Summer of Fire - Linda Jacobs [135]
The bands became a vice as Clare watched a gray blanket of smoke swallow the Lamar Valley. The altimeter read ten thousand and this part of the park was studded with peaks between ten and eleven thousand feet.
Karrabotsos began to climb, ten-three, then ten-five. Steve’s damp hand pressed her shoulder and she placed hers over it again.
“Two choices,” the pilot said. “Find a safe place to set down or go up to twelve thousand and fly on instruments back toward West Yellowstone.”
“What about other planes or helicopters?” Clare asked. “How will you avoid them?”
He did not answer.
Steve swallowed, the sound audible in the headphones. “Your call, Clare.”
There way no way she wanted to try for West Yellowstone, not if they could get safely on the ground. She knew that Steve felt the same and her heart swelled at his sacrifice.
It was a foolish long shot, but if they set down, maybe they could still look for Devon and Deering. Trying to tamp down anxiety and sound matter-of-fact, she said, “The summit on Nez Perce looked pretty smooth.”
Karrabotsos banked sharply and headed back south. Clare strained to see the peak through the thick air. If they crashed, would there be two choppers down on the same mountain?
She turned in her seat and met Steve’s eyes. “I’m sorry I got you into this.”
The apprehension in his expression mixed with determination. He pointed over her shoulder. “There’s the mountain.”
Clare tried to relax her tensed hands when she saw that the crest of Nez Perce had broken through the murk.
Karrabotsos’s calm exterior remained unchanging as he radioed his intent to West Yellowstone. He brought them in carefully against the wind sweeping the bare promontory. Rotor wash threw up reddish dust and rolled gravel away from their landing.
When the skids touched, every muscle in Clare’s body was as taut as piano wire. Behind her, Steve sighed and she tried to exhale her own tension.
Outside, drifting white eddies resembled a damp mist. For a moment, she thought she saw a darker patch of smoke down along the north ridge, but before she could point it out, she lost sight of it in the haze. That didn’t make sense, anyway, for the Clover-Mist was burning on the mountain’s forested east flank.
The rotors wound down and finally stopped.
“Gonna stretch my back.” Clare opened the door and got out onto the dark reddish gravel. The wind hit her full on, plucking up dust plumes from the tundra-like surface and whipping them away. Steve climbed down from the rear seat, groaning when he put his full weight on his right leg. She saw that he tried to move fluidly as if the last thing he wanted was sympathy. Karrabotsos opened the chopper door, but remained inside talking on the radio.
The smoke thinned and Clare caught another glimpse of what looked like a spot fire along the ridge. It didn’t look right though, for the smoke was inky black.
“Down there,” Steve said. “Looks like . . .” He stopped and she figured he didn’t want to suggest it might be a fire set from the Huey’s fuel.
“Yes, it does.” She turned back to the chopper. “First aid?” She must have been brain-dead this morning, for she should have gone to the Smokejumpers Base and gotten a trauma kit.
Karrabotsos nodded at a metal box behind the rear seat. She unclipped it from the bulkhead and despaired for what it contained; gauze, tape, a few aspirin, and a useless cold remedy.
“Wait for me,” Steve said.
She started down the ridge and quickly outstripped his pace. When she glanced back Karrabotsos was following, moving even slower as he favored the foot he’d broken earlier in the summer.
Clare headed for the spiny promontory, placing her feet with care on the loose volcanic gravel. The mountaintop resembled a cinder cone like Sunset Crater in Arizona where she’d also found the downhill easy. Coming back, it would be a step up and a slide down.
Surrounded by murk, she moved down into a zone of stunted, wind-ravaged trees surrounded by waist high brush and thick grasses. From down the east slope below treeline came the resinous smell