He probably wouldn’t have gotten any signal here anyway.
“What’s the plan now, chief?” Miller asked.
Hawke started up the engine, glowing embers blowing past the vehicle’s windows and skittering across the hood to land on the east side of the road where they ignited grass and shrub and stump and tree.
“We head back to the station, refill the truck, and move with everything we’ve got to the parking lot at Ski Scarlet to set up fire camp. Then we’ll try to get a backburn going off Piñon Road. We arenotletting this thing take our town.” He called for Taylor over the radio. “Have you found Bear?”
“Negative. I’ve been ordered to close county parks and…” Static made the rest of Taylor’s words unintelligible.
“Damn it!” Hawke drove through thick smoke back the way they’d come.
Brandon watched out the window as the landscape they’d tried to save quickly succumbed to flames.
Jesse hadhis earplugs in and his chainsaw running when the call to evacuate went out over the radio, so he didn’t hear it. He only knew something was up when Kevin, one of the senior patrollers, rode up on an ATV and motioned to Jesse’s radio.
Jesse cut the saw, pulled out his earplugs. “What’s up?”
“The fire is headed our way. We’ve been ordered to evacuate.”
“Shit.” Jesse put his saw on the back of the ATV, grabbed his gear bag, and took a seat next to Kevin. “Who else is still out here?”
“Travis hasn’t replied either. He’s our lookout.”
They found Travis playing air guitar on top of a rock on the west side of Eagle Ridge, earbuds in his ears.
“Travis!” Jesse bellowed in the voice he’d used to terrify E4s in the army.
Travis whirled to face them, jerked the earbuds off his head. “Shit! You scared me.”
Kevin wasn’t happy. “Be glad Moretti and I found you and not the boss. You’re supposed to be watching our backs.”
Travis motioned toward the west. “I’ve been watching. The fire—”
Jesse pointed. “If you’d been paying attention, you’d have noticed that the little wisp of white smoke is now a dark mushroom cloud.”
Travis turned to look, the wind blowing off his baseball cap. “Whoa.”
Kevin pointed to the ATV with his thumb. “We’ve been ordered to evacuate. Get your shit, and get on.”
Travis jumped off the rock, ran after his hat, grabbed his gear, and piled on.
On skis, they’d have been back down to the ski patrol office in ten minutes. Riding a damned ATV over bumpy ground took much longer. By the time they reached the lodge, trucks from Scarlet FD, the county, and the National Forest Service were rolling into the parking lot—brush trucks, a couple of Type 3 wildland apparatus, a big pumper tanker with a ladder, and a mobile command center.
The sight of so much hardware had Jesse looking over his shoulder.
“Jesus.”
Thick gray smoke filled the sky to the northwest of Eagle Ridge.
Jesse stowed his gear while Kevin parked the ATV and then jogged out to the parking lot in search of Hawke. Jesse spotted him near the command vehicle.
He was covered with sweat and soot and shouting into his cell phone. “What about Colorado National Guard? They’ve got helos that can be outfitted with buckets and tanks. I don’t give a goddamn how much they cost!”
Hawke made eye contact. “We’re talking about homesandhuman lives here.”
Jesse held up his red card—his wildland firefighting certification.
Hawke nodded, pointed to Brandon Silver, who stood about twenty yards to Jesse’s left, drinking from a water bottle.