Page 95 of Until We Come Home

His face softens, and he steps back to cup my cheek in his rough, warm hand.

“It’ll be okay,” he says. “I’ve done this my whole career. They’re short on people, and they need every hand they can get up there. I’ll be back before you know it, I promise.”

“Just please, for once, be careful,” I tell him, picturing him running toward every fire everyone else runs from, all the stories I’ve heard over the years crowding in.

“I’m always careful,” he says, flashing me a big grin that doesn’t fool me for a second.

He kisses me one more time, long and firm, his forehead resting against mine for a heartbeat. Then he’s gone, jogging down the porch steps and across the wet lawn to the Jeep, jacket slung over his shoulder. The engine turns over, and gravel kicks up behind his tires as he pulls out onto the road.

I stand frozen on the porch with my arms crossed, watching until his taillights disappear around the bend. Out past the eastern ridge, a dark column of smoke is already churning into the clear morning sky. The coffee I left on the armrest has gone cold, and the dread only settles deeper.

CHAPTER 29

Mateo

By the time I pull Alex’s Jeep up behind the handful of rigs parked along the trailhead, the ridge is already ablaze. Dark River’s volunteer department has been out here since just past seven, and judging by the massive plumes of black smoke rolling into the sky, they’re fighting a losing battle.

The summer’s been so dry that the few rainstorms we’ve had haven’t soaked into anything, and last night’s storm missed the ridge entirely. It’s blanketed in Scotch broom, acres of it running all the way down the slope.

Oily and dense and practically begging to burn, it’s about the worst kind of plant you can have on a hillside in a drought, with all the dead grass in between ready to carry the fire from one stand to the next.

It’s uncomfortably close to town.

My wildland gear has been sitting in the back of the Jeep all summer, and I suit up in record time: yellow Nomex shirt, green pants, heavy boots laced tight, helmet, goggles, and my pack with my fire shelter and canteen clipped to the harness.

I slam the door and jog toward the command post set up on Chief Tom Holloway’s tailgate. He’s got a handheld radio pressed to his ear and a topo map pinned under his arm, and he hands me a spare radio before I can open my mouth.

“Kessler’s brush rig is working the left flank off the old logging road with just a couple of volunteers,” he says, pointing at the map. “They need help. The lookout’s posted on the rock outcrop above them, and the escape route goes straight down to the gravel quarry. DNR is holding the north side, and North County sent an engine to protect the homes along Bear Creek. Get moving.”

I don’t hesitate.

The old logging road winds up the ridge in steep switchbacks, and I push the pace, the smoke thickening until the sun turns into a pale orange disc behind the haze. Ash falls like dirty snow through the firs. By the time I get to Kessler’s truck, I can hear the fire—a deep, continuous rumble like a freight train barreling down the mountain.

Captain Dana Kessler is manning the nozzle near the edge of the road, her helmet tipped back and her face covered in soot. Her crew is two volunteers: a young kid struggling with a backpack pump and a shovel, and Jim, an older guy from the Front Street hardware store, hauling supply line.

Dark River has two trucks and a water tender—a structure engine and a wildland brush truck—run mostly by older volunteers who may never have seen a fire like this. The department is tiny, and it’s usually wet enough out here that fire risk isn’t the concern it is east of the mountains.

Most of their calls are car wrecks on the highway, chimney fires, and the occasional burn pile that got away from somebody. They’re good people, but it’s plainly not enough right now, not with the fire moving this fast. No wonder they called me and anyone else they could. I jog up the road to Kessler.

“Holloway sent me,” I tell her, pulling my gloves tighter. “Where do you want me?”

“Thank God,” she says, and shoves the nozzle into my hands. “We’re anchored on the road and working up the flank. I need to get eyes on the head. Tyler, stay with him.”

She takes off up the switchback with her radio out, and I assess the setup. Anchor point is solid—the packed gravel road will keep the fire from swinging around behind us. The lookout is visible on the ledge above, binoculars up. The escape route leads back down the road to our safety zone at the quarry. Everything is by the book.

Then I get to work.

We work the flank methodically, hugging the anchor point and pinching the burn in from the side. You never tackle the head of a wildfire directly unless you want to get overrun; you work the edges and choke off its fuel.

The fire creeps through the brush in bright orange ribbons, the dry Scotch broom popping like fireworks and throwing off thick black smoke. I lay a heavy stream along the perimeter, knocking the flames down, but a gust kicks up through the trees, and twenty feet past my line, the brush ignites all at once.

“Spot fire!” I yell over the noise, swinging the line around. “Behind us to the right!”

Tyler scrambles over with his shovel and backpack pump, and I soak the area while he scrapes a wide trench around the embers until we’ve got it contained.

“Nice work,” I tell him, blinking the sting out of my eyes. “Dig it out straight to the mineral soil so it doesn’t creep back under the roots. And keep scanning—whenever the wind blows, look for fresh smoke behind us.”

He nods, wiping sweat from his forehead with his sleeve, and gets straight back to digging.