Chapter 26
Colton
The usual smoke haze hung in the sky as Colton hurried toward his tanker at Bowman Airfield. A tall woman with reddish-blonde hair in a tight bun stood beside it, wearing the same color flight suit as his. She turned around when he approached.
“I’m Ripley Westlake, Tanner’s better half. He put in a request for another tanker, so I volunteered,” she said with a wide smile.
Colton shook her hand, noting the firm grip.
“Colton Davis. Westlake told me you were flying down from Fairbanks to help us out. We can use it.” He lowered his aviation shades.
“Officially, we’re flying suppression drops to protect the Mount Haggin drainage.
” He tipped his head toward the hazy silhouette of the mountain.
“Unofficially, I’ll be making a low pass over a certain cabin afterward, and that part’s not written in anybody’s plan.”
“Ah, the unofficial part.” She motioned to her aircraft, with Blazebuster 2 in bright red cursive along the fuselage. “That’s when things get interesting. Been there and done that.”
“Heard about the Alaska firestorm incident in Anchorage last season. Hell of a thing.”
“To say the least.” Ripley took off her gloves. “Tanner briefed me. We’re making drops to slow a fire so a kidnapped smokejumper can be extracted from a remote cabin. Is that right?”
Colton nodded, chuckling. “Crazy as it sounds, yeah. I’ll make my drop first, then you follow behind with a second one. I’ll circle around to make a low pass over the cabin as a distraction, so our crew can hopefully get our smokejumper back. You stay high and return to base after your drop.”
She paused. “Tanner said your girlfriend is on the ground up there?”
“Yeah.” Colton hadn’t heard Deanna called his girlfriend before. He could get used to the sound of it. “We’re on a lesser-used radio frequency. One we hope the kidnappers aren’t tuned into.”
“Then let’s make sure this works,” she said. “No Bird Dog?”
“The fewer people on this frequency, the better. Pointer’s a go-by-the-regs guy, and what he doesn’t know can’t keep him up at night. You up for it?”
She grinned. “I love a challenge. I’ll follow your lead.”
“Keep your second radio on the ground frequency. The Aurora Hotshots are on it. They’re helping us get our jumper back.” Colton gave her the channel. “If the Raders listen to our aviation frequency, all they’ll hear will be tankers making drops on fires.”
“Sounds good,” said Ripley. “See you up there.” She hurried to her plane.
Colton did a quick walk-around, examining every inch of his tanker.
Harvey appeared, wiping his hands on a rag. “She’s patched up and ready to fly. Had the ground crew fuel her up and load the slurry as you ordered.”
“You’re a rock star. Thanks, buddy.” Colton patted the mechanic’s shoulder, then climbed into the cockpit and ticked through his pre-flight checklist.
As the engines roared to life, he patted the instrument panel. “Alrighty, Dash. We’ve got a smokejumper to bring home. Don’t let me down.”
Smooth takeoff, but when he climbed above two thousand feet, the smoke hit like a wall. Visibility dropped hard, the mountains receding into a gray-brown haze. Without Bird Dog to guide him, he relied on experience and instinct.
“Sky King One-Eight-Two, this is Ripley in One-Nine-Five. I’m on your six, maintaining distance.”
“Copy, One-Nine-Five. Smoke’s thick as pea soup.”
Ripley chuckled. “So, what’s new?”
Colton banked toward Mount Haggin with one eye on his terrain warning system. One wrong turn in this smoke and he’d be a statistic. The fire appeared below, chomping through the forest, flames racing through the canopy.
“Come on, Dash,” he muttered. “Let’s get ‘er done.”
He lined up his approach, calculating wind drift and distance to the target. The mountains below required precision. Release the slurry too soon and he’d miss the fire’s head; too late, and it would be a challenge to avoid the rising terrain.
“Here we go,” he announced.
“Copy,” replied Ripley.
His air tanker shuddered in the turbulence thrown up by the fire’s heat. Through breaks in the smoke, Colton glimpsed the leading edge of the fire a quarter mile from the cabin and closing fast.
“Steady, Dash. Steady . . .”
He approached the target right as his angle, speed, and position aligned. Both gates opened, and the salvo load streamed out behind him. He tightened his grip on the yoke, bracing for the jolt as the load dropped and the tanker lurched upward.
“Good coverage on that one, One-Eight-Two,” said Ripley. “My turn.”
As Ripley lined up for her run, Colton circled back, hoping like hell Deanna and the Aurora Crew had a grip on the ground situation by now.
“Time for distraction,” he said, descending to a thousand feet above the treetops. The cabin’s tin roof became visible through ragged holes in the smoke.
“One-Nine-Five, after your drop, climb to safe altitude and hold. I’m going low,” relayed Colton.
“How low?” replied Ripley.
“Low enough to rattle their teeth.”
“Copy. Dive safe.”
Colton swooped toward the cabin, engines at full throttle, the roar of the turboprops bouncing off the mountainside.
“Good. Eyes on me, and not on Deanna,” he muttered. “Dammit, wish I had radio contact with her.”
Colton forced his hands to stay on the yoke instead of reaching for the radio to talk to her. She didn’t need his permission. The hardest part of loving Deanna Brooks was trusting her to survive danger without him.
He hauled the tanker around and committed to a second low pass over the cabin. A figure burst out the front door as he thundered over the roofline, and a muzzle flash sparked from the ridge.
Zeb must be on the ridgetop with his rifle. He banked left and climbed, no more low passes with a rifle aimed at him.
Tara cut in on the aviation frequency. “Shooter on the ridge, Davis. Stay high. Ryan, Cohen, and Tupa are up there trying to stop the guy.”
“Copy,” he responded. “Where’s Deanna?”
Tara paused. “She’s inside the cabin.”
“Can you see anything?” he asked, his grip tight on the yoke.
“No, but I notified Westlake, and he called Sergeant Mills to get officers up here ASAP.”
“Good. Get some officers up that mountain . . .” Colton broke off at another muzzle flash from the rocks on the ridgetop. A round pinged off his left wing, but no warning lights flickered.
“Shit!” Colton throttled forward and tugged the yoke into his gut. The tanker groaned upward, airframe shuddering as he traded speed for altitude. Sweat slicked his hands on the controls.
“One-Eight-Two, are you hit? Saw the muzzle flash.” Ripley’s words streamed in fast. “Shooter on the ridgeline, two hundred yards above the cabin.”
“Yep, a bullet hit my wing,” replied Colton. “Did you get hit?”
“Negative,” Ripley came back. “I’m at a safe altitude above you. I’m heading back to the airfield.”
“Copy that. Thanks for your help.” Colton leveled at four thousand feet and carved a wide orbit around the ridge. Yellow specks moved through the rocks below, too small to identify, too fast to track between glances at his instruments.
He needed to know what was going on down there. He turned up his ground radio. Chatter came through in fragments, and he tried to make sense of it.
Colton glimpsed motion through a gap in the smoke, yellow shirts cresting the ridgeline. He flew through a smoke column, then lost the ground entirely.
Cohen’s voice came over the ground frequency. “Rader. Put down the rifle. Law enforcement is right behind us.”
Dread corkscrewed through Colton’s gut. Without a visual, all he had was the radio. Shouting burst through the speaker. “On the ground! NOW!”
A lifetime passed before the next transmission.
Finally, Ryan radioed. “We have Zeb Rader, Davis. Tupa body-slammed him, then sat on him. We’ve got him trussed until the county officers get up here to take him.”
Colton exhaled. “Tanker One-Nine-Five, shooter’s in custody. Ridge is clear.”
“Copy that,” replied Ripley. “Just landed. Go get your girl, Davis.”
“She better be all right,” he muttered.
“From what I’ve heard so far about her, she will be,” said Ripley.
When Colton landed at the airfield, he killed the engines and climbed out. He hollered at the ground crew to check the wings and fuselage for bullet holes as he hopped into his pickup and sped toward Mount Haggin Road.
His pickup fishtailed around hairpin turns on the steep, winding road, throwing dust in its wake. What he’d find at that cabin, he didn’t know.
Only one thing mattered—getting there.