Chapter 32
Colton
As Deanna’s transport plane banked south over the Missoula valley and disappeared, Colton stood at the fence until the engine drone dissolved into wind and meadow. He pocketed his hands and climbed into his pickup.
The drive to Bowman Airfield went by in a flash.
Harvey’s crew had finished Dash’s final post-season inspection, cowling sealed, slurry tanks flushed and drained.
The tanker looked like it had seen some serious shit.
Scuffs on the fuselage. Three patched bullet holes.
A new fuel filter housing that represented the difference between a mechanic who cared and a coffin.
Since Colton had to fly Dash to Helena for storage during the off-season, Harv had agreed to drive Colton’s truck there.
Colton ran through the preflight checklist one last time, fired the engines, and taxied toward the runway. The Dash lifted off clean, and he climbed into air scrubbed by the prolonged rain, the smoke finally gone from the valley.
Pointer’s King Air materialized off his right wing at five thousand feet, catching the afternoon sun. “Good afternoon, Sky King. Heard you’re ferrying to Helena.”
“You volunteering as my escort?”
“Someone’s got to make sure you don’t wander your ass into another box canyon.” Pointer carried the ease of a guy who’d earned every gray hair in his mustache. “Figured I’d tag along for a bit since I’m headed to Great Falls for the winter.”
“Appreciate the company, Bird Dog.”
They flew in tandem over the Deer Lodge valley, the two aircraft casting parallel shadows on the patchwork of ranch land and timber below.
Pointer held a loose formation, his King Air rocking gently in the thermals.
For ten minutes neither of them spoke, and the companionable hum of engines said what words couldn’t.
Then Pointer keyed the mic. “You know what I never told you?”
“That you’re buying me a case of Alaskan Amber? Because I’ve been meaning to bring that up,” answered Colton.
“Two cases, and you’re buying, after the stunt you pulled in that canyon.” Pointer paused. “What I never told you is, you’re the best tanker pilot I’ve flown with. Stubborn as a fence post, but the best.”
The compliment landed deep, because Pointer rarely handed out praise. He handed out headings, altitudes, and sarcasm. “Coming from you, I appreciate that. Thanks, Bird Dog.”
“Don’t let it go to your head. I said best, not smartest. The smart ones listen to their Bird Dog the first time.”
“Copy that.” Colton grinned out his windshield. “You’ll never let me live that one down, will you?”
“Have a relaxing winter, Sky King. Stay out of smoky ravines. See you in the spring.”
“Fly straight, Bird Dog. Later,” said Colton. “It’s an honor knowin’ you.”
The King Air peeled away to the north, toward Great Falls. Colton dipped his wings in farewell as the smaller aircraft shrank to a speck.
Colton banked northeast toward Helena, the Pintlers fading behind him.
The Copper Creek burn spread across the mountains like a dark handprint.
Thousands of acres of blackened timber slipped beneath his wings, ridgelines stripped bare and creek drainages dusted with ash.
From altitude, the burn looked like devastation.
But Colton knew what the view couldn’t reveal: the quiet acts of courage, the friendships that had forged under impossible conditions, and the love that had taken root in the ashes.
Crews would scatter back to their home bases, but none of the firefighters would leave the same as when they had arrived.
Every fire changes you.
The story wasn’t finished. In the lower drainages where the rain had pooled, new green shoots began poking up from the charred slopes.
Tiny, defiant, and unstoppable. Lupine, bunch grass, and lodgepole seedlings were the first to spring up, their cones cracked open by the heat that had destroyed their parents.
The forest was rebuilding itself from the inside, like people did when they stopped running from the wreckage and sifted through the ash.
Deanna was nearly three hundred miles away by now, flying toward McCall with Kylie, a transfer request taking root in her heart.
She’d arrived at this fire convinced she ruined everything she touched.
Instead, she’d rescued a trapped firefighter, saved her jump partner from a kidnapper, and earned the respect of the very people who’d written her off.
Regrowth after catastrophe. Both of us were like seedlings, finding the courage to grow again.
Helena’s runway appeared, and Colton descended the Dash smoothly, the landing gear kissing the asphalt as if the aircraft knew it had finally come home for the winter.
He taxied to Precision Aviation’s maintenance hangar and ran through the shutdown.
Engines off. Fuel valves closed. Electrical systems dark.
He sat in the cockpit for a long moment after the props stopped spinning. The instrument panel stared back at him. These gauges had kept him alive through smoke and wind and rifle fire. What a firefight.
All of it behind him now.
He gathered his gear and climbed out of the cockpit. When he hit the ground, he placed his palm on the fuselage. “You flew straight and true, Dash. Thanks for keeping me alive.”
Harvey stood beside his truck on the tarmac, thermos in one hand, rag in the other. “I’ll get her all buttoned up.” Harvey nodded toward the tanker. “She’ll be waitin’ for ya in the spring.”
“Thanks, Harvey. For all your help this season.”
“One more thing,” said Harvey. “Ace’s insurance claim cleared this morning. Full payout on the tanker, medical bills covered, the works. Marsh called me with the news.”
A knot between Colton’s shoulders loosened. Ace would fly a new tanker, and the medical debt wouldn’t bury him. Their employer would survive the winter. “Best news I’ve heard all season.”
“Second best.” Harvey squinted at him. “I hear your smokejumper’s transferring to Missoula.”
A crooked smile spread across Colton’s face. “Word travels fast.”
“Smaller world than you think, kid.” Harvey stuffed the rag into his pocket and headed for the hangar. “Give Athena the good oats. She’s earned them,” he called over his shoulder. “See you in the spring.”
“Wait, how did you know about Athena?” Colton called after him.
Harvey only waved and kept walking.
COLTON DROVE THROUGH the sunlit afternoon, the interstate unwinding through ranch land and river bottom. He passed the Butte exit, crossed the Divide, and kept going.
The Big Hole River at Wise River ran low and clear in the September light, the riffles catching the sun in stuttering flashes. Colton parked at the turnout he and his dad had used for thirty years and grabbed his rod from behind the seat.
He pulled on his waders, strung his line, and waded in. The chilly water gripped his legs through the neoprene, the current nudging them with a steady, familiar pressure. Upstream, a heron lifted off the bank and glided to a new perch.
The first cast laid the fly on a seam where the current split around a submerged boulder.
He let the line drift, mending once, twice, then stripped and cast again.
The peaceful rhythm emptied his mind the way nothing else could.
No intrusion from the outside world. Only the river, the rod, and the patience of waiting for what the water chose to give.
You’re thinkin’ about the fish. Think about the river.
His dad’s words, clear as the water flowing around his boots. Colton smiled. He’d spent fifteen years reading fire and wind, trusting instruments, making split-second calls at two hundred knots while lives hung in the balance. He’d built an entire career on reading conditions.
He’d never once turned that skill on himself.
Not until a certain smokejumper dropped into a meadow and disrupted his autopilot life.
Deanna helped him see what he’d been running away from; how his guilt about Mack’s death had calcified into his need for control.
Reeva’s betrayal had armored him so thick he’d blocked out caring for another woman.
A tug on the line snapped his attention to the present. The rod bowed under the strain as a cutthroat trout flashed bronze and crimson beneath the surface, the line singing through the guides.
Colton worked it close, a sixteen-incher, fat from a summer of feeding. He cradled the fish in the shallows, then opened his fingers and let it go.
The trout sculled in the current for a beat, then vanished into deeper water.
Colton fished until the light softened to amber and the canyon walls cast long shadows across the river. Then he waded ashore, broke down his rod, and drove home with the windows cracked, smelling of sage and river water.
HANK DAVIS OCCUPIED the porch rocker that evening when Colton pulled up, a beer balanced on the arm of the chair, his pointy-toed cowboy boots crossed on the railing. He’d driven the ten minutes from his house on the other side of the ranch to check on Colton’s horses.
“Catch anything?” his dad asked, eyeing the rod in Colton’s hand.
“Cutthroat. Sixteen inches. Released it.”
His dad took a pull on his beer. “Athena’s looking good. Belly’s filling out.”
Colton dropped into the chair beside him. In the corral, Athena nickered, and Spunky, the gelding, stood dozing at the fence, one ear twitching at flies. The September dusk gathered around them and the Rockies faded from amber to purple as the day surrendered.
“Deanna’s transferring to the Missoula base,” said Colton.
His dad stared off, taking another pull on his beer. He swallowed. “The smokejumper?”
“The smokejumper.”
Another pause, the knowing kind that lived between men who didn’t need to fill it with conversation. A coyote yipped on the far ridge, answered by another.
“Thing about horses,” his dad said, rocking slow. “The ones worth keeping never come when you chase ’em. They come when you just stand there, expecting nothing.” He took another sip, let it sit. “Same with most things worth having.”
“I think you’re right, Dad.”
“The thing about the right woman? Feels like home when you’re with her.” Hank downed the rest of his beer and let out a burp. “Son, I think home has dropped out of the sky for you.”
“I think it has, too.” At last, Colton knew where home was.
“Well, hell, about damn time. I look forward to meeting her.” His dad stood, set his beer can on the railing, and clapped Colton’s shoulder. “Feed Athena the good oats. And call your dad once in a damn while. You’d think I raised a stranger.”
“Will do, Dad.”
Hank’s old Chevy pickup rumbled down the gravel drive and disappeared. Colton sat and rocked for a bit, listening to the ranch welcome in the evening.
Inside, the house waited: Deanna’s coffee mug rested on the counter where she’d left it. Her boot prints marked the pine floor by the door, and a hair tie sat next to the bathroom sink. Small things, ordinary as breathing, and each one a reminder of her.
He took out his phone and scrolled to the photo he’d taken of the sketch on the kitchen table, a foaling stall twice the size of the others, an east-facing window penciled in.
He texted Deanna: Planning your horse’s nursery.
Her reply came before he’d set the phone down: Can’t wait to see it! Miss you.
Miss you, too, he texted, then pocketed the phone to let the evening have him.
As the sky deepened, the first stars appeared over the Highland Mountains south of Butte, bright and steady. These mountains stood as sentinels under the September starlight as they had for ages, long before Colton had ever flown above them.
While the horses nickered nearby, he inhaled the cool night air scented with juniper, sage, and freshly cut hay.
For fifteen years he’d built a life that could survive on its own: the ranch, the tankers, the rhythm of fire seasons and winters spent putting everything back together. It had been enough.
That is, until a woman with fierce resilience and a troubled past dropped from the sky into his world. She’d shown him that surviving and living took place at two different altitudes . . . and he’d been flying at the wrong one.
Everything he’d spent a lifetime searching for had been waiting for him all this time on the ground. And the best thing about falling in love?
It wasn’t the fall.
It was the landing.
Thank you for reading Montana Smoke!