Luiz needs muscles. It’ll help if he gets people with know-how. Stand by for directions to the site.”
Jack caught a strange look from Johnny. “Don’t look confused. Makes you look stupid. So, what are you going to do?”
“You have big wall rescue experience?”
“Long time ago. The fire! What are you going to do?”
Johnny shook it off. “We’re short-handed. Can’t do much.”
Jack looked around. “Taking us leaves seven. I’d check Grey Beard.”
“We need to shift to suppression,” Johnny said, sounding defeated. “What an idiot. I thought this was such a good idea. Good fire. Don’t overreact, I said.”
“I’d ask Grey Beard if he’s comfortable leading initial attack. If he’s not, ask Christy. She can do it. You might ask her anyway. She knows the country.”
“Is it fair to them to . . . ?”
“Johnny, you can’t worry now. You have to keep it together, make a change in plans, give ’em responsibility and the flexibility to make it work. Have confidence it will.”
He nodded.
“Go.”
Johnny backed away, and waved Christy over. “Stop firing, everyone,” he said into the radio. “Change in plans. Holding crews, stay put. Firers, come to my location.”
“Chastain, this is Dispatch.”
Jack sighed and keyed his radio. “Go ahead, Molly.”
“The rescue is off the rim of the Little River Canyon. Luiz thinks you’ll get there faster hiking in from Falcon’s Bluff Trailhead. It’s a three mile drive from your location, then a two mile hike. Luiz will use orange flagging to show you where to leave the trail. He and the rest of the team are en route. They’ll pick up Foss en route. They should get there before you do.”
“I copy.”
Christy stood waiting for the others to assemble. Jack slipped behind her and whispered, “Keep an eye out for Kelly. She threatened to drop by with cookies. I told her not to, but she’s got a mind of her own.”
“Women!”
“Tell me about it. Let her know about the rescue, but tell her not to worry. It’s grunt work. They need muscles. Someone to pull rope and lift the load.”
“Load?”
“Body or person rescued, plus the rescuer.”
“Cheery.”
“Yeah.”
The crew assembled around Johnny. Jack pulled back to listen as they made their plans. They would line the burn and hit the fire with direct attack on the eastern flank. None were happy about it. “Not much choice. That’s all you can do,” Johnny said in conclusion. “Good luck.”
In the distance, plumes of smoke rose in the hot, now still air. The afternoon hours were ahead. The fire would get active.
—·—
They parked at Falcon’s Bluff Trailhead, jumped out, and took off at a fast pace.
Jack fell behind, fighting to keep up with Johnny. It felt good not to be breathing smoke.
Johnny picked up his pace.
“Anxious to see Foss?” Jack asked.
He slowed. “No, just want to get done and back to the fire. Foss . . . that’ll be fun.”
“No, it won’t.”
On the backside of the plateau, they stopped, caught their breath and studied the downhill stretch of trail. It hugged vertical faces of cross-bedded sandstone. Switchbacks chipped out of rock descended through a layer of strata and disappeared beyond a bend. The trail would level off with some distance still to go. On the horizon, the rim on the other side of el Cañon de Fuego peeked over erosional remnants, hinting at what they knew lay ahead.
“What did that poor bastard get himself into?” Johnny muttered aloud.
“What did he get us into?”
They headed down, the rock jarring their bones, the slope pulling at their pace.
—·—
Luiz’s orange flagging hung on branches of Wood’s rose. It couldn’t be missed. They left the trail and thrashed through serviceberry and oak brush, following broken limbs left by others as they penetrated the thicket. Poor slobs—they’d been carrying full packs with heavy gear.
Johnny charged across the steepening slope, brush high above his head.
“Careful,” Jack said.
The thicket opened up.
“God,” Johnny gasped, and jumped back.
Jack grabbed his pack, steadying him. The wall across the canyon, beyond the void, faced them down. Never had it seemed so massive.
Perched between strata—sheer wall above them, sheer wall dropping away below—they stared out into the canyon. Faintly, from somewhere, came the distant sound of crashing waters. Jack stepped around Johnny, eyes to the ground. He weaved through boulders and talus, avoiding the distraction of the canyon. The drop was too sheer, too disorienting, the edge too close for mistakes.
They waded through another patch of serviceberry. Ahead were the others, in climbing helmets, green uniform jeans and T-shirts—except Foss, still in his yellow, nomex fire shirt. Perched on a slope twenty to thirty feet wide, one man worked near the edge, seemingly oblivious, fearlessly reaching around the trunk of a piñon pine. The others stood back, appearing full of trepidation.
The person at the edge turned—it was Luiz Archuleta. The law enforcement ranger, in T-shirt and minus his bullet proof vest and service belt, looked more lanky and muscular than usual. He sidestepped over to another piñon, stretched a piece of red webbing between it and the first, tied it in, then tested and tethering himself in with a runner clipped to his climbing harness. He turned to the others. “Listen up. No one, and I mean no one, steps past the red webbing without being tied in. Either to it, or another anchor. Got it?” He waited for head nods, then turned and gave a hard look at his new arrivals. “I need you two to put on climbing helmets.”
In a canvas bag they found the helmets. Jack pulled out a yellow one, slipped it on, and plopped down near the wall to wait.
He glanced at Foss, sitting twenty feet away.
The big man scowled. “Yeah, glad to see you, too.”
Jack ignored him, and watched as Luiz methodically chose what would be used for anchors. A ponderosa pine near the wall. A table-sized boulder just below it. An old piñon, off to the left. Pointing, Luiz directed others to put wraps of webbing around each.
With webbing double-wrapped and knotted
