Someone to Watch Over Me
The cab has the hum of wood dust and sweat that tickles my nose and I’m constantly fighting back a coughing fit. I need to go home. I’m four days past the end of my contract and it’s been two since I brought the last bottle of water up the switchbacks. Dispatch is ignoring me. Do they care if I’m even alive? I pick up my tablet and check the FireScout camera. It’s been green for the last 96 hours and the dish on the east catwalk beams the useless telemetry down to Truro. I doubt anyone is looking at it. No one but the bots, anyway. We’re a long way from green.
The wind swings from the northwest and I catch the scent of warm pine needles. And smoke. Below the turbine pad on the second switchback, the haze is a grey thumb pushing up through the balsam. It’s clean and deliberate, spaced just like the ones on Tuesday and Thursday.
I grab the Osborne Fire Finder and spin the brass sight ring until the crosshairs line up. Bearing: three-fifteen.
Ella Fitzgerald is crooning in my head and I hum along. It’s better than listening to the wind slap the guy wires. The dash radio bursts open with static and then a hard wet cough that buries the needle into the red.
“Copy, anyone on this channel, copy.”
I click the side button of the mic. “This is Nuttby. Who is this? You’re not supposed to be on this frequency.”
“Nuttby. Good. Okay. I need you to get eyes on the access road, second switchback below the turbine. I’m on foot. Boxed in.”
I pull the binocular strap over my head and move to the west facing glass. “I don’t know who you are.”
“Garrett. Garrett Boudreau. Doesn’t matter. Just… I need you to call this in.”
“Garrett.” The name tweaks something in the back of my mind, cold and dry. I pull at it like a nail from an old piece of birch. Nothing. Something, maybe. “Copy the position. Standby.” I move to the map table. “What do you mean, ‘boxed in’?”
“The fire’s crossed behind me. Wind came ‘round on me faster than it should’ve.” His breath is ragged and rattling. “I’ve read wind on this mountain longer than you’ve been alive, girl. Never seen it turn like this.”
I ignore the ‘girl’ thing but this guy is pissing me off. “How are you on that road at all?” My hand tightens its grip on the mic. “That’s turbine access. It’s gated.”
There’s just static for a beat, like it just dawned on him that the channel records everything. “I do maintenance up here. You know that gate’s a joke, right?”
I check the Fire Finder. Bearings don’t lie. He’s down in the slash, right where the old cut narrows.
“Remember Cape John,” the radio says. His tone softens, drops the tactical rhythm. “The second week. I had you on the ladder drill.”
“I did a lot of ladder drills that summer,” I say. “I don’t remember you specifically.” I remember him perfectly now. Hyper-masculine jerk.
“I trained you.” He sounds thrown, hurt even. I hear a sharp little hitch.
“You trained a lot of people, probably. Garrett. Look, I need you to focus. Is the fire moving toward you or away?”
“Toward. It’s coming up the cut behind me.” His voice hardens. “I put in thirteen years on towers like this one. Thirteen. And then it’s gone overnight, and you get the job back like it’s nothing, like none of that ever–”
“My dude, I’ve been stuck here well past my tour because nobody will pick up the phone.” I eye the clock on the bulkhead. “You want to talk about who got left standing where.”
“You know why they picked you, right? You made the Premier look good. First woman back on a tower.”
I don’t blink. “I’ve got fifteen seasons and a rating even you couldn’t pull off, Garrett. Try again.” I lean my forehead against the glass, the wood frame hot against my skin. “Also. Pick one. Either you made me, or they hired me to look good. Can’t have both. Whatever, dude.”
“That’s not… that’s not on me,” he stammers.
“How would you even know how long I’ve been out here?”
Empty static for a three-count. No wind, no breathing. Just dead carrier signal.
“The smoke Tuesday.” My voice drops into the quiet of the cab. “And Thursday. Spaced like that. That’s you, right?”
“Yes,” he says. The radio pops as he keys it hard. “You understand as much as anyone.” He swallows, dry and rasping. “You still do that thing. Humming. You did it back then too. Got that from me, you know. Gershwin.”
Is he watching me? Listening in? My throat goes dry and the tune stops like a rope snapped on a pulley. “I prefer Ella’s version. I didn’t know you were the music police.”
“Wasn’t really asking. Just wanted you to know.”
I pull the clipboard toward me and run the mental math on the truck, five miles of gravel, and the speed of a crown fire driven by thirty knots of northwesterly wind. By the time I’d get the engine turned over and clear the first three switchbacks, there’d be a wall of burning spruce right across the lower gate.
“I could drive down,” I needed to hear the absurdity of it out loud.
“Then drive it,” he snaps.
I lie. “It’s already crossed the road below you, Garrett. I get down there, neither of us are getting back up.”
Silence again. I can hear the roar in the background, like heavy canvas being ripped in two, over and over again.
“Pauline,” the speaker crackles. “Come on. Say something.”
“Copy your position.”
“That’s it? That’s… copy my position, and what?”
I don’t answer. I set the mic down on the map table next to the brass ring of the Osborne. I turn back to the window and watch the advance. His voice comes through the radio, tinny against the glass. Smoke climbs the ridge and the sky turns purple beyond the turbines.
I hum the first bar. Then stop and listen to the wind.
