Chapter 4
“The locals still can’t get an engine crew up into this remote corner of the Siskiyou National Forest,” Krista told Akbar when she woke him up at six a.m. “They have a dozer cutting in a new road and they should be here before noon. Jeannie and Emily in the Firehawk are both down until noon with the FAA mandated eight-hour break. So, unless you want to walk home, might as well do some work.”
“No eight-hour rule for smokies,” Two-Tall, splayed out on the hand-scraped soil, groaned as Krista nudged him with the butt of her fire axe. Akbar lay there: still in his full gear, his Pulaski a foot from his hand. He looked up at the sky and saw the soft blue of a northwestern summer sunrise. Not towering flames. Not smoke. Actual blue.
It would be a long slog, but they’d nipped this on
