Summer of Fire Part 10

She followed Sherry's st.u.r.dy frame past two men repairing chutes on industrial sewing machines, through the three-story loft where chutes hung when they weren't packed for use, then down the hall decorated with photos of past seasons' teams. Just like at the fire station, the first stop in any run was the restroom, in case it was a long time to the next opportunity.

In the ready room, Sherry and two male jumpers rummaged in wooden bins for Nomex clothing.

"Clare, this is Randy's rookie season." Sherry introduced her to a young man b.u.t.toning his shirt over compact, taut-looking muscles. "He's studying Forestry at the University of Montana."

"And Hudson." Sherry went on to a short, stout man with hands like a prizefighter's.

"Pleased to meet you, ma'am." A scatter of gray marked Hudson's temples. "I'm a career jumper. Wait tables on Maui, spring and fall. Winters I run snowmobile tours." He described his vagabond life with pride.

The jumpers pulled two-piece, beige Kevlar suits over their fire r.e.t.a.r.dant clothing and stuffed their pockets with granola packs and Hershey bars. Hudson stowed a dog-eared copy of Virgil's Aeneid. Their parachutes went on next, secured with a network of black straps cinched up tight over their shoulders and around their thighs. As spotter, Sherry would be coming back without jumping, but she also put on the complete outfit with main and reserve parachutes in case she fell out of the plane.

Clare watched, comparing their gear with her turnouts, air pack, and axe.

The pilot, a lanky dark-haired man with a red handlebar mustache, smoked a preflight Winston. "We're headed to the northeast corner of Yellowstone to a plume sighted from outside the park," he told Clare. "If they're only sending two jumpers, this one's gonna be a cakewalk."

Sherry had her gear on first and while they waited, she told Clare about the Smokejumpers' running contest to land closest and cleanest to whatever target the spotter chose. How if they landed in a tree they wanted to spread their canopy square over the top, so they didn't slip and slide down through the limbs, or 'burn through' as they called it.

Despite the advent of helicopter use in firefighting, the jumpers were never picked up. After they'd felled and buried burned trees and waited until the ashes were cold, they hiked out to the nearest highway. On these treks that sometimes took several days they carried out everything they had jumped in with. In training, the brutal march with over a hundred pounds separated successful candidates from washouts.

All three jumpers secured blue helmets with protective metal grates over their faces. Looking to Clare like s.p.a.ce warriors from a sci-fi movie, they headed toward their waiting twin-engine Beechcraft B99.

While they checked equipment, Clare climbed in and sat forward on the bench seat. Tape-reinforced corrugated boxes strapped to metal tracks cramped her knees. She'd been told they contained water, food, Pulaskis, shovels, and sleeping bags.

The heavily laden Smokejumpers piled aboard. As the turboprops spooled up and the plane began to taxi, Clare realized the rear door had been removed. Sherry sat in front so that she could gauge the approach to the fire and decide the best landing target.

The jumpers clipped their static lines to a cable along the floor, so if anyone fell out the line would open their primary chute.

When they reached the end of the West Yellowstone runway, Hudson said, "Hi, ho." Through the metal mask, Clare saw a big smile on his ruddy face. He hummed a bit more of the Seven Dwarfs song about going back to work. It made Clare think what her first day back at the station in Houston would be like . . . she'd probably be whistling in the dark as well.

The engines revved into a whine. Wind rushed through the open door and the noise forestalled further efforts at conversation. Clare had always enjoyed flying and found the sensation of lift-off with fresh air in her face exhilarating.

Once aloft, she had a good view of the gently rolling terrain around the town, with mountains to the west and east. To the south, she identified Yellowstone's boundary by the line where the timber clear-cuts stopped and unbroken forest began. She recognized the area where she had taken Sergeant Ron Travis and his troops for training. In a few days, she'd have a new group of soldiers and she hoped the c.o.c.ky bantam leader would have a difficult time on the line. He'd continued to be outright rude, even as she held her tongue.

The plane banked around and headed into the park. Within minutes, the terrain began to climb and they sighted the craggy pinnacles of Bighorn Peak. To the east, towering columns of smoke built skyward from the Fan Fire. Hudson b.u.mped Clare with his elbow and shouted, "The Fan started on June twenty-fifth, back when they were letting lightning-caused blazes burn. Looks like maybe they should have let us at it."

Sherry called, "How about the North Fork? We got there twenty minutes after it was spotted, but it was seventy-five acres gone. We had to abort."

The smoke they were headed for wafted from a canyon on Bighorn Peak. Within the valley, the midafternoon air was turbulent.

Sherry conferred with the pilot through headphones. Finally, she pointed and nodded, then climbed back between the Beech's front seats, squeezing past Clare and the others. As she began to shout her briefing from aft of the open door, the plane lurched in a pocket of rough air. "The drop site is downhill from the smoke, about three hundred yards. A clearing along the ravine looks gra.s.sy, so I'd suggest it as your target. Since the air's tricky I've asked for a recon pa.s.s before you jump."

Hudson leaned to looked at the rising smoke. "That doesn't look like a two-man job."

"Radio if you need reinforcements," Sherry told him. "We're short all around this summer." West Yellowstone was the smallest of the Smokejumpers' bases, with fewer than twenty trained and ready to parachute.

They flew up the drainage and made the first pa.s.s over the target at about a thousand feet. To check the wind Sherry tossed a pair of weighted streamers, fluttering banners of pink and yellow that drifted smartly up the canyon.

Clare studied Hudson's face through the grille on his helmet. He was a pro, yet as they flew, his songs and jokes had quieted. Now that he'd seen the fire, his expression was taut.

They came into the valley again and Sherry called, "Randy, you're on deck."

He crouched in the doorway, Hudson behind him. Sherry checked Randy's chute to make sure a red thread was still in place, signifying no one had tampered with it since a certified packer had placed it in queue. Here was where the element of trust came in, as men and women jumped with chutes packed by other team members.

It was the same in the department. When Frank had asked her to back him up on the hose, he'd placed his life in her hands.

"See you in a few days," Randy told Sherry. He sounded a little shaky, even for a rookie. The Beech's engines seemed to whine more loudly as it entered the steep-walled valley. Sherry had told Clare that when they exited at one hundred ten miles per hour, it was like hitting a wall. The jumpers preferred their other plane, a Twin Otter that flew at a more sedate ninety.

Clare's heart pounded as though she were the one about to jump out of a perfectly good airplane.

Sherry tapped Randy on the calf. He vanished through the doorway.

Behind the plane, his thirty-foot round canopy, striped in blue, yellow and white, opened like a graceful flower. The static line flapped and Sherry drew it back inside along with the deployment bag that had held his main chute.

Looking out the window, Clare saw Randy's parachute, floating toward the spiky green forest. She couldn't see the clearing Sherry had spotted.

"Hudson," Sherry called.

A tap on the leg and he left an empty doorway to the sky. Clare expected to see his canopy unfold, but he disappeared without a sign of deployment. Sherry hung on and stuck her head out the door to look back. The wind whipped strands of her brown hair free from her helmet.

"Four . . . five . . . " Sherry shouted. "Reserve!" Her cry came with the unfurling of Hudson's secondary parachute, a smaller twenty-eight foot round that lacked the steering capacity of the main.

The Beech hurtled up over the wall of rock at the canyon's head. Clare didn't see the men land. As they circled back, she put her weight behind shoving supply boxes down the tracks toward the door. Sherry checked the fifteen-foot diameter cargo chute and stuck her head out the door to see whether she could drop the load in the targeted clearing.

With a heavy drone, the plane dove earthward. Huge rocks and the sharp texture of the pines had looked much more benign from higher up. Just when it seemed that they would crash, the Beech's nose lifted and they flew up the ravine at two hundred feet. If Clare had thought it turbulent before, she'd not realized how wild the ride could be. The pilot flew the big twin-engine plane like a fighter, dipping and turning to follow the terrain.

"There!" Sherry pushed and the cargo tumbled out, its chute unfurling just in time to prevent the boxes from smashing.

As they gained alt.i.tude and flew over the valley one last time, Sherry pointed out the jumpers. Randy had landed in the clearing, along with the cargo. Hudson's smaller chute hung on the side of a tree, not far uphill.

"Should have capped it," Sherry said. As the plane banked away from Bighorn Peak, she grinned. "All over for them now but the drudgery."

Clare relaxed and watched the mushroom clouds from the larger fires as the sun-warmed air allowed the convection currents free rein. Each day, she had to remind herself that a building thunderhead did not promise rain.

Sherry reached for her Bendix radio with a frown. "Come in?"

An excited male voice came over the airwaves. "Hudson's bleeding bad!"

"Randy?" Sherry asked.

"He landed in a tree and burned through. Fractured his femur and severed an artery."

Sherry looked forward at the pilot and Clare saw her rapid calculation. "We'll have to radio for a chopper."

Deering smoked a Marlboro and looked around the broad West Yellowstone ramp. The usually secluded area at the north end of the runway had undergone dramatic change in the past few weeks.

The tanker traffic had become constant and the Smokejumpers were making frequent runs. After almost two weeks on the ground, Deering still couldn't believe that no one wanted him to fly.

The chop of rotors approached. By the Island Park logo, a gold-rimmed oval with a black helicopter, this one belonged to Demetrios Karrabotsos. Deering's yearning ache gave way to anger at Steve Haywood for carrying tales.

The Huey's pilot, a bowlegged man Deering did not recognize climbed down, went to a Dodge pickup, and drove off.

Deering put out his smoke. Looking around to make sure Karrabotsos was not in sight, he began a leisurely walk toward the helicopter. The nostalgic fuel smell made him hurt inside.

From the corner of his eye, he noticed the Smokejumpers' plane coming in hot from the runway. The white Beech with orange stripes careened up in front of the base building. Almost before it stopped, a small woman in khaki shorts and a tank top leaped out of the open rear doorway. Deering recognized Clare Chance, sun-pinkened and animated.

"There!" Clare pointed at Deering. She broke into a run toward him. "We need you to fly us into the park to rescue an injured Smokejumper."

The old familiar surge propelled his heart and the rest of him into action. He turned, as if to leap into the c.o.c.kpit.

Clare slammed her fist into the palm of her other hand. "Let's go."

Deering felt like she'd punched his stomach. Without an aircraft, he was worse than useless.

Clare waited for Deering to move, but he stared at the Island Park helicopter like he didn't know what it was.

"It's not mine," he said dully. She knew his helicopter had gone in the lake, but thought he was flying this machine. Then she realized he wore jeans and a T-shirt rather than a flight suit.

Adrenaline surging like she was at a fire, she looked around the ramp.

"The pilot drove off," Deering said. "You might find the owner in that trailer. Unless he's out flying."

"I'll go, Sherry," she told her.

"I'll get our rescue gear." Sherry ran away toward the base.

Clare set out for the trailer. Even with his long legs, Deering lagged her.

Three charter companies shared the rental trailer on the edge of the ramp. The Island Park logo was in the middle below Yellowstone Charter's red and black lettering and above the bold blue triangle of Eagle Air.

Clare raised her hand to knock. Deering said, "Just go in."

She opened the door. "Excuse me." She stopped, stunned at the facial scars on the man behind the desk. She recovered. "I'm looking for whoever owns that Huey out front."

"That would be me. I'm Karrabotsos." Calmly, he sipped coffee, keeping his salt and pepper head bent.

A muscle in the side of her jaw tensed. "The Smokejumpers have a man down on Bighorn Peak."

Karrabotsos looked at her tank top and shorts. "You're not a Smokejumper."

"I'm a firefighter and EMT from Houston. I flew with the Smokejumpers today as an observer." She tried to sound professional. "Our pilot radioed and found that all the choppers in the area are either specialty-rigged or farther away than yours."

Even after hearing the story, the older man's expression was unyielding.

"If you're worried about getting paid, I'll pay you myself." Her voice went hard.

"You don't know what you're talking about, little lady," Karrabotsos rasped. "I'd be pleased to help, but I can't." Putting both hands on the edge of the desk, he pushed back his chair to reveal a cast on his right foot. "Dropped a box of fire camp rations and broke three bones."

"What about your pilot?" Deering asked. "Can't you get him back here?"

"He's gone to Pocatello. Had a call that his five-month-old baby is in the emergency room."

"For G.o.d's sake, let Deering go," Clare said. "The jumper severed an artery in his leg."

Karrabotsos's gaze locked with Deering's. A glance at the two of them said there was something very wrong.

"Look," she said. "How can you sit by while this war escalates from burning trees to threatening the men that fight it?"

Karrabotsos shifted his eyes back to hers for a long speculative moment.

Finally, he turned back to Deering. "You understand that I don't want to do this," he said, "but if we're going to save that man's life, you'll have to fly."

Although it had been less than thirty minutes since Clare had been in the high valley on Bighorn Peak, everything looked different.

Where the Beech had swept over at one hundred ten miles per hour, Deering maneuvered the chopper more slowly. Despite Sherry's repeated attempts to raise Randy on the radio, they had not established communication since landing in West Yellowstone.

"Where?" Deering asked through their headsets. The wind's rising fury made the Huey shudder and dance.

Sherry peered through the rear window, her cupped hands against the gla.s.s. "Can't see them."

The pink and yellow streamers they'd dropped to test the wind had threaded through the tops of the pines. Clare caught a flash of blue below and realized that it was either Randy or Hudson's helmet. "There they are."

"I'll let you off in that clearing." Deering pointed to the landing place where the cargo boxes lay. On a fifteen-degree slope, the open s.p.a.ce was bisected by a dry rocky channel that probably carried snowmelt in spring.

Deering brought them lower. The Huey's engines whined and the tail rotor chopped small limbs, raising the pungent scent of evergreen.

"It's okay, ladies," he said calmly. "Just making a little lodgepole salad." When the skids were about three feet from the ground, he directed, "Better hop off here. If I set her down, we'll never get out."

Sherry removed her headset and shoved open the rear door. A blast of wind caught Clare in the face where she sat behind Deering. She tried to calm her jitters, comparing jumping out of a hovering helicopter to something she knew. Like working the high ladders or rappelling down a building, one of the exercises she taught at A & M.

On impulse, she touched Deering's shoulder. Sinew and bone moved fluidly beneath her hand as he controlled the chopper. His eyes stayed forward. "Hang on until I steady her."

There was no choice here, any more than in Houston when she had to go into a burning building. She tossed her headphones into the rear seat.

Sherry was already out the door, crouching on the skid with one hand around the vertical support. She leaped, landing on the uneven slope in what Clare recognized as the parachutist's roll. Scrambling to her feet, Sherry held out her arms to catch the folding stretcher Clare tossed.

Hot wind from the rotors beat down. Clare hung on the downhill skid, maybe ten feet above the ground.

More limbs fell from the trees. Rotor wash flattened the gra.s.s. She jumped.

The pit of her stomach lifted. Feet first, she hit and collapsed to absorb the shock. Sherry was already heading uphill, her back barely visible through the whirling cloud of dust.

Clare followed. The Huey's engines went to a higher pitch and then the sound gradually receded.

The trees grew thick, with no more than a few feet between them. Clare's bare legs and arms were soon covered in black dirt and resin. Wearing light hikers rather than her thick fire boots, she kept slipping on the pine straw.

She had lost sight of the fire, but the smoke reminded her she wasn't wearing fire r.e.t.a.r.dant clothing. It hadn't seemed important when every second counted to get to Hudson.

Randy's relief at seeing her and Sherry was evident on his small, tight features. He had opened Hudson's Kevlar jumpsuit and his hand pressed high on the injured man's leg, shutting down the femoral artery in the groin area. Below the break, blood soaked the beige coveralls.