Chasing Fire

mention she was taking care of him. “That’d be good.”
    “I figured you’re pretty tired, so I can save you the time popping your tent. You can share mine.”
    “That’d be even better. I love this job,” he said after a moment, thinking of Dobie. “I don’t know why exactly but what this bastard’s done makes me love it even more. The cops have to find him, catch him, stop him. But we’re the ones cleaning up his goddamn mess. We’re the ones doing whatever it takes to keep it from being worse. The wild doesn’t mean anything to him, what lives in it, lives off it. It means something to us.”
    He looked at her then, slowly leaned in to take her lips in a kiss of surprising gentleness. “I found you in the wild, Rowan. That’s a hell of a thing.”
    She smiled, a little uncertainly. “I wasn’t lost.”
    “Neither was I. But I’m found, too, just the same.”
    When they walked the short distance to the tents, they crossed paths with Libby.
    “How you doing, Gull?”
    “Okay. Better since I hear I get to skate out of mop-up. Have you seen Dobie?”
    “Yeah, he just turned in. He was feeling . . . I guess you know. Matt and I sat up with him awhile after the rest bunked down. He’s doing okay.”
    “You did good work today, Barbie,” Rowan told her.
    “Never plan to do any other kind. Good night.”
    Rowan yawned her way into the tent and, with her mind and body already shutting down, worked off her boots. “Don’t wake me unless there’s a bear attack. In fact, even then.”
    She stripped down to her tank and panties. As she rolled toward the sleeping bag, Gull considered.
    “You know, thirty seconds ago I figure I was too tired to scratch my own ass. And now, strangely, I’m filled with this renewed energy.”
    She opened one eye, shut it again. “Do what you gotta do. Just don’t wake me up doing it.”
    He climbed in beside her, smiling, drew her already limp-with-sleep body to his. When he closed his eyes he thought of her, of nothing but her, and slid quietly into the dark.
     
     
    IT WAS HER KNEE pressing firmly into his crotch that woke him. His eyes crossed before they opened. Easing back relieved the worst of the pressure on his now throbbing balls.
    Had she aimed, he wondered, or had it just been blind luck? Either way, perfect shot.
    She didn’t budge when he rolled out to pull on his pants, fresh socks, boots. He left the pants and boots unfastened and crawled out into soft morning light.
    Nothing and no one stirred. Then again, as far as he knew the other tents held occupants of one—with no one to jab a knee into their balls. Should they have them.
    He stood, adjusted himself—carefully—then chose a direction out of camp to empty his bladder. Coffee, and filling his belly, would be next on the list, he decided. Being the first awake meant he had first dibs on the breakfast MREs. He’d sit outside, maybe down by the creek, give Rowan the tent for more sleep and enjoy a quiet, solitary if crappy meal until . . .
    He stopped and looked. Looked over a meadow brilliant with wild lupines, regally purple. The faintest ground mist shimmered through them, giving them the illusion of floating on a thin, white river while dozens of deep blue butterflies danced over those bold lances.
    Untouched, he thought. The fire hadn’t touched this. They’d stopped it, and now the wildflowers bloomed, the butterflies danced in the misty morning light.
    It was, he thought, as beautiful, as vivid as the finest work of art. Maybe more. And he’d had a part in saving it, and the trees beyond it, and whatever lay beyond the beyond.
    He’d fought in the smoke and the blistering red air, walked through the black that stank with death. And to here, where life lived, where it thrived in quiet and simple grace.
    To here, which held all the answers to why.
     
     
    HE BROUGHT HER THERE, dragging her away from camp before they packed out.
    “We’ve got to get going,” she protested. “If we haul our asses down to the visitors’ center, they can van us back to base. Clean bodies, clean clothes. And, God , I want a Coke.”
    “This is better than a Coke.”
    “Nothing’s better than a Coke first thing in the morning. You coffee hounds have it all wrong.”
    “Just look.” He gestured. “That’s better than anything.”
    She’d seen meadows before, seen the wild lupine and the butterflies it seduced. She started to say so, grumpy with caffeine withdrawal, but he looked so . . .