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It takes an easy eight hours for us to dampenGloriaenough to satisfy Ruiz and warrant a relief team to come in and finish mopping up. While they do, we suffer a two-hour flight in a tiny plane that accentuates every pocket of turbulence. But we arrive back on base just as the sun is going down and chow is being served up in the messroom.
So I shower, inspect and tag my chute, place it back in the shed for rotation, then I follow my nose and head toward the scent of spicy beef and beer.
It’s taco Tuesday, and as of an hour ago, I’m officially done with the summer smoke jumper season.
Tomorrow, I fly back to heaven and hell.
It’s both thrilling and terrifying to be heading back to the town I ran from seven months ago.
“Feeney!” Jones claps me on the shoulder just as I step through the cafeteria doors, and thrusts a beer into my hand. “It was a pleasure serving with you, kid. You didn’t kill yourself.”
“Or anyone else,” Tweed adds with a playful smirk. “We had a bet going. Hundred bucks said you’d take one of us out.”
My nose wrinkles with distaste. “That’s dark. The very essence of the bet you made would have the dead person paying toward the pot they perished in.” I shake my head and stumble forward a step when Jones pushes. “There’s something seriously wrong with you people.”
“Dark humor is how we cope.” Lieutenant O’Toole wanders toward a table with a tray overfilled with the makings of a Mexican feast. “You did good, Feeney. I’ve already compiled my report for your lieutenant back home, and with it, an offer for a position in future summer seasons, should you ever wish to escape reality again.”
“Escapereality?” I wander toward the buffet with a scowl and take a tray for myself. “I wasn’t escaping anything. I was just working.”
“Son,” O’Toole shakes his head. But he laughs and sips his beer. “We’re all escaping one thing or another.”
He lifts his chin toward Davis. “Divorce.” Then to Flannery and lowers his voice. “His daddy has cancer. He won’t make it till next summer.” Bringing his voice up again while I drop ingredients on my plate, he points back at himself. “My daughter just turned sixteen. She’s…active,” his face pales, “if you know what I mean, and my wife thinks I’m overreacting when I suggest we send her to Africa on a kind of charity mission.”
Picking up a loaded taco and stuffing one end into his mouth, he sends ingredients raining back to his plate so the smack andtingof their landing is a bit like rain and hail hitting an old tin roof.
Then, like it was choreographed, everyone stops joking and eating, and turns to the door, where Ruiz pauses at the threshold.
His eyes narrow to dangerous slits as he stares back. “What?”
Not saying a thing, I turn back to the buffet and keep compiling my dinner.
“We were talking about escapism,” Davis announces, way too fucking cheerfully. “It’s a tale as old as time, right? To be a smoke jumper is not a sane career choice, but to have men and women out here with something to run away from makes for an effective firefighter. Divorce,” he repeats O’Toole’s answers. “Kids.” Then he nods toward Ruiz himself. “Death.”
I drop my head and wait for the next fist that Ruiz sends flying toward my face.
“I’m not escaping anything.” Anger bubbles like lava just beneath the man’s surface as he saunters into the food hall and snatches up a tray on my right. “I’ve always been a smoke jumper,” he tells them all. “It’s what I was born to do. My personal life doesn’t dictate the circumstances in which I report for duty.”
“Sure,” Davis taunts. “But having a dead girlfriend and operating a chainsaw in the middle of a burning forest kinda goes hand in hand, no?”
I clamp my lips shut, pick up my loaded tray, and start toward the door. Because someone’s gonna get hit tonight, and I’d really like it not to be me.
My face is still sore from his last swing, and I have a niece to visit tomorrow for the first time in too long.
To turn up beaten and blue can’t possibly be the right thing to do.
“You need to watch your fuckin’ mouth!” Ruiz snarls, just like I knew he would. But I leave him to it and duck through the door, into fresh air outside.
The scent of spiced beef and tangy pico de gallo makes my stomach twist and my nose perk up. So I search for a table as far from the mess hall as I can manage, and drop my tray so it lands with a thud.
Climbing over the bench seat and tipping my beer back to chug half in one go, I drop to my ass and reach down to rub the dull ache from deep in my leg.
Since I broke it seven months ago, there’s been a thud-step in my gait. It’s not something I notice most of the time. It’s not even something that hurts nine times out of ten.
But on that tenth day, like today, it pulses with pain and reminds me of everything that happened before this: falling through the floor of a shitty two-story home. And soon after, watching the Oriane burn to the ground.
Cootes perishing.
Seeing Ruiz’s tears glisten on his jaw when my colleagues handed him a flag and a melted helmet.
