Chapter 2-1
341 Words
Chapter 2
Akbar and Two-Tall went for a run the next morning. It had dawned bright and clear and the last of the fire-fight stiffness had to be worked out. Tim had been back early last night.
The MHA base was surround by miles and miles of trails. The Douglas fir trees climbed up a hundred feet or more. No old growth in the area, but it had been a long time since the timber here had been harvested. To either side the undergrowth was thick with salal and huckleberry. Old trees that had fallen were disappearing under moss and saplings were taking root in their rotting progenitors. The trails were wide enough for two to run abreast with footing far less tricky than when fighting a blaze in the trackless wilderness.
Akbar had been too tired to harass Tim last night, but after a couple miles he was awake and loose enough.
“Washout?” he asked.
“New Tom Cruise movie in town she wanted to see,” Tim sounded really disgusted. “I mean the guy’s old. What’s he got? Maybe I’m losing my touch. You?”
Akbar hadn’t received a message from Laura, but he had some hope yet. Though it would be pretty lame to admit that. “Nah. Brush off, but made good company for lunch.”
“Zero for two,” Tim noted as they jumped over a small stream and started on the last stretch back toward camp. “We be losing our touch, man. Got to get it back.”
They were about a kilometer out, only the long climb back up to the top of the ridge when they exchanged glances. Without a word, they started to sprint up the trail. The race was on.
At a half kilometer to go, an eerie siren sounded over the woods. It didn’t pulse and then recede; it kept climbing. Akbar glanced at his watch. It was neither Wednesday nor noon. This wasn’t the weekly test.
They shifted from a teasing back and forth run to a flat-out sprint.
MHA had been called to a fire.
Two-Tall beat him to the mowed edge of the grass strip runway by a foot, literally—one massive sneaker’s worth. It didn’t seem particularly fair.
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