Page 57 of Falling for the Firefighter
"Check."
"Check."
Four voices respond in unison.
"Oxygen?"
"Four primary tanks, eight emergency backups."
"Medical?"
Williams pats her extensive kit. "Everything from bandages to burn treatment."
Mac nods, satisfied, then turns to me. "Navigation?"
I unroll my father's map across a flat rock, anchoring the corners with small stones. The paper crackles under my fingers, edges soft with age and handling. The faded lines detail a web of interconnecting passages, notations in his familiar handwriting marking air shafts, water sources, and potential danger zones.
Scout sits at attention beside me as I spread the map, her eyes tracking my finger as I trace the route. She's been through enough briefings to understand this ritual—the careful study of terrain, the marking of waypoints, the measured discussion of hazards.
Her ears swivel constantly, processing sounds from the tunnel that my human hearing can't detect. When I fold the map and secure it in my jacket, she rises smoothly, ready to lead us into whatever darkness awaits.
"Main tunnel runsnorthwest for approximately half a mile before branching." I trace the route with my finger; the pencil marks are still sharp, despite the years. "We take the eastern fork, follow it until we hit the old vertical shaft. There is a maintenance tunnel located there that cuts directly toward the campground area. Total distance is just under a mile."
"Underground hazards?" Mac studies the map with intense focus.
"Two sections with known structural weakness." I indicate the areas marked with my father's careful hatch marks. "And one low area that floods during heavy rain. Given the current conditions, that shouldn't be an issue."
Mac commits the route to memory, his eyes tracking each turn, each junction. Then he rolls the map carefully and hands it back to me.
"You lead, I'll follow." He says it simply, like it's the most natural arrangement in the world. "Your mountain, your tunnels."
The trust in those words hits harder than any praise he's ever given me.
"Let's move." I adjust my headlamp and step into the darkness.
Scout takes point immediately, her training overriding her discomfort with confined spaces. Her paws find purchase on loose stone with the sure-footed confidence of a dog bred for mountain work.
Every few steps, she pauses to scent the air, cataloging information I can't process—air currents, mineral deposits, thefaint traces of wildlife that occasionally use these passages. Her white-tipped tail moves in careful semaphore, signaling "all clear" as we descend into the mountain's heart.
Cold air rushes past my face, carrying the scent of mineral water and old timber. My boots crunch on loose gravel—a sound that echoes ahead and behind, creating a symphony of footsteps that seems to come from everywhere at once. The darkness beyond our headlamps feels alive, pressing against the thin cones of light like something with weight and intention.
"Temperature drop." Mac's voice comes from directly behind me, close enough that I feel his breath on my neck.
"Twenty degrees cooler than outside." I duck beneath a low-hanging beam, the wood so close it brushes my hair. "The mountain holds the winter down here. Stores it in stone."
Our lights reveal rough-hewn walls, chiseled by hand and time into something that feels more like a throat than a passage. Support beams arch overhead every ten feet—massive timbers that have turned silver-gray with age. Some sag slightly under the mountain's weight. Others stand straight as the day they were installed, defying decades of pressure.
Water drips somewhere ahead. The sound echoes off stone walls, creating a percussion that's both rhythmic and random.
Drip. Drip-drip. Drip.
My father used to say you could tell the mountain's mood by the sound of its water. Tonight, it sounds restless.
"Airflow's good." Rodriguez's voice carries an edge of relief. "Must connect to multiple surface points."
I feel it too—a subtle current that moves past us, carrying the scent of pine and smoke from the world above. Underneath that familiar smell lurks something else. Something older. The mountain's perfume of iron and quartz, limestone and time.
We continue deeper, the tunnel gradually widening as promised. The floor slopes gently downward, taking us intothe mountain's heart. I check landmarks against memory—a distinctive quartz vein running through the left wall, like frozen lightning, an alcove where miners once stored their tools, and the remains of an old ore cart track embedded in stone.
