36
“Hey there, Major. My, how the mighty have fallen.”
Steve wiped a hand across his face, trying to wake himself up. He lay facedown on a picnic table, one of the few amenities of this tiny, western Oregon airport. Skyport. Yeah, right. A rusting hanger and an office that was half garden shed. In the hangar crouched a pair of 1970s vintage Air Tractor 300 crop dusters and, in a dilapidated barn, a rusting Cessna 150 that would never again see the skies.
Now Skyport airfield sported the Firehawk, the two empty jump planes, three trucks of retardant, a fuel truck, and his trailer parked along the grass-and-gravel runway. It was almost sunrise and the other helos would start arriving soon.
On the table, the garishly red-and-white remains of last night’s buckets of chicken glared at him.
