Summer of Fire - Linda Jacobs [5]
He knew the type. All over the mountain west, wherever choppers were flown, there were guys in military-style flight suits with winged patches on their shoulders that proclaimed Vietnam Helicopter Pilots Association.
He’d come to Yellowstone for the peace it afforded, not to wind up in a war zone.
Deering fiddled with the radio and was unable to raise West Yellowstone Airport, as had been the case for about five minutes. He banked the Bell 206 into a steep turn and Steve looked straight down into leaping flames.
It wasn’t the fire that had him on edge, but the flying. His decision to do recon had been one of those grand defiant gestures; he hadn’t wanted to tell his boss Shad Dugan that he was unwilling to get back on the horse that had thrown him.
Turbulence seized the chopper. Steve’s stomach clenched as they plunged earthward and then rebounded. Reaching for a handhold, he saw that his palm left a damp print on his green fire-retardant trousers. In the three years he’d been a park biologist he’d successfully stayed out of aircraft, preferring to visit the backcountry via the serenity of horseback. If only he were on a remote trail right now, breathing clean air instead of eating smoke from thousands of torching trees.
Deering took them lower into even rougher air.
Looking out through the bubble of glass, Steve tried to ignore vertigo and focus on the solid earth. Below, in Grant Village, at least twenty fire trucks lined the south shore of Yellowstone Lake. Near the boat ramp, pumpers equipped to fight wildfires suctioned water from the lake. With hoses connected to hydrants, firefighters sprayed the roofs of the visitor center and lodge.
Deering dipped the chopper left and Steve looked where he pointed. The road out of the village was a narrow corridor between two walls of flame. Down this slender needle, a dozen cars and several fire trucks were threaded. The knot inside Steve twisted tighter as he realized that they were stopped.
Black smoke billowed around the Bell’s windshield and the visibility went to zero.
“Fuck shit!” Deering pushed right pedal.
“Easy,” Steve blurted. The hard look Deering shot made him wish he’d kept his mouth shut. The pilot obviously didn’t think a ranger should be telling him how to fly his chopper. His pride of ownership had been clear at the airport. Steve had stood on the ramp with reluctance while he showed off the custom paint, ultramarine edged in gold.
Deering moved the collective between the seats and put the Bell into a climb. The veins on the back of his hand stood out where he gripped the cyclic stick in front of him.
Steve tried to look through the window, but merely saw his reflection against the roiling blackness. Silver-gray eyes rimmed with red gave testimony to the irritating smoke. His thinning blond hair revealed a sunburned forehead between the insulated headphones.
The sky lightened, and as the chopper broke back into clear air, Steve realized he’d been holding his breath.
He exhaled and found it didn’t help him relax. He kept a wary eye on the way Deering’s feet feathered the pedals while adjusting the pitch of the rotors. They made another pass over the stalled line of cars and trucks. This time Deering avoided the smoke.
“Okay, Doctor Haywood, look behind you.” The pilot’s patient tone said he regarded Steve as learning-impaired.
On the rear deck, coarse canvas made a crumpled pile, a bucket attached to a cable hooked beneath the chopper.
“I want you to climb in back,” Deering continued, “open the door, and shove that out.”
Steve bristled. He’d fought the summer fires of the West for three seasons during college and several times since coming to the park. “Wouldn’t it be smarter if we landed to deploy the bucket?”
“Just do it!” Deering snapped.
Steve thought about the people trapped in their cars, choking on smoke. He’d felt that same heat on his own back