The Smoke Jumper (21 page)

Hank asked her if she had any idea where the runaway girl was and Julia said she hadn’t but that she thought she must be somewhere between her and the river. But even though on every subsequent pass, every jumper on board scanned the mountain, no one had caught a glimpse of her.

The jump spot was a patch of grass and sliprock below the tail of the fire. Ed and Connor were jumping last stick and by the time they reached it, the others had stowed their jumpsuits and parachutes. They did the same and then the firefighting equipment came in and everyone tooled up and gathered around Hank Thomas. He was talking with Julia on the radio and looking at the map while she gave him the map reference of where she and Katie were. Ed was struck by how professional she sounded. The voice was level and precise and betrayed no fear. But somehow it was like listening to a stranger.

‘What’s the girl’s name?’ Hank asked her.

‘Skye. Skye McReedie.’

Ed looked at Connor. They both knew how attached Julia was to the girl and how thrilled she had lately been at Skye’s progress. It made the calm, professional way in which she was talking to Hank all the more impressive. Hank asked her if she’d seen any sign of the helicopter search and rescue team that was supposed to be on its way. Julia hadn’t and Hank said he was going to radio right away to see what was keeping it. Meanwhile he would send three of his jumpers to help her and Katie look for the girl.

‘Julia, one more thing. You see those thunderheads bubbling up over there to the northwest? There’s a cold front coming in. The wind’s moving around and it’s going to blow stronger. We’ve all got to keep alert to that. This old fire could start fooling around and moving any which way. We don’t want anyone taking any risks. Do you copy?’

‘Copy.’

‘Good. Julia, I’ve got someone here who wants to say hello.’

He grinned at Ed and shoved the radio in his hand.

‘Julia?’

‘Ed! I didn’t know you were there.’

‘Are you okay?’

‘I’m fine. Just worried about Skye.’

‘She’ll be fine. We’ll find her.’

‘Is Connor with you?’

‘Yes, he is. Here’s Hank again.’

Hank took the radio.

‘Julia? Stay where you are. We’re on our way.’

They signed off and, before Ed had the chance to ask, Hank named him, Connor and Chuck Hamer as the three he was sending to help in the search. Hank and the other four jumpers would cut a line around the fire’s eastern flank.

As the three of them moved away into the forest, he heard Hank start to make the call to find out where the hell the helicopter rescue team had gotten to.

It took them twenty minutes to hike across to where Julia was. They headed up along one of the strange spines of rock that they had seen from the air. Connor could see how this one had acted as a natural fire line. The mountainside above it was black, with the charred totem poles of burnt trees still smoking, while the forest below remained unburned. Connor didn’t know why, but ever since his first glimpse of the mountain from the plane, something about it made him feel uneasy.

They walked single file with Connor in the lead. Once he stepped up onto a ledge and almost trod on a rattlesnake. It ignored him and slithered off, heading with speed and purpose away from the fire. Then up ahead he spotted Julia. She was sitting on a platform of rock with Katie and he called out and they waved and came running down toward them. She was wearing shorts and her pale gray T-shirt was patched with sweat. Ed ran ahead to meet them, taking off his hardhat, and he and Julia flung their arms around each other and held each other while Connor and Chuck walked toward them.

Julia turned to Connor as he came near and hugged him too and he held her tight and was almost overwhelmed by the feel of her and the smell of her and at having her just for that moment there in his arms. They stepped apart and she looked him directly in the eyes and maybe he imagined it, but there seemed for a moment to be some message there for him but he didn’t know what it was. She smiled bravely and looked away and he could see the tension in her face. She said hello to Chuck and introduced Katie who promptly burst into tears and clearly needed someone to hug too and chose Chuck.

‘Hell,’ he said. ‘Why can’t I always have that effect on women?’

They spread the map on the rock and had to hold it down because the wind was whipping around them now. The thunderheads were moving in fast. Julia showed them the route she thought Skye might be taking and where they had found the book. She suggested they fan out across the slope and move down in a line, keeping radio contact. Katie was the only one without a radio and when Connor suggested that she should team up with Chuck, she looked relieved. As they were about to move out, Hank came on the radio and said the rescue helicopter had lost radio contact and no one knew where it was. For the time being, he said, they were on their own.

The idea was that they were going to move down the mountainside in a line, as straight as the terrain allowed. Ed was going to take the northern end, nearest the fire, Julia next, then Connor, with Chuck and Katie taking the southern end. Ed stayed where he was and wished them luck as Connor and the others set off to take up their positions.

Chuck and Katie hiked on. Connor walked beside Julia.

‘Oh, Connor,’ she said quietly.

She took a deep, shuddering breath and kept her eyes straight ahead. He could tell she was right on the edge.

‘We’ll find her.’

‘If anything happens to her, I’ll never forgive myself.’

He put a hand gently on her shoulder and she pressed her hand on his hand but still didn’t look at him.

‘It’s all my fault.’

He wondered what had happened to make Skye run but it didn’t seem the time to ask. She took her hand away and so did he.

‘You know what I keep thinking about?’ she said. ‘That elk you took the picture of. The one with its antlers on fire. I can’t get it out of my head. I don’t know why, but every moment I think he’s going to step out in front of me.’

Connor didn’t know what to say. He’d had the same thought himself but it wouldn’t help to tell her and they walked awhile without speaking. The wind rushed around them and rustled the huckleberry along a rim of forest below and it seemed to Connor that the sound issued from some joined but desolate corner of their two hearts.

‘Connor?’ She was looking straight at him.

‘What?’

‘Tell me it’s going to be all right.’

‘It is. I know it is.’

It was the first time he had lied to her. And it wouldn’t be the last.

12

S
kye watched the anvil clouds moving ever nearer. They were the color of gunmetal seamed with a sickly yellow and as they came they seethed and merged and lightning flickered from their joined belly like the tongues of angry serpents.

How many gullies she had crossed, she didn’t know. But now the land was tilting and sending her across toward a vast curving valley of grass and boulders which seemed the best way down to the river. The valley was fringed on both sides by unburnt forest. She stopped in the shelter of a leaning rock to catch her breath. Her blisters hurt and her knees ached from hiking downhill for so long. The inside of her mouth felt like sandpaper. God, what she’d give for some water.

She turned and scanned the mountain for any of those people who’d come in on parachutes, but there was still no sign of them. The fresh wind had caked the blood on her arms and they itched and she stood scratching them and watching the clouds roil and the sun searching for cracks between them, sending patches of golden light scudding across the shadowed land.

The fire was hidden from her now by a low shoulder of the mountain. Oddly, the sound of it seemed louder and for the first time in a long while she could smell smoke. And as she looked over the forest below her, away to her right, she saw a white swirl of it coming around the shoulder and then the wind catching it and drifting it fast and flat over the trees and toward the valley. It didn’t occur to Skye that this was something she should worry about, for by now she was surely far enough down the mountain to be out of danger. Directly below her there was a steep slope of loose rocks and she considered going down it and cutting through the trees to meet the valley lower down. But though it would no doubt be quicker, the slope looked too dangerous. Instead, she would stay high and cross over to join the valley at the top where the gullies linked up. The decision seemed to fuel her resolve and she set off again at a jog.

 

It was Ed who saw her first. He had just checked in with Hank on the radio and been told that there was still no word on the helicopter and that back at base they were starting to think something bad had happened. Hank said the wind where he was didn’t seem to know what it was doing. If those goddamn thunderheads started spitting lightning, he said, all hell could break loose. Just as they were signing off, down the mountainside and away to his left, Ed caught a glimpse of red.

At first he thought it was a deer or maybe even a grizzly, but it was too red for either. He reached into his personal gear bag for the small pair of binoculars he always carried, but when he looked through them all he could see was trees and smoke drifting across them toward that huge valley that funneled down to the river. Then he saw another flash of red and this time he saw it was a figure. He reached for his radio.

‘Julia, this is Ed.’

For a few moments there was no reply.

‘This is Julia.’

‘Is Skye wearing red?’

‘No. Gray T-shirt, blue pants.’

‘Ed. This is Chuck.’

‘Go ahead, Chuck.’

‘The girl took Katie’s red T-shirt. She might be wearing it.’

Ed didn’t have a map and it was tricky describing exactly where it was that he had seen her. He got Julia to study the map for him and from what she told him, it became clear that the lay of the land meant that none of the others yet had a view of where he had spotted Skye. She was still a long way off, maybe a mile or more. But of all of them Ed was the farthest down the mountain and easily the nearest.

While they were talking, Skye dropped out of sight again. But Ed was sure she must be heading across to the top of the valley. He asked Julia to hold on a minute while he scanned the land with the binoculars. Presumably because it was an easier route and perhaps because it made her feel safer, Skye was staying above the trees. Maybe if he were to take a shortcut diagonally down through the forest, he would be able to drop into the valley below her and cut her off. Julia checked the idea out on the map and said that there was a creek he would have to cross just before he reached the valley, but it certainly looked possible. She said that while he did it she and the others would head down toward the top of the valley.

When he reached the edge of the forest Ed could see why Skye had chosen the higher route. The land fell away steeply down to the trees in a six- or seven-hundred-foot run of broken shale tufted with sage and stunted limber pine. Had he glanced at the clouds or at the thickening drift of smoke above the forest, Ed might have had second thoughts. But he had run scree slopes as a boy and could remember the thrill and the part of him that was still a boy took over and without further hesitation he launched himself off the edge.

With his first stride, it all came back to him. The trick was to go for it. The rocks slid with your boots and you had to be fearless and trust the slide and go with it. He tilted himself forward and soon he was striding like a giant, each step taking him another twenty or thirty feet. He felt like whooping but contained himself. Then, about halfway down, his foot caught in a clump of sage and he went head over heels and slithered the rest of the way on his back with rocks cascading and clattering all around him and over him.

He came to rest at the edge of the forest and stood up gingerly, half expecting to find he had broken some bones, but he seemed to be in one piece. The world around him was blurred. Then he realized he had lost his glasses in the fall and he delved into his personal gear bag for his spare pair.

Once he had them on, he squinted back up the slope. It looked terrifying. Even if he wanted to, there was now no going back. He was feeling a little shaken and weak and knew he had to eat something. He took out a power bar from his pocket and ate it, looking around him to get his bearings. He was sheltered from the wind down here but he could hear it rushing in the treetops. He looked up at them and was just registering how low and black the clouds above them seemed, when the air around him cracked asunder in a searing flash of white light. Ed shielded his head with his arms and dived to the ground. And there he stayed, curled like a fetus, until the shock subsided and his heart started beating again. He sat up.

‘Holy shit,’ he said.

It was the nearest he had ever come to being struck by lightning and he threw back his head and laughed out loud in some crazy mix of defiance and relief that he was still alive. Where exactly it had struck, he couldn’t see. Maybe it was somewhere higher up the slope.

He had just gotten to his feet when he heard Julia calling his name on the radio. He tried to reply but she obviously couldn’t hear him because she just kept saying
Ed, do you copy?
over and over again. Maybe he’d damaged his radio when he fell or possibly the lightning had damaged it. He shook it and banged it but still he couldn’t make himself heard. Whatever had happened, it was no time to be hanging around. He holstered the radio, checked his compass and walked into the forest.

The going was tougher than he’d hoped. There was a tangle of blowdown and a thick undercanopy of huckleberry and sometimes he had to take detours from the direction he knew he should stick to. And all the while the wind whooshed above him in the treetops. There was a smell of smoke but he thought it was still only the smoke from the fire across the mountain. Then, all of a sudden, he heard a sound that told him it wasn’t.