9
“Drew,” Julie said as they took a thirty-second hydration break from cutting a new fireline.
“Amos,” Natalie agreed before capping her bottle and reshouldering her Pulaski fire axe. Her muscles ached and zinged above the steady hum of pain that she’d come to identify with Day Four on a fire. She swallowed a couple of Tylenol with the last swirl of moisture in her mouth. In minutes, the smoke would make it achingly dry once again.
“Hotshots still?” she offered Julie when they shifted over to swamping branches—the arduous task of dragging clear the cuttings made by the sawyers. All of the burnable fuels had to be moved clear of the fireline and placed on the far side of the firebreak, which was thankfully downhill this time. Yesterday, it had to be cleared uphill over a hump. Absolute k
