Chapter 1
My heart dances with the leaping flames of the campfire.
Mom never cared much for poetry, said she had no use for it in what she faced every day, but the cadence of words speaks to me. Kind of stupid when you consider who I am and what I do. There is more to a soul than what others see.
The flames mesmerize me. I hold my hands over the flickering light and take a deep breath I close my eyes. We used to roast hot dogs over a fire in our backyard, just me and Mom, in fall when the stars were clear and close and the air was a blade in my throat.
The Navajo witch settles beside me. I'm not afraid, even though my breath sounds in my ears. Shrouded by wolf skins, he seems to grow bigger. People have told me there's no such thing as a skinwalker. They are wrong. The hair on the back of my neck rises, almost as if it's saluting the magic of the imposing figure. The heat he radiates is as bewitching as the flames.
The witch begins to chant and drops something into the fire. It flares into the black Arizona sky. Color rises deep in the smoke, and I peer closer, longing to grasp the power that thrums around me like an unseen drum. The Navajo witch focuses his dark eyes on me, and I straighten. I am worthy. Suffering produces character, and my suffering is exquisite, like the hottest flame.
"You are not ready," the witch says. "I see no pain in your face."
His low, guttural voice vibrates with power, a power I will have, no matter what it takes. Can he not see the suffering that screams inside me? Curling my hands into fists, I force my anger back to its cave and peer into the man's unblinking stare.
"I'm ready," I say in a steady voice.
He shakes his head. "Not yet. Becoming a skinwalker takes much discipline. Many years. It is not a weapon you can grasp in your hand like a bow or a gun."
"I know." Power fills me, a sense of destiny no one can steal from me. "I will do whatever it takes."
He finally nods. "I will set you a series of tasks to do, but it will take time. One day, your soul will change at your calling."
"Tell me what to do." My voice is hoarse as I lean forward.
Instead of answering, the witch bends and picks up a firebrand. The red-hot end is in his hand, but he doesn't seem to feel the heat. My respect rises like the smoke ascending above our heads. Someday I will own his power.
He holds out the brand. "If you take it, you'll know what to do."
He who hesitates is lost, and I'm about to be found. I grasp the flame in my hand. A cry rises in my chest as the pain sears my hand, and I know I am right. Fire is my calling.
"You're not pigged in." Tess Masterson raised her voice above the roar of the DC-3's engines. Cooper Johnston, known as Coop to the rest of the smokejumpers, looked back at her and nodded. He attached the pigtail of his restraining line to the clip, then took a firm grip on the cargo-door handles. As the team's spotter, he took responsibility for making sure they hit the target.
"Guard your reserves," Coop said as he opened the door.
The jumpers all put a protective hand on their spare chute. The sudden influx of air had been known to inflate a reserve parachute and sweep the hapless jumper out of the plane and to his death when the lines tangled. The rush of mountain air blew through the plane filled with smokejumpers and their gear. Tess peered past Coop. Below her was the jump target, a heavy pine forest atop Horse Mountain on the northern cusp of Hellsgate Wilderness. A wisp of smoke wafted up through the pine treetops. The trees parted around a clearing, and she could see a line of fire crackling toward a cabin. A man on a small tractor was plowing up the meadow in an effort to stop the blaze, an effort that showed he knew something about fighting wildfire. He needed help though, and fast.
Tess watched Coop throw out the drift streamers to determine how the air currents were moving. The faint scent of smoke came to her nose, and the odor revved her adrenaline. She shuffled as she checked her lines. It was unusual to have a fire this late in the season, and all the smokejumpers were ready for some R and R. She'd been looking forward to it too, until her sister's call.
"Ready to get home?" Buck Carter asked.
Tess frowned as she glanced up into her friend's face. A wilderness outfitter in his other life, Buck had been a rock for her during her training and on the subsequent missions they'd flown together. Behind her, the rest of the smokejumpers shuffled as they prepared to jump. Ten smokejumpers, a tightly-knit cadre of firefighters--all men with the exception of Tess and Allie Stinson--who had become a family to her.
"I still don't know what she wants," Tess said.
"You have to go," Buck told her.
He always did that, read her mind before she said a word. She often wondered why there were no romantic feelings between the two of them when they were so attuned.
"Want to place odds that she'll think of an excuse to back out?" Flint Montgomery said to Buck.
Buck's wolf dog, Spirit, sat at his feet. Tess rubbed the dog's head, and Spirit practically groveled. Intelligence shimmered in his yellow eyes. Flint and Tess were two of the few full-time Forest Service employees on the team. The rest worked at other jobs when their seasonal firefighting gigs were over. Some were with the Forest Service and others were employed by the Bureau of Land Management. Raised by his Apache mother when his cowboy father died, Flint was the quiet one of the group.
Buck grinned and nodded toward the door. "You're in the first stick out, second jumper," he said to Tess. "There's time to decide on the visit later. Let's go."
The firefighters jumped in twos, referred to as "sticks." Tess forced her tight facial muscles into what she hoped was a cheeky grin. She pulled on her helmet, snapped the chin strap, and pulled down the wire-mesh mask. Tugging on her Nomex gloves, she followed Allie to the open doorway. Her vision filled with the glory of the landscape's panorama. She could see the world moving by below in a kaleidoscope of umber earth and the vivid green pine tops. She prayed she would acquit herself respectably today. The other sticks lined up behind them. Five sticks in all, ten jumpers, and she had the luck to be in the first group out the door today. As one of only twenty-seven women among the more than four hundred smokejumpers in the country, the responsibility always rode heavy on her shoulders.
"Stay out of the water," Coop admonished. "We haven't had any drownings this year, and I'm not about to start now."
"Yes, Mom," Tess said, rolling her eyes at Allie.
About forty, Coop usually kept his golden mane of hair corralled in a band, and the crags and planes of his face added to his lionlike appearance. The tough, sinewy muscles under his bronzed skin were hard and taut. He pointed at the streamers. "Looks like there's about two hundred yards of drift."
Tess nodded and lowered herself to the floor, dangling her feet into the slipstream. The heat from the fire warmed her face.
"We missed the best exit point," Coop shouted at the pilot. "Circle around for another pass."
The plane banked and began to turn back. They had a few more minutes, but Tess stayed put. Allie joined her, irked at the delay.
"Sorry about mixing up our chutes today. Distracted, you know. I'll straighten it out on the ground."
"It's okay. You've been preoccupied."
"You got that right. I should have quit a long time ago."
"No!" Tess gripped her friend's hand. "You're the best jumper in the country. Think of all the lives you've saved!"
"And all but ruined my own." Allie pulled her hand away. "I gave up too much for this."
"Daryl won't be angry at you forever," Tess said, reading between the lines. "You'll be with him in time for dinner."
"I should have been with him yesterday. His mom died this morning, Tess. What am I doing here? I can't believe I let you talk me into one more jump."
Tess gave her a playful punch in the arm. "You'll get over it."
"Easy for you to say."
"Ready?" Coop shouted over the roar of the wind.
The women nodded. Coop slapped Allie on the back. From the corner of her eye past the wire cage of her helmet, Tess saw Allie lean forward and tumble from the plane. Coop slapped Tess hard on the shoulder. She propelled herself forward with all her strength.
As the roar of the wind rushed past her ears, she began to chant off the count. "Jump-thousand." The world and the sky blurred together as she tumbled through the air. At ninety miles an hour, the air rushed past her in a howl that blotted out other sound. It was like riding bareback on the fastest horse in the world.
"Look-thousand." She glanced back to see Flint tumble from the plane. "Reach-thousand." Her hand reached for the green rip cord. "Wait-thousand." Even though she'd jumped hundreds of times, she always had to resist the impulse to pull the cord now.
She glanced to her left. Allie still hadn't pulled her rip cord. Was something wrong? Tess's hand dropped away from her chute handle. She angled her body into a downward torpedo and dove toward Allie. The shriek of the wind intensified. Allie's arms and legs were splayed, slowing her descent. She kept jerking on the chute handle. She looked up, her mouth open in a scream Tess couldn't hear.
Tess hugged all appendages as close to the trunk of her body as she could. Just a little closer and maybe she could grab hold of Allie. She zipped past Allie, then stretched out her hands to slow herself. Allie's hand brushed hers, and their fingers caught. Moments later, Allie was hugging her.
"Pull!" Allie yelled.
Tess pulled hard and her hand snapped back to her side with the handle in it. She felt herself tip forward, and...
