5
Patsy worked down the line, checking in with her half of the crew—she and Jess each had nine crewmembers. For their first fire, they were doing well; not that it was a big one. It made for a perfect introduction.
The fire had climbed into a dead-end ravine. Candace had sent scouts both to left and right in case it tried to jump over to the neighboring ravines, but it wasn’t big enough to make the leap—again, just good training. They’d think to go themselves next time after checking in with her on the radio. The fire already was dying against the walls and the only ones who didn’t know it were the rooks.
The rookies saw the old hands remain calm around them—she’d alternated them down the line so that the rooks couldn’t feed off each others’ fear—and they had stayed calm in turn. Now it
