“I know, but you don’t have to let that stop you.”
Dean walked back to the ladder, climbed up, his jaw hard as he looked out over the rope. He took one step and another and another.
“That’s it. You’ve got this.”
Another step. Another. Yet another.
Gabe held his breath as the boy passed the halfway mark, a look of utmost concentration on his face as he took those last few steps. When Dean stepped off the rope and onto the platform, everyone cheered, even the kid with the fat lip.
The triumph on Dean’s face put a knot in Gabe’s chest.
“You did it, man!” Gabe walked over to unharness him, gave him a high five.
Chaska did the same. “Way to go! You didn’t give up even though it would have been easier.”
Old Man tousled the boy’s hair, bent down. “What you did—getting back up there after you fell—thatwas true courage.”
Chapter 5
Eric parkedthe Type 6 brush truck across the road from the fire. “The county crew hasn’t made it yet.”
“They probably got lost,” said Jenny Miller.
Chuckles.
Eric climbed out, Miller and four other members of his crew following. Because Scarlet Springs sat in the WUI—wildland-urban interface—Eric required every firefighter who joined his crew to have experience fighting wildland fires. He drilled them relentlessly on both structural and wildland firefighting techniques so they would be ready for anything—and so they would remember the differences between the two.
Scarlet had burned to the ground in 1878, and it was his job to make sure history didn’t repeat itself.
Silver pulled up behind them with the rest of the crew in a surplus hotshot buggy that Eric had bought from the US Forest Service at auction last year. Running a small fire department meant getting creative with finances.
“Listen up!” Eric called out. “Right now, this fire is just hanging out here, waiting for the wind to catch it. We’ll clear a chain length off the road and brush out the area on the east side as well. We need to work fast and smart to corral this thing before that front moves in.”
“Bring it on!”
“Miller, it’s your turn to be lookout. Head up that ridge. With all the spurs here, it’s possible that stray embers might start spot fires elsewhere that we can’t see.”
“Got it.”
He went over the trigger points with her. “If you see smoke or flames rising from any of the little canyons or draws coming off these spurs, warn us and get out. If this thing blows up and turns into an active crown fire, we all get out. Remember, there is no good black here. If we have to evacuate, we climb into these vehicles and get the hell down the road to that turnaround area. That’s our primary safety zone. After that, we fall back to the parking lot at Ski Scarlet.”
“What about the creek?”
“There’s not enough water flowing now to do us any good.”
Orange helmets nodded.
“I’ve got a dozer on its way, so cut those trees before they get here. If the fire spots to the other side of the road, we’ll hit those fires with the brush truck. The county crew will join us on the line shortly, and Robertson will be Incident Commander when he gets here.”
Groans.
“I don’t like it either, but that’s how it is. We will cooperate with the county crew and follow orders, but we will not compromise our safety. Understood?”
More nods.
“You got it, chief.”
They grabbed their gear—packs, personal gear bags, Pulaskis, shovels, chainsaws, hoes, and cubies of drinking water. They did one last radio check and had just started up the road when the county crew pulled up and parked behind them.