Summer of Fire - Linda Jacobs [6]
Steve hurried to remove his shoulder harness and squeeze between the seats. The collapsed bucket made an unwieldy orange heap on the metal deck, with the cable snaking through a notch in the doorframe.
“Be sure,” Deering’s distorted voice came to him through the headphones, “to pitch the bucket clear of the skids.”
Steve slid open the door. After looking through tinted windows, brilliant light shocked him. The blast of wind and high-pitched whine of the helicopter was much louder. Turning to his task, he tugged at the bucket, but failed to budge it.
Five years ago, he could have tossed it out. Now, at thirty-eight, multiple surgeries had left him with knees he could no longer rely on. Ignoring a stab of pain, he bent and put his shoulder behind the work.
As the amorphous shape inched toward the bright day, he prepared to give the bucket an extra shove. Just then, the helicopter hit a pocket of rough air and dipped, nearly pitching him out. He clung to the doorframe, watching the bucket dangle perilously close to the left skid.
Deering flipped a switch and the cable paid out. The chopper banked and lost altitude until it hung so low over the lake that Steve had a clear view of white-capped waves. He wondered if he should return to his seat, but as long as he stayed back from the wind torrent, the fresh air cleared his head. Through the open door was West Thumb, a smaller arm of the cobalt expanse of Yellowstone Lake. Onshore, the hot springs of West Thumb Geyser Basin shone in a hundred colors.
“Let me know when the bucket’s full,” Deering directed.
Steve forced himself to approach the door. Downwash from the rotors beat the lake in a wide circle as the bucket touched the water. The canvas grew dark and slowly sank.
It seemed to take a long time to gather a hundred forty-four-gallons, while Steve held onto the chicken bar above the door. Deering manipulated the controls with barely perceptible adjustments that kept the craft in a hover. When the bucket was finally full, Steve said, “Ready.”
“We’re heavy on fuel,” Deering replied. It had been less than twenty minutes since they’d taken off from West Yellowstone Airport. “Fighting this wind with a full load is going to be a bitch.” He powered up to climb.
Blown sideways, the craft turned up on its side and the bucket’s sunken weight skewed out from under it.
Steve fell away from the open door to land hard on the small of his back. Cleats designed to hold a rear seat in place bruised him and his headphones slid across the metal deck. He retrieved them in time to hear Deering breathe, “Sum bitch.”
The Bell’s engines whined in crescendo and, for a long moment, it seemed to hang motionless. Steve’s toes curled inside his boots. Although it had been years since he’d seen the inside of a church, he found himself sending up a prayer.
When the bottom of the bucket pulled free, the chopper picked up speed and careened toward the burning shore. Flames leaped from the tops of the pines right down to the narrow rocky beach.
Too fast, Steve thought, crouching on the deck. At the same time, he realized that they hadn’t gained enough elevation to clear the trees. They were unbalanced, skewing sideways.
“Release the bucket,” Steve shouted into the roaring wind.
“Can’t. Cable’s hung on the skid, thanks to you.” They headed fast for the inferno. Deering muttered a string of obscenities, the kind of language usually heard at the end of black box flight recordings.
Steve clambered to his feet and clamped his teeth hard. With a wary look at the blur of rotors, he figured it was at least a hundred feet to the water since the bucket wasn’t quite dragging. He should have known better than to fly, to once more leave the solid earth and put his fate at the mercy of wind, machine, and human fallibility.
All the fight seemed