Burn Season novel · Chapter 24 of 24

Chapter 24: Next Season

I told the manager yes on the second of October, and Walker didn't say a word for the rest of that morning.

In January we flew to Fairbanks and stood in the cold outside the Alaska base for one afternoon.

I shook the program officer's hand, and the next day I came home.

Then it was spring, and then it was June.

The first fire of the season came on the ninth, on a dry ridge above the Bitterroot.

The siren went off in the loft at noon.

I dropped my duffel by the door with the side pocket hanging open, the way it had always hung.

Nobody zipped it.

Bea thumped my shoulder as she went past, now squad leader of the bottom squad and loud about it.

"Try not to land on your own face, MacLaren."

"I never have."

"There's a first time for everything."

Moss was already warming the Twin Otter on the apron, with his cap on backward and his sunglasses pushed up.

"Who's calling the wind?" I asked him on the way up the ramp.

"New lookout."

"Who?"

He grinned through his beard.

"You'll like it."

We climbed out over the Bitterroot, and the door slid open on a blue morning so bright it hurt.

I sat on the bench with my helmet buckled and my line pack against my knees, and I watched the ridges come up.

Cinder Peak stood in the middle of them with its glass cab shining in the sun.

Walker sat in the spotter's seat by the door, with the streamers in his fist and his headset on.

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