Wildfire Smokejumper Trilogy

Chapter 10-1

Chapter 10

Akbar stared up the slope of Zigzag Canyon, analyzing. The Zigzag River, not much more a rushing stream at this point, tumbled over the boulders lining its bed. The sides of the canyon steepened sharply. He and Tim could get out that way. Maybe. Not with seven horses. They could get lifted out short haul. But not with seven horses.

“Okay, boss. Short of slinging a lot of horses into harnesses, I don’t have any brilliant ideas.” Tim had moved over to reassure Mister Ed.

Akbar did his best to ignore that the horse that had been rejecting him these last two months was cozying up to Tim like he was his best friend.

The choppers could lift the horses, that wasn’t the problem. The problem was rigging a sling quickly and figuring out how to keep the animals from totally freaking out. Frankly, he couldn’t believe he’d managed to get the tourists out of there without any panic. It was all Laura’s doing. He’d expected to descend into a frantic crowd. Instead, they’d all been quietly standing by their horses’ heads to reassure them, despite the forest burning down just out of sight on three sides of them.

Mister Ed pricked his ears downslope.

The fire’s roar was building. Hard to estimate time, but one thing was sure, the distance to the blaze was shrinking rapidly.

He got on the radio to Henderson up in his plane. The west was wholly impassable. They were going to let it burn for the moment. The goal was to keep the fire from continuing east around Mount Hood’s flank and taking out Timberline Lodge and the two ski areas with all of their equipment, buildings, and condos.

“We lose another half mile and we’re going to evacuate that whole side of the mountain. That’s all the grassland I have that can burn before we’re back into the trees,” Henderson was not having a good day. “Where are you?”

“Tim and I are down in the throat of Zigzag Canyon.”

“In the— What the hell, Akbar? I’m sending Emily in to get you out of there.”

“No, wait.” He’d never heard Henderson swear before. Just how ugly was it out there, outside the fire? It certainly wasn’t pretty here inside the fire.

“I have a really stupid idea. Need you to give me the go/no-go decision. But I will say that if it’s no-go, I’ll let you explain to Laura about three tons of cooked horseflesh.”

Then he began laying out his idea. He could feel Henderson cursing, even six thousand feet above them with his microphone turned off.