“Bet you’re good at it.”

“Logging in time as a PT means I get paid to keep fit for this over the winter. What about you?”

“I get to play for a living. Fun World. It’s like a big arcade—video games, bowling, bumper cars, Skee-Ball.”

“You work at an arcade?”

He folded his arms behind his head. “It’s not work if it’s fun.”

“You don’t strike me as the kind of guy to deal with kids and machines all day.”

“I like kids. They’re largely fearless and open to possibilities. Adults tend to forget how to be either.” He shrugged. “You spend yours trying to get couch potatoes to break a sweat.”

“Not all of my clients are couch potatoes. None are when I’m done with them.” She shoved up to sit. “Here comes the next group.”

With the first practice jump complete, they packed out, carrying their gear back to base. After another stint of physical training, classwork, they were up again for the second jump of the day.

They practiced letdown in full gear, outlined fire suppression strategies, studied maps, executed countless sit-ups, pull-ups, push-ups, ran miles and threw themselves out of planes. At the end of a brutal four weeks, the numbers had whittled down to sixteen. Those still standing ranged outside Operations answering their final roll call as recruits.

When Libby answered her name, Dobie slapped a twenty into Gull’s hand. “Smoke jumper Barbie. You gotta give it to her. Skinny woman like that toughs it through, and a big hoss like McGinty washes.”

“We didn’t,” Gull reminded him.

“Fucking tooting we didn’t.”

Even as they slapped hands a flood of ice water drenched them.

“Just washing off some of the rookie stink,” somebody called out. And with hoots and shouts, the men and woman on the roof tossed another wave of water from buckets.

“You’re now one of us.” From his position out of water range, L.B. shouted over the laughter and curses. “The best there is. Get cleaned up, then pack it in the vans. We’re heading into town, boys and girls. You’ve got one night to celebrate and drink yourself stupid. Tomorrow, you start your day as smoke jumpers—as Zulies.”

When Gull made a show out of wringing out his wet twenty, Dobie laughed so hard, he had to sit on the ground. “I’ll buy the first round. You’re in there, Libby.”

“Thanks.”

He smiled, stuffed the wet bill in his wet pocket. “I owe it all to you.”

Inside, Gull stripped off his dripping clothes. He took stock of his bruises—not too bad—and for the first time in a week took time to shave. Once he’d hunted up a clean shirt and pants, he spent a few minutes sending a quick e-mail home to let his family know he’d made it.

He expected that news to generate mixed reactions, though they’d all pretend to be as happy as he was. He slid a celebratory cigar into his breast pocket, then wandered outside.

The e-mail had cost him some time, so he loaded into the last of the vans and found a seat among the scatter of rookies and vets.

“Ready to party, rook?” Trigger asked him.

“I’ve been ready.”

“Just remember, nobody gets babysat. The vans leave and you’re not in one, you find your own way back to base. If you end up with a woman tonight, the smart thing is to end up with one who has a car.”

“I’ll keep that in mind.”

“You dance?”

“You asking?”

Trigger hooted out a laugh. “You’re almost pretty enough for me. The place we’re going has a dance floor. You do it right, dancing with a woman’s the same as foreplay.”

“Is that the case, in your experience?”

“It is, young Jedi. It surely is.”

“Interesting. So... does Rowan like to dance?”

Trigger raised his eyebrows. “That’s what we call barking up the wrong tree.”

“It’s the only tree that’s caught my interest and attention.”

“Then you’re going to have a long, dry summer.” He gave Gull a pat on the shoulder. “And let me tell you something else from my vast experience. When you’ve got calluses on your calluses and blisters on top of that, jerking off isn’t as pleasant as it’s meant to be.”

“Five years as a hotshot,” Gull reminded him. “If the summer proves long and dry, my hands’ll hold up.”

“Maybe so. But a woman’s better.”

“Indeed they are, Master Jedi. Indeed they are.”

“Have you got one back home?”

“No. Do you?”

“Had one. Twice. Married one of them. Just didn’t take. Matt’s got one. You got a woman back home in Nebraska, don’t you, Matt?”

Matt shifted, angled around to look back over his shoulder. “Annie’s back in Nebraska.”

“High-school sweethearts,” Trigger filled in. “Then she went off to college, but they got back together when she came home. Two minds, one heart. So Matt doesn’t dance, if you get my drift.”

“Got it. It’s nice,” Gull continued, “having somebody.”

“No point in the whole screwed-up world if you don’t.” Matt shrugged. “No point doing what we do if nobody’s waiting for us once we’ve done it.”

“Sweetens the pot,” Trigger agreed. “But some of us have to settle for a dance now and again.” He rubbed his hands together as the van pulled up in a lot packed with trucks and cars. “And my toes are already tapping.”

Gull scanned the long, low log building as he stepped out of the van, contemplated a moment on the flickering neon sign.

“‘Get a Rope,’ ” he read. “Seriously?”

“Cowboy up, partner.” Trigger slapped him on the shoulder, then strutted inside on his snakeskin boots.

An experience, Gull reminded himself. You could never have too many of them.

He stepped into the overamplified screech and twang of truly, deeply bad country music performed by a quartet of grungy-looking guys behind the dubious protection of a chicken-wire fence. At the moment the only things being hurled at them were shouted insults, but the night was young.

Still, people crowded the dance floor, kicking up boot heels, wiggling butts. Others ranged along the long bar or squeezed onto rickety chairs at tiny tables where they could scarf up dripping nachos or gnaw on buffalo wings coated with a suspicious substance that turned them cheesepuff orange. Most opted to wash that combo down with beer served in filmy plastic pitchers.

The lights were mercifully dim, and despite the smoking ban dingy blue clouds fogged the air that smelled like a sweat-soaked, deep-fried, overflowing ashtray.

The only reasonable thing to do, as Gull saw it, was to start drinking.

He moved to the bar, elbowed in and ordered a Bitter Root beer—in a bottle. Dobie squeezed beside him, punched him in the arm. “Why do you wanna drink that foreign shit?”

“Brewed in Montana.” He passed the bottle to Dobie, ordered another.

“Pretty good beer,” Dobie decided after a pull. “But it ain’t no Budweiser.”

“You’re not wrong.” Amused, Gull tapped his bottle to Dobie’s, drank. “Beer. The answer to so many questions.”

“I’m going to get this one in me, then cut one of these women out of the herd, drive ’em on the dance floor.”

Gull sipped again, studied the fat-fingered lead guitar player. “How do you dance to crap like this?”

Dobie’s eyes slitted, and his finger drilled into Gull’s chest. “You got a problem with country music?”

“You must’ve busted an eardrum on your last jump if you call this music. I like bluegrass,” he added, “when it’s done right.”

“Don’t bullshit me, city boy. You don’t know bluegrass from bindweed.”

Gull took another swig of beer. “I am a man of constant sorrow,” he sang in a strong, smooth tenor. “I’ve seen trouble all my days.”

Now Dobie punched him in the chest, but affectionately. “You’re a continual surprise to me, Gulliver. Got a voice in there, too. You oughta get up there and show those shit-kickers how it’s done.”

“I think I’ll just drink my beer.”

“Well.” Dobie tipped up the bottle, drained his. Let out a casual belch. “I’m going for a female.”

“Good luck with that.”

“Ain’t about luck. It’s about style.”

Gull watched Dobie bop over to a table of four women, and decided the man had a style all of his own.

Enjoying the moment, Gull leaned an elbow back on the bar, crossed his ankles. Trigger, true to his word, already had a partner on the dance floor, and Matt—true to his Annie—sat with Little Bear, a rookie named Stovic and one of the pilots they called Stetson for his battered and beloved black hat.

Then there was Rowan, chowing down on the orange-coated nachos at a table with Janis Petrie, Gibbons and Yangtree. She’d pulled on a blue T-shirt—snug, scoop-necked—that molded her breasts and torso. For the first time since he’d met her she wore earrings, something that glittered and swung from her ears when she shook her head and laughed.

She’d done something to her eyes, her lips, he noted, made them bolder. And when she let Cards pull her to her feet for a dance, Gull saw her jeans were as snug as her shirt.

She caught his eye when Cards swung her into a spin, then stopped his heart when she shot him a wide, wicked smile. He decided if she was going to kill him, she might as well do it at closer range. He ordered another beer, carried it over to her table.

“Hey, fresh meat.” Janis toasted him with a dripping nacho. “Want to dance, rookie?”

“I haven’t had enough beer to dance to whatever this is.”

“They’re so bad, they’re good.” Janis patted Rowan’s empty chair. “A few more drinks, they’ll be nearly good enough to be bad.”