Chapter 22
Colton
The wind had died to fifteen knots by noon. Choppy, but flyable. Colton strapped into his tanker and taxied before the tower finished clearing him. Each hour he wasn’t airborne would risk containment lines, structures, and time they didn’t have.
“Tanker One-Eight-Two, you’re cleared for takeoff,” the tower crackled. “Be advised. Visibility is degraded to two miles in smoke.”
“Copy that. One-Eight-Two lifting off.”
The Dash climbed through the smoke layer at three thousand, then broke through into sudden sunlight. Below, the Copper Creek Fire had exploded, jumping containment lines and racing toward a subdivision. Colton’s objective was to drop slurry between the homes and the advancing flame front.
The wind hit him at six thousand feet like a fist, slamming the tanker sideways and pinning him into the harness.
The yoke bucked in his hands, and he fought it with both arms, biceps burning from the sustained effort.
Navigating a tanker through mountain gusts demanded both arm strength and the resolve to hold steady while the alarms nagged him.
A downdraft over the Warm Springs drainage grabbed the aircraft, dropping it four hundred feet in two seconds. Bile rose in his throat when the stall warning chirped.
Oh shit, not with a full load.
Dread punched his gut. He rammed the throttles forward, both engines roaring to max power, and clawed back the altitude. The plane groaned around him, metal flexing.
Below, the ground crews counted on him. They were spread along the ridgeline, a thin line of yellow Nomex between the fire and the subdivision.
Pulaski tools and chainsaws were ineffective in a crown run.
They needed slurry to widen the break. If he didn’t make this drop, those crews below would have to retreat, and the subdivision would burn.
He banked left, studying the terrain. The fire had split into two heads. Both threatened homes and other buildings, but the smaller one moved faster.
“Air Attack, One-Eight-Two. I’m seeing two distinct heads. Request priority guidance.”
“Hit the eastern subdivision first, One-Eight-Two. Ground resources are protecting the structures with the least aggressive flames.”
“Copy that. Bird Dog, I’m taking the canyon. Straight shot to the target.”
Pointer weighed in. “I’d recommend the wide approach from the south. Wind is funneling up-canyon. Unpredictable conditions.”
Colton studied the terrain. The southern approach added three minutes and burned fuel. The canyon cut straight to the target. He’d flown tighter corridors than this one.
“Negative, Bird Dog. Canyon’s faster. I can put the load right on the money.”
“Your call, One-Eight-Two.”
He dove into the gap and punched the gate release. The slurry caught a crosswind he hadn’t accounted for, and the red cloud drifted wide, coating the empty pasture instead of the fire’s advancing head.
Through a break in the smoke, flames had reached a ranch outbuilding that his load should have protected. The structure went up in seconds, a blaze of red light blooming through the roof before it caved inward.
“Missed the mark, One-Eight-Two.” Pointer stayed matter of fact and professional. No criticism, no condemnation. Colton wished he would have yelled at him instead.
Colton’s gut twisted. He’d overruled his Bird Dog, and a family lost their barn.
Not one of my better decisions.
He banked toward the Anaconda strip to reload. The missed drop cost twenty minutes and twenty-five hundred gallons they couldn’t spare. While Harvey’s crew pumped slurry into his tanks, he sat in the cockpit staring at the instrument panel, Pointer’s recommendation echoing in his head.
Once he’d climbed back into the air with a full load, the fire had advanced. The eastern head now threatened the subdivision from two directions.
“Air Attack, One-Eight-Two is re-loaded and ready for another run.”
“Copy. Same target, eastern head.”
“Bird Dog, what’s your recommendation?” This time he asked instead of doing the telling.
“Get on my six.” Pointer’s King Air dove into the canyon ahead of him, the smaller aircraft splitting the gap between the rock walls with inches to spare on either side.
“One-Eight-Two, you’re clear for your run. Wind’s funneling up-canyon at twenty-five knots, gusting higher. But they can flip on a dime so stay alert. Drop zone is at eleven o’clock, fourteen hundred feet below the ridgeline. Decent clearance on both sides, but it’ll be cozy after the drop.”
“Copy, Bird Dog. Beginning my run.”
Colton tipped the nose over and committed.
Below three hundred feet AGL in a narrow canyon like this one, aborting wasn’t an option.
Dark granite walls loomed on both sides, close enough to spot individual trees clinging to the ledges.
The tanker’s wingspan ate up most of the space between the canyon walls, with margins that would make a sane person quit flying.
He punched the gate release at the target point. The familiar upward lurch hit as twenty-five hundred gallons of mud cascaded into the canyon. The red line hit the mark, coating the fire’s advancing head.
“Good coverage, One-Eight-Two,” radioed Pointer. “Now get out of there. Smoke’s closing in.”
Colton hauled back on the yoke. The tanker climbed toward the canyon’s far end, lighter after the drop but still carrying speed from the dive.
Below, the fire’s convection column folded on itself, choking the canyon mouth with a wall of gray so thick the exit had disappeared.
The canyon floor steepened as the walls pinched together, shrinking his options.
His margin for error erased with every passing second.
Dead ahead, beyond the charcoal barrier of smoke, a ridgeline jutted up seven thousand feet. His aircraft could not clear it. Spatial disorientation slammed into him.
Dammit. This is the shitty part.
“Bird Dog, I’m a little disoriented. I’ve lost the line,” he said, white-knuckling the yoke. “What’s my clearance?”
“You have negative clearance.” Pointer’s drawl snapped tight. “Ridge is three quarters of a mile in front of you. You cannot go over. Execute a box canyon turn. The sooner the better.”
You’ve got to be shitting me.
A box canyon turn was every tanker pilot’s worst nightmare: a maximum performance climbing turn that had filled more coffins than engine failure and wind shear combined.
In a canyon this narrow, he’d have to bank the Dash 8 into a steep, gut-wrenching turn and reverse direction before the rising terrain nailed him.
At this airspeed, with zero visibility and granite walls on both sides, he had no sense of proximity.
“Copy, Bird Dog. Executing a tight one-eighty.”
He shoved the power levers forward while banking the tanker into a hard left turn, steeper than any training manual advised.
Fifty degrees, then sixty. The stall warning blared as G-forces multiplied the load on the aircraft.
The wings bit the air at an impossible angle, daring physics.
He coordinated the rudder to keep the turn as smooth as possible.
“Maintain airspeed. Nice and steady,” said Bird Dog.
“Don’t stall, Dash, don’t mother-freaking stall!” Colton spat out through gritted teeth.
Through his left window, nothing but gray. Through his right, a flash of canyon wall was inches from his wingtip, close enough to read each crack and crevice in the granite.
“This is like IFR in a fucking blender,” he muttered.
“You’re halfway through the turn.” Pointer tracked him on instruments from above. “Canyon widens to your left in two hundred yards. Stay tight.”
His aircraft groaned in protest as he held the yoke, every instinct screaming to level the wings and climb, but climbing meant a granite wall. He held the bank, his airspeed bleeding, and the warning screaming nonstop. He fed power until the turboprops howled at max output.
“Keep turning. Keep turning,” instructed Pointer, his voice tight but steady. “Don’t worry, you have room. Keep ‘er steady.”
The compass swung south, southeast, then east as he kept banking hard.
“Keep it together, Dash. Keep it together,” begged Colton as the warning blared.
Through a hole in the smoke, he glimpsed the canyon opening behind him, and the blue sky beyond. “I see the exit,” he relayed to Bird Dog.
“You’re there, buddy. You can relax now.”
Colton rolled the wings level, and the stall warning stopped. He let the engine and his heartbeat steady themselves as he rammed the throttles forward, and the tanker sped down the canyon. The walls widened until he burst out of the narrow passage into open air.
He exhaled as the Pintler Range spread out before him, burning and beautiful and very much not a granite coffin.
“Nice maneuver, Sky King.” Pointer’s voice loosened, his relief clear. “You owe me a beer for that one.”
“I owe you a whole damn case.”
“I’ll hold you to it. Alaskan Amber. Now catch your breath because Air Attack wants a drop on the smaller head. And One-Eight-Two? Next time I say take the wide approach, take the wide approach.”
“Copy that, Bird Dog.” No argument this time.
Colton flexed his fingers on the yoke, willing the tremor out of them. His flight suit clung to his back, soaked through. The thrum of the engines competed with the blood roaring in his ears.
He leveled off at five thousand feet and let the tanker fly straight for a few seconds until his hands stopped shaking.
Open sky ahead. Canyon behind me. That was close.
He thought about Mack McKinney. The wind shear near Bozeman, the ridge that came out of nowhere, the impact he’d survived and Mack hadn’t.
Colton could still hear the earsplitting shriek of the airframe tearing apart.
Ever since, each flight after the crash had counted as borrowed time, and he’d promised himself never to waste a single moment.