Larry resolved to send the deputies after him when virtually everyone else had left, but some perverse sense of curiosity was eating at him.
“Amanda, take over. I’m going to chase that silly bastard down,” Larry said, handing her the clipboard. “I’ve got my radio if you need me.”
“Don’t be long.”
He flashed her a thumbs-up and climbed into his Jeep, firing off the engine and following Wolf back up the mountainside less than a mile to his palatial home. Sure enough, the Humvee was in the front drive; but instead of being inside somewhere, Jimmy was standing on the circular drive with his hands on his hips and searching the sky.
At the same moment one of the giant Skycranes lumbered into view, the huge five-bladed rotors creating a stiff wind on the ground as it moved into position approximately a hundred feet over his house, the long snorkel hanging down like some vaguely obscene appendage.
Bet they don’t refer to that machine as a “she,” Larry mused.
The Skycrane began releasing a small stream of water onto the roof from its cavernous tank. He assumed that it had just refilled from the nearby lake. Normally the tank’s contents would be loosed all at once to drown a spot fire, but only a small, insignificant trickle was sprinkling down on Jimmy’s roof, and he seemed none too happy about it.
“No, dammit! MORE! PUT THE WHOLE BLOODY THING DOWN!”
Larry watched him yelling and jumping and waving his arms, then taking his hat and waving it at the Skycrane crew. Larry got out of his Jeep and began walking toward him as Jimmy suddenly stopped jumping around and pulled out his cell phone, punching the buttons frantically.
“Mr. Secretary? They’re barely pissing on my roof! Would you please call that bastard Spano back and tell him to tell this throttle jockey to dump the whole damn thing now?”
Larry was almost at his side and reached out to touch Jimmy’s sleeve to get his attention. But the aging rocker saw him and pulled away.
“Jimmy, you need to be careful. That water is very heavy—”
Jimmy whirled on him. “Shut up! I don’t frigging have time for you!”
He leaned over, looked up, and leaned over again as he listened to someone on the other end.
“That’s right! Sonofabitch is just dribbling water. Yes. All of it! Right now! Yes!”
“Jimmy, please listen to me,” Larry said. “You don’t want to do that.”
Once more Jimmy turned to Larry, an almost feral expression on his face as he mouthed, “Shut up.”
“YES, YES, YES! I DON’T GIVE A DAMN!” Jimmy yelled into the phone. “ORDER THE BUGGER TO DROP IT ALL NOW! YOU HAVE THAT SPANO BASTARD ON THE LINE? DOES HE HAVE RADIO CONTACT WITH THE STUPID PILOT? GOOD! DROP…IT…ALL…NOW!”
Larry’s level of alarm was increasing. He grabbed Jimmy’s shoulder and tried to turn him around, yelling above the noise of the rotors.
“JIMMY! LISTEN TO ME!”
“WHAT?!”
“YOUR ROOF CAN’T TAKE A FULL LOAD OF WATER.”
“WHAT? WHY NOT?”
“STRUCTURALLY—”
But the remaining words were obscured by a new sound from above, as a loud whoosh ing noise announced the sudden opening of the entire dump valve on the bottom of the large metal tank, and the immediate descent of nearly twenty thousand pounds of water laced with confused rainbow trout and assorted algae, all of it accelerating at normal gravitational rates of thirty-two feet per second per second and impacting the middle of Jimmy Wolf’s $14 million four-story lodge at just under fifty-five miles per hour. The combined kinetic assault was instantly accompanied by the cacophonous sound of splitting timbers and collapsing structure as the roof caved inward, pulling walls and various floors of the open atrium with them. The water backlashed out through the sides, blowing out what windows remained unbroken in a cascade of glass, metal, wood, and furniture, the tidal wave finally dissipating enough to break around the small grassy rise they were standing on.
As one of his favorite chairs floated by, and several frantic fish flopped around on his driveway, a thoroughly stunned Jimmy Wolf slowly raised the phone to his mouth. “Right,” he said slowly, “I think that’s enough.”
“Good grief, Jimmy!” Larry managed to say. “I was trying to warn you—”
“God! Well, at least the sucker won’t burn now,” Jimmy said, his eyes still on the Skycrane, which was slowly turning, and as it dipped its nose southward, a hurricane gust of rotorwash knocked them both to the soggy ground.
THREE MILES WEST OF BRYARLY, WYOMING
Eric Wright was on the verge of ripping open the fire-shelter pack. The smoke was causing him to cough constantly, even though he’d wetted down the elastic cuff of his jacket and was breathing through it to filter the air.
The sound of the Jet Ranger returning was beyond musical, a sound of deliverance as clear as a cavalry bugle to a besieged wagon train in a John Ford western.
The helicopter flew overhead, pivoted carefully, and settled down in the same spot as before, and Eric raced over and clambered in.
“God, am I glad to see you!”
“Yeah, there’s a fire down the canyon coming this way,” Trent said as he pulled on the collective and fairly yanked the Jet Ranger back into the air.
“And there’s a big blaze burning right up to the edge of the canyon just ahead.”
“Everybody else out of the town?”
“All except for a handful. The rest should already be in Jackson Hole by now. Hang on, I promised the city manager a call.”
They were gaining forward speed, and Trent nudged the collective even higher. They rose above the lip of the canyon just as a powerful gust of wind pushed in from the left, carrying with it a hail of branches and burning leaves in a peppering rain of debris. The wind shoved the Jet Ranger to the left, and the craft weathervaned into the wind, pivoting to the right and taking another fiery gust laden with debris head-on.
Trent triggered the transmitter, speaking into the boom microphone on his headset.
“Bryarly City Manager Black, Jet Ranger Two-Three Bravo, how copy?”
A tenuous voice came back.
“Ah, loud and clear, Two-Three Bravo.”
“I’ve got my guy, and we’re on the way back to pull you out.”
“Roger.”
Both men saw the flaming firebrand coming at them, but there was no time for Trent to react on the controls as the cloud of debris from branches that had exploded in flame hit, the density great enough to clog the critical air intakes of the otherwise uncloggable engine.
Trent could feel the power of the turbine engine begin to fade as it gasped for air. They were at fifty knots and only a hundred feet off the ground, a critical place to be for an engine loss in a helicopter, and all he could see ahead were trees, the closest ones on fire.
“Jesus! We’re going down!” Trent said, somehow squeezing the transmit button on the stick. “Mayday, mayday, mayday, Jet Ranger Two-Three Bravo, engine failure, going down two miles west of Bryarly. Mayday!”
The town was somewhere to the east, and the engine rpm’s were fading fast, the engine temperature rising precipitously. The branches and other debris that weren’t grinding through the engine were choking off the air supply.
“We need a clearing!” Trent shouted, his eyes frantically scanning the impossible scene ahead.
“Over there!” Eric gestured to the right, over the back of the burning trees into unburned green, where a stand of aspen appeared to open into a clearing.
The rotor rpm was decaying, the engine all but gone. Trent twisted the motorcycle-style throttle to maximum, but the turboshaft engine was slowly strangling, and its power output was nearly useless. He had mere moments to put it on the ground or run out of energy and simply fall. There was enough remaining rpm in the rotor for a soft landing directly below, but there were nothing but burning trees there. He would have to stretch another few hundred feet, holding the airspeed as the rotor blades slowed. It was against every instin
ct a helicopter pilot has, but still he held course, letting the skids almost brush the treetops below until they were over an unburned green with a tiny meadow ahead.
There was no time for finesse. It was going to be a crash landing.
“Brace!” Trent yelled, aiming the Ranger between trees ahead and getting her as low as possible before the inevitable impact with the rotor blades. They were still flying but now less than twenty feet above the ground, the rotor rpm below red line, the engine gone. He nudged the collective down to prevent ballooning and hauled back on the cyclic to raise the nose and slow the forward speed, trying to soften the impact. The forward airspeed was below twenty, the blades now chopping into adjacent light vegetation like a mower, when one of the blades caught the trunk of a tree too big to sever, and the world began to spin in an uncontrollable whirl of green and motion and yelps and mechanical sounds of tearing and crashing. The noises stopped, and Trent realized they were on their left side in a grove of trees, with the sounds of hot liquids hissing dangerously on metal surfaces.
He looked over at Eric Wright. The young copilot was unconscious, his head resting against the shattered corner of the Plexiglas windscreen.
Trent closed his right hand around the frame of the right door window and opened his seat belt, letting himself down as gently as possible on the copilot. He climbed out through the broken front windscreen and then turned back in, working to release Eric’s seat belt and haul him out. There was considerable blood on his head, and Trent realized the young man was bleeding from his mouth.
He could hear the forest fire on the other side. He had to get the copilot out of the crushed interior of the cockpit before the Ranger caught on fire. They’d had more than two-thirds of a tank of jet fuel onboard, and the tanks had broken. He could smell the kerosene, and he knew it was pooling around the wreckage and waiting for a spark.
Finally, gingerly, he managed to pull the copilot through the crushed window frame and drag him a safe distance away. There was a rumble overhead at the same moment, and he looked up to see the King Air lead plane roar by less than two hundred feet overhead. He knew what would follow.
Trent quickly turned the copilot on his side and leaned over him protectively as a DC-6B thundered over at treetop height, spewing fire retardant that rained with painful impact on his back and head, thudding and thumping into the forest.
Obviously they hadn’t seen the downed helicopter, and now—even though better protected from the fire—the wreck would be obliterated by a swath of red.
Trent wiped the slippery chemical from his face and took a closer look at Eric. Though he was unconscious, his pulse seemed steady. But the blood oozing out of his mouth was frightening, and it was obvious he was going to need immediate medical help. Trent began to turn back to the wreck just as the kerosene ignited with a whoomp, and a bright, hot orange flame began to consume the remains of the machine.
TWO MILES ABOVE BRYARLY, WYOMING
“Woohoo!” George Baird exclaimed, holding his Pulaski high in victory as the last of the flames from the spot fire they’d been attacking flickered out, done in by a combination of rapid tree felling and the effective line they’d cut to isolate the small blaze before it got out of hand.
“No rest for the weary, gang.” Karen smiled, pointing east and downslope a bit more. There’s smoke down there as well.”
They moved out smartly, drawing on the reserves of youth and the biochemical high of excitement, knowing their squad had played a pivotal role in saving the entire valley, a town, and maybe even Yellowstone and were still going at it, doing what few people would ever choose to do.
Karen brought up the rear, her nose so full of fragrant wood smoke it was nearly impossible to sniff anything new on the stiff wind now whistling almost directly at them from the east. The shift had been dramatic, from almost due south at daybreak to almost due east in midafternoon, but it meant that any spot fires on the eastern side of the valley leading northward to Bryarly needed early containment.
She could still hear the sounds of helicopters working the north slope, and wondered when she’d need to admit their finite limitations and call for water on a spot fire too big to dry mop. So far, with four significant spot fires extinguished and a dozen other smaller blazes stomped to death before they climbed the trees, they hadn’t needed helo support. But that could change.
Karen stopped suddenly, letting the rest of the squad move on ahead as she held back. She sampled the air and let her eyes roam the horizon, looking for Sam Littlefox in his King Air. She hadn’t heard him fly past for fifteen or twenty minutes and imagined he was flying near the town and bringing the tankers through. The other smokejumpers were disappearing ahead of her, and it was a little worrisome that no one had noticed her absence. Smokejumpers tended to be that way, she thought wryly. They were a squad, but more a collection of mavericks at times, not like the hotshot crews who seemed to be far more disciplined and even militaristic in their methods.
She listened to the growing silence, finding nothing to be alarmed about. Yet…some sixth sense was very definitely alarming her.
It’s probably just a combination of Sam’s cautions a bit earlier and that stiff eastern wind.
Phil Dale, who had been just ahead of her, turned suddenly when he finally realized there were no footsteps behind him. Peering through the trees, he spotted her thirty yards back.
“Karen? You okay?”
“Yeah, just checking to see how much you need me.”
“Well, come on.”
She laughed and trotted after him, her pack and gear feeling much heavier than they had a few minutes before. When she got within a few yards of Phil, she motioned for him to go ahead. “I’m okay. I’m going to range left and right here and check things out.”
“You da boss lady,” he replied with a grin.
Karen began working her way directly downslope before resuming an easterly course toward the spot fire. There were no human trails along the steep slope, but there was evidence of deer and elk and smaller animals, and here and there in the pine-needle carpet she saw a fresh outcropping of black dirt and a small hole for some animal’s den. Out of curiosity she started scanning for additional ones, her eyes falling on a small, cavelike opening in the dirt of the mountainside just up from where she was pushing through the trees.
Wow! I’ll bet that’s an old bear den. Maybe too small, but…
It had been years since she’d stumbled on a bear’s den, and she wondered if the occupant was home, but there was no time to check.
Karen glanced at her watch and forced herself to end the nature tour and get back to work. She got an audible fix on the noise of her squad’s chain saws, checked the sky through the tall stand of larch, and resumed walking.
Karen rejoined the group as the first trees were falling, the flames still contained at the bases. She glanced up again to the eastern flank of the mountain, worrying that perhaps Sam was no longer on guard, but at that moment the distant whine and whirr of the King Air’s turboprop engines buzzed overhead, and she unholstered her radio and decided to wait a few minutes for him to check on things.
The call wasn’t more than ninety seconds in coming.
“Jones, Lead Four-Two, how copy?” Sam’s voice was sharp and urgent, and it sent chills down her back.
“Go ahead Lead Four-Two, Jones here.”
“You guys are going to have to bug out NOW! The fire’s blowing up around the eastern side, and it’s already crowning. I just got back here to take a look and didn’t expect this. How far are you from that rock face and your lookout guy?”
Karen signaled to the rest of the squad as she answered. “Ah, we’re about five hundred feet in altitude down the mountain and a little east of that position, over.”
“Okay…look, it’s coming around, and although it’s hard to judge the speed exactly, it’s running even as we speak and…the front is broadening in a uniform fashion. It’s going to burn an almost vertical line rotating around
from east to north. Understand?”
“Roger. Hang on.” She turned to the squad, noting in the same second that all the saws had been idled. “The fire’s blowing up around the ridge and coming at us! It’s too thick in here to burn out around us. We’ve got to get up the rocks.”
“Behind us?”
“Yes! Drop your packs and gear and saws now and run! George? Lead the way. Single file. Make sure you have your shelters and run. NOW! GO, GO, GO, GO!”
Packs and equipment hit the ground almost simultaneously as George Baird yelled for everyone to follow and started half jogging at a sixty-degree angle through the trees up toward the ridge.
Karen raised her radio again. “Okay, Sam, we’re on the move.”
“Run as hard as you can,” he was saying as she brought up the rear. “There’s a middle portion that’s moving faster now, about two hundred, maybe three hundred feet from the top. It’s burning westbound toward your position through the crowns. Keep running! I’m going to bring the tankers down to give you cover. Can you pop a flare for me?”
“Roger…stand by. Peter? Peter, this is Jones! We’re running back to the safety zone. Get yourself there now. Copy?”
“Roger. Moving now.”
Karen had just begun the scramble. She turned now and raced back to one of the packs, grabbing up a smoke grenade before resuming the run, staying forty feet behind Dave Sims. She worked the cannister release ring open, cutting her hand in the process, and yanked the lanyard, holding the orange smoke end up like an Olympic runner as she ran, jumping over the snags and logs and slowly catching up to Sims.
Somewhere in the background she could hear it again. They had contained the beast on the south side, and now, like a dragon searching inexorably for its prey, it had crept around the other side to catch them off guard. And it had succeeded. She could hear the roar and the whistle and the increase in the sounds from behind as she closed in on Dave at the exact moment he stumbled and went facedown in front of her before she could sidestep. The smoke cannister hurled out of her hand as she, too, tumbled head over heels, landing with a thud against a fallen tree trunk, her radio partly breaking her fall.
Fire Flight Page 36