Page 25 of Into the Fire

“Take your time,” he said.

My breathing slowed, and I looked around the room. The hint of smoke was still in the air. I let go of Boone’s collar and then tugged at his shirt to straighten it out.

Boone didn’t move. The room stayed silent. Somewhere outside, the compressor kicked on behind the loft.

“You’re not going to ask,” I said.

“No.”

“Do you want to?”

“Doesn’t matter what I want.”

Once, I’d needed this man to be steadier about my story than I was, and I’d gotten questions instead.

He’d learned.

“There was something below me,” I said. “I don’t know what. It was past Dutch. Down the slope. I was looking at it when—” The rest wasn’t there. It was never there. “That’s all I have.”

“Okay,” Boone said.

Around us, the base continued on. Shep yelled something in the distance, and another voice yelled back. Out on the ramp, the Otter’s engine turned over, ran, and then shut down. It was a maintenance check.

Silvertip had no idea what had happened between Boone and me.

“We were doing something before that,” I said.

“I remember.”

“Good.”

That was it. The door was still open for more later.

I heard boots on the gravel outside, and then Marty opened the door and entered with papers in his hand and his glasses up on his forehead. “There you are. Both of you, even better, saves me a trip.” He dropped pages on the table. “Helena signed off twenty minutes ago. I called Dodson directly. It’s entered. Regional accepted the packet, front to back.”

“That was fast,” Boone said.

“It was fast because I made it fast.” He looked at me over the glasses. “Congratulations. Try not to make me redo any of it.” He turned and was gone.

Boone looked at the paperwork. Then he picked up the marker, sat down, and turned his attention back to the board.

I watched him. He didn’t make a big thing of it. In the inch of white space below the eighth name he wrote, in the same block letters as all the others:

VEGA

Boone capped the marker.

“You’re operational,” he said.

Five years ago I’d driven down the county road believing there was nothing left at Silvertip for me. No one trusted what I’d seen, including, by the end, me. I’d left a resignation on Marty’s desk and no address.

I looked at my name in Boone’s handwriting.

“Well,” I said. “Now you’re stuck with me.”

“Six weeks,” Boone said. “That was the mission. I heard you say it.”

“I say a lot of things.”