“Lyle Smith,” Smitty said, shaking my hand.
Tyler pointed to the other one. “This is Taco.”
“Taco?” I asked. His red hair and freckled skin gave me no hint of a reason for the nickname.
“Clinton Tucker. My son is two. When he says our last name, it sounds like taco. Unfortunately, it stuck, but it’s not the worst nickname around here.”
“Does everyone have one? A nickname?” I asked.
Tyler shrugged. “Pretty much.”
“What’s yours?”
Smitty chuckled. “He has one, but no one is brave enough to say it to his face.”
“You’ll have to let me in on that,” I said with a smirk.
“No,” Tyler said. “He won’t.”
I jotted down their names. “Is it hard for you, Taco? Being away from your son for days or weeks at a time?”
“I guess. We don’t really know another way. It’s what I do,” Taco said, wiping his hands with a rag. “During fire season, it’s months at a time.”
“How long have you been a hotshot?”
“This is my fourth season in Colorado.”
I nodded and let them get back to their jobs, then stood in the corner to snap a few candids of them working.
“Over there is Watts … Randon Watson,” Tyler said, pausing while Watts waved with one hand, holding a mop in the other. “And that is our squad boss, Jubal Hill. Don’t let the silver hair throw you. He’s an animal.”
“Jubal?” I asked. “What’s his real name?”
Jubal dropped the broom and walked over, his light hair setting off his bronze skin and baby-blue eyes. He held out his hand. “Jubal Lee Hill. Nice to meet you.”
“Jubilee,” I repeated.
He looked down and laughed once. “It’s just Jubal. No nickname needed.”
“Nice to meet you,” I said. When he walked away, I documented him like I was paparazzi. He needed to be in a calendar, or working for Vogue in New York and wearing designer glasses and a suit, not pushing a broom in a garage.
“It’s okay,” Tyler said. “Every female who comes through here has a crush on Jubal.”
“He doesn’t act like it,” I said.
“That’s because he doesn’t know it.”
“Right.”
“Seriously. He’s loved the same woman his entire life. Since, like, the first grade or something. They got married right after high school, and … you should see them. They’re gross.”
“Gross?”
“Like newlyweds. They’ve been married thirty years.”
“That’s gross?”
“No,” Tyler said. “We just like to give ’em hell. I bet my parents would still be like that, too. It’s kind of cool to see. The rest of them are out.”
“How many are on your crew? And what do you mean by out? Hurt? Vacation? Out sick?”
Tyler chuckled. “Crews are typically twenty men and women.”
“Women?”
“Not very many, but the toughest hotshots I know are women.”
I smiled, letting my camera hang from the strap around my neck. “So where are the rest?”
Tyler led me to a group photo in a frame. “Like I said, in off-season, when we’re not fighting fires, we’re sometimes assigned other jobs like search and rescue or disaster response assistance. We’ll also work to meet resource goals on our home units. Some guys have other part-time jobs or just take unemployment and ski or travel or spend time with family.” He pointed to the faces I didn’t recognize. “Fish, the assistant superintendent. Sage, Bucky, and Slick are squad bosses like Jubal. Sugar. Cat. Scooter. Baggins. Jew. Sancho. Runt. Puddin’. Pup.”
I arched an eyebrow.
“I’ll get you a list of full names later.”
“Real names, please. What are resource goals?”
“Thinning, prescribed fire implementation, habitat improvement, trail construction projects … stuff like that. Sometimes we go to the schools and do … you know … Smokey Bear stuff.”
“Who has to dress up?” I asked.
Tyler made a face. “That’d be me.”
I snickered. “Thanks for that,” I said, scribbling on my notepad. “I’d like to get a picture of you in the suit at some point.” He frowned, and I nudged him. “You’re a peach for showing me around and an angel for taking me to see the superintendent.”
“A peach?”
“So, how many hours do you work on average?”
Tyler crossed his arms. “We’re doing this now?”
I looked up at him from my notepad. “Yeah?”
“It depends on if it’s fire season or downtime. If we’re fighting a fire, we just sleep, eat, and work. We can work up to eighteen-hour days, but working thirty-two hours a stretch isn’t uncommon. Up to fourteen-day stretches.”
“Holy shit,” I said under my breath.
“Used to be twenty-one. Then we get our required days off—a forty-eight hour R & R—and then we’re back out. We travel all over … wherever they need us. Even Alaska, Canada, and Mexico.”
“How long have you been doing this?”
“I’m a peach? Really?” he said, amused.
“Shut up and answer.”
“I can’t shut up and answer…” He trailed off, recoiling from my glare. “We’re on our third season. We were ground crew before that.”