Page 3 of Smoke Season

Most of their skeleton crew of paid firefighters were still chilling in the break room after a call to the Carbon Happy Daze trailer park for some sort of electrical short. “So listen up,” White told them. “We’re on monitor status.”

“Wait ... we don’t even get todoanything?” Deklan said, listening in instead of making his calls.

“We’re ordered to stand by and assess only,” White barked, so Mel threw the kid a bone.

“But we’re the first responders, so we’ll still have to yellow up.”

This earned her a grunt of satisfaction; even a newbie like Deklan knew that donning the mustard-yellow wildland-issue fire-retardant wear meant actioncouldbe required, even if his captain and chief couldn’t promise anything. Carbon Rural’s lieutenant, Janet Stillwater, got everyone up and off the couches, her straight ebony hair sashaying in its long ponytail as she opened lockers to make sure every team member had the required wear.

“Carbon Rural is closest,” she added, “so Carbon Rural goes.”

This assignment might not be as sexy as Deklan would like, but protocol was protocol, with their station situated so close to the wildland-urban interface. Even if itdidkeep them all from their families, Mel tried to dispel the resentment that could fester if she let it.

Back out in the vehicle bay, driver engineer José Juarez had already fired up the tactical engine, easing his ample girth behind the wheel. The vehicle rumbled reliably as Mel climbed back into her truck, its dirt now streaked with rainwater, and turned over the engine. Janet hopped in beside her, along with Deklan and his rookie partner, Ryan Sloan, fresh from his day job at Carbon Grocery. Lewis and White followed in Lew’s assistant-chief vehicle.

Ten minutes from the time of the phone call, they rolled out as a team of twenty: eight staff and twelve volunteers ranging in age from eighteen to seventy-two. The three trucks and two chief vehicles eased down Main Street toward the state highway that led to the network of Forest Service roads crisscrossing Flatiron. Despite her reluctance to load up this evening, the rush of adrenaline that was probably responsible for Mel getting into this profession in the first place made itself known. She leaned forward in her seat, letting it carry her forward, away from her family, away from Carbon. It wasn’t until they’d turned up FS 7312, Mel’s Dodge Ram bouncing through the ruts like a raft over rapids, that she realized she’d forgotten to update Sam with her new ETA. Not that she knew one.

“Sam knows this comes with the territory,” Janet reminded her, her trademark practicality always a welcome contribution to the team. “He’ll assume he’s on call until further updated.”

She was right, of course, but Janet, mom of four, should understand: working mothers had to go the extra mile, which meant that, by very definition, you never fully caught up. Mel had already missed Astor’s end-of-year school picnic and Annie’s five-year-old doctor checkup, which had been more extensive than her sister’s. Mel’s inner critic gnawed at her relentlessly, grating at the back of her mind like the serrated edge of her standard-issue pilot knife.You’ll never do enough for Annie,it told her,no matter how many medical articles you read. You’ll never set the perfect example for Astor, no matter how high up the ranks you climb.

She exhaled hard, refocusing her concentration on the road as they eased their way up the switchbacks of Flatiron, sticking to the main FS 7312. While the Ram trucks and the smaller of the engines could have detoured to take a more direct route up a lesser-used, more deeply rutted logging road, they were only collectively as strong as their weakest—or, in this case, largest-axled—link.

They got as close as they could, Janet consulting Mel’s handheld GPS units as they drove, then pulled up short when the grade of the road finally got too iffy. They piled out of the vehicles, making their way up the rest of the slope on foot. Ryan and the older volunteers all hiked silently, but Deklan talked a mile a minute, mostly about the boots he’d neglected to break in.

“Such a rookie,” José muttered under his breath with a chuckle. “Should have swapped those brand-new kicks out for those Sasquatch slippers I bequeathed him. He’d be better off.” Mel and Janet both laughed; José was infamous for his practical jokes, most of which were directed toward Deklan these days, who appreciated them most.

Only Janet exhibited some mercy. “Hey, kid!” she called. “Find me later for moleskin.”

At the tree line, they finally got their first unobstructed view of the fire. They all paused, a hush settling around them despite the persistent presence of the wind, even Deklan falling mercifully silent. As expected, the blaze wasn’t large, not by wildland standards, but Mel didn’t care if a forest fire burned a quarter acre or five thousand, ten thousand, even a hundred thousand acres ... This undulating, licking,livingthing deserved their respect. The fire danced far above them on the ridge, one moment like a flag waving lightly in the wind, the next like a ship rocking gently on a sea, mesmerizing to watch. A few tall pines burned like torches, adding to the dramatic flair. They were responsible for most of the smoke that now billowed in a mushroom cloud that migrated west, but the vast majority of the blaze was, in a word, underwhelming. It consumed the dry undergrowth in a slow, meticulous crawl, fanning out in thin spots to lap at the denser stands of trees that proved more formidable foes. It was what Mel had been taught to call a “shallow” blaze, just skimming the surface of the forest ... a trickle rather than a rushing river.

“Hell,” Deklan said, his voice flat with defeat, “it’s about as tame as a campfire.”

“All we’re missing are the s’mores,” Ryan agreed.

Mel smiled, pausing to secure her long hair in an elastic band she found in her pocket. It felt good to get it off the back of her neck. Sweat already beaded on her skin, and it was only going to get hotter. In this post–Smokey the Bear era, forestry professionals realized the folly of putting out every fire in the American West, which meant this one would burn, unless specialized wildland crews decided otherwise. “Our job as Carbon Rural?” she reminded the rookies. “Containment.” As frustrating as that was when her kids needed her. While Sam waited to debrief with her.

Deklan mumbled something about signing up to be a firefighter, not a fire babysitter, which sent Mel’s thoughts back to her girls.

“No one expects you to win mother of the year,” her best friend, True, pointed out once, when Mel’s Wonder Woman act had shownsigns of wear. She had winced, trying not to let that sting. As far as Mel was concerned, she’d been out of the running for that particular distinction since the moment Annie was born with a heart defect she’d been powerless to fix.

But thinking of True would only cause Mel to worry further, her thoughts splintering in yet another unwelcome direction, so she refocused on the conversation at hand.

“Don’t worry,” Lewis reassured Deklan and Ryan now. “You’ll still be putting some calluses on those pretty hands of yours tomorrow, carving out firebreaks with the Forest Service. In the meantime,” he added, much to Deklan’s delight, “stomp out any hot spots to your heart’s content.”

Mel joined them, but her heart wasn’t in it. It had snagged on the wordtomorrow. Lewis was right. Tonight, her crew would need to stage indefinitely, monitoring the fire from the safety of the lower tree line until the wildland ground crew could get on scene. Which meant that though she’d now find time for a quick call, she wouldn’t be heading back to Carbon and her girls anytime soon.

CHAPTER 3

In the wake of the sudden deluge that had split the sky, Sam Bishop stood at the window of the River Eddy Bar and Grill, watching his kids scurry around like chipmunks on the now soaked back deck, picking up windblown napkins-turned-pulp and throwing them at each other. However, what should have been a common enough show of childhood antics was anything but; little Annie lacked the stamina to play in earnest. Sam knew there was no need to go outside to referee the situation; soon enough, his eldest, Astor, would either lose interest or scoop Annie up in a bear hug to cart her around under her big-sister steam.

Even eight years into fatherhood, Sam heaved a quiet little sigh of wonder at this, such a startling contrast to his own growing-up years filled with sucker punches and spitting contests. His onetime best friend and pseudo brother Chris Fallows had shown no such mercy, but even so, while the sight of Astor coddling her sister should have filled Sam’s chest with pride, an odd sort of remorse lingered there instead. He wasn’t sure whether he mourned Astor’s childhood, on a fast track since her sibling’s birth, or Annie’s, destined to lag behind. Probably both.

He contemplated closing up early, but a handful of patrons had weathered the storm and still sat at the bar, mostly seasonal workers off shift from grow sites along the river valley. Though they could use a shower, these young crews always had cash burning in their pockets, cash Sam had no qualms about parting them from. Besides, his longtime server, Kim Murphy, needed the hours. He was about to duck intothe kitchen to get a jump on the grease coating the fryer before Mel turned up to collect the girls when the Eddy door swung open again, cutting a swath of summer light across the polished wood-plank floor. One glance at the entrance had all thought of abandoning his post eradicated from Sam’s mind.

Speak of the devil, and his father will appear.“Out,” he said immediately. Every town had a resident lowlife, but John Fallows, the owner and operator of the biggest grow in the valley, took it to a new level. And he knew damned well he wasn’t welcome here. That went the same for Chris these days, much as it pained Sam to think it.

Kim blanched and beat a hasty retreat toward the deck, corralling the girls en route, as Fallows crossed the threshold of the Eddy. And who could blame her? If Sam was still fuming over the Fallowses’ mistreatment of her nephew Zack, Kim must be positively sick to her stomach.

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