Chapter 6: The Line

I didn't scream.

Sophie did it for me, a long string of words that would've gotten her fired from any job but hotshot.

Then she grabbed my wrist.

"He doesn't light it if we're standing there. So we're standing there. And we're cutting a line in case we're not."

We bought six Pulaskis, four shovels, a chain saw file and every pair of leather gloves on the rack.

The clerk asked if we were digging a swimming pool.

"Grave," said Sophie, and he didn't ask again.

By one o'clock we were on the ridge, and Sophie was standing on the picnic table giving a speech.

"Fire goes uphill in the day," she told the crew. "But at night the wind comes down off the mountain."

"If he lights it at the cabins after dark, the wind takes it straight down the slope to the grove."

The cook nodded slowly.

The trapper took off his hat and put it back on.

"So we cut a line below the cabins," Sophie said. "Down to dirt. Three feet wide. Anything that burns up here stays up here."

"And the cabins?" the older sister asked.

Sophie didn't sugarcoat it.

"We'll save what we can."

Nobody argued.

They just went and got gloves.

Abel took a Pulaski off the pile and handed it to me, handle first.

I'd held one maybe twice in my life.

I swung it at the first clump of bunchgrass and nearly took off my own shin.

"Stop," he said.

He stepped behind me and put his hands over mine on the handle.

His chest was against my back. He was warm through two layers of flannel and he smelled like woodsmoke.

"Low hand stays put. Top hand slides. Let the weight drop. You're not mad at the grass."

"I'm mad at everything."

"Then pretend the grass is Stroud. But still let the weight drop."

I swung.

The blade bit clean into the dirt and turned it over.

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