“From having them rammed into your fists.” Lucas nodded at Gull’s scraped and swollen knuckles. “How’s the man they ganged up on?”

“Do you know everything?” Rowan demanded.

“Ear to the ground, darling.” Lucas kissed her temple. “My ear’s always to the ground.”

“Dobie’s a little guy, but he got some licks in.” Yangtree turned his head, spat on the ground. “They beat on him pretty good until Kick Ass here came along. Of course, before all that, your girl put two of them on their asses.”

“Yeah, I heard about that, too.”

“I didn’t start it.”

“So I’m told. Starting it’s stupid,” Lucas stated. “Finishing it’s necessary.”

Rowan narrowed her eyes. “You didn’t come by to check in, you came by to check on.”

“Maybe. Want to fight about it?”

She gave her father a poke in the chest, grinned.

And the siren went off.

Rowan kissed her father’s cheek. “See you later,” she said, and took off running. Yangtree slapped Lucas’s shoulder and did the same.

“It was good to meet you.”

Tripp took the hand Gull offered, studied the knuckles. “You’re off the list because of these.”

“Today.”

“There’s tomorrow.”

“I’m counting on it.”

Gull headed to the ready room. He was off the jump list, but he could lend a hand to those on it. Already jumpers were suiting up, taking their gear out of the tall cabinets, pulling on Kevlar suits over the fire-retardant undergarments. By the time he spotted her, Rowan had dropped into one of the folding chairs to put on her boots.

He helped with gear and equipment until he could work his way to her.

Over the sound of engines and raised voices, he shouted at her, “Where?”

“Got one in the Bitterroots, near Bass Creek.”

A short enough flight, he calculated, to warrant a buddy check prior to boarding. He started at her bootstraps, worked his way up. He’d already gotten past the state of his knuckles, and his temporary leave from the jump list.

No point in regrets.

“You’re clear.” Gull squeezed a hand to her shoulder, met her eyes. “Make it good.”

“It’s the only way I know.”

He watched her go, thought even the waddle enforced by the suit and gear looked strong and sexy on her.

As he walked out to watch the rest of the load, he saw Dobie hobbling over. And in the distance Lucas “Iron Man” Tripp stood, hands in his pockets.

“Fuckers screwed our chances.” Puffing a little, his face a crescendo of bruises, his brutalized eye a vivid mix of purple and red, Dobie stopped beside Gull.

“Others to come.”

“Yeah. Shit. Libby’s on there. I never thought she’d catch one before me.”

Together they stood as the plane taxied, as its nose lifted. Gull glanced down to where Lucas stood, saw him lift his face to the sky. And watch his daughter fly toward the flames.

5

The heart of the wildfire beat hot and hard. Cutting through it loosed a waterfall of sweat that ran down Rowan’s back in constant streams. Her chain saw shrieked through bark and wood, spitting out splinters and dust that layered her clothes, gloves, hard hat. The roar and screams of saws, of cracking wood, crashing trees fought to smother that hard, hot beat.

She paused only to chug down water to wet her throat and wash out the dust and smoke or to swipe off her goggles when the sweat running down her face blurred them.

She stepped back when the ponderosa she’d killed to save others whooshed its way to the forest floor.

“Hey, Swede.” Gibbons, acting as fire boss, hailed her over the din. Ash blackened his face, and the smoke he’d hiked through reddened his eyes. “I’m taking you, Matt and Yangtree off the saw line. The head’s shifted on us. It’s moving up the ridge to the south and building. We got spots frigging everywhere. We need to turn her while we can.”

He pulled out his map to show her positions. “We got hotshots working here, and Janis, Trigger, two of the rooks, flanking it here. We’ve got another load coming in, and they’ll take the saw line, chase down spots. We’ve got repellent on the way, should dump on the head in about ten, so make sure you’re clear.”

“Roger that.”

“Take them up. Watch your ass.”

She grabbed her gear, pulled in her teammates and began the half-mile climb through smoke and heat.

In her mind she plotted escape routes, the distance and direction to the safe zone. Small, frisky spot fires flashed along the steep route, so they beat them out, smothered them before continuing up.

Along their left flank an orange wall pulsed with heat and light, sucked oxygen out of the air to feed itself as it growled and gobbled through trees. She watched columns of smoke build tall and thick in the sky.

A section of the wall pushed out, skipped and jumped across the rough track in front of them, and began to burn merrily. She leaped forward kicking dirt over it, using her Pulaski to smother it while Yangtree beat at it with a pine bough.

They beat, shoveled and dug their way up the ridge.

Over the din she caught the rumble of the tanker, pulled out her radio to answer its signal. “Take cover!” she shouted to her team. “We’re good, Gibbons. Tell them to drop the mud. We’re clear.”

Through the smoke, she watched the retardant plane swing over the ridge, heard the thunder of its gates opening to make the drop, and the roar as the thick pink rain streaked down from the sky.

Those fighting closer to the head would take cover as well, and still be splattered with gel that burned and stung exposed skin.

“We’re clear,” she told her team as Yangtree gnawed off a bite of an energy bar. “We’re going to jag a little east, circle the head and meet up with Janis and the others. Gibbons says she’s moving pretty fast. We need to do the same to keep ahead of her. Let’s move! Keep it peeled for spots.”

She kept the map in her head, the caprices of the fire in her guts. They continued to chase down spot fires, some no bigger than a dinner platter, others the size of a kid’s swimming pool.

And all the while they moved up the ridge.

She heard the head before she saw it. It bellowed and clapped like thunder, followed that with a sly, pulsing roar. And felt it before she saw it, that rush of heat that washed over her face, pushed into her lungs.