Page 14 of Protect

Wish me luck getting this cleaned and out the door in twenty.

Teddy

May the odds be ever in your favor.

The veterans who taught me explained that in the world of wildland firefighting, no job is more important than your fireline. The all-important craft of creating a trench dug down to mineral soil, between a moving fire and unburned fuel.

I practiced digging with different hand tools and using different techniques when I first started this trade, the summer I turned twenty-two. I dug line on my first fires all summer and then picked up a saw for the first time about halfway through and found out it was something I was naturally good at. When the season ended, I walked away with a few new blisters on my calloused hands, some cuts on my boots, and a deep dark longing for the next fire season. The more skills I could learn, the better.

What am I getting at here? Fighting forest fires, standing up to mother nature, it’s in my blood, but it isn’t something I take lightly. None of us do.

We don’t go into the bitch, ready to fight with our middle fingers raised, we fight with our heads down to show her we aren’t worthy.

We know we can’t stop the burning—that would be impossible. All we can do is try to create balance. We give a little and we take a little, carving out the path of least destruction. If we’re lucky, she’ll do what we want and let us out alive.

“King, what’s your line anchored in back there?” Sup asks as I approach, my tread heavy. My Kevlar chaps are caked in mud, soot, and sawdust.

“Cold black,” I tell him, wiping the sweat from my brow. My eyes are burning. We’ve been out here for five days after getting almost two off. We’ve been going non-stop. But it’s good, I could use the distraction.

When we got called to head up here a few days after I saw Violette at Shifty’s, I was just about to ask Mae, in the most inconspicuous way possible, if Violette still had the same phone number. I had no idea what I would say but I made the decision to either call or text her because for two days I couldn’t get her out of my head. Couldn’t stop wondering what happened between her and her husband. I also couldn’t stop picturing the way her hazel eyes had turned just a little greener when annoyance for me flared in them.

“Where’s Caleb?” Sup asks, writing notes in his phone and interrupting my thoughts of Violette.

I pull out my snips and clip some unruly brush.

“Finishing up with Opp and Roycie. There was a bunch of fern brush at the edge they’re cutting down.”

Sup pulls his glasses and gloves off to wipe his eyes with a semi clean hand. He’s looking like a beastly racoon.

“Taking it to the deep?” he asks, making sure we’re relocating our fuel to the deep green, furthest away from the blaze’s path, where it’s least likely to catch fire.

“Yep,” I confirm. My arms are aching. I’ve been ax wielding, cutting brush, and digging for probably ten hours straight. Eating in between whenever I can because we don’t really take breaks. We’re supposed to, but the people who made those rules have no idea what it’s like to be out here.

“Go scout a few chains up, make sure those boys are doing their job, we gotta eat, it’s gonna get dark soon. We’ve made some good progress today.” He grins. “Squaddie.”

“Fuck, still sounds so fuckin’ weird.” I chuckle. Resting my chainsaw on my shoulder, I grab a drip torch with my free hand bringing it with me in case the boys up there missed anything.

“Tell them to start tagging out for food a few at a time,” Sup adds,

“On it!” I call back.

I glance over to the smoke on the ridge. The wind has died down a little and the forecast is calling for rain tonight. Hopefully it’s enough to actually make a difference.

“Time to eat, fellas,” I tell Roycie, Sam, and Gareth. They’re working under the watchful eyes of our captain, Cal, to install a pump in an area south of the fire’s hot edge.

“Just about done if you want to hop on this with us,” Cal says. “We’ve been at it a couple hours just trying to pump some water in. There’s still a lot of heat in those birch patches,” he says, pointing toward the piles of dead and down and looking at Roycie.

“Deeper than my Pulaski,” Roycie adds. “We just want to get a hose to the hottest area.”

I nod. “Sure,” I say, knowing the sooner we wrap it, the better chance we have of stopping deeper pits from forming.

Forty-five minutes later we have the area carved out, and we start spraying to cool it all down while Cal figures the best way to route the hose.

“We’ll hold up and eat until this area has cooled, then we’ll head down the ridge northwest,” he calls to us.

We all stop what we’re doing and take a breath. It’s when my body stops that I realize I’m fucking starving. I listen to the guys banter as I scan the area and see some birch that could use a little more cleaning up. I chug some electrolytes before making my way over to quickly take care of it.

But I make the fucking rookie mistake of turning my head to look over my shoulder while making a wise crack at them for missing it, when I lose my footing and I’m suddenly being sucked downward.

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