Нора Робертс - Chasing Fire

“Libby’s holding up.”

“Who?”

Gull lifted his chin. “Your most recent bet.”

Dobie gritted his teeth as they started up yet another incline. “Day’s not over.”

By the time it was, Gull got his shower, his shave, and managed to grab a brew before falling facedown on his bunk.

Michael Little Bear snagged Rowan on her way into the gym. “I need you to take rookie training this morning. Cards was on it, but he’s puking up his guts in the john.”

“Hangover?”

“No. Stomach flu or something. I need you to run them on the playground. Okay?”

“Sure. I’m already on with Yangtree, on the slam-ulator. I can make a day eating rooks. How many do we have?”

“Twenty-five left, and they look pretty damn good. One beat the base record on the mile-and-a-half course. Nailed it in six-thirty-nine.”

“Fast feet. We’ll see how the rest of him does today.”

She knocked thirty minutes off her planned ninety in the gym. Taking the recruits over the obstacle course would make up for it, and meant she’d just skated out of a stint sewing personal gear bags in the manufacturing room.

Damn good deal, Rowan thought as she put on her boots.

She grabbed the paperwork, a clipboard, a water bottle and, fixing a blue ball cap on her head, headed outside.

Clouds had rolled in overnight and tucked the warm in nicely. Activity swarmed the base—runners on the track or the road, trucks off-loaded supplies, men and women crossed from building to building. A plane taxied out taking a group up for a preseason practice jump.

Long before the fire siren screamed, work demanded attention. Sewing, stuffing, disassembling equipment, training, packing chutes.

She started toward the training field, pausing when she crossed paths with Matt.

“What’re you on?” he asked her.

“Rook detail. Cards is down with some stomach deal. You?”

“I’m up this afternoon.” He glanced skyward as the jump plane rose into the air. “I’m in the loadmaster’s room this morning.” He smiled. “Want to trade?”

“Hmm, stuck inside loading supplies or out here torturing rookies? No deal.”

“Figured.”

She continued on, noting the trainees were starting to gather on the field. They’d come in from a week of camping and line work, and if they had any brains would’ve focused on getting a good night’s sleep.

Those who had would probably feel pretty fresh this morning.

She’d soon take care of that.

A few of them wandered the obstacle course, trying to get a gauge. Smart, she judged. Know your enemy. Voices and laughter carried on the air. Pumping themselves up—and that was smart, too.

The obstacle course was a bitch of the first order, and it was only the start of a long, brutal day. She checked her watch as she moved through the wooden platforms, took her place on the field.

She took a swig from her water bottle, then set it aside. And let out a long, shrill whistle. “Line up,” she called out. “I’m Rowan Tripp, your instructor on this morning’s cakewalk. Each of you will be required to complete this course before moving on to the next exercise. The campfire songs and roasted marshmallows of the last week are over. It’s time to get serious.”

She got a few moans, a few chuckles, some nervous glances as she sized up the group. Twenty-one men, four women, different sizes, shapes, colors, ages. Her job was to give them one purpose.

Work through the pain.

She consulted her clipboard, did roll call, checked off the names of those who’d made it this far. “I hear one of you rooks beat the base record on the mile-and-a-half. Who’s the flash?”

“Go, Gull!” somebody shouted, and she watched the little guy elbow bump the man next to him.

About six-two, she judged, dark hair clean and shaggy, cocky smile, easy stance. “Gull Curry,” he said. “I like to run.”

“Good for you. Speed won’t get you through the playground. Stretch out, recruits. I don’t want anybody crying about pulled muscles.”

They’d already formed a unit, she determined, and the smaller connections within it. Friendships, rivalries—both could be useful.

“Fifty push-ups,” she ordered, noting them down as they were completed.

“I’m going to lead you over this course, starting here.” She gestured at the low platform of horizontal squares, moved on to the steep steel walls they’d need to hurdle, the ropes they’d climb, hand over hand, the trampoline flips, the ramps.

“Every one of these obstacles simulates something you will face during a fire. Get one done, hit the next. Drop out? You’re done. Finish it, you might just be good enough to jump fire.”

“Not exactly Saint Crispin’s Day.”

“Who?” Dobie asked at Gull’s mutter.

He only shrugged, and figured by the sidelong glance the bombshell blonde sent him, she’d heard the remark.

“You, Fast Feet, take the lead. The rest of you, fall in behind him. Single file. If you fall, get your ass out of the way, pick up the rear for a second shot.”

She pulled a stopwatch out of her pocket. “Are you ready?”

The group shouted back, and Rowan hit the timer. “Go!”

Okay, Rowan thought, fast feet and nimble feet.

“Pick up those knees!” she shouted. “Let’s see some energy. For Christ’s sake, you look like a bunch of girls strolling in the park.”

“I am a girl!” a steely-eyed blonde shouted back, and made Rowan grin.

“Then pick up those knees. Pretend you’re giving one of these assholes a shot in the balls.”

She kept pace with Gull, jogging back as he raced for, charged up, then hurdled the first ramp.

Then the little guy surprised her by all but launching over it like a cannon.

They climbed, hurdled, crawled, clawed. L.B. was right, she decided. They were a damn good group.

She watched Gull execute the required flips and rolls on the tramp, heard the little guy—she needed to check his name—let out a wild yeehaw as he did the same.

Fast feet, she thought again, still in the lead, and damned if he didn’t go up the rope like a monkey on a vine.

The blonde had made up ground, but when she hit the rope, she not only stalled, but started to slip.

“Don’t you slide!” Rowan shouted it out, put a whiplash into it. “Don’t you slide, Barbie, goddamn it, and embarrass me. Do you want to start this mother over?”

“No. God, no.”

“Do you want to jump fire or go back home and shop for shoes?”

“Both!”

“Climb it.” Rowan saw the blood on the rope. A slide ripped the skin right off the palms, and the pain was huge. “Climb!”

She climbed, forty torturous feet.

“Get down, move on. Go! Go!”

She climbed down, and when she hurdled the next wall, left a bloodstain on the ramp.

But she did it. They all did, Rowan thought, and gave them a moment to wheeze, to moan, to rub out sore muscles.

“Not bad. Next time you have to climb a rope or scale a wall it might be because the wind shifted and fire just washed over your safe zone. You’ll want to do better than not bad. What’s your name—I’m a Girl Barbie?”

“Libby.” The blonde rested her bloody hands on her knees, palms up. “Libby Rydor.”

“Anybody who can climb up a rope when her hands are bleeding did better than not bad.” Rowan opened the first-aid kit. “Let’s fix them up. If anybody else got any boo-boos, tend to them, then head in, get your gear. Full gear,” she added, “for practice landings. You got thirty.”

Gull watched her apply salve to Libby’s palms, competently bandage them. She said something that made Libby—and those hands had to hurt—laugh.

She’d pushed the group through the course, hitting the right combination of callous insult and nagging. And she’d zeroed in on a few as they’d had trouble, found the right thing to say at the right time.