Road to the Fire's Heart Read online

  Road to the Fire’s Heart

  a Firehawks romance story

  by M. L. Buchman

  1

  Squinting her eyes didn’t help.

  “Driving through pea soup would be easier.”

  As usual, Trent made no comment. Instead, he leaned closer to the wheel and also squinted out at the wildfire’s thick smoke. He was trying to turn strong-silent type into a lifestyle as if that was a good thing. He also didn’t deal well with abstract things like metaphors. He was a reliable enough partner, just not the most flexible.

  A decent enough person, just kind of clueless and…such a guy. Despite his being two years older than her, she’d taken to thinking of herself as his big sister, taking care of him when he was being particularly ridiculous or pitiable without his even realizing it. His fire skills were good, so she didn’t have to fix that, he was simply a social train wreck and needed a bit of a buffer from the world at large.

  Jill Conway-Jones looked back out the windshield of their heavy-duty Type 4 wildfire engine—the big truck was only a year old and still shone despite her and Trent driving to several fires already this season. She wished she knew more about paintings so that she could say one of those educated sounding phrases about how the raging, fiery hell was so awful that only Matisse could have done it justice. But even as she thought it, she knew it was wrong. Her best friend from childhood was the hotshot New York City artist. Jill was just a hotshot.

  Actually, that’s what she wanted to be. At the moment she was a wildland firefighter and engine driver lost deep in the Cascade wilderness of who-knew-where central Washington. A wildfire engine driver, but it wasn’t even her turn to drive. Trent was at the wheel and all she could do was try to figure out where they were.

  US Forest Service fire road FS-273E was invisible, if that’s what they were still on. Smoke was pouring across the road in thick black billows. Showers of brilliant orange sparks lit ash swirls from within as they blew by in vast clouds like the Monarch butterflies she’d once seen rising from a field of milkweed—a cloud of orange and black so thick that they seemed to block the sun.

  Not that the sun was still aloft. She double-checked her watch, sunset should still be purpling the sky, but being deep within the steep mountains to all sides and the heavy smoke filling the valley, it was full night here. Wherever here was.

  The headlights punched only a few feet into the smoke before reflecting back like high beams in fog.

  They’d left the Stehekin River Valley Road what seemed hours ago. They were supposed to be delivering their seven hundred and fifty gallons of water to a beleaguered crew high up on Tolo Mountain. The one-lane dirt track had meandered up into the hills. The road’s edge was sometimes carved out by rushing streams and at other times the entire lane was blocked by fallen trees. More than once they’d had to stop, pull out their chainsaws, and chop up eighty feet of flaming tree so that they could tug it out of the way with the truck’s winch.

  There was no turning around. No spot in the road to do so even if the hotshot crew hadn’t needed their water. The wildfire engine was the only ground vehicle with a chance of making it out to them. The front cab looked like one of those heavy-duty delivery trucks and had the big growling diesel engine to match. The rear had slab sides covered with doors for tools and supplies. On the main bed was three tons of water and twice the firehose that any city firetruck could carry. They could even drive slow along a fire’s perimeter and pump at the same time, a wildfire engine specialty that no city engine could match.

  Jill loved this machine for its raw brute strength, but still wanted to test herself against the fire with the Interagency Hotshot Crews—the IHCs were the elite wildfire fighters, along with the smokejumpers, and she wanted to be a part of that.

  Trent was hugging the cliff to her right on the inside edge of the lane, which was all they could do. After the third time a branch had slapped her rearview mirror flat against the side of the engine, she gave up readjusting it. Opening the window invariably filled the cabin with smoke and there wasn’t anyone crazy enough to be behind them anyway.

  Jill looked up at the cliff and tried to see any dips or ridges. Maybe by the topography she’d be able to locate some similar shape on the map spread across her lap.

  Then she saw it coming toward her. She barely had time to scream—

  “Log!”

  —before the tree tumbled down the hill and slammed into the side of the engine. It was three feet in diameter and at least thirty feet long. And it was alive with flame down its entire length.

  The tree slammed into the engine and knocked it sideways as if it weighed nothing. The Type 4 engine weighed eight tons. Between fuel, the water, and crew, the engine was loaded with an extra five tons. Despite all of their mass and the grip of the rear dualies, they were swept sideways across the road like a dust bunny trying to escape a flaming broom.

  They tumbled off the other side of the road. Even as they rolled down the steep slope, she could see Trent trying to steer. At the moment they were upside down, the engine roaring; he must also be trying the gas.

  Jill nearly strangled when the throttle-hold of adrenaline fear clamped her throat closed at the same moment she had the urge to giggle. The image of the truck lying on its back and waving its little four-wheel drive in the air wouldn’t go away even as the cab’s roof crumpled dangerously low making them both duck.

  The engine continued to roll, one side per panicked gasp until she was nearly hyperventilating. Once right side up, the spinning tires slammed them forward only for a second. The engine stalled hard then they continued once more onto their back with a resounding crash.

  They finally came to a rest with the driver’s side door down.

  She dangled above Trent, suspended by her seatbelt.

  “Nice driving there, Ace.” It was either laugh or scream, and she struggled to avoid the latter.

  Trent didn’t answer. Nor did he offer one of his trademark grunts.

  Ahead of them, out the shattered windshield, there was nothing but the pitch dark of night. There was light coming in through the back window—dark, orange light that flickered ominously. She twisted around to look. The massive burning log lay in the back of the engine, at least one end of it. It was still burning which only added to the bad. Looking up and out her door, another massive branch lay across the remains of her window; the mirror was nowhere to be seen.

  Her headlamp was still on her helmet which by some miracle was still on her head. She clicked it on. Trent was still breathing, but out cold. And his arm was at an angle that didn’t look good at all.

  Twisting herself around, she kicked at what was left of the windshield a few times with her boots until it broke free. The air outside the truck was marginally cooler than inside, which she took as a good sign.

  Careful to brace herself so that she didn’t fall on Trent, who still wasn’t moving, she released her seatbelt. She crawled out to assess the situation. They were at the bottom of a dry ravine that hadn’t been on fire. Parts of it now were, though, due to the log that had brought them here and it was bound to get worse shortly.

  She leaned back in to extract Trent. Unable to release his seatbelt, she pulled out a knife and cut the straps, but it didn’t help much. She weighed about one-twenty-five, and he weighed more like two-twenty-five.

  “Great. We’re alone, a bajillion miles from no one knows where,” she told Trent’s still form. “All the training drills in the world don’t make me Supergirl.”

  “You sure?” A man’s voice spoke close behind her.

  2

  The woman would have
fallen over backward if Jess hadn’t grabbed her about the waist. She wasn’t a bad imitation of Supergirl at all. A blond ponytail hung out below her helmet. She stood two or three inches shorter than his own five-eight—he was still taller than Tom Cruise no matter how much he was teased on the fire line. And she was clad in full fire gear—which was always a turn-on. Firefighting women weren’t as rare as they used to be, but ones fighting forest wildfires were still a very rare commodity.

  He let go of her as soon as he was sure she had her balance once again.

  “No, if I was Supergirl, I’d be able to lift my partner out by myself.”

  Jess tried not to sigh at the way she said partner. It sounded possessive. Bad luck for him, good luck for the dude still in the truck. Which was now on fire and they’d better get a move on.

  He nudged Supergirl out of the way and ducked in to look at the situation. Her partner wasn’t pinned but he had a busted arm. No way to assess anything else in this position, not in the time allowed. When Jess tucked the guy’s bad arm into his half-open jacket, it didn’t even elicit a grunt. Out cold. Jess grabbed the guy’s lapels and gave a hard yank. He was big, but he slithered free like a sack of potatoes.

  The woman ducked back into the truck through the windshield and emerged moments later with her gloves, a pair of burnover shelters, and the first aid kit. Keeping her head after what must have been a terrifying experience. Full points for that.

  Jess had been scouting the edge of the fire. His hotshot crew was up the slope of the ravine trying to cut a line ahead of the blaze and he’d come down just in time to see the engine they’d been waiting for take the hit and tumble down into the ravine.

  They’d both dragged the injured driver well clear, then he eyed the truck. There were a lot of supplies on there that they really needed. The flames weren’t near the gas tanks yet and it seemed like a reasonable risk.

  “Let’s do some salvage.”

  He didn’t have to tell her twice. With little ceremony she dropped one shelter and the first aid kit on her prostrate partner’s chest. She clipped the other shelter to her belt and followed him back to the truck.

  “Grab your PG bag.”

  “My what?”

  “Personal gear.”

  The fire was bright enough to see the blank look on her face. Right. She probably drove a city engine most of time; she wouldn’t know hotshot lingo.

  “Food, water, stuff like that.”

  “Oh,” she ducked in and came back out with a small knapsack and a Pulaski fire axe. Okay, not all city. Only wildland firefighters used the tool that was an axe on one side and an adze on the other.

  In moments they’d grabbed a five-gallon cube of water and two more of gas for the chainsaws. He snagged a twenty-pound bag of foodstuffs and wished he had time to riffle through more of the doomed engine’s lockers. It was trashed anyway, not even worth trying to use its own pump and water supply to put itself out. He’d expected to find two bodies as he approached the cab. And then Supergirl had kicked out the windshield.

  She came back out with a stretcher for her partner.

  “Let’s get clear.” In three ferry loads, they put another couple hundred feet between them and the now engulfed engine. They stood in the ashen forest with their salvaged gear and her partner on a stretcher. Jess waited, but even now that they were relatively safe, she didn’t slide into shock.

  “How bad is the road up to here?”

  She looked at him like he was an idiot, which wouldn’t surprise anyone, him least of all.

  “I mean for an ambulance.”

  “We don’t—” then she looked grim for a moment and glanced down at her partner where he lay strapped into the stretcher. “I don’t even know where we are. Visibility was near zero for the last hour.”

  Jess clicked on the radio, “Candace? Jess here.”

  “Wondering when you’d get off your lazy ass and check in.”

  Supergirl had a cute giggle.

  “Aww, you missed me. I’m touched. I’ve got a rollover wildfire engine here at the bottom of the ravine in sector two-six. It’s—” there was a loud boom that had both him and Supergirl ducking. She lay over her partner to protect him which was just too sweet for words. “It’s toast. That column of flame about a mile to your southeast was one of the gas tanks breaching. Need a medevac and the road is impassible. Got any helos on call?”

  “Hold. I’ll check.”

  He turned to Supergirl as she sat back up and began brushing wood chips and other detritus that was falling back down from the explosion off her partner. The engine was a complete loss, but she spared it little more than a glance. He’d seen it before, women so focused on their families that they barely thought about their own safety during evacuations.

  “You have a name?”

  “Jill Conway-Jones a.k.a. Supergirl.”

  Sense of humor despite whatever shock she was in. Stretcher boy was one lucky guy; Jess wondered which one of them was Conway and which was Jones. He could see her more clearly now by the light of the burning engine. Seriously lucky guy.

  “I’m Jess Monroe. I’m an assistant super on the Leavenworth Interagency Hotshot Crew that’s currently up that ridge cutting line. We’ll get you and your boyfriend out of here in a minute.”

  “He’s—”

  “Jess?” The radio crackled to life sparing him whatever happy domestic story she was going to spill all over him. “Candace here. You’re getting lucky tonight, boyo. I’ve got a Jeannie Clark in Firehawk Oh-Three from MHA heading your way. Give her a beacon. ETA in one minute, she’s just finished a dump run and is turning your way. Then get back up here. Please tell me you salvaged some saw fuel.”

  “Water and food too.”

  “Love you, Monroe. Swear to god I do.”

  “You can show me some of that lovin’ when I get there. Out.” And he began fishing out the infrared beacon. It would show up far brighter in the helicopter pilot’s night-vision goggles than a normal flashlight. He hoped that Evan had his radio tuned in for that transmission; Candace’s husband was so much fun to poke at. He’d been a hotshot for a year now and married to their super for six months, but it still took him a beat or two to keep up with her. It took all of them that, because Candace rocked the job of leading the team.

  The next ten minutes were busy. The helo coming in overhead drowned any conversation beneath the heavy pounding of the big rotors. A guy came down through thick branches on a penetrator winch and helped them hook up the stretcher.

  Winch guy took a moment to unsling a camera and snap shots of the burning engine and of Jess and Supergirl double-checking on Trent.

  “Be back down for you in a minute,” the helo guy shouted to Jill.

  “No,” she yelled back. “I’m uninjured. I’m sure they can use another firefighter here.”

  Jess was about to protest.

  “I’ve got my Firefighter I and II, I’ve been driving wildfire engines for three seasons, and I’ve got my red card for wildfire.” She pointed at the three cubes of fuel and water, “And do you want to carry all those up the hill yourself?”

  At forty pounds per cube, he wasn’t looking forward to it.

  3

  “Last chance,” the helicopter guy shouted.

  Jill waved him aloft, not giving the hotshot a chance to insist. No way was she passing up a chance to work with an IHC crew. Especially not for the sake of Trent who would probably be an engine driver forever. He was headed for what he needed, med care; now it was time to head for what she needed, fire.

  In minutes, Trent and the photographer were back aboard the helicopter and the pounding of the rotor blades was fading away.

  Funny that the hotshot thought she and Trent were an item.

  Jess Monroe was awfully cute. And she’d felt his easy strength when she stumbled and ended up in his arms.
Her knees had been shaky from the crash, but after he’d held her, even for that brief moment, she’d felt so much more stable. Too bad he was already taken by his supervisor.

  Giving a man too much time to think was never a good idea. So she slipped her Pulaski through the loops on her knapsack…no, her PG bag, and slung it over her shoulders. Then she looped the salvaged food bag over her head.

  With a shrug, Jess picked up one of the fuel cubes and the water cube, leaving her the other fuel cube. That was decent of him; five gallons of fuel weighed nine pounds less than the forty-three of the water cubes.

  “Ready?” His voice didn’t sound at all tight from the heavy load he was now holding.

  She scanned the ground, took one last look at the burning engine, trying not to think about the paperwork involved in that loss, and nodded for him to lead the way. She’d miss the engine; it had been a fun machine to drive—had actually made her feel a little like she was Supergirl, womanhandling thirteen tons of firefighting beast.

  The first hundred feet across the ravine floor went quickly enough. The next hundred, starting up the steep hillside toward the hotshot crew, felt okay too. Then she put her head down and tackled the job of putting one foot in front of the other. In minutes she was drenched in sweat and her arms had started complaining about the load.

  Jess led slow and steady, but without stopping and she didn’t want to complain, especially as he was carrying thirty more pounds than she was. As they climbed farther into the trees, the orange light from behind faded. A stolen glance showed that they’d climbed a thousand feet or more up from the ravine. The mountains beyond glowed in a hundred shades of red and orange. To the north, flames leapt gold-orange toward the sky. To the south, it was a lower, more sullen burn in deep reds. All else was dark, the forest with night and the sky with thick clouds of smoke. If the helicopter returned, she didn’t spot it.

  Turning back to the trees, she saw that Jess was well ahead of her now and she did what she could to catch up with him. He had a strong, steady persistence to him.