She paused momentarily to wipe sweat from her forehead.
“Tara!” The voice was sharp and insistent.
“What?” Thinking it was Tupa, she moved in the direction where she’d last seen him. An enormous, burning stump bounced down the steep embankment, vibrating the ground. She spun around as it rocketed past where she’d been standing. It would have hit her had she not stepped out of the way.
One hand flew to the razor-sharp pain piercing her chest, caused by her thundering heart. The other hand cupped her mouth. “Tupa, thanks for the heads-up!” she called out.
No response.
She yelled louder. “Tupa!”
“Waters, he’s way up there,” Wolfgang peered over a boulder on her right, pointing.
She looked where he pointed. Tupa was quite a distance from her up the hill, back burning.
“Tupa, thanks for the heads-up on the stump,” she yelled again.
“What stump?”
“The one you just warned me about,” she shouted.
He shrugged. “Wasn’t me.”
“Wolfgang, did you call my name?”
“Nope,” he hollered back. “Good thing someone warned you though.”
Baffled, she shook her head and checked around her. Did she imagine it? She couldn’t have. Someone had called her name, so she’d get out of the way. But who?
Silva whistled and motioned the crew to group around him. “Weather’s deteriorating. Winds gusting from the northwest.” He stopped for a coughing spasm, then continued. “The ICC reassigned us to the right flank since we’ve prevented the fire from gumming up the highway. We’ll hike across the black and take our position on the right flank, before winds blow the fire in the opposite direction.”
He huddled with a topo map and his GPS tracker, then radioed for coordinates to manually input their new target position. The ICC computer still wasn’t feeding them into his tracker. GPS technology was great, and Tara thought how some people had a tough time letting go of their precious maps. She smiled. Jim Dolan was that way. He always said his map was right and the GPS was wrong.
Tara approached Schwartz, Wolfgang, Tupa and the women. “Did any of you call my name a bit ago?”
They shook their heads. “Hearing things?” teased Angela. “The wind out here plays tricks on your ears.”
Who had warned her?
She eyed the menacing sky. “Dad, if that was you…thanks.” She reached up with a shaky hand to rub her father’s lucky bandana and remembered Hudson had it. Her chest hollowed at her sudden vulnerability.
The radio squawked with latitude and longitude coordinates. Silva pulled out his small, weather-proof notebook and jotted down the numbers. He entered the data into his GPS tracker. “Okay, sports fans, we have our target location. Let’s go.” Another coughing spasm swallowed the last of his words.
Tara didn’t like the sound of that. Silva had been coughing steadily since lighting the back burns this morning. She figured he was just sensitive to smoke.
Aurora Crew filed out with Silva in the lead. Rego slipped to caboose position with the other radio. Tara positioned herself in front of Rego to listen to radio traffic, hoping to hear Ryan.
A flash of lightning and a sudden thunderclap made every head turn to the sky, as the crew humped up the mountain to cross several miles of black toward the right flank of the Shackelford Fire.
More than ever, Tara wished she had Dad’s good luck bandana.
Chapter 34
Ryan sprawled in a booth at Smokin’ Joe’s Alaskan Barbecue, while he and the other jumpers waited for a ride back to the Smokejumper Base in Fairbanks. Mel had flown the jump crew in the Bell 212 helo from the TAPS fire to the town of Delta Junction, where they now enjoyed a leisurely lunch in a cozy restaurant. An AFS bus was due to arrive soon.
Gunnar sat opposite him, gnawing on ribs and fries while watching a flat-screen, wall TV. “Hey, wolf boy, you’re on TV again.” He pointed his French fry at the screen.
Ryan chomped the last of his bison burger as he watched himself holding wolf pups on a Channel 2, Anchorage news broadcast, while Boone’s sister, the pretty Fairbanks reporter, interviewed him. The reporter ended with footage of herself and the frisky wolf pups enjoying their new home at the Wildlife Rescue facility.
“Look, you’re famous, bro.” Gunnar grinned at Ryan and looked around at the other jumpers in the restaurant, whistling and clapping after the wolf story ended.
“Ha, right.” Even though Ryan slept on the helo and on the short van ride to the restaurant, he dozed off when the broadcast ended.
Gunnar snapped his fingers. “Hey sleepyhead, your cell is charged.”
Ryan blinked his eyes open to Gunnar pointing at his phone. He’d plugged it into an outlet before they sat down. He yanked out the power cord and shoved it in his pack, then powered on his cell. A text message from Tara popped up and he tapped it.
Need to talk to you. Whatever you might hear about me, don’t believe it.
He texted her back:
No worries. We’ll talk after you demobe. Stay safe.
He tapped a fire emoji with a happy face and hit send. Who knew when she’d read it.
She obviously knew about Hudson’s rumors. Ryan tapped her number, then remembered Aurora Crew would be on the fireline now. Her voice mailbox was full. He made a mental note to tell her.
“Did Tara’s phone get your bat signal?” Gunnar munched a fry.
Ryan chuckled at the superhero reference. “Yeah. She texted not to believe what I hear.”
“Any idiot can get on social media and trash people with lies.”
“Especially when none of it is true. Hudson’s a demented, pathological liar. He wouldn’t know truth if it bit him in the ass.” Ryan swirled his coffee, frowning into his cup.
“I hope for both your sakes, none of it is.” Gunner balled up a napkin and dropped it on his plate.
Ryan gestured with his phone. “Not much I can do until I talk to her.”
“I beg to differ. We both know
