LITMIR.BIZ

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bank of portable phones, to call the park and let them know the crew was coming home.

      As he passed the Supply Tent, he caught sight of the line at the phones. Dozens of firefighters stood in the rain, waiting. What else was there to do? Jack took his place at the back of the line.

      Most of the firefighters were rain-soaked. Either they didn’t bring foul weather gear, or they didn’t mind the rain. A few were in nomex, but most were in wet T-shirts emblazoned with crew logos or commemorations of past fires they’d worked.

      Tammy Sams was at one of the phones. She was being admired by a young firefighter with a ‘long time from home’ look about him. The sight of Sams—rain soaked and blonde hair pulled back—wasn’t helping. Tuning out her admirers, Sams stood engrossed in the phone, a contented look about her. Probably talking to her honey.

      “Hey, boss.”

      Jack turned. “Johnny.”

      Johnny looked like a wet rat. Others from the crew fell into line behind him. “Hear they’re sending hotshots to Montana,” he said. “Gonna try to get us sent up there? We could go stompin’ around your ol’ haunts.”

      “No thanks.”

      “You could arrange for someone to drop into camp, come see you.” He raised a brow.

      “There’s no one there I need to see.”

      “I’m talking about a certain red-headed lady ranger? I hear she looks good in uniform. Awfully good.”

      “Is that so?”

      “Am I right?”

      “I don’t know.”

      “Looks better out of uniform, huh?” He laughed. “I know rangers like that.”

      “I don’t want to talk about it. Your sources are out of date.”

      Johnny’s mouth gaped open. He wiped the rain from his face. “You mean? Sorry, man.”

      “Long distance relationships. Hard to make ‘em work,” Jack grumbled, hoping the distortion of facts would get Johnny to leave him alone.

      “Hope you’re wrong, man. I’m in one myself. A lady at Organ Pipe.”

      Jack turned away. He couldn’t stomach another contented face. Jack put his attention on a firefighter from another park. “Frank, ready to go home?”

      “I guess.” He looked down.

      “How could you not be ready? After this past two weeks.”

      He tried to smile, but couldn’t muster much of one. “I guess I’m ready.”

      Jack realized his blunder, having forgotten what had happened in Frank’s park in the past year. The prescribed burn that got away. The dozens of homes burned, the hundreds of lives affected. People’s treasures, all of their possessions, and for some, their dreams—all lost. There was no point in seeming oblivious to it. “How are the people back at your park?” Jack asked.

      “Okay,” Frank said, the word paining him. “On the mend. Some people got moved.”

      “I heard.”

      “It’s still hard.” He looked like he wanted to stop talking, but something kept him going. “No one’s blaming us specifically…as individuals, that is. But it’s hard for those of us who live in the community. Especially, if we didn’t lose anything. It’s like, we feel guilty for coming out of it better than the people who lost everything.”

      “I understand.”

      “And the people who lost their jobs, in the end they were exonerated, but…they were good people, and...” He couldn’t finish.

      “I know.”

      Frank held his tongue.

      “It’s unfortunate what happened, Frank. It could have happened to any of us.”

      The words stirred a reaction. “That’s not what some people think!”

      “Well, they should.”

      “They don’t. I can tell.”

      “Frank, there are risks, and there may have been lessons learned at your expense, lessons that help the rest of us, but there are risks inherent to this line of work. Prescribed burns, fire suppression, managed wildland fires, they’re all risky, but we’ve got to do it. We all know that, and we lived that nightmare with you, because we’ve all done some things, for what we thought were the right reasons, and we’ve seen them go wrong.”

      “Maybe. But we’re the ones living it.”

      “You’re right. But we’re all Park Service. You’re not alone.”

      Frank nodded, but even to Jack the words sounded hollow.

      Frank turned away.

      Jack looked at Johnny and shrugged.

      “He’s not the same guy he was last year,” Johnny whispered.

      Frank Boyers drifted away from the line.

      “Didn’t mean to chase him off,” Jack said.

      “What’s with you? I’ve never seen you philosophical. So…” He paused, searching for a word.

      Jack frowned and looked away. “Don’t get used to it.”

      When Jack finally got his turn on the phone, he made one call, to Molly in the dispatch office at Piedras Coloradas. “We’re on our way home,” he told her. “I should be in the office tomorrow.”

      “We’re anxious to get you home, all of you,” Molly said. “And your desk, you should see it. It’s just piled high with papers.”

      “Burn em.”

      He ended the call and made his way back through the muck to the message board. Their demob orders were posted.

      — • —

      The chartered plane carrying three crews from New Mexico touched down in Albuquerque, and taxied to a darkened corner of the airport, far from the main terminal. At a hanger with doors open and lights flooding out onto the tarmac, the plane rolled to a stop. They deplaned and Jack gathered his crew together one last time. In the midst of red bags and fire tools, he passed out timesheets and commended the firefighters for their work. “Drive safely,” he said, to end it.

      Cheers erupted, mainly from new firefighters who had just survived their first big fire. A rite of passage, it seemed. The others, they understood.

      It was time for good-byes, and promises that they would all do it again when duty called.

      It had been a good crew. Possibly his last.

      — • —

      On the drive back to Piedras Coloradas, Jack sat on the passenger side and watched the road. Johnny drove. Miguel Vera and Christy Manion fell asleep in the back seat of the crew-cab truck as it rumbled down the road.

      As road flowed past, something reminded Jack of Frank Boyers. There are people in the world with bigger problems than yours, he told himself. Forget Montana.

      In some ways he knew he already had. There was comfort in the canyons of las Piedras Coloradas. They had taken him in. It was people he could not reconcile, even after a year. People had taken a public servant, and made him nothing more than a pawn to use in their own little games. Why would the people around Piedras Coloradas be any different?

      He forced his mind onto his work. There were things he needed to get back to. There was one project in particular. The fuel reduction and ecosystem restoration project up on the plateau, in an area where Mother Nature needed a little help. After decades of fire suppression, what were once open stands of ponderosa were now thickets, dense with young pines and oak brush. Fire could now climb easily off the ground into the canopies

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