Chasing Fire

frustrating moment, then they broke apart to scramble for clothes.
    “You did this,” she accused him. “You called it last night with that damn efficiency crack.”
    “Ten minutes more, it would’ve been worth it.”
    Instead, in ten minutes they suited up in the ready room.
    “Spotted smoke at first light.” L.B. gave the outline. “Lolo National Forest, between Grave Creek and Lolo Pass. It’s fully active on the south slope above Lolo Creek. Conditions dry. Rowan, I want you in as fire boss; Gibbons, you’re on the line.”
    The ground thundered as the tanker began to roll with the first load of mud.
    The minute she boarded the jump ship, Rowan pulled out the egg sandwich and Coke she’d stuck in pockets. She ate and drank while she coordinated with the pilot, the spotter.
    “There she is.” She pressed her face to the window. “And, damn, she’s frisky this morning.”
    A hundred acres, maybe a hundred and twenty, she estimated, already fully active in some of the most primitive and pristine areas of Lolo. Lewis and Clark had traveled there, and now the fire wanted it for breakfast.
    Here we come, she thought, and guarded her reserves as wind rushed in through the open door.
    She felt fresh and fueled and ready—and couldn’t deny the ride down was beautiful. She checked on Gull, shot him a huge grin. “It’s not sex, but it doesn’t suck,” she shouted.
    She heard his laugh, understood exactly what ran through him. It ran through her, free and strong into the sky, the smoke, and down to the soft landing on a sweet little meadow.
    Once the unit and the paracargo hit the ground, she strategized with Gibbons. She decided to do a recon up the right flank while the crew headed in to start the line.
    She traveled at a trot, gauging the area, the wind, and keeping twenty yards off the flank as the fire burned hot. She heard the head calling in that grumbling, greedy roar as it tossed spot fires into the unburned majesty of forest.
    Not going to have it, she thought, using her Pulaski and her bladder pump to smother the spots as she went. It wants to run, wants to feed. She smelled the sharp resin as trees burned, heard their crackling cries, felt the air tremble with the power already unleashed. Smoke spiraled up where spitting embers met dry ground.
    She yanked out her radio. “She wants to run, and she’s fast, L.B. She’s fast. We need another load of mud on the head, and another down the right flank. She’s throwing a lot of spots along that line.”
    “Copy that. Are you clear?”
    “I will be.” She kept moving, away from a spot that ate ground the size of a tennis court. “We need to contain these spots now, L.B. We’re at critical. Gibbons is on the line, southwest, and I’m doubling back.”
    “Stay clear. We’ve got another load of jumpers on alert. Say the word and we’ll send them in.”
    “Copy that. Let me finish this recon, check in with Gibbons.”
    “Tankers on the way. Don’t get slimed, Swede.”
    “I’m clear,” she repeated. “And I’m out.”
    She ran, charging her way down as she checked in with Gibbons, making for the trail where Lewis and Clark had once traveled. At the roar behind her, she cursed, ran through the falling embers, the missiles of burning pinecones hurled by the blasting wind of a blowup. When the ground shook under her feet, she charged through the heart of the fire.
    Safer inside it, she thought while smoke gushed through the lick of orange flames.
    In the black she took a moment to pull out her compass and get her bearings, to plot the next moves. Gibbons would have sent the crew up the ridge on attack, she thought, and then—
    She nearly ran over it. Instinct and atavistic horror stumbled her back three paces from the charred and blackened remains of what had been human. It lay, the crisp bones of its arms and legs curled in. Contracted by the heat, she knew that, but in that terrible moment it seemed as if the dead or dying had tried to tuck into a ball the fire might overlook.
    Her fingers felt numb when she pulled out her radio. “Base.”
    “Base here, come back, Swede.”
    “I’ve got a body.”
    “Say again?”
    “I’m maybe ten yards from the Lobo Trail, near the southeast switchback, in the black. There’s a body, L.B.” She blew out a breath. “It’s crisp.”
    “Ah, Christ. Copy that. Are you safe there?”
    “Yeah. I’m in the black. I’m clear.”
    “Hold there. I’ll contact the Forest Service, then get