Wildfire at Larch Creek

Chapter 2-2

His gut now rumbling in anticipation of at least getting brunch, Tim drove down off the mountain from the high camp used by Mount Hood Aviation. It was a gray, drizzling July day. The kind that promised no new fires. It was the first good soaking the forests had received in months, but it wasn’t ripping through in some violent whorl of thunder and a storm of lightning to kick off another fifty fires. Just a slow Pacific Northwest drizzle, warm and muggy.

As he drove down the winding road toward the town of Hood River, he remembered when such days had chaffed at him. As a rookie smokejumper all he cared about was that he was only paid when he was on the jump. No fires meant no money which meant fewer cool toys.

Five years up in the mountains and the remote wilderness had taught him about the hell that the landscape paid, and the people. Steve Mercer, MHA’s drone pilot, would never walk right again because of an accident as a smokie. Tim had lost both friends and mentors in the jump and in the fire. He’d lost five to a vehicle accident one year; a wilderness tanker truck bringing out a team after they’d beaten the fire, had swung wide on a back logging road. The sodden shoulder had given away and they’d rolled all the way down the high bank into the Rogue River. Anyone that survived the roll had drowned trapped in the vehicle.

If Mother Nature wanted to give Tim a rain break, he’d take it happily. Not that he’d ever let another smokie know that, not even Akbar. He had his pride after all.

The Doghouse Inn was packed. The soft rain had also chased all of the windsurfers out of the Columbia Gorge. So even though it was more brunch than lunchtime, the place was thick with immensely fit young women in tight t-shirts and shorts. There were men too, but playing the smokejumper card always trumped anything they could bring to the table, so they didn’t count.

“Tim!” Amy came out from behind the bar and laid on one of her hugs. Damn but women weren’t supposed to feel that good, especially when they were married to the cook who had fists the size of bowling balls.

“Hey beautiful!” he did the catch-and-release thing, but still felt better for it. Shot a wave to Gerald in the back.

The guys were at the central table: Mickey, Gordon, and Vern, the pilots of the small MD500 helicopters. Mickey waved him over, but the open seat by Vern had better positioning on a group of hot windsurfers.

Then he spotted Akbar and Laura off to the side at a small table against the wall; he just had to go over and give them s**t for doing the “couple” thing. He took the ice tea Amy held out for him, signaled for Vern to hold the seat next to him, and headed for Akbar.

“Akbar the Great, holding hands in public. Never thought I’d see the day,” Tim hooked over a chair and sat down at the table partway into the aisle. That left him facing the giant Snoopy World War I fighting ace painted on the wood-paneled wall. The entire interior of the Doghouse was covered floor to ceiling with photos of dogs and their crazy doghouses, except the one wall where Snoopy dominated the landscape in his never ending battle with the Red Baron.

Akbar raised his hand, which lifted Laura’s as well, “Yeah, who’d have thought.”

“Ruined a perfectly good bachelor there, Laura.” Tim was looking for some good tease but the two of them just ate it up. He’d been best man at their wedding and it still struck him as plenty strange.

“Proud to have. Of course I hadn’t pictured falling for an arrogant, full-of-himself smokejumper.”

“I’m only arrogant if I don’t live up to my reputation.”

Laura ignored her husband, “I always pictured some nice, sophisticated quiet type like…you.” She spoiled her tease with a delightful giggle.

“Ah, if I’d met you first, lady—”

She shook her head, “Too much of a good thing, Tim. I’d have overdosed. I settled for Akbar and that has worked out just fine for me.”

Tim drank back a large hit of his ice tea, but his throat felt no less dry for it. If only he didn’t like Laura, it would be easier. But he’d put his seal of approval on her way back when the two of them were first dating and she’d never given him a single reason to take it back. They were amazing together. But the thing was, they were just…together.

And he was sitting here being a third wheel.

“Did you hear that we’re supposed to get rain for a week?” Akbar kept Tim in his seat a moment longer.

Tim hadn’t.

“Henderson said we’re going dark. A whole week off in July, how’s that for a crazy-a*s thing? Even the Bureau of Land Management smoke teams are being pulled off the remaining fires because the rains are doing their work for them. We freelancers are totally off the hook for seven days…as long as we keep our phones with us of course.”

“Of course,” Tim echoed. A week off. He looked over his shoulder at the guys playing the game. Not a single woman there was a week-off sort. These were one night stands or hot-and-heavy weekend flings. And there were definitely no Laura Jensons there; not a one.

A week?

Normally he could fill a week with a whole string of hot women, but sitting here with Akbar and Laura, it didn’t feel so tempting.

He turned back to them and tried to slide into his usual form.

“Crap, Akbar. Do you have to look so damned happy?”

“Yeah,” Akbar raised their joined hands again. “Always second place, Tim. Number Two man on my jump stick. Now third wheel left standing out in the rain,” he bent forward to kiss Laura’s fingers right on her wedding ring.

Tim felt the blow as if it had gone straight to his gut. If he’d had more in his gut than ice tea, he’d probably have been sick from the power of it.

He didn’t see the signal that passed between them. It was too fast, too effortless, too…couple-based. Laura somehow warned Akbar he’d crossed the line without her making any big deal of it. The two of them had moved on to some other level that Tim was no longer a part of.

“s**t! Sorry, man,” Akbar really did look sorry. “Didn’t come out right, Tim. Not at all.”

“No problem,” Tim should be laughing it off, would have even six months ago. But he wasn’t. It was just normal teasing between them. They’d each slung far worse crap at each other. After you’d been through as many close calls on a fire as the two of them had, with no one else to rely on but each other, what did a few jibbing words mean. Despite that, this time it stung.

He looked up at Snoopy, but the dog was busy with battles of his own.

“No problem,” he repeated. He rose to his feet and looked at the empty chair by Vern. Like a good friend, the man had laid the babe groundwork for him; a leggy brunette was already casually eyeing Tim. It was tempting, but lately—even on the nights he’d chosen to play the game—he had more often ended up in his own bed rather than some willing lady’s. For a moment he wondered when that trend had begun. Since back before Akbar met Laura…which mean what? He shrugged it off.

He peeled a couple dollars out of his wallet and dropped them beside his half-finished ice tea.

“You two have a great week. Laura, you’ve got the best man I’ve ever known, even when he’s an i***t. You hang on tight.”

He whacked Akbar on top of the head for old-time’s sake and headed for the door.

Akbar caught up with him out in the gray rain halfway to his truck.

“Hey Tim. You okay man? Look, what I said back there—”

“We’re fine, Akbar. Just my own garbage I guess. Think maybe I’ll go home.”

“Up to the base? I’ll come up later and we’ll make some plans. Go fishing or something.”

Home. Tim looked up into the rain and let the drops patter down on his face. He hadn’t had a “home” in years; he’d just been living in temporary quarters. Jumpbases in Colorado, California, and now Oregon. And the last few years MHA had been running off-season contracts down in Australia which had been a kick. Australian women were much more relaxed than their American counterparts.

But home?

He looked back down at his friend and punched him hard on the arm.

“Ow! What was that for?” Akbar’s solid smokie-fit frame didn’t waver in the slightest despite the power Tim had put behind the blow.

“That was for finding such an amazing woman that you ruin it for the rest of us.”

His grin was electric as always, “Yep! Jackpot on that one. Sure you want to go home? Come back in and have something to eat.”

Tim wasn’t hungry. The thought of one of the Doghouse’s monster mushroom and bacon burgers with a smokie barbeque sauce—a Smokejumper Deluxe, just didn’t do it for him.

Then he thought about a moose burger with onion rings back home at French Pete’s and wondered if Carl had changed the grease in the fryer since the last time Tim had been in Alaska. It had been years, so the chances were at least fair.

“Thanks, buddy, but no thanks,” Tim looked down at his friend. “It’s time I went home. I’ll call you from Alaska.”

“Alaska?” The look of shock on Akbar’s face just made it all the sweeter.