Bronx (Western Smokejumpers #1) - Tess Oliver

1

"A song. Someone suggest a fucking song or I'm going to start singing "Who Let the Dogs Out" and this weekend when your hot babe is beneath you, moaning in pleasure and whispering your name, all you'll be hearing is that fucking song playing over and over again in your head."

"Ah come on, Angus, we're all too damn tired for one of your tantrums. Sing whatever the fuck you want. We've still got four miles to go before we reach the truck, and it's going to be a hundred and ten up here on this mountainside." Colin stomped his massive feet along the dirt path. The dry air and remaining wind kicked puffs of dust up with each of his heavy steps.

Colin, also known as Kaos because he loved trouble and trouble felt the same about him, was built like a medieval Highlander. Jane, our pilot, claimed the plane sighed with relief after Kaos jumped. After being brought up in a strict family with military parents, he was so fucking fearless, we'd actually considered changing his nickname to Beserker, after those monstrous, fearless Norse fighters, but after a litter of three stray kittens had been dumped on his front porch, the giant, unflappable guy got up three times a night to feed the tiny critters. All of us had a flood of kitten photos filling up our phones as Kaos sent daily pictures of the little buggers. No one with a photo album dedicated to three abandoned kittens could go by the name Beserker so Kaos it was.

Angus (no nickname needed when your name was fucking awesome) started singing Bob Seger's "Like a Rock". There was no denying the guy was a helluva singer. He could chime out "Born to Run" and you'd swear you were listening to Springsteen with E Street playing right behind him.

Angus sang with a band during the off season. The off season—a term that started to have less and less meaning in our line of work. Fire season started earlier and ended later with each passing year, leaving the beautiful west scarred and thirsty and desolate like the hundred plus acres we'd just left behind. We managed to cut the destruction short with our axes, chainsaws and hands, but we all knew, as we trudged along the dusty, hot hillside to our pickup location that we'd be parachuting to the next burning wilderness in a week's time.

"Wait up, Bronx," Kingston called from behind. We called him King because just like Angus, no need for a nickname when your parents did the right thing and handed you a fucking great name. Unfortunately, that was probably about the only thing King's parents did right. After two miscarriages, mom and pop Bristow had decided their only child was nothing short of a miracle. They decided Kingston, King, for short was an appropriate name.

When you had a hundred pound backpack slung over your shoulders on a steep trail, stopping and glancing back was not an option. I kept my focus on the trail in front of me. "Hurry up, granddad," I yelled back to King.

King caught up to me once the trail widened, although it was far from a trail. A brutal, endless drought had left the surrounding oaks and sagebrush dry and brittle, just hovering between life and death. The thirsty branches poked and grabbed at us as we traversed the uneven ground, leaving behind the first ever human footprints. Smokejumping allowed us to see and travel places that were beyond the edges of civilization. While some people spent their work week standing behind a check-out counter or in an office cubicle, our work place was nature, areas other people had never seen. That was why it was even harder to watch some of those untouched areas, once thick with trees, brush and animals, reduced to piles of ash. Long ago, it would have been considered part of the endless cycle of nature, but that was no longer the case and it was up to people like us, King, Angus, Kaos and Mixx, the fifth member of our team, to keep the destruction at a minimum. There was no room for failure in our job. A misstep meant loss of wilderness. A careless mistake could kill you, or worse, one of your mates. Out on the mountain, we watched each other's backs more than we watched our own.

"What are ya training for, a marathon?" King was slightly winded.

"Nope. Faster I get to the truck, the faster I can take