Chasing Fire

trees.

29
     
    S he ran, bursting through brush, leaping fallen logs, rocks, whatever lay in her path. Gull winged past her; her own fear raced with her. With her emotions in pandemonium, she ordered herself to think, to act.
    His reserve had deployed at the last minute. There was a chance, always a chance. She slowed as she reached Cards, face bloody, shimmying down a lodgepole pine with his let-down rope.
    “Are you hurt bad?”
    “No. No. Go! Jesus, go.”
    Matt stumbled through the forest behind her, his cheeks gray, eyes dull. “Stay with Cards. Make sure he’s okay.”
    She didn’t wait for an answer, just kept running.
    When she heard Gull’s shout, she angled left, dry pine needles crunching under her feet like thin bones.
    She caught sight of the reserve, a tattered mangle of white draped in the branches high overhead. And the blood, dripping like a leaky faucet, splatting on the forest floor.
    Caught in the gnarled branches seventy feet above, Yangtree’s limp body dangled. A two-foot spur jutted through his side, the point of it piercing through like a pin through a moth.
    Gull, spurs snapped on, climbed. Rowan dumped her gear, snapped on her own and started up after him.
    Broken, she could see he’d been broken—his leg, his arm and likely more. But broken didn’t mean dead.
    “Can you get to him? Is he alive?”
    “I’ll get to him.” Gull climbed over, then used his rope to ease himself onto the branch, testing the weight as he went. He reached out to unsnap the helmet, laid his fingers on Yangtree’s throat.
    “He’s got a pulse—weak, thready. Multiple fractures. Deep gash on his right thigh, but it missed the femur. The puncture wound—” He cursed as he moved closer. “This goddamn spur’s holding him onto the branch like a railroad spike. I can’t maneuver to stabilize him from here.”
    “We secure him with the ropes.” Rowan leaned out as far as she could, trying to assess the situation for herself. “Cut the branch, bring him down with it.”
    “It’s not going to take my weight and a saw.” He crawled back. “It cracked some at the base. I don’t know if it’ll hold for you.”
    “Let’s find out.”
    “Dobie or Libby. It would hold one of them.”
    “I’m up here, they’re not. He’s losing a lot of blood. Let me see what I can do. Get me more rope, a saw, a first-aid kit.”
    “How bad?” Trigger called up. “How bad is it?”
    “He’s breathing.”
    “Thank Christ. I’ve got a medevac team coming. Is he conscious?”
    “No. Fill him in, okay?” She and Gull switched positions. “We need rope, first-aid kit, a chain saw. Gull’s heading down.”
    Rowan leaned back in her harness, stripped off her shirt, cut strips and pads with her pocketknife. Tying herself off, she scooted out onto the branch. It would hold, she vowed, because she damn well needed it to.
    “Yangtree, can you hear me?” She began to field-dress the jagged gash in his thigh. “You hold on, goddamn it. We’ll get you out of this.”
    She used what rope she had, wrapped it around his waist, then shimmied back to secure it. Gull was there, handing her more.
    “I’m going to secure it to the branch just above, get it under his arms.” She watched Trigger and Matt scaling the neighboring tree, nodded as she saw the plan.
    “Get another over to them, and we lower him down in a vee after I cut away the harness, saw off the branch.”
    Fear sweat dripped into her eyes as she worked, and, forced to shift the shattered leg, she prayed Yangtree stayed unconscious until they’d finished. She padded the wound around the spur as best she could, used her belt to strap him even more securely to the branch.
    Then she hesitated. If it didn’t work, she might kill him. But his pulse was growing weaker, and left no choice.
    “I’m going to release his harness. Get ready.”
    Once she’d freed him from the ruined chute, she reached back for the saw. “It’s going to work,” she said to Gull.
    “Medevac’s no more than ten minutes out.”
    She planted her feet, yanked the starter cord. The buzz sent a tremor through her. She saw Trigger and Matt brace to take the weight, knew Gull and Dobie did the same behind her.
    Trusting the rope, for him, for herself, she inched out onto the branch to set the blade into bark and wood as close to Yangtree’s body as she dared.
    “Hold him steady!” she shouted. “Don’t let him drop.”
    She cut clean, felt the branch shimmy from the