Chapter 9
He’d walked away, and she hadn’t stopped him.
Reuben slammed his fist into the lockers. They shook under the power of his frustration.
“Hey, bro, take a step back.” Conner came into the room. He had a map tucked under his arm, and was holding his gear pack. He set the map on the bench, opened his locker.
“What are you doing?”
Conner glanced at him. “I’m gearing up. I figure if Gilly is flying over the crash site, I’ll jump from the Annie, connect with the team, see if I can give Pete and the guys a hand if the drop doesn’t slow the fire down. We’ll get them out on foot if we have to.”
Right.
Without a thought beyond Conner’s words, Reuben walked over, retrieved an extra jumpsuit from the surplus rack, grabbed a helmet, gloves, a letdown rope, and a chute pack, along with a fresh gear bag.
His hands shook, his entire body wanting to turn around, storm into the flight office, tell Gilly—
What? He’d already alerted the entire office to the fact that he loved her—what had possessed him to let that bit of information sneak out? He wanted to bang his head against the lockers, see if he could dislodge his stupidity.
The last thing she wanted was him stepping in to hover over her. And he knew that.
She was right—he did understand what drove her, and he should have seen that standing in her way would only get one of them hurt.
Stubborn woman. Her knee probably needed surgery. He knew without a doubt that it would also fail her when she needed strength to keep the plane on course as she drove through the super-heated canyon winds.
She couldn’t hold the course, but he could. He could work the foot pedals in tandem with her, help her with the yoke.
It’s up to me to bring them home.
No, it was up to them. He’d made promises, too.
He swallowed back a rise of nausea at just the thought of getting into a plane again—it rushed over him, and for a second he collapsed onto the bench.
“Rube, you okay? I’m not sure you should make this jump, pal. You’re looking pretty frayed. That head injury looks brutal.”
“I’m fine.”
Conner held up a hand, backed away. “Ho-kay—listen, no one would blame you if you didn’t want to go up in a plane so soon after—”
“And what would you do, Conner?” Reuben looked up at him. “Leave them to die? Let the fire run over them? I can’t let that happen again.”
Conner’s jaw tightened.
“You were there when Jock ran into the fire,” Reuben continued. “You heard them on the radio. Don’t tell me that memory doesn’t chew away at your gut all the time. Don’t tell me that you don’t wonder late at night if you did the right thing. Don’t tell me you don’t wish you could have gone back and done something—anything—differently. Stopped Jock, or maybe run after the team—”
“And died with them?” Conner’s voice cut through the torrent. “Because that’s what would have happened if we’d run back. If we hadn’t obeyed Jock and kept going, we would have been caught by the flames running uphill and died on that mountain. Do you wish you’d died with them? Is that what you’re saying?”
Reuben closed his eyes. “I just wish they hadn’t died.”
Conner blew out a breath. “We all do. But it doesn’t mean we go back, keep reliving it. Or blame ourselves. At the end of the day, we have to hold onto the fact that we can’t change the past. We have to just keep looking forward, toward hope.
Reuben winced, looked away. “I can’t do that.”
Conner slammed his locker. “Or won’t. I get it. It feels almost—well, wrong for us to not live with that pain. To move on, be forgiven, set free. But that’s now how God wants us to live. And if He’s the one offering, it seems to me we should take it.” He offered a wry smile. “Or try to, at least.”
Conner picked up his helmet, tucked it under his arm. “God’s not content to simply stand on the sidelines of our lives. But He isn’t going to force his way into our lives, either. So He waits, He works, He protects, and He never leaves us until we open our eyes to see Him saving our sorry, stubborn hides. He waits until we choose him.”
Choose him.
Reuben hadn’t exactly chosen God that day he walked off the ranch—in fact, he remembered making a pretty clear decision not to choose God.
No wonder he felt like God wasn’t on his side…he wasn’t on God’s side. And yet God had shown up to save him over and over and…
My dad always preaches that we have to believe God when He says He loves us and has a good plan for our lives. That’s how we get peace for today and bright hope for tomorrow, like the hymn says. But only if we trust in Him. Maybe it was time to trust God, let Him set Reuben free.
No more hanging onto regrets or his hurt or even his fears and letting them steal his tomorrows.
Letting them steal Gilly.
He didn’t want to make her choose—he wanted her to be free to have both worlds. Firefighting and dancing in his arms.
Conner picked up his pack, shouldered it. “It’s not our fault Jock and the crew died. I hate it as much as you do. But we aren’t responsible for their deaths, Rube. We did what we were supposed to do, and by God’s grace, we lived. We just have to do what we are called to do and let God take care of the rest.”
Just stand, do your part, and see the salvation of the Lord on your behalf.
Reuben shook his father’s voice from his head, too angry to hear his wisdom.
“And that means letting God protect Gilly.”
Only… what if…
Reuben grabbed his helmet. “I’ll meet you on the tarmac.”
Gilly was already out by the Annie doing her walk-through as a couple of hotshots filled the tanks with retardant.
Reuben watched her for a moment as she tested the new airplane struts then continued with the external check before turning to the fuel lines.
He had no doubt they’d be fully topped off before the plane left the ground.
He threw his gear into the empty cargo area of the plane beside two parachutes in the back of the tanker, probably left there from their previous run.
Then he climbed into the copilot’s seat. Put his hand on the yoke. Heard his father, teaching him to fly.
Just hold it steady, Reuben. Bring her home. Attaboy.
He lifted his hands off the yoke, swallowed down the rise of memory. Except maybe not such a bad memory, either.
Hold it steady. Bring her home.
“What are you doing here?” Gilly opened her door, was trying not to wince—yeah, he saw that—as she climbed into the cockpit.
“I’m your copilot,” he said in a tone that brooked no argument.
Apparently it worked, because she settled into her seat. “Don’t get sick on me.” She handed him a ringed binder.
He took it. “Preflight checklist?”
“Yes, please.”
He read it off, starting with the prop, then the doorstop and oil can, moving on to the avionics.
“Magneto switch off.”
“Check.”
“Flight controls free.”
Gilly moved the yoke, but when she went to move the pedals, Reuben added his own power.
She glanced over, and he drew his mouth into a tight line. “This is how it’s going to be, Gilly. You and me. No choices made here—just us, together.”
She stared at him a second longer, and suddenly, her eyes began to fill. She swallowed, looked down at the avionics panel. Wiped a quick hand across her cheek.
Oh, Gilly.
Reuben nearly reached out for her then, but Conner came up, threw his gear bag onto the floor of the plane, climbed in. He squatted on the bare cargo area, out of earshot.
“Thank you, Reuben,” Gilly said quietly.
And he couldn’t help it. “You got this, Hot Cake.”
She gave the tiniest of smiles, and he managed one of his own.
“Air system charging valve,” he said.
“Open.”
“Air pressure.”
“Check. Less than thirty.”
“Parking brake.”
“Set.”
But not for long, because they moved through the list, then through the engine start list.
“Clear!” Gilly started the props, and the AN2 rumbled to life with the tremor of power. The cockpit shuddered with a roar of noise, and Reuben fitted on his headset as Gilly started the Annie.
A warm-up test, which the AN2 passed, and Gilly hollered at Conner to buckle in.
Then they were taxiing down the runway, the plane shuddering over the blacktop. Reuben glanced out at the biplane wings. They bounced along, catching the wind, no damage evident.
They might just live through this. All of them.
They lifted into the sky, his hands on the yoke, fortifying Gilly’s grip, adding strength to the rudder controls.
She called into the tower as they hit one thousand feet, lifting to three thousand, then five.
The transponder was working just fine.
“We’ll be there in twenty minutes or less,” Gilly said, pushing the airspeed above regs.
Reuben had left his stomach on the tarmac—or what felt like it—but maybe that was a good thing.
No airsickness yet.
They flew north, a beeline to the fire, which he could make out easily from up here. A thundercloud of gray smoke rising from the carpet of green forest filled the entire horizon, a smudge against the blue, dissipating as it reached for the firmament.
They soared over Yaak, and he recognized the forest road 338 below and then the blackened run of the Brownie fire farther north.
Gilly pointed them west toward the dark cluster of billowing white-gray smoke caught in a valley between two peaks.
As they got closer, he noticed the smoke hovered above a layer of gauzy dark-gray smoke threaded in and around the treetops, lodgepole pines, and towering cottonwood. Now and again, a flame licked out from the depths, igniting a crown.
Thankfully, it hadn’t started a run across the treetops.
Even from here, however, Reuben could see how close it edged in to the crash site.
He got on the radio and called to Pete, and the team on the ground.
“Roger, we see you, Eight-Seven-Alpha-November,” Pete responded.
“What’s your position?”
“We’re on the creek bed, hiking toward Black Top.”
Reuben turned to Gilly. “Let’s get Conner out of here. He’ll drop down, hook up with Pete.”
“I’m going to drop him right on the crash site,” she said, her expression solemn. “I don’t know how fast that fire is moving—flame lengths look to be about thirty feet—so if the wind stirs it up, it could get to them before Pete does.”
Then she looked at him. “And what about you?”
He glanced at Conner, back to her. “I’m staying here.”
She met his eyes, her mouth tight, and he knew she wanted to argue.
Instead, she nodded quickly and started her descent into the canyon, her run along the creek bed to let Conner off.
They descended to three thousand feet, and Reuben spotted Pete and the two others hiking. They waved. Then he unbuckled and headed to the back. Conner had his chute pack and helmet on and was working his way to the door. Reuben hooked his static line into the safety bar then opened the door.
Just for a second, the plane drifted to one side with the rush of air. He held on, used to it, but it didn’t stop his stomach from jumping up, taking notice.
He leaned out and threw out a streamer. Watched the wind take it, send it east. It fluttered to the creek bed.
“Listen—” he yelled as Conner crouched in the door. “I know I should be jumping with you but—”
“I got this!” Conner shook his head, glanced at Gilly. “We all heard you back at HQ.”
Oh.
Conner grinned at him, as if to solidify his meaning.
Perfect. Gilly would be thrilled.
Reuben pointed to the landing zone. “Aim for the creek bed. The crash site is about a quarter mile upriver.” In fact, if he leaned out, he could probably spot it. Instead, he gave Conner a once-over, checking his gear, his helmet, his chute.
Then he tapped Conner on the shoulder, and Conner pushed out into the blue.
He’d strapped on a square chute for more maneuverability in the wind, and in moments it billowed out, a red patch of silk against the green forest below.
Reuben watched as Conner steered himself west, along the creek bed, apparently intending to drop at the foot of the waterfall into the arms of the crash site.
Reuben turned, searching for it, and as Gilly banked for her bombing run, he kept his eyes trained on the ground.
There—a patch of white, a flash of color against the forest.
Right about then, Conner disappeared into the trees.
Reuben closed the door, the roar instantly muted, and climbed back into the cockpit.
Conner’s voice entered his headset, confirming he’d touched down.
“Now it’s on us,” Gilly said, moving toward the smoke. “We’ll do a flyover, see where the head of the fire is, and then hit it crosswise, cutting it off.”
She descended lower, to fifteen hundred feet, the air turning bumpy. “I’m sorry for the rough ride, but I need a test run—to see how the currents affect the plane.”
His stomach had begun to revolt, but he swallowed it down. Closer now, he could see where the fire hadn’t yet consumed the forest and could make out the flames at the front edge, leading the assault. Less than a mile from the crash site, by his estimation.
And gaining ground fast.
“We have two loads,” Gilly said. “I’m going to start the run at the high edge of the canyon, then slip down into the saddle, drop the first load, and bank out to the southeast.”
He just hoped to hold on. But she needed more than him just holding on. He reached for the yoke, added pressure with the foot pedals.
Gilly always made flying a sort of aerial ballet, the plane moving as if an extension of her body, up and over the trees, along the ridge, dropping into the canyon along the wind currents, almost effortless. She made it seem, well, easy.
Unless he glanced at her, took in the set of her mouth, her whitened grip on the yoke.
They dropped into the canyon, the heat rising around them, and suddenly their ride turned to washboard as they bumped along the gusts and flares of the firestorm.
“Hold on!” Gilly shouted.
Oh yeah. It was a good thing he hadn’t eaten anything, because his gorge rose again. He tightened his grip on the yoke, following her lead, and fought with the pedals for control, shaking away the rising fear that they’d simply flip and nose down in a fiery ball, straight into the flames.
He couldn’t help, also, a glance out at the right wing, just to make sure the new rivets still held under all this jarring. They were shuddering, but maybe Gilly was right—Patrick wasn’t out to kill her.
Just Reuben and the other surviving smokejumpers from last year’s team—Pete and Conner.
She did exactly as she said—ran them along the leading edge of the fire. And just before they reached the head, she shouted, “Release!”
He’d already moved his hand onto the trigger, the button that would unleash a ton of slurry onto the fire. The syrupy, red liquid drifted out below them, dropping onto the flames, coating the trees, the bushes, the loamy, sizzling forest floor with a mixture of water, fertilizer, and clay.
White smoke sizzled up from the muted flames as Gilly banked and ascended out of the turbulence.
Once free, she came back around, surveying the damage.
“One more drop and we’ll have that head shunted. At least until the fire can regroup—and by then the PEAK Rescue team should be able to get in.”
She descended, heading again toward the far ridge, apparently for a repeat run.
“Young to Eight-Seven-Alpha-November, come in.”
Conner.
Reuben toggled the radio. “Eight-Seven-Alpha-November, copy, Young. Come in.”
“I’ve found them. They’re all alive—and Pete’s here. He’s already called in the PEAK chopper. Just keep that fire out of our back pockets. Come back.”
“Roger that. Over.”
He glanced at Gilly, offered a smile.
And that’s when he saw it. Something shiny and gray out of the left window, shooting across their airspace.
A bird—no—
Gilly let out an exclamation—more surprise than anger—banked hard to miss the projectile. Reuben slammed against the cockpit door.
“What was that?” Gilly leveled the plane, searching for the object.
But Reuben recognized it too well—although disbelief turned him cold.
“A drone,” Reuben said thinly. “It looks like the one Conner lost in the Cabinet Mountains a couple weeks ago.”
Gilly shot him a look, wide-eyed, her mouth gaping. “You’re kidding me—”
“Patrick’s a mechanic. He must have found the drone and patched it up. And then listened to our radio transmission.”
“And now he’s trying to crash us. So much for him not trying to kill me,” Gilly said.
Reuben’s mouth tightened. “No. I think he’s trying to kill me.”
She came around to start her run—undaunted as usual.
He spotted the drone again, this time aiming right for their cockpit. “Gilly!”
She turned, saw it, banked hard left, and dove.
The drone missed them by inches, but with the plane banking, the right wing made an excellent secondary target.
The drone’s impact shuddered the entire plane in an explosion of metal and chaos. The plane spun, inverted.
Gilly fought to right it, to roll them back.
Reuben slammed his hands into the cockpit ceiling, then grabbed the yoke.
“Foot pedals—Reuben, give me more right rudder!”
He also added heft to the yoke, and they managed to bring the plane back to trim.
But the wing shivered, and Reuben glanced out the window, searching for a tear in the rivets.
Yes. There, along the strut, weakened by the previous tear.
“We’re going to lose the right lower wing, Gilly.”
“Not before I drop this load.”
They hit the leading edge of the fire, plummeting toward the flames, and the entire aircraft shimmied in the air.
With a screech, the wing fractured, the lower panel breaking free of the strut, flopping .
“The entire wing is going to sheer off!”
“I’m almost there.” She was gritting her teeth, rattling in the seat as she gripped the yoke, pushing them toward the fire.
“Gilly—we have to jump—”
“No! Not before we drop this load. Then we’ll be lighter and—”
“Gilly!”
His voice turned her then, and she stared at him, her eyes wide, ferocious. “What?”
He cut his voice low, solid, piercing the rattle of the plane. “We go now, or we die.”
“And if we don’t drop this load, the team dies,” Gilly shouted. Although the first run had worked, the team would stand a better chance with another dump of slurry.
She glanced at him, and he stared at her, his mouth a tight line of disbelief. “Get out if you want,” she said then. “Just go—”
His eyes narrowed slightly, and he shook his head. “I can’t.”
Okay, she got it—they were over the fire. And too low. So she turned back. “We’ll drop the load, and I’ll get you up to three thousand, and then you can go.”
“I can’t without you.”
She frowned, his words reverberating through her, but she didn’t have time to argue.
Not with the gusts threatening to roll the plane, rip it apart.
“She’ll hold together, Rube! Trust me!”
She could taste the smoke in her mouth, her eyes burning as it invaded the cockpit.
“Fine—dump this load, and then let’s get out of here.”
“I need to get lower. If we drop now, it’ll dissipate and do nothing.”
His jaw tightened, but he didn’t argue, so she turned back in the seat, staring down at the smoke. The flames licked up through the treetops. The plane shook with the descent, and if she didn’t pull up, they’d simply arrow down into the blaze, causing another fireball.
She eased back on the yoke, fighting against the pressure of the damaged ailerons from the lower wing.
Next to her, Reuben worked with her, pulling the yoke back in tandem.
The AN2 threatened to shake apart as it surrendered. Her altimeter approached five hundred, and she could have leaned out and spit on the fire. “Ready?”
“Always,” he said.
Ho-kay. She trimmed it level— “Release!”
Again, the slurry fell, this time in thick blobs that dropped on the fire like paste. She could almost hear the blaze sizzling, choking, fighting for life.
Then she pulled back on the yoke once more, heading to the skies. One thousand feet, fifteen hundred.
And that’s when she heard it. The shudder of the lower wing finally losing it. It broke free of its mount and sheered away, dangling from the body of the plane.
Ripped free.
The plane yawed to the right and Reuben was on it, fighting the rudder to straighten it out.
Miraculously, they were still climbing.
But a horrible rush of wind behind Reuben’s seat suggested— No! Gilly looked and confirmed.
The lower wing had taken with it the mounted right wheel, tearing a hole in the fuselage. She could see flames, trees, smoke, and sky from the hole behind Reuben’s seat.
Which meant they weren’t landing.
Heat filled her eyes, but she kept climbing.
Because she didn’t know what else to do.
A hand on her arm—solid, a grip she knew—turned her.
“Get us to three thousand. Then, Gilly, we jump.”
She drew in a breath, shook her head. Turned back to the blue skies.
“Honey—listen. You’ll be fine.”
“I can’t, Rube—I—”
“Yeah, you can. Because you’ll be with me. I’m not going anywhere without you.” He unbuckled and, hooking himself to the overhead bar, made his way to the back. He returned at twenty-seven hundred feet with an empty harness, his own chute already attached.
“Put this on.” He climbed back into his seat, took the yoke.
She stared at it, back to him. “Where’s the chute?”
“I’m getting you out of here if I have to carry you, Hot Cake.”
Her eyes burned, probably from the smoke.
No. She couldn’t do this. Tears turned her world hazy.
Reuben leaned toward her. “I know you don’t want to hear this, but I think God sent me here to protect you. Because you’re right—He is on our side. And we’re getting off this plane, together, and alive.”
She looked at him then, and he held her gaze, he was exactly what she’d always known about him—solid, dependable. Strong.
I love you, Gilly.
The words he’d spoken at the base. Even though she didn’t deserve it.
“Okay,” she said, and reached for the harness.
She tugged it on while he topped off the plane at three thousand feet. What remained of the right wing had started to wobble, shake, and tremor its way free.
Probably they had seconds before they simply fell from the sky.
No autopilot on an AN2, but it didn’t matter. He motioned her to the back, and she tumbled into the body of the plane, nearly in the fetal position.
Reuben climbed back and grabbed the door.
For a moment Gilly thought it wouldn’t budge, mangled by the destruction of the wing. Then Reuben tore it away as if it were made of paste and fabric. Which, really, it was.
Then he climbed behind her, his big legs around hers, tucking her into his embrace. She felt him buckling her in, attaching herself to him, tandem.
The plane had started to lose altitude.
He plunked a helmet on her head and snapped the chin strap. “When we jump, keep your arms around yourself—I’ll do all the work. Just enjoy the ride.”
Enjoy throwing up, maybe.
But with the plane shimmying…
He moved them over to the door, one arm around her waist, the other on the edge of the door. “You tell me when,” he said.
She looked at him. “No—just push us out.”
“No! You have to do this, Gilly. It’s time for you to fly.”
Time to fly.
And with his legs around her, his body against her back, his arm around her waist, yeah, she could.
She glanced at the ground.
Then out at the pure blue sky with only tendrils of the suffocating fire, the vast, green-furred Cabinet Mountains spread out like a blanket.
Strength for today and bright hope for tomorrow.
The words slipped through her, ribboned around her heart.
Yes, Lord.
It was time to fly. She drew in a shuddering breath, put her hands on the door, and yelled her wits out as she pushed.
The wing separated from the plane. It tore off just as they left the edge, the metal screaming.
Then they were all falling. The wing, the plane suddenly nosing down, then over and over, rolling, its beautiful white belly up as it plummeted to earth.
Gilly hung from Reuben’s arms, her own suddenly flung out. She stared at the world below as she gulped in the cool, brisk air. The fire, simmering to the west, her poor Annie plummeting over a ridge, disappearing into the green.
Reuben tucked his arms around her, clasped his legs around hers and pulled the chute.
They arrowed up fast, and her breath caught as their fall arrested.
She looked up, watching as the square billowed out, a deep indigo against the ocean of blue.
And then they were floating.
Just soaring above the treetops. A quiet rush of wind filled her ears, but really just silence here, fifteen hundred feet above the earth.
Not silence. Peace.
Strapped to her parachute—actually, strapped to her, well, man—the fear drifted out of her chest like a slow exhale.
“What do you think?” Reuben asked, his deep voice against her helmet, in her ear.
“Breathtaking. Is this how it is every time?”
“Not every time,” he said. And then he took her hand and guided it to the parachute toggle. “You drive.”
She took the other toggle in her hand, and, just like in the simulator and how she’d learned on the platform, she steered them toward the creek bed.
A gust of wind blew them away from their destination, but Reuben’s hands went up to cup hers, right there to guide them back.
The crash came into view, her Twin Otter in pieces. She spotted Pete, Riley, Ned, and Tucker attending to Jed and CJ, strapping them to litters. Next to them, on the rocky bed, sat the red-and-blue PEAK chopper from Mercy Falls. An EMT crouched beside CJ.
“We’re not going to roll,” Reuben said as the ground came up to them. “Just land with me, I’ll cushion our fall. Don’t worry, I got you.”
She knew that. But the creek bed wasn’t a grassy field, and as she landed, pain speared up her leg and she cried out. But he did have her—his arm went around her waist as he pulled her on top of himself, landed beneath her.
Breaking her fall. She leaned back into his arms as the chute fell over them.
A silky blanket of blue.
She didn’t kick if off. Instead, as Reuben unhooked her, she pulled off her helmet. Then she turned in his arms, lifted his visor, and as he blinked in confusion, she kissed him.
An awkward, less-than-effective kiss, but he was all in, his arms closing around her, kissing her so sweetly, she knew…tangled up with Reuben Marshall was exactly where she was supposed to be.
She let him go and met his eyes.
“Wanna go again?” he said.
She raised an eyebrow.
“I meant the jumping part, but, yeah, I like how you think, Gilly Priest.”
She laughed, and then someone yanked the blue silk off of them, and she looked up at Pete, standing over them.
“Do you mind?” Gilly said. “We’re having a sort of private moment here.”
Pete frowned.
“Team meeting,” Reuben added and reached for the chute.
But they couldn’t stay wrapped up together on the ground with the team in need of help, so she pushed herself off of him. He helped her climb to her feet.
He braced his arm around her and helped her over to the team.
Their team.
Jed was white-faced but awake as the PEAK EMTs carried him to the chopper. Kate held his hand. Gilly watched as Reuben went up to them, grabbed Jed’s other hand, and leaned into a one-armed hug from Kate. “I told you I’d be back,” he said.
“I never doubted it.” She kissed his cheek then followed Jed into the chopper.
Reuben helped Gilly over to CJ, wrapped like a package in the litter, an IV attached to his arm. He was drifting in and out.
“We’re taking him to Kalispell Regional Medical Center if you want to follow us,” said the female EMT. Blonde, shapely even under her blue jumpsuit, she crouched to pick up one end of the litter.
“Hey, Jess, let me help with that.” Pete came running over.
They carried CJ to the chopper.
Hannah appeared pale but stronger than when Gilly had left her. “You okay?”
Hannah managed a smile. “Now we are. But you—you don’t look so good.”
Indeed. A glance at both of them suggested, well, a plane crash, a gunshot wound, a forest fire, and maybe something else.
A happy ending. Yes, that was the expression Gilly saw on Reuben’s face as he looked down at her, a spark of something in those brown eyes that had her thinking they should probably get back and cleaned up.
So she could put on the blue dress.