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“You don’t talk to anybody.” Swing. Scrape. “Except, according to Cassia, florists at five in the morning.”

“Cassia wasn’t there,” I say, referring to his girlfriend.

“Cassia doesn’t have to be there. Cassia has sources.” He rubs his wrist over his brow, wiping sweat away. “So. Lindsey North.”

“What about her?”

“You tell me, Sarge. You came into the bay this morning looking like you got hit by a truck.”

I keep digging. He waits. Rob was always good at waiting, even at nineteen.

“She sings,” I say finally.

“I’ve heard.”

“Every morning. Five-fifteen. Apparently the woman loves Dolly Parton.”

“Let me guess, you went down there to tell her she was bothering you. How’d that go?”

“She gave me coffee.” I swing harder than I need to. “I carried her damn flowers.”

Rob has the nerve to laugh at me. I ignore him and work until the wind shifts.

Like some switch has been flipped, it comes around out of the west. It’s hot and gusty, and the fire runs uphill straight at the line we just cut.

It’s the first time I’ve ever seen fire do this in real life. It’s surreal.

Flames shoot up eight feet high, devouring the dead hay. The sound changes to a low roar, like a train in a tunnel.

“Back to the black! Move your ass, Sarge!” Rob yells.

The fire hits our line—the bare dirt—and holds.

Caleb comes over the radio. “Nice job, Raines. Here comes Larson.”

He’s talking about his brother, the department chopper pilot.

A few seconds later, the man flies in low with a bucket swinging under his bird. A few hundred gallons of reservoir water drop from the sky, hit the fire, and send a plume of steam into the air.

“Damn show-off,” Rob says.

“He’s good.”

“He’s a Strong. They’re all good. It’s exhausting.”

By two the fire is out and we’re walking the black area, feeling the ground for heat.

It’s slow, filthy work. My knees ache. My scar pulls when I reach for the ground. Devin Mathews talks the entire time to anybody in range about Kodiak bears and Coast Guard food and the woman at the Ogden DMV who he’s pretty sure is in love with him.

“Does he ever stop?” I ask.

“Nope,” Rob says. “Clint says he talked through his rescue swimmer qualification. Underwater.”

He changes the conversation up. “You sure you’re doing okay here?”

“I’m fine, Rob.”

“Doesn’t look like you’re sleeping. You look like you did in Kandahar.”