Summer of Fire - Linda Jacobs [49]
Clare followed. The Huey’s engines went to a higher pitch and then the sound gradually receded.
The trees grew thick, with no more than a few feet between them. Clare’s bare legs and arms were soon covered in black dirt and resin. Wearing light hikers rather than her thick fire boots, she kept slipping on the pine straw.
She had lost sight of the fire, but the smoke reminded her she wasn’t wearing fire retardant clothing. It hadn’t seemed important when every second counted to get to Hudson.
Randy’s relief at seeing her and Sherry was evident on his small, tight features. He had opened Hudson’s Kevlar jumpsuit and his hand pressed high on the injured man’s leg, shutting down the femoral artery in the groin area. Below the break, blood soaked the beige coveralls.
Hudson lay still. His right leg canted at an oblique angle above the knee.
“Is he conscious?” Clare asked.
“Unfortunately.” Hudson opened his eyes.
She smiled and bent close. His pupils looked normal, constricted in the forest’s filtered sunlight. “We’ll get you out of here as soon as possible.” Turning to Randy, she instructed, “Keep pressure on.”
“Uh, oh!” Sherry pointed. Not thirty yards away, small flames licked at the duff beneath the trees.
“Maybe you better do something about that,” Clare suggested as mildly as she could.
Sherry was off, running toward the supply boxes. Randy stayed in place, an uncertain look on his face. With a glance at Hudson’s grim expression, she instructed, “Go ahead and let go. I need to see what we’ve got.”
He removed his hand. A bright, arterial stream pulsed with each beat of Hudson’s heart.
Clare shot another look at the fire. There wasn’t time to clear a firebreak. Ditto for stabilizing the bleeding and straightening the leg into the proper packaging for transport.
“Randy!” she demanded. “Give me that line you guys use for rappelling.”
He pulled a coil from the calf pocket of his jumpsuit.
“Cut me four feet.”
He withdrew a folding knife from his jumpsuit pocket.
“A tourniquet,” Clare told him as he cut, “just until we get on the chopper.”
Sherry was back, carrying shovels and Pulaskis. The fire had taken another five yards.
“Change of plans,” Clare said. She tied a constricting rope on Hudson’s leg just above the break. Sherry unfolded the stretcher.
As soon as the bleeding slowed, Clare put a hand on Hudson’s chest. “We’re gonna have to move you. Are you aware of any other injuries?”
The blue helmet swiveled negative.
Clare wished she had another choice for her patient.
It was flying with the door open, Deering realized, that drove him mercilessly back to the Ia Drang valley. As soon as Clare and Sherry had shoved back the heavy metal frame, the wopping had invaded his skull.
The tight little clearing on Bighorn Peak looked for all the world like one of the LZs Deering had gone into ‘slick’, sweating because his ship didn’t carry guns and the gunships were someplace else when there were wounded to be ferried.
He flew the Huey around the high valley on Bighorn Peak, trying not to think about going back down there. No time for dread, though, for he sighted three people carrying a stretcher on the treacherous slope.
Mentally Deering measured, even though he’d already been in the clearing once. He figured five times the rotor diameter of forty-eight feet. Though he’d hoped the injured man was in decent shape and he might not have to set down, the blood he saw staining the victim’s coveralls called up Plan B.
Deering had told Clare they wouldn’t be able to take off if he landed, but he’d been in tighter spots, and under enemy fire. He would never forget the sound of bullets striking metal. The high-pitched ping had made him jump the first few hundred times until he realized that if he heard, it had missed him.
Deering saw Clare shield her eyes from the sun. Her steady look said she trusted him.
He went in.
The second approach produced fewer impacts with the trees, for he’d done quite a bit of wood chopping already. As he hovered at about three feet, Clare motioned to the