Chapter One
06 June 9:32p Directory C:\*.*
It started last September, after the Fletcher Canyon Fire. The last
crews had been demobed, I had folded up our tent, the caterer did
a Last Supper thing, surf and turf at three o'clock in the afternoon.
We happy few. We band of brothers. We were all supposed to stand
up and sing Hail to Logistics. Going out I got stuck behind a U.S.
West communications rig, ate its dust for twenty miles with a rubber
stung of langouste stuck in my top molar, hit hardtop and
stopped off at the first place I came to: a dive in the middle of
nowhere. Log front, broken neon sign, cabins out back under the
pines, inside packed with groundpounders making up for lost time.
The road was lined with vehicles on both sides.
She was with a hotshot crew, four or five of them, in red T-shirts.
Red with a dragon that looked like a squirrel on the back. If every
other jerk in this business thinks he's got the Great American Novel
waiting up his ass, every tenth jerk thinks he's some kind of
Rembrandt. She wasn't wearing the artwork. She was wearing a
sleeveless undershirt and no bra. You could tell right off she was no
groupie. The undershirt was white cotton with tiny l ... read full excerpt from Smoke Eaters ebook
