Hell. Here they went. What had she noticed? He hadn’t worn nail polish since starting the workout regimen with Garrick, was wearing strictly regulation clothing, and had every last strand of hair up inside his helmet. “Yeah?”
“Oh, nothing bad. Only that you love the tech. Anytime some new piece of equipment comes out, you get a shine to your eyes. I was thinking Bosler here could train you to be our backup radio person.”
“Yeah, I could do that.” Working the walkie-talkies and sat phones sounded awesome, especially because it meant that he might get to hear Garrick’s voice sooner than at the end of the day.
“Good. Bosler will show you the ropes.” O’Connor left him with Bosler, who started by showing him the variety of devices he was carrying. Bosler was retirement age, a former smoke jumper well versed in radio work and dispatch duties, who’d come back to do some hand crew and forest management work part-time.
“The key is keeping track of all the chatter, deciding what the boss needs to know right away and what can wait a second,” Bosler explained. “And also knowing who to call for what when the boss needs to get a message out in a hurry. The burn boss is setting up for ignition now, with senior hotshot crews in position as well as the hand crews that have been digging line all day. Dispatch will be waiting to hear that we’re ready.”
“Got it.”
“Well, go on then.” Bosler handed him the radio. “Tell Dispatch our status.”
Okay. Maybe this was weirder than he’d thought because he couldn’t exactly warn Garrick that it was him, and he didn’t particularly want to reveal their close friendship to Bosler right off.
“Headquarters? This is hand crew four-five-one reporting line is complete from anchor point to anchor point.”
“That’s good, four-five-one. We’re expecting ignition soon.” Garrick’s voice was warm, and if he recognized Rain, he wasn’t saying. It was nice, though, having him on the other end of the radio. Reassuring as the big blaze was about to head their way. This was a first for Rain, being this close to a wildfire, even an intentional one. As the blaze approached, another fire would be ignited inside the firelines they’d dug, both blazes hopefully meeting and burning each other out without crossing any fireline or causing hotspots to flare up outside the designated area. They would stay back while the burn occurred, letting more experienced personnel manage the containment of the blaze, but then they’d move in to clean up and look for hotspots.
Working with Bosler, he relayed more information to Garrick as needed, taking messages back to the boss as well. It was far more interesting than standing around and waiting for the action to get started. And it was kind of neat, working with Garrick in this way, listening to him juggle information incoming from various crews and make decisions alongside Ryland as to who needed to be where in advance of ignition and after the blaze was underway. It reminded him of town-hall-style meetings at the community growing up, lots of details and ideas flying around and the need to pay close attention to keep up. Too bad he didn’t have his knitting to keep him focused.
But what he did have was people counting on him, the crew chief and his fellow workers, and the time before ignition passed quicker now that he had a purpose. After all the hours of prep work and all the logistics that went into planning, the actual burn was over relatively quickly, a fact he marveled at much later when he was driving an exhausted Garrick back home.
“It was so fast.”
“The real deal is often even faster moving—whole towns gone in a matter of minutes. That’s fire. And that’s why we do the controlled burns, so we have some say in how and when it happens.”
“Yeah. You were great today. Hearing you...that was so cool. You’re good at this.”
“Eh. It’s just a summer job, you know?” Garrick didn’t seem to want the praise, but he really was good at the job, and Rain was sure he wasn’t the only one who had noticed.
It was late enough that Garrick’s dad had been enlisted to walk Cookie after he closed up at his shop, and his truck was still there when they pulled into Garrick’s drive.
“Heck,” Garrick muttered. “There goes my plan of asking if you wanted to shower here.”
“It’s okay,” Rain assured him as he exited the SUV.
“I’ve got that.” Garrick’s dad met him at the back of the SUV, removing the wheelchair before Rain could. To Garrick, he said, “Dog seemed lonely, so I stuck around, made you a chili for dinner.”
“Thanks. See you later, Rain.” Garrick sounded both grateful and tired, and Rain should have been glad he had his dad for help, but in actuality he was feeling a bit summarily dismissed. And he’d become rather used to being the one walking Cookie and fussing over Garrick, so much that he missed it. His grandma had a pan of vegetarian enchiladas waiting for him, though, so he couldn’t simply head to his room to sulk.