Set Me Alight

by Leviathan, Bill

  “You've been doing well with the shelter building, Pete. It’s about time I showed you how to make a fire without a match.”

  “Shouldn't you be showing me how to put out fires, not how to start them?”

  “Cut out the sass, kid. I need you to find your tools now. You're going to need a relatively thin stick. Get one as straight as you can manage. You're also going to need a big, flat piece of wood, or at least something you can make flat with your hatchet. It’s important that you get something as dry as bone. Collect some dry grass and brush for the kindling as well, then get back to me.”

  The old man's instructions always got to me. It seemed simple enough, find two pieces of wood and some grass, and then bring them back. I couldn't help but think he meant something more than that. Every time I ended spending three times as much time as needed to perform the simplest of tasks he asked for. Screw it, I thought. I was going to get this task over with quickly and without any fuss. Right by our camp there was a stick, a piece of wood, and some dead grass. Done. All within a few steps from the camp.

  “Good job Pete. Now, take the stick, and on one end use your knife to scrap off the bark and whittle it down to a point. Don't worry too much about making it pretty and precise. Then, take the flat piece of wood and carve a notch or a long groove into it. With the notch, put the point of the stick in it, and rub it between your hands. Keep the kindling nearby to catch any embers. With the groove, put the kindling at one end of the groove, and then start scraping up and down the groove with the pointed stick. Do whatever method suites you. It doesn’t matter. The end result should be the same. It might take a while to get anything going.”

  Hours. I was at it for hours and hours and hours. My hands were blistered, and all I had accomplished was making my pieces of wood a slightly darker color of brown. ‘It might take a while.’ Thanks for the heads up Paul. He forgot to mention the constant thoughts of: “Why am I so inept? Have I become a new species that has devolved from Paleolithic man? How many boy scouts are out there right now laughing their asses off at the thought of someone with the audacity to call himself a 'man' who can't even start a fire without the use of man-made chemicals.” I gave up. I thought I wasn't made for all that survival crap. I just needed Paul to come over there and tell me what a pathetic little parasite I was. How I was never going to amount to anything in life. Once a bum, always a bum, no matter how many kind, benevolent souls like Paul and Jon tried and reach out to help me.

  “Having some trouble there, kid?”

  “You think?”

  “You're not going to like to hear this, but this is the 'hard' way to start a fire. It's the way you see it done in movies and TV shows, except they never show you the patience and determination required to get it to work. To be honest, it’s not a method I'd ever use unless I absolutely had to, or if I'm feeling particularly masochistic that day. There are a few, somewhat easier ways to do it.”

  “You’ve got to be kidding me. You're a God damned asshole, you know that Paul?”

  “At the very least you learned a valuable lesson in futility, kid. Now, do you want to learn any of the other methods I know?”

  “Yes, and right after that, show me how to kill an old man in his sleep without alerting him.”

  “The latter's fairly simple. We're in the middle of nowhere so just do whatever you want once I pass out for the night. Now, for the fire, if you're going to rely on friction to start a fire, I'd suggest using a bow.”

  “Go on, old man.”

  “You already have some of the tools you need. The flat piece of wood and the stick. Now what you need is a flexible stick about as long as your arm, some string or rope, and a small flat rock or another piece of wood, preferably not that dry.”

  “And what exactly am I to do with these items?”

  “Take the long, flexible stick, and tie the string to either end to make a crescent shaped bow. You can use one of your shoelaces for this if you want. Then, take the stick you were using earlier to start a fire and loop it through the string of the bow. Then set the pointed end of the stick in the notch you made before, and use the flat rock to push down on the top of the stick to put pressure down into the notch. Make a sawing motion with the bow to get the stick spinning in the notch. Soon enough, you'll get an ember, and then you'll have yourself a fire. Now hurry up, you've only got about an hour of daylight left. Fortunately for you I've been collecting firewood throughout the day, so just worry about starting one for us, ok?”

  “I'll do what I can, but don't expect much from me. I hope for both our sake's you have a backup plan for warmth tonight.”

  Maybe it was because my expectations were already so low, but using the bow was surprisingly not that soul-crushingly difficult. It wasn't exactly what my novice self would call 'easy', but it was better than spending hours jamming and ramming and rubbing a stick against another piece of wood to no end. Finally, I had accomplished something. I had a small little glowing ember that looked like it was about to go out.

  “Good job, kid. Now keep the ember alive! Blow on it, but gently. You need to give it some oxygen, but overdo it and all of that work will have been for nothing.”

  “At least the end result will be something I'm used to, then.”

  “Stop joking around, kid. Once that kindling is lit, get it over to the fire I built over there. Good, good, now keep fanning that fire and we can finally feel the cold from the day melt from our bones.”

  I wouldn't say it was 'warm' that night, but a sense of accomplishment, no matter how meager, can certainly go a long way to thawing the ice and aches from your body. It was the first time in as long as I could remember that I didn't wake up in the middle of the night shivering. Morning came, and I actually felt refreshed, not groggy, filled with regret, and endlessly spewing self-deprecating nonsense. I'd like to think this is how everyone else felt when they woke up, but from what I had seen, this feeling was relegated to freaks like Paul and those that can afford to live behind bricks and drink bottled water. I knew the feeling wouldn't last long, so I tried to relish it while I could.

  “Good morning, Pete. How ya feeling?”

  “Great, Paul. I've never felt better.”

  “Your tone seemed to lack that bite it normally has. Are you sure you're ok?”

  “Don't act so concerned. Yes, I actually do feel great. What's the plan for the day?”

  “Do you know how to fish?”

  “No.”

  “Are you willing to sit on your ass for a few hours with nothing to entertain you but watching the water ripple from the wind?”

  “Beats rubbing two sticks together all day.”

  “Good. I brought two poles, they're over there by my bag. Get them and meet me by the creek.”

  Either fishing really is that simple, or Paul was just as ignorant about it as I was. We just sat near the edge of the creek for a few hours. There were a few bites, but only Paul was able to reel a fish in. I only had two chances at it myself, and failed both times. No matter, I enjoyed myself enough just sitting in the sun.

  “Hey, Paul, I've never really asked you this before, but how long have you been in Montana?”

  “I've lived in this same town my whole life. A lot has changed over the years. Helena was never much, but it hasn't always been the depressing hell hole it you see it as today. I feel like it started going downhill ever since the mines opened.”

  “Didn't you say that your brother started up the mining operation?”

  “He didn't really 'start it up'. He was one of the original speculators who got the big companies to come in and start mining. He was smart, though. Before he told anyone what he thought was under the dirt, he started buying up huge lots of vacant, and at the time, extremely cheap, land.”

  “And then he sold it all to the mining companies for some fat stacks of cash.”

  “He did better than that. He sold the land for stakes in the mines and the companies. He bore none of their startup costs, and had a piece o
f all of their profits. It was getting disgusting how rich he was becoming.”

  “Are you still in touch with him? Or does he hole himself up in those McMansion communities like all of the other rich folk?”

  “He died several years ago. He had a bit of a falling out with the mining companies. He was still making money off them, but it seemed that as time went on they tried keeping him at arm's length. He was a mining engineer by education, so he was actually helping them plan out the mines at the beginning. Before he died, they wanted nothing to do with him. They even barred him from entering any of their facilities.”

  “Piss off the wrong people? Or did he just go crazy?”

  “A little of both, if I had to guess. He kept telling me he was 'onto something', but would never get specific. He mumble something about 'what they're doing to our water.' That was the closest I ever got to a full explanation. He didn't have a wife or kids or anything, so I inherited everything he had when he died. I don’t know what legal loophole the mining companies used, but they were able to seize all of the money he’d made off them. The only thing I got were boxes and boxes of documents he saved that are sitting in storage. I always figured I'd wait until I retire to go through them, see if I can piece together what exactly he was rambling about.”

  “Good luck with that. No one retires these days. Once you're unfit to perform your job, they start you digging a hole to lie down in.”

  “Hate to say it, but you're right.”

  We stayed out in those woods until spring was halfway over. I quickly lost my elated state, but I never sunk back down to where I was before. Paul was at least half right. It wasn't the hardest work of my life. I had certainly put in much more effort into my self-loathing and regret before, but it was still damn hard. I'd like to say I learned a lot, but I still didn't know shit about fighting a forest fire. I hoped that all that really mattered when you were caught in an arbor hellfire was the ability to construct a lean-to from branches and a fraying rope.

  Chapter 3

  The summer had started out slow. At least that was what Paul told me. It’s not like I had the slightest inkling of what was normal or not. According to Paul, twenty years ago I would have been going through what he called ‘Fire Science’ school. Learning about what exactly is happening at a chemical level when a fire is going and crap like that. You need a fuel, oxygen, and heat or something, what else was there for me to learn? Take away one and the fire should stop, right? If there was anything I was missing, it didn't seem like Paul or anyone else was trying to teach me, so I guess any of my future fuck ups in ‘Fire Science’ were on them. 'Them' being Paul, as no one else there knew a damned thing about anything. It always feels great to find someone to pass the blame to.

  Since Paul and I came back from our little Crusoe hovel, we had been focused on doing ‘preventative’ fire work. I thought it would be complicated, but all we were doing was clearing some trails. They're called ‘fire breaks’ or ‘fire lines’ according to Paul. At that point in the season, the ‘team’ we had there was all of five people. Paul, myself, and three vagabonds who couldn't tell fire from water. Makes me think that all the so called training Paul put me through was just an exercise in sadomasochism if those were the other guys who we were be working with.

  Anyway, thankfully we got quite a bit of help from the mining companies to make those fire breaks. They used them as dirt roads to haul their waste to and from sites. Most of the work was simple, just clearing off the already created trails. If it was just our team of five, it would take us centuries to complete. Thank God the mining companies had a bunch of brain-dead bodies they could throw at the work.

  There wasn’t a whole lot else we could do as far as preventative work was concerned. We didn't have the manpower or resources to have kept a controlled burn under control. The mining companies had an incentive to help us with the fire breaks, but they got nothing out of helping us light some underbrush on fire. Paul would often take me on me trips to inspect the water tanks. There were these giant steel water tanks sporadically placed throughout the wilderness. Most of them had begun to rust and leak, but Paul still insisted on following the proper protocol of inspecting and reporting on every single one. I think 80% of them failed our inspections. Last year Paul said it was at 78%. So, we did the work to inspect them and report on them, but never took any action to try and fix the situation. Not much more you could expect from government work. The best Paul had been able to do in the past years was haul up some empty oil drums and leave them open to collect rain water. Even he admitted they would be next to useless in the event of an actual fire, but it made him feel like he was doing something.

  “What’s the plan for today, Paul?”

  “We’re going to continue doing the one thing you love most in the world, Form #0289, Seasonal Inspection of Fire Prevention Water Tanks.”

  “The only form I’ll ever love is my death certificate.”

  “These are the moments you should cherish, kid. We get to go on a hike through the beautiful Montana wilderness, write down a few words and check a couple of boxes, and then go home. Worst part of the day is having to see the landscape ruined by a decrepit steel tank for a few brief moments. Though, if you like, we can join the miners in ripping up brush, digging up some dirt, and laying down gravel from sunrise to sunset.”

  “You know, Paul, I'm not always complaining. Believe it or not, I've changed somewhat since we first met.”

  “And, believe it or not, an old man like me can still have a sense of humor, albeit a rather lame one.”

  “Goes well with your lame body.”

  “Alright, enough of that. There's something I've been meaning to talk to you about for a while now, and since we have no one but each other to keep us company for the next few hours I figured I might as well bring it up. I've been going through my brother's stuff lately. All those boxes he left me.”

  “Yeah, find anything out yet?”

  “Not really. There's thousands of documents he left behind. 99% of which I can't make head or tail of. A lot of them seem like company ledgers. You know, what they spent their money on. I'm no accountant, and neither was my brother, so it beats me what he was doing hoarding all that.”

  “Anything else interesting?”

  “There's also a lot of safety reports for the mining sites. Those are a bit weird. There will be multiple reports for the same site, none of which say the same thing. One will say there were no safety concerns, one will say the equipment is all malfunctioning, another saying workers aren't looked after and monitored, and other such stuff like that. Some are signed by the site managers, some are not. Some of them aren't dated either, so it’s hard to tell if they're conflicting reports or just from different time periods.

  “There are also some mine output reports as well. It appears they have two separate reports for waste and what they're mining for. They seem to be mostly looking for metals, such as silver and copper and lead. That much I had already assumed. They seem to be looking for some other heavy metals as well. Stuff I didn't think was in these hills.”

  “Like what?”

  “I'm no expert, but the stuff they call 'rare earth' metals and minerals. The stuff they use in those fancy electronics.”

  “They're mining that stuff here? I thought that was all in China or Africa or whatever underdeveloped regions the corporations are all exploiting nowadays.”

  “I'm not sure to be honest. The output reports seem to be indicating the mines here aren't producing that much, if anything at all. The copper and silver mines still trickle, but nothing seems to be coming out of the rare earth stuff. Then again, I'm not sure if I'm exactly reading it correctly.”

  “So they're just continuing to mine this place without getting anything out of it? What's the point?”

  “I'm not sure. The waste reports don't make much sense either. They don't go into detail about what the waste was, just how much of it they were removing. They don't list any destinations either. It just
says it's being taken 'off-site'.”

  “Is that all he left you? A whole bunch of corporate documents and reports? What a nice inheritance to look forward to.”

  “There are also a bunch of personal notes he left. They're completely disorganized, though. Half of them are on scraps of paper. I have no idea how to reconcile them. Right now it’s just inane babbling to me. I'm trying to correlate all the notes together myself, but I’m not having much luck.”

  “Isn't that what one of the new guys, Jim, used to do before he got laid off? Correlated huge pieces of data? He called it 'data mining' or something similar.”

  “Yes, and I already talked to him about it. Unfortunately, he's only capable of doing it with software, and since everything I have is a hard-copy document, he isn't going to be much help, at least not in the foreseeable future. Plus, it’s not like any of us have access to computers or anything even if I did have this all electronically.”

  “You can never come out on top these days, I guess.”

  “Your pessimism grows on me a little more every day, kid. Soon enough I'll be talking about the inevitable slow death of the universe and the futile nature of human existence.”

  “I can't wait. We'll finally have something we can relate on, and we'll make sure to never talk to each other about it. Respect for each other's misery and all.”

  We finally arrived to the first water tank. Like most of the others, it was in shoddy condition. Rust had eaten holes through the tank, and a few animals seemed to have crawled inside to die. I like to think they made a conscious decision to crawl in there to meet their end. It’s a much nicer thought than what I presume is the reality of the situation. A little critter comes along merely looking for some shelter from the elements, or scavenging for food or something like that, only to get stuck inside with no hope of ever getting out. If the critter was lucky, a previous animal would have already died inside and spoiled the water, quickening their demise after drinking it. Otherwise, depending on the critter, they could be in there for a month before finally starving to death. What a way to go. Anyway, the tank was still somewhat useful. It was three quarters of the way full with water, most likely from whatever snow melted on top of it. Fortunate for us the holes were all on the top of the tank, so it wasn't leaking out too much. While Paul was performing a much more thorough inspection of the tank than I could care to do myself, I noticed what looked like smoke in the distance.