Burn Season novel · Chapter 1 of 24
Chapter 1: The Midseason Reel
At the crew barbecue, a rookie's slideshow shows Walker kissing Kasey on the night Rory was on the Idaho fireline; she takes the Cinder Peak lookout and finds the Fairbanks envelope gone from her duffel.
The rookie's slideshow ran on the loft wall for forty smokejumpers and their families, and at minute nine my boyfriend kissed Kasey Shreve.
It was the midseason reel, the one the whole base watches every August over burgers and cheap beer.
I had come in late from the packing tables, still wearing my work gloves.
My duffel sat by the loft door.
In its side pocket was an envelope with an Alaska postmark that I hadn't shown anyone.
I was going to tell my boyfriend on Sunday, on my thirtieth birthday, when I could say it right.
Kasey had zipped that pocket shut for me an hour earlier, because I always left it hanging open.
She had also covered my Tuesday shift and brought me a cinnamon roll from town.
She was that kind of friend.
Then the screen showed a gravel lot behind a tavern, in a shaky clip.
Kasey stood with her back against his truck.
His hand was in her hair.
The corner of the clip was stamped: August 21, 11:48 PM.
On August 21 I was on a fireline in Idaho, swinging a Pulaski in the dark until my palms split.
I had called him from a ridge that night.
He had said, "Come home safe, Rory."
Nobody in the loft spoke.
A baby laughed near the grill.
The rookie lunged for the laptop, but the clip played all the way to the end.
Forty heads turned toward me.
My boyfriend, Walker Dunleavy, stood by the beer cooler with a paper plate in his hand.
He didn't say it was fake, and he didn't say it was old.
He just looked at me.
That morning he had kissed my forehead over the coffee and said, "Your birthday is going to be perfect. I made sure of it."
Bea Lindahl, who had jumped beside me for five seasons, took my elbow.
"Rory, look at me. You don't have to do anything right now."
Kasey was already crossing the floor with her eyes wet.
"Rory, I'm so sorry. Let me carry your bag out. You shouldn't drive like this."
"I'll carry it myself," I said.
I picked up my duffel.
Then I walked past all of them to the base manager, who was holding a plate of potato salad.
"I want the Cinder Peak lookout," I said.
He blinked at me.
"Nobody wants that one. The last three quit inside a week."
"Put my name on it. I'll go up tonight."
"MacLaren, if you step off the jump list now, the crew will talk."
"They're already talking."
He looked at the wall, where the reel had moved on to a picture of Moss's plane, and then back at me.
"The tower is eleven miles from the road," he said. "You'd be alone with Verna Hatch."
"Good."
So I took the lookout.
Walker caught me in the parking lot, at my truck.
"Rory, wait."
I didn't turn around.
"It happened," he said. "I'm not going to lie to you."
"I know. Forty people watched it."
"It was one night. August twenty-first. That's all I'm going to say, because anything else sounds like a reason."
I faced him.
His eyebrow scar was white against his skin, and his hands hung empty at his sides.
"You told me to come home safe," I said.
"I know."
"I was digging a firebreak in the dark, and I thought about you the whole time."
He took a step toward me.
"Don't follow me," I said.
"I'll be at the bottom of that mountain on Sunday," he said. "I'll be there every Sunday you let me."
"Then you'll be standing there alone."
I got in the truck and slammed the door.
I dropped the duffel on the seat beside me and unzipped the side pocket, because I wanted something of mine in my hands.
I wanted the envelope from Fairbanks, with my name typed on it, the one thing nobody here had touched.
I felt around in the pocket twice.
It was empty.
The envelope was gone.
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