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It was a lazy morning. After the fish fry, so casually that Steve barely noticed the transition, TJ, Chutes, and Akbar began quizzing the new members of MHA.
Steve was in good as soon as they found out he’d been the lead jumper out of Sacramento. Everyone knew California was a hard post for a smokie—the entire southern half of the state was a tinderbox, and the northern half wasn’t all that much better. They also knew that you had to be crazy and passionate about the wildfire fight to work all the way up to leading the first stick.
Then it was Henderson and Beale who came under scrutiny, and no one seemed to want to mess with Emily Beale. By unspoken agreement, they focused on Mark.
Steve had sat through a hundred sessions like this one. On one side of the great divide, rookies who’
