Chapter 6-2
876 Words
“Hi Jeannie.”
“Hey Laura,” the chopper pilot looked genuinely pleased to see her which she’d take as a good sign. “Akbar’s still sacked out. That last fire was a long, hard slog for those guys.”
“I figured.” It was only Laura’s second trip to the MHA airfield. Johnny had toured her around once, on a quiet day when almost no one was about.
It was a lot livelier today even if the smokies were asleep. On the far side of the field, five helicopters stood in a line. There were two small ones, one of which was Jeannie’s MD500, two mid-sized ones looking gawky with a long two-blade rotor, and the one big Firehawk. Service crews had the covers off the second one in the line.
“Something wrong?”
Jeannie followed her gaze, “No, Denise is doing periodic maintenance. She seems to think that us pilots actually using any of her precious aircraft is a sacrilege and that we’re not to be trusted. She gives each bird a serious once-over after every fire. Can’t complain because she always gets us in the air with no downtime.”
Sure enough, Laura could see one of the team break off and move up to the next chopper. He had a tablet computer and was working his way down an electronic checklist as he moved about the chopper.
The two jump planes, parked beyond the choppers, had a cargo team going over chainsaws, sharpening axes, and testing the portable pumps using water from a fifty-five gallon drum perched on a forklift. A pair of small twin-engine planes sat at the end of the row, the Air Commander’s plane and the lead plane to guide in the big air tankers.
“Chutes will be over in the loft repacking all of the jumpers’ parachutes. He has a couple riggers who go over every canopy and line each time. Can’t even remember the last time someone had to pull a reserve chute. He jumped for twenty years before taking over the loft, so he’s pretty rabid about perfection, too.”
“Seems like you all are.”
“That’s what makes it work. We’re lean here, a lot of cross-training, but for every ten pair of boots on the ground, we have two more here. And for every blade in the sky, we have three pairs of boots on the ground. Takes a lot to keep us running.”
“What about—”
“You figured,” Jeannie cut her off, “that Akbar was out cold, so I’m guessing you came to see me. You didn’t come here to talk to me about firefighting.”
Laura wanted to argue, but couldn’t find any real point to it. Without her noticing, Jeannie had led her down the length of the field. Away from the bunkhouse where Johnny was sure to be sound asleep, they’d gotten back late last night—his Sleep text had come in after eleven. They wandered past the kitchen building and its friendly cluster of picnic tables where the crews obviously spent a lot of time.
At the far end of the field, they followed the course of a small stream that splashed and gurgled its way into the trees. About a hundred yards in, the stream slowed for a moment to form a wide pool. It was quiet here. No sense of the bustle going on beyond the trees.
“I don’t really know you,” Laura finally broke the easy silence as they sat on a fallen tree trunk and watched the water flow by, “but you were nice to me that day when they cleared my trees. I don’t know why, Jeannie, but I feel I can trust you. Maybe because of how much Johnny likes you.”
“There’s nothing between—”
“I know that or I wouldn’t have come here. That’s not what this is about.”
Jeannie nodded for her to continue.
Laura had practiced this in her head while working up the courage to come here. She didn’t know Jeannie. They’d sat back-to-back at the Doghouse but hadn’t spoken. Jeannie had hovered overhead for almost fifteen minutes while Johnny rescued Grayson Masterson, but Johnny had done all of the radio work.
Their whole acquaintance consisted of barely speaking during a the crew’s scrutiny into her viability as the love interest of the much beloved Akbar the Great.
“You’re talking yourself out of asking your question, aren’t you?”
She glanced over at Jeannie then offered a sigh and smile. “Yes. How did you know?”
“Do it myself all the time. Takes one to know one.” Then Jeannie bumped her shoulder against Laura’s. “Just ask. Right now before you actually succeed.”
“What’s wrong?” Laura gasped out a breath, then laughed. “Who ever thought two words could be so hard to say. Not quite how I rehearsed it.”
“You’re asking me for top secret disclosures about a good friend of mine?”
“I guess. Sounds kinda stupid, doesn’t it?”
“Well,” Jeannie pried up a bit of bark from the log they were perched on and winged it into the pool.
A Stellar jay so proud in his blue feathered coat had settled on the far side of the stream to take a drink. He now squawked and flapped off in a huff, stopping briefly in a nearby tree to complain bitterly before finally departing.
“I wish I could help.”
“But you can’t because he’s your friend,” Laura tried to mask her disappointment, but knew she didn’t succeed well. “I understand.”
“I can’t,” Jeannie poked her in the arm making her look up, “because I haven’t a clue. Johnny has something stuck in his craw, we can all see it. He’s even got Tim worried, which is hard to do. He’s pretty unflappable.”
“What’s stuck in there?”
“My best guess,” Jeannie smiled kindly, “is you.”
“Oh great. And what am I supposed to do about that?”
Jeannie shook her head and they went back to pitching bits of dead tree into the stream.
- Writer
