on what?”
He narrowed his eyes at the middle distance, feigning concentration, and pressed the earpiece into his ear, glad for a reason to tune out.
Not glad there was such a monstrous fire so early in the season, but he wanted to get at it. He was still on the team. If Treadwell went, he’d go too. His yellow badge was penance.
She finally took his silence for the hint it was and stopped prodding him for answers. There were plenty of other people to pester, and she didn’t know the report had long since ended and now he pretended to listen to dead air.
Treadwell began calling names again, dividing his group into three, and Beck found himself sorted to the bar, along with Autry, who was now busy introducing herself to the others in their team, making friends. Smiling. Showing her team spirit.
“Ellison’s not new,” he heard her say, calling his attention back to the newly formed subgroup. “He made it a couple years ago. But...uh... I guess he got stuck with us because he was late.”
Wrong.
“This is Alvarez, Finnegan, and Wyler.”
Still talking to him. No longer annoyed. She actually looked excited, a brightness in her eyes out of step with what was actually happening. Push-ups. Pull-ups. Sit-ups... Not exactly a party.
Treadwell called his name, saving him from making nice, and he stepped to the bar, pausing only long enough to deposit his radio on the ground and free his hands. The chief’s gaze wordlessly followed him and Beck said two words before reaching for the bar to pull himself up. “It’s bigger.”
A frown and a nod were his only acknowledgments, and Treadwell began to count as Beck got on with it. As soon as he’d passed the minimum number of pull-ups, he dropped down for sit-ups, then rolled to push-ups, stopping each time he’d passed the required amount, leaving himself room to “improve” as camp continued.
Treadwell’s arched brow? Beck shrugged a touch. “Conserving energy.”
His muscles buzzing, he pulled himself off the ground, retrieved his radio, then went for another drink so he could sit on the grass to watch the others work their way through as he listened.
Still no new reports to free him.
Autry had been in the middle of the five, but as he watched, she talked herself to the rear of the group.
She’d learn soon enough how to survive these days: go early, get it over with, don’t waste energy showing off. Take all opportunities to rest.
Or not. Maybe it was better for him if she kept doing whatever she was doing. If she finished too soon, she’d be there beside him, asking questions. Making a nuisance of herself with her newbie enthusiasm.
THE INSTANT THE call for more crews came over the radio, Beck sprang to his feet.
Finally. Time to get out of this. He headed for Treadwell, who stood with clipboard in hand, counting the reps of another rookie.
The chatter he’d expect from Autry had never come when she’d gotten done with her turn at the bar. Treadwell had stopped her from showing off by making her finish her reps when it became clear she had no idea what a reasonable number was. She’d been sitting on the grass, sulking, ever since, her formerly animated brow becoming a little ledge above her pretty green eyes.
Pretty?
He mentally shook himself. They were striking, an evergreen ring around a pale center. If anything, they were unusual and therefore compelling. Him fixating on eye color meant he needed to get out of there. Had spent too much time alone in the woods, lost in his own head.
Then again, no one lurked in the forest to constantly remind him of this nonsense about him undoing core tenets of his personality over a few short weeks. People went to years of therapy to change habits and outlooks acquired over a lifetime, and he had no interest in that either.
“Chief.” He interrupted the rookie doing push-ups with one word and a meaningful waggle of his radio, indicating the call had come.
Treadwell’s gaze narrowed and he nodded, but held up one hand in Beck’s direction and told the man on the ground he could stop.
He and Treadwell might not be on the same page on everything, but over the past two years the man had learned to interpret Beck’s admittedly spartan method of communication. Beck liked him for that. Liked him in general, really.
During his first year, back when it’d seemed he could do no wrong, he’d still had to actively work to be something like what they expected off duty. They’d accepted his tendency to go off on his own when he got a whiff of something during a fire. Let him come around to telling them whatever he’d concluded when he was certain.
He didn’t know where that sixth sense had gone, could only hope it had come back over the winter. Knowing how far he’d fallen in the chief’s esteem chafed.
After marking the rookie’s reps and still carrying his clipboard, Treadwell strode in Beck’s direction. The stout man was in his fifties, and probably as fit as when he’d joined. “What’s the call?”
“Us and two other units.” Beck nodded down the field to where the other groups were breaking up. “About a forty-five-minute flight. Kolinski said he’d pack our gear and hold the plane.”
Treadwell listened and nodded, but just when Beck thought he was going to turn around and give the grunts the afternoon off he said, “Not you.”
“It’s a big fire. You need me.”
“Not like this I don’t.”
The urge to argue burned his throat, but he clamped his teeth together. Not that he didn’t buck orders on occasion, but only when he had some measure of certainty he was right to do so. He wanted to argue that no one in the unit read fires like he did, but he simply wasn’t sure that was the case any longer. That was last year’s argument. Before his mistakes. Before he’d been trapped by the flames.
Treadwell handed him the clipboard. Accepting the transfer of the hard acrylic gave him a sensation somewhat like the first time he’d jumped from a plane. Plummeting. Ground that approached far too rapidly.
He stood straighter. Even without that one selling point, he was still as capable as anyone else. “You’re sure? I’m still boots on the ground.”
“Your boots are on whatever ground you see fit. This is the first day. Prove me wrong and we’ll talk.”
He wanted to, if he actually knew how to follow orders he knew were wrong. As annoying as the yellow badge might be, at least probation gave him more time to sort things out.
When Beck said nothing else, the chief turned to summon Autry with a wave.
She’d been watching—everyone in the group had been—and at the summons she popped out of her sulk and trotted right over.
“You two finish morning PT with the group,” Treadwell said, adding, “There’s a fire, and Ellison has already expended too much energy to give one hundred percent this morning, he doesn’t need to throw himself into the blaze at less than full capacity.”
Yes, he did. He needed that.
“I’m fine,” he argued finally, the prospect of minding rookies worse than simply sitting out a fight.
Treadwell shot him a hard look, one that Beck could also interpret. Punishment or probation, it didn’t matter, he was out of the game until this was done, and Treadwell was trying to save face on his behalf.
Beck would’ve gladly taken the ding to his pride if it would’ve gotten him back into the fray. Sitting around with a clipboard while his