Chapter 5-2
1074 Words
Laura felt as if she’d come out of the closet. For a month, Johnny Akbar Jepps had been all hers. Suddenly she was surrounded by his friends and teammates. And every single one had to check out and approve of their boss’ choice in women.
The chopper pilot, a woman name Jeannie, sat down next to Laura on the cabin’s porch very early on. She didn’t say much, just sat there in the chair Johnny usually occupied.
Laura remembered the red streak in her hair from that first meeting at the Doghouse Inn. And when Grayson had gone into the snow, this same helicopter that had delivered the pizza had appeared to save his sorry life. She was obviously a fixture in Johnny’s life, and Laura tried to prepare herself for the upcoming catfight. Laura really needed this day to be over soon.
Johnny had drifted off with some of the others, holding court around her picnic table suddenly buried in pizza boxes, and a big cooler of sodas nearby.
At first she was ticked at Johnny for abandoning her. Was he being unthinking? No. Johnny was never unthinking, but he often thought differently than she did. So he was…being a second center of attention so that everyone wasn’t crowded about her at once. She wished he’d found a way to call Jeannie aside, but the woman showed no signs of moving off.
As time passed and one group of smokies drifted off only to inevitably be replaced by a few fresh recruits, Laura began to see what Jeannie was doing.
Somehow, by simply sitting beside Laura, she was placing her stamp of approval or at least easing the start of each successive conversation. The crew drifted by in twos and threes, some chatting with Jeannie for a moment as an excuse to not make it look like the tag-team interrogation that it actually was. Everyone wanted to hear from her own lips who she was, what her background was, her political views and…
It took her a while to figure out that mentioning she was a wilderness guide saved her a lot of well-intended nosiness. It also told her that Johnny hadn’t been bragging about her all around camp. Despite the mayhem he’d unleashed on her today, he apparently respected some aspects of her privacy.
That simple “wilderness guide” title was a ticket of first-class boarding priority in the smokie world. She’d thought it was just Johnny who felt the way she did about the wilderness. Laura soon figured out that each and every person here loved living and working in the wilderness. Jumping out of a plane to fight a forest-killing inferno up close and personal was a job most of them would pay to be allowed to do.
Johnny had held off the tall guy until nearly the last. He shot her a slightly worried expression as the man sauntered up to greet Jeannie.
So, this one was important to him. Of course, they’d arrived at the bar together; apparently Johnny’s wingman both on and off the fire line.
“Two-Tall, that’s t-w-o, Tim, that’s D-a-v-e,” he offered a genuine enough smile to accompany his joke, and a handshake that wholly enveloped her own hand. “Damn! I can’t believe you brushed me off for Akbar the Great. He is short, you know.”
“I admit I noticed,” Laura’s throat was dry despite sipping at her soda. Even sitting on the edge of the porch he loomed, his back casually against one of the posts. All he needed was a cowboy hat and a six-g*n slung around his fire gear to look totally, well, out of place.
“But he is great,” his teasing expression suddenly shifted to a serious one. “Best crew boss I ever walked fire with. Even better than TJ, but don’t you dare tell him I said that.”
She crossed her heart.
He chatted a bit more without saying much. But she had the impression that she was being more thoroughly examined by him than any of the others.
After he moved off, Laura observed quietly to herself, “Well, he’s a deep one.”
Jeannie beside her nodded, “Two-Tall is an ogre.”
Laura looked over, but figured it out before she had to ask. Like Shrek the ogre comparing himself to an onion, Tim had layers upon layers despite the carefree womanizer he presented to the world.
Like Johnny Akbar Jepps.
Her lover constantly revealed new aspects to himself. His knowledge of fires was his main focus, but he would often lead her off into head-spinning explanations of the science behind combustion or how the historical impact of the burning of Ancient Rome upon literature of all crazy things. It was as if his lack of a college education and his voracious reading habits had combined to create an intensely out of the box thinker.
Soon the smokies began shifting back to finish the trees. In a matter of minutes, they were back in the woods, chainsaws at the roar. Then they fired up the big chipper and the clearing once again reverberated with the clean-up operation.
She felt she should go help, but knew she’d be in their way. They had it down to a science. Johnny and Tim were switching off on successive trees, taking turns cutting and swamping the cut branches. They covered half again the ground of any other team.
“They’re something, aren’t they?” Jeannie still sat in the chair Johnny usually occupied. She’d been so quiet that Laura had almost forgotten she was there.
“They make it look like a ballet.”
Jeannie nodded amiably, “They’re the very best in the business. It would help if they didn’t know it, but they do. And only Carly can read a fire better than Akbar; she’s scary good. Kind of on the level of our lead pilot Emily.”
Laura could hear the worshipful tone in Jeannie’s voice. She knew from following the articles this last month that MHA’s reputation was the gold standard of wildland firefighting. If Johnny was the gold standard of that… The breath whooshed out of her a bit. What in the world had she hooked herself up to?
“You want another piece?” Jeannie clambered to her feet.
Laura nodded.
Jeannie returned with a paper plate bearing a couple slices of Hawaiian without even asking and another plate with a couple combos, but she didn’t sit back down after handing Laura’s over.
“Been watching you.”
Oh great. She’d been right the first time. Jeannie had a thing for Johnny and he’d been too blind to see it. Now she was going to really catch it.
“If Akbar screws this up, I’m gonna kill him. You’re great!” Then she flashed an impish smile and headed toward her chopper as she ate her pizza.
Too stunned to respond, Laura could only watch her go.
Well if that didn’t beat all.
- Writer
