Chapter 29
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
REED
S o this is where the elite work.
The McCall Smokejumper Base sprawls in all directions. To take it in all at once would be impossible, so I start with the first thing that I see.
Protected behind barbed wire fencing and a keypad-controlled gate, a wooden structure stands three stories tall. It connects to various platforms by a harness-and-rope system. A training course .
A snapshot of a dream I imagined for myself years ago, jumping out of planes and parachuting into fires, flashes before me. This is what I’ve been waiting for.
The visual tour ends with the steely glare of my superintendent on the other side of that gate.
Reality slaps me in the face— not a smokejumper —and I slam the truck into park.
Grabbing my gear, we take off in a sprint toward the open access point.
“This your idea of safe, Morgan?” Jack scolds as his eyes flick toward his daughter.
What was the non-selfish reason for why I didn’t drop her off at the fire camp? I try to recall… anything other than simply wanting her here. But he’s right. It was egocentric of me to put her in unnecessary danger.
The crew is already surrounded by gear, waiting on a holding pattern.
“Listen up, gentlemen,” a pilot shouts over the roar of the engine.
Jack abandons our conversation for the crew and we have no choice but to follow him.
“The canyon pinching the Salmon River has a seven-thousand-foot elevation. We can’t get our aircraft down there, so you’ll be dropped at the highest point on the north side,” she says. “You’ll have to hike the rest of the way in. Our aircrafts can transport nine of you at a time. We’ll take the first group and come back for the rest.”
As captains, Murphy and Jackson split the crew into two teams. Jackson’s group funnels into the smokejumper plane first, along with Jack.
“Dad, wait…” Hailey calls out.
He pauses in the doorframe. “I can’t do this with you right now, Hayes. I know I owe you an explanation, but there are a lot of lives and properties at risk on the other side of that river.”
Hailey juts out her chin, her eyes burning with a challenge. “You know as well as I do that anything could happen to you guys out there. You’ll be miles from camp. You don’t have a single person on your crew who knows more than standard first aid and CPR. I’m your on-site EMT for the next two weeks.” She doesn’t ask, just demands it like the stunning force of nature that she is.
Even as the silence prevails between them while he thinks it over, she holds her posture strong.
“Please don’t make me stay here worrying about you. I’ve done it my whole life. I’ve already lived without her. I can’t lose you too.”
He grabs her by the shoulders and hauls her into his chest. He’s hugging her.
“Promise me you’ll stay close. I don’t want anything to happen to you either,” he confesses.
“I promise,” she says, and I don’t miss the quake in her voice.
When she lets go, he makes sure I’m looking at him before he motions to the wood-shingled building behind me. “Get her some gear.”