Jason Lane's Arc

Chapter 3 of 4

Jason climbed the ranger tower an hour after midnight. The wind had turned. He swept his binoculars across the dark and saw what he feared — embers drifting east, toward the unburned line. The supervisor would arrive at dawn. He had until then to fix it or face a second disaster. He radioed the foreman. The crew came grumbling but came. At the eastern flank, a charred beam on a stone base marked where the old fire had once stopped — and where this one was now creeping close. Jason planted a flag beside it. "We hold here," he said. They staged the gear rack at the line, ropes and axes dusted with falling ash and frost. Jason worked beside them, digging a fresh break, soaking the brush, smothering each ember that jumped. His hands blistered inside his gloves. Nobody spoke. The foreman watched him swing and did not stop him. By gray dawn, the eastern line held. Black ground smoked behind them; green ground stretched ahead, untouched. Jason leaned on his shovel as headlights climbed the ridge road. The supervisor's truck. He had saved the line. Now he had to answer for it.