawk that nearly made her inhale river water.

  She stayed under, made a lucky guess, and got a hand around each of his ankles. A quick bracing of her feet on the sandy bottom and she jerked up, flipping him over backwards.

  Carly was laughing when he surfaced.

  He got a hand behind her neck. A big, powerful hand.

  She took a deep breath, knowing she was going under and couldn’t do anything about it.

  In the last of the light she could see his face.

  Not playful.

  Not laughing.

  Wild.
Half-mad.

  For an instant, she was afraid as his hand tightened around the back of her neck. Then he dragged her against him with all the force of a hard parachute landing, when you open late and smack hard against the earth.

  His mouth was on hers. Hard, taking, greedy.

  For perhaps ten beats of her heart, he ravaged her so fiercely that she couldn’t think. Her mind wouldn’t function.

  No one had ever overwhelmed her senses with sheer power. All she could manage was to wrap herself around him and hang on.

  Then she was free. Practically thrown backward into the current.

  He stood chest deep in the water, cursing.

  “I’m sorry!” The words wrenched out of him. “God, I’m so sorry. Just get away from me, Carly. Leave now!”

  She didn’t move. Couldn’t. Not when she could see the pain etched across his features.

  “Go!” he practically screamed into her face, like a wild animal trapped in the fire, unable to escape, knowing it was doomed.

  He hung his head, panting. Gasping for breath he couldn’t find. His chest heaving aside small waves of river water.

  Carly had only seen such pain once, no, twice before. When it was her own face in the mirror. When her father died, and when Linc…

  Both times she’d been helpless. This time she could act.

  She rested her palm against the center of his chest, the soaked T-shirt in no way stopping the heat pouring off him.

  A step apart, they were connected by a pain most didn’t understand because they’d never been there.

  She didn’t shush his gasps. Didn’t lie and tell him it would be okay or that it would hurt less someday. All she did was leave her hand over his heart as the last of the light faded from the surface of the river, bled from the sky itself.

  A kiss. She didn’t consciously move forward, wasn’t aware she had until their lips touched and she tasted the salt. Tears, unseen in the twilight, trickled down his face. She kissed his cheeks, his salted eyes, his forehead.

  Then she curled much as she had last night. Her cheek on his shoulder, this time her arms wrapped tight around him as the cold river slid quietly around them.