Page 23 of Into the Fire

Clean.

The morning sun shone from behind Boone, so I couldn’t read his face. He let the harness down until my boots touched the ground. Blood needled back into my feet.

“Good,” he said.

One word. I stood in the sawdust, hating how hard it hit.

I followed Hollis and Shep to the cargo racks, where the summer’s practice loads waited to be rebuilt. I picked up a strap.

They didn’t make anything of it, and Hollis handed me the next box. The work was simple: break a load down, restack it, cinch it, and weigh it. It kept my hands busy.

“It’s not right,” Shep said, cinching a strap. “Four seasons I’ve watched people sweat that harness. Ramirez cried a little in his rookie year. And this guy comes back off a fence line and runs the table.”

“Is that why you raked a clean pit for half an hour to stay in earshot?” I said.

“Call it tactical raking.”

“He does it during arguments, mostly. During actual work, he disappears,” Hollis said.

Shep grumbled. “The old people have formed an alliance against me. It’s great for morale.”

“Old people,” I said.

“You’re both over—”

“Choose the next words carefully,” Hollis said.

***

By afternoon, the sun had warmed the pines beyond the fence enough to bring out the resin smell, sharp enough to taste. A grasshopper kept launching itself in and out of Shep’s path. The Otter’s shade swung slowly over us as the ground crew turned it on the ramp.

I’d come back to Silvertip to prove something. I could earn my card again. Somewhere in the past month I caught myself thinking about October, larches turning, and late fires.

Nash appeared in the loft doorway. “Vega.”

He had the benchmark sheet with an empty line at the bottom. He watched me read the whole thing before he handed me a pen.

“That’s the last of the sweat,” he said. “What’s left is paper.”

I signed. My hand didn’t shake at all.

By late afternoon, the base was quiet. Nothing was burning. Showers ran in the bunkhouse, and somebody’s truck headed down toward Kessler.

I found Boone alone in the ready room.

He had paperwork spread on the table and the rotation board half wiped. He sat, rewriting the week in his block letters.

I poured myself coffee and looked at the board. Eight names. Below the eighth, the inch of white space, still white.

“You saving that for somebody?”

“I’ve had an applicant.”

“Any good?”

“Talks too much.”

“So he might be a problem candidate.”