Chapter 4-1
245 Words
Chapter 4
The locals still can’t get an engine crew up into this remote corner of the Siskiyou National Forest,” Krista told Akbar when she woke him up at six a.m. “They have a dozer cutting in a new road and they should be here before noon. Jeannie and Emily in the Firehawk are both down until noon with the FAA mandated eight-hour break. So, unless you want to walk home, might as well do some work.”
“No eight-hour rule for smokies,” Two-Tall, splayed out on the hand-scraped soil, groaned as Krista nudged him with the butt of her fire axe. Akbar lay there: still in his full gear, his Pulaski a foot from his hand.
He looked up at the sky and saw the soft blue of a northwestern summer sunrise. Not towering flames. Not smoke. Actual blue.
It would be a long slog, but they’d nipped this one before it reached into the next valley. He sat up and looked down the back side of the ridge. Ten thousand acres of now untouched forest lay green below him.
“Worth the pain,” he made a point of sounding chipper as he rolled to his feet. Every muscle screamed. He ignored them because otherwise Two-Tall might not look so bad lying there griping about his aching body.
But Akbar couldn’t stop the groan as he leaned over to pick up his own fire axe. Tim barely managed a smirk before they both stumbled back toward the fire line behind Krista to do what they could until the mop-up crew made it in.
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