The Complete Firebirds

Chapter 3

3

Stacy had been flying to fire for various outfits for over five years and knew what to expect from guys.

Cowboy Hat and the other three new arrivals were predictably male, but she was having trouble pegging Curt Williams. One moment he was being true-to-expectations Mr. Macho Jerk, and other moments he appeared to be giving her the benefit of the doubt—which was rare enough in the general male pilot population to be exceptional.

She turned to look up the road where Curt had indicated and spotted a line of three big GMC Denali 3500 pickups with rear dualies. They were serious overkill, but they were very pretty. They could haul far more load than the two helicopters they each had under wraps on a flatbed trailer.

Jana Williams drove the first truck. She was the one who’d taken her up on a test flight over in Bend. She was a sharp contrast to her brother—a serious blonde who kept her thoughts to herself. A man and a woman drove the other two trucks that pulled in to line up on the dirt of the parking area as neat as a line of kites flying from the same string.

Illinois Valley Airport had been the Siskiyou Smokejumper Base and launched teams to fifteen hundred fires from the 1940s through the ’80s. Now it was a sleepy, nowhere place without even a restaurant.

“Heart of fire country,” Jana had told her during the interview. “And cheap. We like cheap.”

There was nothing cheap about the rigs as everyone pitched in to unwrap and assemble the helos. Not only not cheap, but all of it looked factory new. There was serious money behind the outfit, which Jana had proven with the very generous offer that had bought her away from Columbia Helicopters.

The six brilliantly red MD 520N NOTAR helicopters were small, agile craft with impressive power for their size. They were notoriously tough machines, a variant of the ones used by the Night Stalkers her brother had flown for. The NOTAR—short for No Tail Rotor—was a quieter and safer version of the 520. The tail rotor was replaced by a high speed fan to counteract the main rotor’s torque. Instead of using a four-blade rear rotor that always seemed to be begging to be taken out by flying debris, the fan simply drove air sideways out of a variable port to counteract the spin. Also, walking into the 520N’s low tail wouldn’t chop you into little pieces as there were no exposed spinning parts.

Stacy ran her hand over the side of the aircraft. It was brand new and completely beautiful.

Just like a military bird, it had her name painted on the side. The Firebirds hadn’t merely hired her to fly; they’d hired her to stay. A bonus that Jana hadn’t mentioned.

She looked over at Curt, but he was busy with Jasper swinging out the blades on another helo. The blades had been lashed in line with the tail booms for transport. Somehow she knew that putting the pilots’ names on their aircraft had been his doing, not his sister’s. Jana didn’t strike her as the kind of woman who cared about such niceties—Stacy was surprised to discover that she herself was.

She touched her brother’s dog tags where they hung down inside her shirt. They’d soon be flying together just like they had as teens when he’d taught her his own passion for rotorcraft. Their family still had a tourist business flying a helo farther up the coast—a sideline that never did more than break even for her father’s farm.

Why any sane person would farm in Otis, Oregon was beyond her. Just because great-granddad had been dumb enough to buy land there using his GI bill money from WWII, didn’t mean that they had to stay. It received eight feet, over ninety inches, of rain a year. It ranked eighth in the entire country for days with precipitation. It was a wonder she hadn’t drowned as a child. It was also no surprise that both of her parents were alcoholics. Thankfully they were quiet, depressive drunks, but still.

But she’d survived, both the drowning rain and her drowning parents. All thanks to her brother. Bill had taught her how to fly. She’d actually paid for college by flying in the summers. She’d go land near the tourist beaches and put out a banner for sightseeing flights. Dad hadn’t cared as long as she took care of fuel and maintenance. It was the only years of success for Richardson helicopters.

Now she didn’t know why she’d wasted the time and money. Not the flying, but the college. A degree in political science had seemed practical. Following in her brother’s footsteps…until one day his dog tags had come home without him. She’d finished her last semester, though she didn’t remember any of it, and then she’d flown. Somewhere in the air over a Montana fire she’d come to—as if she’d spent the last six months asleep. Already doing what she’d been meant to do.

“Gonna just stand there and admire it all day?” Curt had come up beside her without her noticing. His words were teasing, but his tone was kind.

“Thank you for my name,” she rubbed a hand over the letters again, barely able to feel the raised surface of the gloss paint.

“It’s what a pilot deserves.”

She looked up at the wistful tone in his voice.

He tapped one ear, “Mostly deaf on this side. All that kept me from following my sister into the Army. Fine for commercial flying though.”

“Bill, my—” but the words choked off on her and she had to look away. She ran her hand over the helicopter’s smooth skin again. “Thank you for both of us.”