Falling for the Playboy Pilot Chapter 1
GRAB YOUR COPY IN AMAZON KU Chapter OneDalton
The blue horizon stretched in front of me, full of endless possibilities. Flying always made my soul feel full. I could go anywhere, as long as my fuel lasted. But today’s flight wasn’t a joy ride. I was on the clock. No one could stop me from enjoying myself, though.
My plane’s engines roared, dulled slightly by the headphones covering my ears. I dropped the nose and took a small dive just for the thrill of it. The Rocky Mountains down below surged up to meet me as I plummeted, their jagged peaks still dusted with snow. There was nothing like free flight. If only I could experience it without a windshield and the frame of my trusty S-2 around me. I would be able to smell the air, fresh and clean and uncontaminated up this high.
Zach Bryan’s “Something in the Orange” pumped through my headphones. It wasn’t loud enough to drown out any messages from home base, but it provided a little mood music, making the flight perfect.
I banked slightly. While I was keeping an eye out for smoke, I was also taking a mental snapshot. It was an image I would sketch later, although I would never be able to capture the way the light danced on the ridges or the sheer drop-offs where rock had broken away and crashed down the side of the mountain. I had flown this stretch so many times I had it memorized for the most part, but there always seemed to be a little detail here and there that I hadn’t noticed before.
The gorge cut through the landscape like a scar. It was deep and narrow with the river at its base. I had been in that gorge more times than I could count. It was beautiful hiking as long as you knew what you were doing. The inexperienced person would be in danger. Flash floods were very real and the steep drop-offs could sneak up on a person. Add in the rockslides and it could be treacherous.
So far, we had saved the area from devastating fire, but eventually, it would happen. The beauty would be charred and I would have to find a new place to fish, camp, and hike for a while. That truth felt closer now than it had in recent years.
It was late May and we were promised an active fire season after a dry winter. Even Telluride felt the lack of snow, having a weak ski season. The whole area was a tinderbox waiting for a spark to set it ablaze.
I loved the silence and the beauty up here. My cabin was secluded, and when there was a big snowfall, I happily didn’t leave for weeks at a time. Unfortunately, I wasn’t going to be spending much time at home this summer.
I would be busy putting out fires. We would have thousands to put out over the next few months. A slow fire season didn’t exist, and guys on base had taken to calling it the Great White Buffalo. Every year continued to trend hotter, drier, and windier. It was a lethal combination.
I adjusted my grip on the yoke, feeling the familiar vibration of the engine against my palms, making me one with the machine. I should have been born with wings. I was a solo person in general and being in the S-2, a single-pilot plane used for firefighting, was perfect. I loved flying alone. I loved the quiet. The solitude. The sheer fucking beauty of it all. No one to answer to, no one to worry about. Just me and the sky. And if God decided it was my time to go, I’d go alone and not take anyone else down with me.
My eyes scanned the ground below, looking for the telltale signs of smoke. “I know you’re out here,” I said in a soft voice.
We had a smoke report from one of the fire lookouts. Sometimes it was nothing and sometimes a spark could turn into a forest fire that would burn thousands of acres of land. I had twelve-hundred gallons of water ready to drop if and when I saw the smoke.
When the call came in, I jumped at the chance to take the flight. We were just getting into the swing of things and I knew future flights would be me and another pilot. I hated having to deal with other people in my cockpit. They always had opinions.
And their opinions didn’t mean shit to me.
As I flew, my mind drifted to the old days. Not the real old days. My time in the Army was what I thought of as my first life. If a person really got nine lives, I was probably on round six or seven.
Flying a commercial airliner after my time in the Army had been a paycheck. A good one, really. But that was about all it had going for it. Three years in the cockpit of a Boeing 737, hauling screaming toddlers, bitchy women, and arrogant, entitled assholes was more than enough for me. Passengers could test a saint’s patience and I had never been a saint.
“Sir, my Coke is flat.”
“My seat won’t recline.”
“Can you ask the pilot to turn down the turbulence?”
I didn’t miss the politics that went with working in the business. Airlines all had a lot of rules. Wear this. Don’t say this. Smile. The boss is coming for an inspection. Your uniform isn’t pressed.
What I did miss was the women.
