The head changed direction three times in two days, snarling at the rain of retardant and spitting it out.

The initial attack, a miserable failure, moved into a protracted, vicious extended one.

“Gull, Matt, Libby, you’re on spots. Cards, Dobie, we’re going to move west, take down any snags. Dig and cut and smother. We stop her here.”

Nobody spoke as they pushed, shoved, lashed the backfire east. The world was smoke and heat and noise with every inch forward a victory. About time, Rowan thought, about damn time their luck changed.

The snag she cut fell with a crack. She positioned to slice it into smaller, less appetizing logs. They’d shovel and drag limbs and coals away from the green, into the black, into a bone pile.

Starve her, Rowan thought. Just keep starving her.

She straightened a moment to stretch her back.

She saw it happen, so fast she couldn’t shout out much less leap forward. A knife-point of wood blew out of the cut Cards was carving and shot straight into his face.

She dropped her saw, rushing toward him even as he yelped in shock and pain and lost his footing.

“How bad? How bad?” she shouted, grabbing him as he staggered. She saw for herself the point embedded in his cheek, half an inch below his right eye. Blood spilled down to his jaw.

“For fuck’s sake,” he managed. “Get it out.”

“Hold on. Just hold on.”

Dobie trotted up. “What’re you two... Jesus, Cards, how the hell did you do that?”

“Hold his hands,” Rowan ordered as she dug into her pack.

“What?”

“Get behind him and hold his hands down. I think it’s going to hurt when I pull it out.” She set a boot on either side of Cards’s legs, pulled off her right glove. She clamped her fingers on the inch of jagged wood protruding from his cheek. “On three now. Get ready. One. Two—”

She yanked on two, watched the blood slop out, watched his eyes go a little glassy. Quickly, she pressed the pad of gauze she’d taken out of her pack to the wound.

“You’ve got a hell of a hole in your face,” she told him.

“You said on three.”

“Yeah, well, I lost count. Dobie, hold the pad, keep the pressure on. I have to clean that out.”

“We don’t have time for that,” Cards objected. “Just tape it over. We’ll worry about it later.”

“Two minutes. Lean back against Dobie.”

She tossed the bloody pad aside, poured water over the wound, hoping to flush out tiny splinters. “And try not to scream like a girl,” she added, following up the water with a hefty dose of peroxide.

“Goddamn it, Ro! Goddamn, fucking shit!”

Ruthless, she waited while the peroxide bubbled out dirt and wood, then doused it with more water. She coated another pad with antibiotic cream, added another, then taped it over what she noted was a hole in his cheek the size of a marble.

“We can get you out to the west.”

“Screw that. I’m not packing out. It was just a damn splinter.”

“Yeah.” Dobie held up the three-inch spear of wood. “If you’re fifty feet tall. I saved it for you.”

“Holy shit, that’s a fucking missile. I got hit with a wood missile. In the face. My luck,” he said in disgust, “has been for shit all season.” He waved off Rowan’s extended hand. “I can stand on my own.”

He wobbled a moment, then steadied.

“Take some of the ibuprofen in your PG bag. If you’re sure you’re fit, I want you to go switch off to scout spots. You’re not running a saw, Cards. You know better. Switch off, or I’ll have to report the injury to Ops.”

“I’m not leaving this here until she’s dead.”

“Then switch off. If that hole in your ugly face bleeds through those pads, have one of your team change it.”

“Yeah, yeah.” He touched his fingers to the pad. “You’d think I cut off a leg,” he muttered, but headed down the line. When he’d gone far enough, she pulled out her radio, contacted Gull. “Cards is headed to you. He had a minor injury. I want one of you to head up to me, and he’ll take your place down there.”

“Copy that.”

“Okay, Dobie, get that saw working. And watch out for flying wood missiles. I don’t want any more drama.”

The backfire held. It took another ten hours, but reports from head to tail called the fire contained.

The sunset ignited the sky as she hiked back to camp. It reminded her of watching the sun set with Gull. Of bullets and blind hate. She dropped down to eat, wishing she could find that euphoria that always rose in her once a fire surrendered.

Yangtree sat down beside her. “We’re going to get some food in our bellies before we start mop-up. Ops has eight on tap for that. It’s up to you since he was on your team, but I think Cards should demob, get that wound looked at proper.”

“Agreed. I’m going to pack out with him. If they can send eight, let’s spring eight from camp.”

“My thinking, too. I tell you, Ro, I say I’m too old for this, but I’m starting to mean it. I might just ask your daddy for a job come the end of the season.”

“Hell. Cards is the one with the hole in his face.”

He looked toward the west, the setting sun, the black mountain. “I’m thinking I may want to see what it’s like to sit on my own porch on a summer night, drink a beer, with some female company if I can get it, and not have to think about fire.”

“You’ll always think about fire, and sitting on a porch, you’d wish you were here.”

He gave her a pat on the knee as he rose. “It might be time to find out.”

She had to browbeat Cards into packing out. Smoke jumpers, she thought, treated injuries like points of pride, or challenges.

He sulked on the flight home.

“I get why he’s in a mood.” Gull settled down beside her. “Why are you?”

“Sixty hours on fire might have something to do with it.”

“No. That’s why you’re whipped and more vulnerable to the mood, but not the reason for the mood.”

“Here’s what I don’t get, hotshot: why, after a handful of months, you think you know me so damn well. And another is why you spend so much time psychoanalyzing people.”

“Those are both pretty easy to get. The first is it may be a handful of months, but people who live and work together, particularly under intense conditions, tend to know and understand each other quicker than those who don’t. Add sleeping together, and it increases the learning curve. Second.”

He pulled out a bag of shelled peanuts, offered her some, then shrugged and dug in himself when she just glowered at him.

“Second,” he repeated. “People interest me, so I like figuring them out.”

He munched nuts. Whatever her mood or the reasons for it, he wasn’t inclined to lower his to match it. A hot shower and hot food, followed by a bed with a warm woman in it, ranged in his immediate future.

Who could ask for better?

“You’re starting to think about what’s waiting back at base. All the crap we’ve been too busy to worry about. What’s happened while we were catching fire, if the cops charged Brakeman, found Dolly’s killer. If not, what next?”

He glanced over toward Cards, who snored with his head on his pack, a fresh bandage snowy white against his soot-smeared face. “And you’re mixing in worrying how bad Cards messed his face up. Whatever Yangtree and you talked about before we demobbed topped it off.”

She said nothing for a moment. “Know-it-alls are irritating.” Leaning her head back, she closed her eyes. “I’m getting some sleep.”

“Funny, I think having somebody understand you is comforting.”

She opened one eye, cool, crystal blue. “I didn’t say you were an understand-it-all.”

“You’ve got me there.” Gull shut his eyes as well, and dropped off.


Rowan headed straight to the barracks after unloading her gear. To settle down, Gull decided, as much as clean up. Maybe she’d label it as “taking care of her,” and that was too damn bad, but he postponed his own agenda to hunt down L.B.

He waited in Operations while L.B. coordinated with the mop-up crew boss.

“Got a minute?”

“For the first time in three days, I’ve got a few. I’m stepping out,” L.B. announced, then jerked his head toward the door. “What’s on your mind?”

“You telling me the status of things around here so I can pass it on to Rowan.”

“I don’t know how much they’re keeping me in the loop, but let’s find a place to sit down.”


When Rowan stepped out of the bathroom wrapped in a towel, a still filthy Gull was sitting on the floor.

“Is something wrong with your shower?”

“I don’t know. I haven’t been in it yet.”

“I’ve got a lot to do before I’m done, so we’ll have to reschedule the hot sex portion of the evening.”

“You’ve got a one-track mind, Swede. I like the track, but there are more than one.”

She opened a drawer, selected yoga pants and a top.

“I’ll give you the rundown,” Gull began. “Trigger dragged Cards to the infirmary. The wound’s clean. No infection, but it’s pretty damn deep. Plastic surgeon recommended, and after some bullshit, he’s going into town to see one in the morning. He wants to keep his pretty face.”

“That’s good.” She pulled on the pants and top without bothering with underwear—something Gull appreciated whatever the circumstances. “And it’ll be fun to rag him about plastic surgery,” she added, stepping back into the bath to hang the towel. “We ought to get some fun out of it.”

“Trigger already suggested they suck the lard out of his ass while they’re at it.”