Only Her Smokejumper Firefighter - Cami Checketts Page 0,38

their feet, rocks they dislodged, and their heavy breathing.

How much longer could this canyon go?

The winds shifted. He could only pray the fire on the ridge stayed there and didn’t sweep down their canyon before they could escape. There was no fire below them, or they never would have entered this canyon, but a windy day could bring all sorts of horrific surprises to the fire ground.

He tried to call out on his radio and got no response. Stress had his head pounding. They had to make it to the ridge before the fire caught them. He glanced up, but the canyon walls were almost sheer cliffs and far too tall to scale. He wanted to curse his supervisor for instructing them to go through at this time of day, but they couldn’t change it now.

The minutes lagged on as he listened for his radio to crackle to life or fire to roar down the canyon. He kept his pace up and prayed for their safety but also that he wouldn’t kill Bruce before they made it through this assignment.

Ren felt it before he heard it: a rush of heat and a roar of flames, trees popping and exploding in the fire’s path. Ren instinctively knew it. The winds shifting had brought the fire to this canyon. The dry funnel they were in was filling with flames and their death was racing toward them.

His mind scrambled for ideas, but their only option was to deploy shelters and pray it swept over them quickly rather than roasting them alive.

“Deploy shelters,” he commanded and Jed passed the order down the line. It was reassuring that Jed agreed with the order, but unnerving also. Nobody wanted to live through a fire burning over their shelter, and some didn’t live through it.

Everyone obeyed, sensing the fire was coming and quick. Almost in unison, they tossed their hand tools and their backpacks, pulled out their shelters, and shook them open. As Ren was stepping into his, he glanced around to make sure everyone was in compliance and no one was freaking out and running. He knew how well-trained his crew was—they drilled on deploying shelters multiple times a year and he bought steak dinners for anyone who could deploy faster than him. But the harsh reality of actually needing the shelter to survive could flip the toughest of men. The wildland fire crew were unknown to him, and liabilities at this point.

Most of the men on both crews had already pulled the shelter over their heads, had dropped forward, and were lying facedown on the ground, where the air was cleanest and coolest. They looked like two dozen giant burritos or massive butterflies in cocoons lying there. Only one man was still upright.

Bruce’s gaze darted around the corner. It was easy to hear the fire was coming, but there wasn’t a visual yet. A fire coming down a canyon was slower than up the chute, but Bruce still would never survive if he tried to run.

He clutched his shelter in his hand, looked over his shoulder one more time, and took off running down the canyon.

“Stop!” Ren roared, holding tightly onto his own shelter as he raced after him. The stinking idiot. Nobody could outrun the blaze that was coming. Bruce would surely die. Ren considered for a millisecond simply letting him go, but his training and belief that every person mattered was too strong.

Ren sprinted after him, knowing he might’ve just signed his own death warrant. Visions of Mavyn filled his mind as he flew down the canyon in an all-out sprint. He could hear the fire approaching from behind. Finally, he caught up to Bruce who was racing down the rocky path at surprising speed. Ren leaped and tackled the man onto the canyon floor. He heard a snap and knew he’d broken the man’s leg against the protruding rock Ren had barely avoided landing on.

“No!” Bruce hollered. He elbowed him in the chin and Ren’s head snapped back.

“Get in your shelter or we both die,” Ren yelled at him.

The blaze was racing toward them now. Ren could see it moving almost as fast as an explosion. He shoved Bruce flat and pushed his shelter over him. The man would have to secure it or die. There was no time left.

Ren dodged behind a large boulder, hoping for extra protection. He shoved both feet in the bottom corners of his shelter and fell forward onto his face, trying to trap as much clean