Take a Chance on Me(54)

Darek remembered the air that night—crisp, almost a sizzle to it.

That was the night he’d kissed Ivy.

“Right now, it’s inaccessible by land; we’d have to paddle in. So far it looks to have incinerated over thirteen thousand acres of boreal forest.”

All that black spruce, jack pine, balsam fir, and paper birch, gone. Darek could imagine the fire almost as if he were there—sweat pasting his yellow shirt to his back, Pulaskis swinging, dirt flying, chain saws roaring, the searing breath of the dragon on their backs. He could smell the acrid odor, feel the embers falling like snow, dusting his helmet. The furnace would dry his throat, make him tuck his handkerchief over his nose and keep digging right beside twenty other of his fellow ground pounders, battling together.

Yeah, he missed it.

“We estimate, with the debris left by the blowdown, that there might be fifty to a hundred tons of dry fuel per acre. The fire is jumping lakes by connecting with islands, and a flyover this morning estimated flame lengths up to a hundred feet.”

Around them, Darek recognized a few of the hotshots who had filtered in—Graham, a seasoned Native American sawyer built like a fortress, and Pete Holt, former military who did a couple tours in Afghanistan and had a kid on the way right about the time Darek left. He looked like he might be a crew boss now for the way he was hollering at the youngsters, college kids looking to pay for their tuition.

One woman on the team, a blonde who wore her hair in a long braid down her back, immediately made friends with Tiger, who was admiring their Pulaskis, helmets, and gear. She offered Tiger her whistle and he blew on it while everyone laughed.

Tiger was having the time of his life.

So much like his father.

The NFS command center buzzed with activity, flyover reports from spotters coming in, the weather report rattling away on a nearby radio.

Jed alternated between listening to the weather and to an explanation of the terrain from a local NFS fire supervisor. “If we can contain the fire before it gets here, to Bower Trout Lake, then we won’t have to evacuate. There’re about seventy homes located on Trout.”

“There haven’t been any prescribed burns in this area—ever,” Darek said, skimming his hand over the region between the fire zone and Trout, then farther to Two Island Lake. “We need to stop it before it gets to Two Island. South of Two Island, we start to encroach on residential areas. There’s a group home here, the Garden . . .” He pointed to a large area just north of Evergreen Lake. “And then, of course, Evergreen has about 120 homes, not to mention our resort.”

“From there it’s a straight shot to Deep Haven,” Graham said.

“We’ll stop it long before it endangers Deep Haven,” Jed said. “We’ve asked to deploy a Bombardier CL-215 tanker plane—should be here later today. We’ll get that in there and see if we can make a dent in it.”

Darek looked at the map, traced the fire road, then the portage line into Ball Club Lake. “You could start a prescribed burn on the north side of Ball Club, see if you can use up the fuel, shut it down.”

Jed leaned over the map. “Good call. After the plane gets in, we’ll assess whether we need to send in the crew.” He turned to Darek. “By the way, it’s great to see you. How’ve you been?”

“Good.”

“We miss you on the team. No one can sing Johnny Cash like you and Jensen.”

“I miss ‘A Boy Named Sue’!” Pete Holt yelled.

Darek refused to let his smile dim. Maybe they didn’t know, or remember, how everything between Jensen and him had gone south. Yet those had been good days.

The energy in the room, the way the men congregated around the fire stats, seemed contagious. They’d sent in a crew because of the last fire, years ago, near Sea Gull Lake that took out so many resorts and homes. Apparently the NFS wasn’t taking any chances in this dry season.

Indeed, the entire county could go up in smoke if they didn’t snuff out the fire, and soon.

Someone had put an orange Nomex helmet on Tiger, was letting him dig through a backpack of equipment. Darek had no doubt there might be a dream igniting inside his five-year-old.

A man came into the room carrying a large box. A little under six feet, he had dark-blond hair, a military build. He set the box on the floor, then came over to the table and opened a laptop. “I’ve already pulled up the map and plugged in the weather conditions, the fuel loads. That should tell us a little about how the fire will run.” His screen came to life, the fire box surrounded in red, a map underlying the burning area.

“Dare, I’d like you to meet Conner Young. He hitched on board with us last year doing some advanced communications work. He developed a program to help us read and predict fire behavior.”