Page 63 of Into the Fire

“Brutal out there,” he said. He handed Boone the stack. “Spot forecast on top. Grass is dry, the wind’s north and staying north. Helena’s been holding on line two since seven-ten. I told them you were walking the fence line.”

“Thank you, Marty.”

“I’d appreciate you walking a fence line at some point today so I’m not a liar.” He turned back toward his desk. “Glad you could join us.”

Boone headed for his office to deal with Helena. I went to work.

Shep was at the racks with a cargo box open in front of him. He watched me approach. His eyes went from me to the two trucks parked down the line and back. He drew a breath.

“Strap,” Hollis said without looking up, and held out his hand. Shep handed him a strap.

The board in the ready room had the rotation in Boone’s handwriting. VEGA, second stick, under HATCHER. I stood in front of it while men moved in and out around me.

Boone walked past the window with the phone against his ear, pointing at something on the ramp.

I left the ready room. The morning’s work was the training ground. Teller was rotating out at the end of the month. His replacement would arrive in the spring. That meant major inspections took place now while the base had the most hands to do it.

Hollis ran the list. I got the tower.

I climbed with a rag and a can of dry lube. Then I worked my way down the cable stations, checking hardware, wiping grit out of the pulleys, and looking for wear where the letdown lines ran. Below me, Shep and Hollis had the suspended harness down off its beam and laid out on a tarp like an operating room patient.

Boone crossed the far side of the yard with his phone still held to his ear.

“Hatcher,” I called down. “Your tower’s filthy.”

He didn’t break stride or look up.

I got to the platform and started on the cable attachment, the one Boone had checked twice on Shep in August. It was clean and tight.

“Dante!”

Shep was below me and to the left, holding up a shackle.

I heard Dutch call my name.

I stopped.

“What?” Shep said.

“Nothing.”

But it wasn’t nothing. I knew the voice.

Dante.

He hadn’t been shouting at the crew. He’d been shouting at me. I couldn’t remember what came after.

“—this pin or the new ones? Dante. Do we reuse this pin, or is this from the bin Nash condemned?”

I was on the platform with a rag in one hand. Shep was still holding up the shackle.

“New pin,” I said.

“That’s what I said. Hollis owes me a Coke.”

I looked around me. Boone had stopped outside Operations, phone down now, watching me. I gave him a small shake of my head and went back to work on the hardware.

Twenty minutes later, he approached the tower with two water bottles and handed one up to me. Shep and Hollis were wrists-deep in the harness rig.