by Shawn Grady
Caleb took advantage of the noise the pulley made and stole away. He strode back into the forest path and clicked on his helmet light.
Dementia or not, the man’s presence was going to change things.
It could change everything.
CHAPTER
12
Jumper 41 rolled along the Redding tarmac, shaking with frequent wind gusts, the sun low in the sky. Having flown more in inclement weather than the other way around, Silas would have felt uneasy if there wasn’t any wind. He sat with the crew this time. Madison looked back at him through the cockpit doorway, wearing a microphone headset with earphones half the size of her head. She smiled and waved with her fingers. Silas returned the gesture.
It’d been a quick turnaround after flying back from Oakland. He’d remained in the waiting room the entire time, and from what he gathered, no new revelations had been discovered concerning Madison’s seizures. He took the narrow opportunity he had at the Redding base to grab a bite to eat and then loaded his stuff for what he expected would be a several-week stay in the greater South Lake Tahoe wilderness.
The plane took the slow turn onto the main runway, and the propellers spun faster, cutting through the air with the buzzing roar of the engines. The din leveled at high RPMs and the ship moved forward, gaining speed, the white lines of the runway stretching below them. He felt the floor lift and the wheels leave the tarmac. They angled into the sky, mist condensing on the windows and a world of gray soon enveloping them.
The shroud broke into a world of amber and dark blue, the cloud blanket now below them, a translucent white moon hanging full at their three o’clock. The Twin Otter leveled out as rainbows refracted off the double-paned window by Silas’s seat.
How much had changed since the first time he heard Elle’s voice? He had been back at the Shack—the small satellite airbase in southern Idaho they sometimes worked out of—sewing a small tear in his chute from their last jump. He had a line of items to put to the needle and thread—a brush jacket, a sock, and a new pocket for his gear bag. It was midafternoon, but the oversized ceiling fan and east-facing windows kept the room fairly cool. So perspiration made its way not in bullets but in slow, tiny swathes across his sunbaked skin.
As a group, the jumpers were organized but free. Part of a greater command structure but not under the constant eye of a commander. There were daily tasks and chores, individual assignments. But they each knew what they were responsible for and made it happen. So despite the paramilitary structure overall, they were given a broad scope of freedom in their days, and it wasn’t uncommon to find a jumper sharpening his Pulaski in a toolshed, poring over maps of current wildland fire complexes, tracking lightning storms on the Internet, or sitting in the knitting factory hemming up a pair of Nomex pants.
The monotony of the Shack was not oppressive or dull. It was a waiting. A pattern Silas followed without question until the inevitable horn sounded and he found himself fifteen minutes later rumbling down the tarmac en flight to a fire. But until then, the quiet resting potential ruled. Things moved in predictable patterns. Mealtime offered Folgers coffee, 2% milk, Crystal Light lemonade, or filtered water. One saw the same sights, smelled the same smells, and heard the same sounds.
That’s why her voice remained in his mind. It carried into the room like sweet iced tea. Amid the mumblings of taciturn men clothed in predictable greens and dark navy blues, in walked a woman wearing a sun-colored summer dress with wavy brown locks tapered off at her neckline.
“Hello. Mind if I take a look at your new puddle jumper out there?” Her simple words sounded like music.
Silas sat, threaded needle in hand, and stared dumbfounded. Finally he said, “Hi.”
She grinned and turned her head slightly. “Hello. So . . . yes?”
It didn’t dawn on him until then that he hadn’t actually processed any of the first words she’d said. He was just stunned at the hearing of them. Silas cleared his throat. “I’m sorry. What was your question again?”
“I asked if you wouldn’t mind if I take a quick look at the new plane out there.”
He glanced out at the Twin Otter tethered in the sun. “Oh yeah. Sure. Knock yourself out.”
“Thanks.” She smiled and disappeared through the doorway.
Silas sat for five seconds and then rose, searched for a good place to put down his needle and thread, and followed her.
He moved on instinct, like one follows a mirage in the desert or ambles toward the sight of a fallen UFO. Other priorities clanked onto the back burners of his mind, and finding her fell into first place.
How often does a beautiful young woman just happen to come across the path of a smokejumper marooned at a desert outpost?
The exit to the runway was blinding. He felt for his sunglasses and remembered them resting on the table by his chute. He shielded his eyes by cupping his hands like binoculars. About fifty feet ahead he saw the woman standing beneath a wing of the Twin Otter, examining the flaps. His eyes adjusted to the light as he approached, enabling him to squint with just a hand in the salute position for shading.
“What do you think?”
She glanced up at him, large aviator glasses sitting loosely on her nose. “The door’s locked. Do you have keys?”
As a matter of fact he did. Silas looked back at the Shack, wondering what the others would think about him leading a woman into the back of the plane. He unlocked the cabin door, dropped the steps, and offered a hand.
She huffed, grabbed a fistful of dress, and helped herself up. Inside, she stood, sunglasses in hand, and examined the crew compartment. At the time he couldn’t figure out what seemed more out of place in the environment—her or the dress. Though from the way she moved around the inside of the aircraft and slid into the pilot’s chair with familiar ease, he guessed the dress was the wildcard.
Silas scratched the stubble at his jawline. He glanced around the cockpit, a bit out of his element. He’d never actually sat in the copilot’s seat, where Warren always rode as spotter.
He climbed in, examined the dash gauges, and nervously attempted conversation. “So, you fly all the guys to this parking spot?”
She chuckled and shifted in her seat to face him. “I guess you could say that.” She extended a hand. “I’m sorry. I thought maybe we’d flown together before. I’m Elle Westmore, jumper pilot out of McCall.”
A pilot? “It’s . . . a pleasure to meet you.” He shook her hand. “Silas Kent, designated sewing boy. And sometimes they let me jump out of planes.”
She ran her fingertips lightly over the panel switches above her.
Silas cleared his throat. “So is that what you normally wear to work?”
“This? Oh no.” Then realizing he was joking, she said, “Of course not. A friend of mine got married about twenty miles from here. I heard they were staffing this satellite shack with a new Twin Otter, so I figured I’d stop in on my way home.”
“Oh. Well, that’s fortunate. I mean, for you, not your friend.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Getting hitched. Now she’ll never see you anymore. She’s gone.”
“I’ll still see her.”
“Sure you will.”
“Marriage is not an end-all to friendships.”
“That’s what all girls think.”
“And guys don’t?”
“I can’t speak for all guys.”
“But you can for girls?”
“Touché. So how long you been a pilot?”
She tilted her head back. “For as long as I could see over the dash. My daddy’s still a pilot for the Forest Service. I pretty much grew up at McCall.”
“You ever feel trapped by that?”
“How so?”
“You know, growing up at the base. Now you fly at the base. You ever feel like you want to escape and get out and see the world?”
“Well, for one, I’ve seen almost every state in the U.S. from the air and the ground.
And two, no. I love flying. Being in the air is the greatest sense of freedom.”
Silas nodded. His whole life he’d felt as if he was working his way toward somewhere else. Even as a jumper, especially as a jumper, when packing out a hundred pounds on his shoulders over rough terrain to meet a transport out after spending the last week saving brush-covered hillsides that no one would ever notice if they had burned or not anyway. Smokejumping was hard work, and it could be exciting and rewarding, but he still felt like it was a stop on the path to something else. He just hadn’t quite figured out the something else part yet.
“How about you,” she said. “How long have you been doing this?”
He waved a hand. “Ah, I’m still a rookie. This is my second season jumping. I worked a few on a hotshot crew, was lucky enough to make foreman my third year.”
“Was probably a pay cut to move to jumping.” She clenched her teeth. “Sorry. You don’t have to answer that. I didn’t mean to bring up money.”
“No, no. It’s all government pay grades. And you’re absolutely right. Guys told me if I wanted to jump, I needed to make the choice soon, before financial obligations made it impossible for me to . . . you know, make the jump.”
“So you chose this because you love it.”
“Yeah. I guess you could say that. It’s been good.”
“Been?”
“Yeah. I mean. It is. It is good.”
“Do you plan to continue in it?”
Her perceptiveness caught him off guard. Had he really revealed that much in a simple sentence?
Looking back to their first meeting, Silas now realized that his demeanor and responses in that conversation had spoken volumes to her about his character and maturity. She was ready to settle down, and he was ready to hop on the first train to anywhere else.
There was so much of Elle and Madison’s story he had yet to hear, but he knew trust was not something easily won, and was even more difficult to win back. Especially after the way he had bailed. What right did he have to be a part of her life now? He didn’t deserve her. He knew that much.
Rarely in his life had Silas ever felt a sense of home. And now that he was with her again, he realized he had been missing that ever since he’d left.
CHAPTER
13
Bo didn’t mind the couple extra pounds. Rolling a hammock into his rucksack was the best idea he ever had as a firefighter. After working in the dirt all day, who wanted to sleep in it too? He’d lucked out for the most part, only on rare occasion making a jump into vast sage-covered hills with nothing bigger than bitterbrush to hang his bed on.
Bo rested the paperback he’d been reading on his chest. The boys had each scraped out their own places to bed down. Cleese tended a campfire close enough that Bo still felt the warmth on the outskirts of its illumination. The fire mirrored off Cleese’s bald head. His eyes remained shadowed, covered by the ridge of his brow. Monte sat on the edge of his bedroll, gnawing on something from his Meals, Ready-to-Eat package, twisting an end of his handlebar moustache. Between the two of them they’d spoken maybe three full sentences all day. And Bo wasn’t one to talk either, leaving an exploitable void for Sippi and Rapunzel and their ridiculous banter.
Caleb Parson walked into camp, rolled out his mat near Bo, and laid everything beside it in perfect order. He stretched out on it, opened a paperback, and traced a finger beneath lines of text. Had Bo not witnessed the man just walk in, he would have thought Caleb had been reading there for some time.
Bo squinted to make out the title of Caleb’s book. The Campbell Prediction System. Good reading to keep one alive.
“So what’s the greater factor in a fire—fuel, weather, or topography?”
Caleb raised his eyebrows. “You’ve read Campbell?”
Bo nodded.
Caleb turned on his elbow and motioned at the book on Bo’s chest. “A little Kerouac, huh?”
Bo held up the cover of On the Road and examined it. “Far as I can tell, this is just about a couple white boys learning a little rhythm from they African brothers.”
Caleb released a laugh. “Where do you come from, man? I mean, don’t take that the wrong way.”
“Oh, I see. You figured I could read—you just didn’t think I was a reader.”
Caleb scratched his head. “I’m pretty much screwed no matter how I answer that one.”
“I’m from Philly.”
“City of Brotherly Love.”
“City of Brothers, at least. Where you from?”
“San Francisco.”
“Originally?”
Caleb nodded.
“What made you leave?”
“Couldn’t stand the city. I hate concrete and I hate crowds. Came to discover as a medic that I pretty much hate people too.”
“You see the worst of folks in that job.”
“Yeah. Saw it all over my shirt, my boots . . .” Caleb stared off. “Wasn’t like I left a glamorous lifestyle to do this.”
“Who you tellin’?”
“Yeah? What were you doing before here?”
“Nothing. Drowning. Met Pendleton at a job fair. But I ain’t riding the promotional fast track like your bad self.”
Caleb shook his head.
“Come on, now. Pendleton loves you. You his Will Riker.”
“Right. So what’s that make you—Geordi LaForge?”
Bo kept silent, watching the nervous realization wash over Caleb’s face—the expletive-inducing sudden knowledge that he may have just crossed an offending racial line.
He let him squirm for a bit before blowing air through his lips and smirking. “Nah, fool. I’m Lieutenant Worf.”
Relief washed across Caleb’s face, and he rolled onto his back. He opened the book. “It’s none of them, by the way.”
Bo raised his eyebrows.
Caleb turned a page. “Fuel, weather, topography.” He looked Bo in the eyes. “It’s us. Humans. We’re the biggest factor.”
“What about acts of God?”
“She can do whatever she wants.”
“Pshh. You able to control the lightning and the wind? You the one that tells the cheatgrass to spring up?”
Caleb huffed. “All I’m saying is if you take man out of the equation, then you pretty much have the problem solved.” He lay back and traced his finger under lines of text.
Bo rested his head on the hammock. “You was right.”
“About what?”
“You do hate people.”
———
Bo stared into the silhouetted tree canopy, the smell of smoke light and pungent in the breeze. His eyelids hung heavy and his thoughts turned to his little sisters, and then, as always, he was reminded of his brother.
Jamal and he were never close, at least as far as brothers went. They knew each other well, no doubt. But the seven years between them contributed to a chasm they were never able to bridge. Bo would always be the little brother. Perpetually shunned in public by the oldest, yet never ceasing to hold him in high esteem.
He tried to shake the memory, but it seeped in like smoke—toxic, mysterious, and suffocating. He was headed to the Y to swim. But he saw Jamal striding down the street with a few other older boys. And when Jamal ignored Bo’s attempts to get his attention, Bo made a game of it. He’d follow them. Like a spy. He’d get intel on what his older brother was up to.
So it became a game of make-believe. And Bo paid little attention to how deep into the barrio he wandered, how far from the already rough streets he lived on into the even darker and dilapidated industrial section of town. The whole way, he darted from alley to alley, from shallow vestibules to the shadows of Dumpsters, keeping Jamal in sight. Cars grew infrequent, pedestrians nonexistent. Bo kept to the opposite side of the street, wondering at times if Jamal had spotted him as he squinted to see between trash cans, shaking his head with an angry expression across his brow.
Good thing Bo had sprayed invisible power on himself. The same kind he used
to disappear into a corner of the house when his mother and father would yell and argue. It made him safe. He knew how to be quiet. He knew how to be unseen.
The air was hot but muggy, and the setting sun cast a reddish hue. Jamal and his group turned a street corner, and before Bo could catch up he heard the squeal of car tires and the crashing of metal. The sound replayed in his head. Pop-pop-pop. More tires screeching and then the roaring motor of a rust-brown Cadillac blowing through the abandoned intersection.
Bo’s hands shook. His disappearing power had worn off. He called out in a whisper, “Jamal?”
His feet led him forward, across the street, to the edge of the building. He pressed his hand against the warm brick, scared to see what lay around the corner.
“Jamal?”
His jaw trembled. He willed himself forward and peeked around the corner.
Two teenage boys lay sprawled on the sidewalk. A dark pool burgeoned beneath them.
———
A shriek shot out from the forest.
The sound had not come from a recognizable animal. Was not something any of the guys would have made.
Blackness enshrouded Bo, thick in presence, the only light coming from the reddened charcoal remains of the campfire. He steadied his breathing and clicked on his flashlight, squeezing it in his fist by his ear.
The other bedrolls lay empty.
He untied his boots from the foot of the hammock and draped his feet over the side. He slid them on, shooting upward glances, wrapping the laces around and around the back of the boots before tying them off.
He pulled on his helmet and clicked the LED light on the front of it. Lifting his Pulaski away from the tree it leaned on, he held it in a loose grip in front of him and moved with cautious, deliberate steps.
As he left the circle of the campfire embers for the dark of the forest, he heard it again.
Bo swallowed. The hickory handle of his Pulaski felt smooth against his bare palms. His eyes strained to discern shapes. Copper pennies glinted in pairs, hovering over the earth, skittering about and bouncing together before disappearing.
