Wildfire on the Skagit

Chapter 1-2

Evan Greene leaned up against the DC-3’s window and watched as Akbar and Krista tumbled down to earth. Under his breath he counted with them:

“Jump-thousand. Look-thousand,” he could see them spinning about to scan in all directions. “Reach-thousand,” too far away now to see their hands on their ripcords. “Wait-thousand.” “Pull-thousand,” and their chutes bloomed in unison, big rectangular ram chutes in black, red, and gold. Krista floated well above Akbar.

When the plane circled in the opposite direction, he lost sight of them. The seasoned MHA smokies must have known their pilot’s habits because they were on the move before Evan sensed the beginning of the turn. They all shifted to the other side of the plane to keep an eye on the jumpers. Which left him a crappy view over Ox’s shoulder. Couldn’t see much at all.

“Wild, rookie,” Gustav the Ox teased him. “Don’t know if you can handle this one. Maybe you should stay aboard rather than risking that purdy face of yours in them big, bad trees.”

“Willing to put money on that?” Evan’s rookie year had been five years ago with the Zulies out of Missoula, Montana, one of the hottest smoke teams in the Forest Service. He’d been in solid for every summer, but the winters off the fire were hard. He didn’t like the downtime—always spent the winters looking for something to do with his time. He didn’t do “stop” worth crap.

MHA had promised more, they jumped off-season to the southern hemisphere fires. “Sold out” some of the Zulies had accused him, for his leaving the USFS and joining a civilian outfit. Often the same ones who’d teased him in public had pulled him aside in private and made him promise to report back.

“Hell, boy,” Ox drawled out in his best country-hick accent. “Your gear don’t even smell of wood smoke.”

Protesting about the fact that MHA had issued him brand new gear would have no effect whatsoever, so he didn’t bother.

“Besides,” Ox sneered at him, “You’re a rookie. We’ve got a rule against taking rookie money…except at poker.”

“Don’t play,” Evan did, but not well enough to take on a table of smokejumpers. “You play pool and you’re on.”

“Done!” Ox agreed as the line shuffled forward.

Evan had bought his first car by pool sharking in Boise. He’d show Ox a thing or two for calling him rookie. Even if it was pretty standard hazing for the “new guy,” after five years jumping fire, it got under his skin a bit.

They were sixth and last stick, placing Evan at the very tail of the line. He tried not to take it personally, but he did. He’d always been in the first few sticks with the Zulies, often jumping lead on secondary fires. Was it because he was once again a rookie after five years of jumping that he was at the back or was it really just the chance of the rotation after the first stick, as the MHA jumpers insisted?

As the plane circled around to drop the next stick, Evan delayed long enough to get a good look out the window at Akbar and Krista circling down into the hole in the trees. Akbar made it down, stalling his chute hard and doing a roll between two trees at the edge of the small clearing. Clean jump.

Krista had done his initial interview and been his test-jump partner when he’d come down to Mount Hood Aviation’s base camp just south of Hood River, Oregon.

He’d remembered the feeling as she yanked on his gear during the buddy check, making sure everything was in place and properly attached. She’d given tips that he hadn’t learned in five years of jumping with the Zulies—little things, so small they barely mattered—which told him more about MHA than anything else had. Even the tiniest bit safer mattered deeply to these people.

Evan had been terribly self-conscious as he’d checked Krista’s gear. Female smokejumpers were rare, it was just too hard physically. IHCs, sure. More and more women were fighting fire from the ground crews. Tough hikes, long days, and hard work, it’s what the Interagency Hotshot Crews were good at and some of the women did great.

Smokies didn’t fight fire, they battled it. It was the Special Forces posting of the civilian world. That’s why he gravitated to jumping fire after six years in the Green Berets—a past he did not advertise. And before that there was the past he did his best to forget. Better everyone though he’d been hatched out as a smokejumper from the first day.

When women did make the jump lineup—and the Zulies had a couple—they were about as sexy as battering rams. All grit and determination and in your face about it. Like they were trying to be more macho than the guys and always being aware that they were the outsider long after the guys had forgotten about it.

The next two sticks jumped and the ride down was a wild one, but he watched them to the ground trying to map the shifting of the unseen winds in his head to plan his own route down.

Krista Thorson was something else, first stick of jumpers at an outfit like MHA said that it wasn’t honorary either. There were women trying to make Special Forces, but they just didn’t have the upper body strength to qualify no matter how driven they were.

Krista would have had no problems there. She was built on a grand scale. Tall enough to look him square in the eye, broad of frame, big chested, and sassy as hell. Her powerful shoulders emphasized by the brush of light-blond hair—a smooth fall that set off a great face and the bluest eyes he’d ever seen.

She had a fast wit, a mouth that was always on the verge of a laugh, and she moved like a Master Sergeant—with the casual power of someone who knew that the battle wouldn’t even begin without her there. Master Sergeants were called the backbone of the military for a reason and Krista was clearly the Number Two smokie for the same one.

He checked his gear for about the tenth time. He was always a little extra paranoid, but it served him well as a Special Forces Green Beret and so far it had served him well as a smokie.

Krista was not his usual type; not at all. He typically went for the long and slender ones who populated the smokejumper bars and the Special Forces bars before that.

But he’d practically blushed when checking Krista’s parachute harness just above those big breasts visible even through the jumpsuit. He couldn’t help wondering what it would be like to wrestle with that much woman, both her confidence and her body.

And his body’s reaction to those thoughts inside full jump gear was decidedly uncomfortable—the material too thick and the jump harness too tight to let him rearrange anything from the outside.

The next to last stick jumped. He took one last look out the window before scooting up behind Ox.

Krista had floated down to land dead center in the deep hole among the trees. Tuck and roll, then she popped back to her feet and was standing on Akbar’s collapsed chute as if counting coup.

Damn but she could fly.