Firewolf. Jenna Kernan

allowed to scramble up to the foredeck to tie off the lines and drop the buoy between the ship and the dock.

      Something stung her chest. She clawed at her bra.

      “Burning,” she cried.

      Dylan lifted, released the back fastening as she tugged it clear.

      “Metal heats up,” he shouted in her ear. “Buttons, rivets.”

      Underwire, she thought. The thing was so hot, like a brand against her flesh. She wondered if she had burned her skin. If she could just lift the edge of the cover and get some air. But he held it down with his forearms and legs. She reached for the shelter and he grabbed her wrist, forcing it to the hot, black earth.

      “I need to breathe!” she shouted.

      He said nothing. Just held her down along with the tinfoil roaster bag that was cooking them alive. It was an oven. Hotter than an oven. She pressed her face back in the dirt and tried to breathe through the fingers of her free hand. The rings were heating. She tugged at her captured hand. He resisted.

      “My rings. Burning!”

      He released her and she jerked off her silver, gold and platinum rings and pushed them away.

      Beams of red light shone down in narrow shafts through the cover. She glanced up. There were holes in the shelter. She pointed and felt him nod.

      “It will be all right,” he said. “It will still work.”

      Had the roaring decreased? She wasn’t sure.

      “How you doing?” he asked.

      She could hear him now. He wasn’t shouting.

      “I don’t want to die,” she whispered. The words came as a surprise to her. Yesterday there was nothing she’d wanted to do. Nowhere she’d wanted to go. And now she just wanted to see the sky again. Dive into cold water. Inhale the scent of peonies.

      “We’re both going to live.” He brushed his cheek against hers. “I’ll keep you safe, Meadow. It won’t get you.”

      She closed her eyes and struggled to control the ball of pain that tried to escape her throat as a sob. She failed. Here she had thought there was only a thin veil of foil between her and the fire. But it wasn’t so. Dylan stood between her and the flames. He protected her with his body and his promise, and she loved him for it.

      “How long do we have to stay in here?”

      He shifted, letting his hip slide to the ground, taking some of his weight from her. “A while. Have to be sure it’s past us.”

      “How will you know?”

      “The sound. The roar is fading. The heat and the color. It’s orange now. See?”

      She lifted her head to the pinholes and saw the light that had been pink and then red like the flashing light of a fire engine were now the orange of glowing coals. The sky shouldn’t be that color. Never, ever. She let her head fall back to the breathing hole.

      He stuck something against her face.

      “Drink,” he ordered.

      It was a tube. She put it in her mouth and swallowed. Water—hot, stale and welcome. She drank until he took the hose from her. How much water had she lost in this tinfoil tent?

      She marveled at him. In only minutes he had gathered from the truck exactly what they needed to survive.

      “How do you know all this? How do you have one of these things?” Hotshot, she remembered. Walking twenty miles to deploy, he’d said. She needed to get one of these Jiffy Pop thingies. “You fight wildfires,” she said, more to herself than to him.

      “Yes.”

      “Dylan?”

      “Hmm?”

      She wished she could look at him, see his handsome face, those dark eyes and the clean line of his jaw, but he was so close that his nose was pressed to her ear and he lay half across her.

      “Can you...talk to me? You know? Take my mind off...”

      “What about?”

      “Tell me about yourself.”

      “Well, I told you my name. I’m from the Turquoise Canyon Apache tribe. We are Tonto Apache. I live up there on the reservation between Antelope Lake and Darabee in the mountains.”

      His voice was like a song with a lyrical quality that calmed her. She felt the panic easing away as he continued.

      “If I met you there I would say to you, ‘Hello, I am Bear, born of Butterfly, and my father’s name is Jonathan Tehauno. My mother’s name is Dorothy Florez. They named me Dylan.’ It’s more important there to know your parents and clans. Your name comes after all that or sometimes not at all. So when I say, ‘Bear, born of Butterfly,’ you know my father’s clan is Bear and my mother’s clan is Butterfly.”

      “I live in Phoenix. I am Wrangler, born of Theron and Lupe. My mother’s name was Cortez.”

      He chuckled and she felt herself smile.

      “Tell me more.” She felt herself relaxing, her weary muscles twitching from the tension that now eased away into the hot earth.

      “I live in the community of Koun’nde in tribal housing. My friends make fun of me because my home has so many books.”

      She chuckled because she had stopped reading the minute she realized no one could make her do anything.

      “I own a truck, nearly, and have five horses in the community herd. Well, I did own a truck.” He sighed and then coughed. After a moment he kept talking, his breath cool against her face. “I like to ride. I’ve won some endurance races on horses and on foot. After high school, I joined the US Marines. I was honorably discharged after two tours. Decided not to reenlist. I missed home. It’s cool up on the mountain. Not like down here in Flagstaff or over in the Sandbox. That’s what we called Iraq.”

      His voice hummed in her ear, a deep, resonant song. She closed her watering eyes.

      “Let’s see. I’m a member of a medicine society, the Turquoise Guardians. We dance at festivals and perform ceremonies. I sing in a drum circle.”

      She didn’t know what any of that meant, but she wanted him to keep talking.

      “The people say I have a good voice.”

      Meadow agreed with that, though she had not heard him sing. She wanted to ask him, but it was so hard for her just to breathe, she didn’t have the heart.

      “I’ve been trying to get some of my friends to join me in August to go up to Rapid City for the Indian Relay Races. We’d need four good horses and a four-man team. One rider and each horse runs one mile with the same rider.”

      She tried to picture that, one man leaping from one horse to another.

      “I keep telling Jack that he was born to be a catcher and Ray and Carter could hold the mounts. I’d like to ride, but if they’re faster I’d let them go, instead. Only now Carter’s in witness protection. So we need a fourth. I suggested Carter’s brother Kurt. He’s smaller but strong. Jack said he’d think about it. Jack Bear Den is a detective on our tribal police. His brother Carter and my friend Ray Strong are hotshots. Turquoise Canyon Hotshots. That’s us. Kurt Bear Den is a paramedic with the air ambulance. I’ve been a hotshot since I came home but it’s only six months, the fire season. So I need more work. I was supposed to meet Cheney Williams.”

      Her eyes popped open. “I know him.”

      “You do?”

      “He works with my dad. He’s a financial guy for the documentaries. Contracts, I think. Something. I’m not really sure. He’s around a lot.” Meadow felt a rumble in Dylan’s chest, like a growl.

      “I was told that he’s an attorney in