Page 32 of Burnin' For You
She confirmed with the tower, waited for the go-ahead, and then throttled back to about 2000 rpm. She checked the directional gyro against the runway heading, then released the brake.
“Let’s go.”
The plane lurched ahead.
Gilly knew it seemed an anomaly to her parents—that she felt so comfortable at the yoke of a plane. Maybe it was simply the power of the airplane, the dichotomy of her smallness inside the powerful bird.
Or maybe she simply liked to think her fears hadn’t completely won.
Regardless, she loved the power of a plane as it hurtled down the runway. Her airspeed indicator registered fifty-five knots, and she eased back on the yoke, urging the plane into the air, pushing the plane up to seventy-five knots for the climb.
The plane tried to shimmy and she held it steady, her arms vibrating with the shudder of the crosswind.
Gilly kept the horizon even with the cowling until she reached a thousand feet, then turned into their heading, finishing the climb to five thousand.
Below, the Kootenai Mountains spread out in a glorious, rumpled, jagged array of gray rocky peaks, pine-green valleys, pockets of late-season snow, and falls that cascaded down to turquoise-blue glacial lakes. Rivers cut through canyons, over ledge rock, sometimes white-frothed, other times lazy.
And she soared above it all.
They cut northwest on a heading of three-three-eight, and she called it in to the tower.
Static, then their response. “Delta-Four-Three, please recycle your responder.”
She glanced at Cliff. “Check the transponder is set to Alt.”
“Roger.”
She toggled the radio. “Delta-Four-Three to ATC. Do you have my primary target?”
“That’s a negative, Delta-Four-Three.”
She glanced at Cliff. “Do you see me at all? Do you have a Mode C Readout?”
“Again, negative, Delta-Four-Three.”
“Recycling.” She retyped in her 1200 Squawk digits, then reached over, turned her Mode C to Standby, then back to ALT.
“I checked the antenna,” she said, mostly to herself.
“We’re over Yaak,” Cliff said. “Population two hundred forty-eight. Best fishing and hunting in the northwest.” He pointed to a peak maybe twenty miles away, and she could just make out a fire tower. “That’s the Garver Mountain Fire Tower.”
She buzzed by it to her right and caught sight of a thin trickle of smoke past the far ridge, a wispy column of gray that indicated the fire—which her team would neatly extinguish—was still fighting for life.
She’d find a nice flat, open area, drop them down below the flames.
“Delta-Four-Three, recycle your responder.”
“They still can’t see us,” Cliff said.
“Call in our position,” Gilly said as she angled over the ridge, toward the fire.
Flames spit up in a fifty-acre area—the call in must have come in just after the lightning strike or whatever caused the fire.
“I’ll go in back and start looking for a jump spot,” Cliff said. He took his map with him as he climbed into the back.
Gilly banked then came back to circle the area.
A good jump spot had to be within walking distance of the fire but not so close as to allow the wind to blow them into the turmoil.