Chapter 24: It Did Not Go Over

We stood at the third turnout in the dark at four in the morning, and I had not known so many people would come.

The hotshots had parked their trucks along the shoulder with the lights off.

The fire chief stood at the front in his dress uniform, with the board chair beside him in a gray coat.

Melanie had come up with Biscuit, who wore a red bandana and sat on my foot.

My boss from the clinic had brought a thermos of coffee and a box of doughnuts.

She handed them out to the crew without a word.

Behind them, in a loose half circle, stood the neighbors from the old houses on the ridge.

They had lost their porches and their fences.

They had come anyway.

Kurt stood on my left.

He had his badge back on his chest and a clean fire shirt.

The reprimand was folded in his pocket, because he wanted to carry it up here.

The road had been scraped and graded and paved in three weeks.

Along its edges, in a neat line from the first switchback to the last, the crew had planted sunflower seed in the black soil.

Green shoots stood in the dark, an inch high.

"Lainey," the chief said, and cleared his throat. "I'm no good at speeches."

"You gave one at the gala. I heard it was long."

"It was long." He tried to smile. "Ma'am, the county has voted."

"Breckenridge Air's contract is gone, and the county has a new one."

"With who?"

"With you."

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