Blaze Atop Swallow Hill Lookout by M. L. Buchman

Author:M. L. Buchman
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Buchman Bookworks, Inc.
Published: 2015-08-09T16:00:00+00:00

7

“Ten minutes,” Tyler sounded perfectly calm. Dangerously so.

Marta remembered a cross-country race. She and a top runner from Boise had been deep in the woods and way ahead of the pack. They’d run against each other before and Barb was a tough contender.

Then Barb had caught a foot on a high tree root and crashed to the ground. And she’d just sat there. Cheerful. Glad to chat and answer questions. But she hadn’t had a single thought for the race. No complaints while Marta had checked both her ankles which appeared fine. Barb hadn’t had any reaction even when she looked down at her broken wrist bent over backward. So decisive just a moment before, she appeared perfectly calm once injured.

Shock.

Tyler was in shock which meant it was up to her.

Hightailing it down the trail was no longer an option. She should have left twenty minutes ago; she checked her watch. Thirty minutes ago.

But at some moment very soon, Tyler was going to start feeling his broken ankle.

The cab wouldn’t do them any good, even if they could get up to it. And the shattered helo was no option at all.

“Tyler,” she cupped his chin and turned him to look at her. “Hang onto the helo, I have to check something out.”

He grumbled about trading soft-and-warm for hard-and-metal, but made the shift.

Marta crawled back into the cockpit and looked around, but couldn’t see it. It had to be here somewhere. She stuck her head back out.

“Where’s your emergency shelter?” The foil shelters were the tool of last resort and she knew the pilots had to fly with one.

“In the door pocket, pilot’s side,” he said it with enough clarity that she wondered if he really was in shock, or if he was just keeping a humorous façade up against the pain.

She looked back down into the tiny cabin. There was no pilot’s door, there was only granite and tufts of grass where it should be. Crawling back out of the cabin, she looked around, still no sign of it, though there was the debris trail that started near the tower and was scattered across a hundred yards of the slope, she didn’t see anything as large as a door.

The debris field continued past the helicopter and…

She moved as close as she dared to the edge of the cliff and looked down through the thickening smoke. Fifty yards below them there might have been a piece of helicopter big enough to be a door, but it was far out of their reach.

She had the one shelter on her belt. But as tempting as the idea of sharing a fire shelter with Tyler might be, it wouldn’t work. The shelter was designed to provide close protection for a single person. Maybe if they were both petite…but they weren’t.

“Story of my life,” she mumbled as she looked around the barren hilltop for other options.

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