When a Fire Burns Hot

by Corey Richard

  “Better put a fire line around them so that fire doesn’t spread, at least,” Frank said gravely before smiling.

  Scott smiled in acceptance of Frank’s comment, which encouraged Frank to continue. Scott let a pause develop in the conversation in order to give Frank a chance to chase the thoughts he appeared to be chasing. They both gazed into the standing remnants of the forest before them.

  Frank thought back to the conversation at hand and offered a rebuttal. “It seems to me that the minute we stop the battle to maintain a level of compassion, as we and others strive... we lose.” Frank took a deep breath and noticed that Scott was beaming at him. He didn’t continue his speech as intended.

  “Man! That was some pretty fine talkin’! Like the man at my church on Sundays,” Scott finally cajoled, still smiling. He had enjoyed hearing Frank’s naive ideas, so refreshingly full of hope. “Now, I ain’ sayin’ I agree with all that idealistic stuff, but I will say it had some sense to it.” Scott then looked serious once again. “I still gotta say that it’s a dream that enough people can be taught to be so compassionate like you say they can. I ain’ seen ‘nough to convince me a that. No, I jus’ don’ think I have such a faith in educatin’. It’s easy for you to say we could educate people about what we think is messed up. You got a little more say in this world. Me? Who’s gonna listen to another poor, homeless, stupid black man and care ‘bout what the hell he needs to teach the world? No... I still got hope, though, s’all I got to live on sometimes...”

  Scott, staring into the distance, began to glow as if a match had been struck within, startling Frank. “Sometimes I’m sittin’ under that bridge ready ta jus’ fuckin’ die... an’ I think, ‘Man, it’s just gotta change someday.’ But you know what’s gonna do it? When all us black folks say, ‘Fuck it! We had enough!’, and then draw a line. That’s when the real struggle begins... and I’ll be there for that. For now I’m watchin’ and waitin’. Watchin’ white people get weak in their hatred... an’ black people get more and more desperate by the minute. What I’d like to change with Todd and the young ones like ‘im is who the enemy is that they always fightin’... Turn the gun in the right direction for once. Start makin’ good on threats that mean somethin’. I won’ change at someone else’s fuckin’ expense, I’ll tell you that right now!”

  Frank was distraught. He felt as if his world would crumble if he found Scott’s stance acceptable, but at the same time he saw its allure. He tossed in a final desperate appeal, “Why wait for things to get worse? Why not try and change them now?... It’s worth a try, isn’t it? I mean, we all have the ability to change. That should give us hope, shouldn’t it?”

  “People’ve tried and it ain’ done me no good. I’ve had shit done to me you wouldn’ believe. The bottle is all that holds in my rage, sometimes.”

  Frank decided to change the tenor of the conversation, and seized the opportunity to learn more about Scott. “You never had a job or something that made you satisfied... gave your life meaning?”

  “Satisfied? I ain’t never been satisfied!” Scott studied Frank out of the corner of his eye and poked at a few exposed coals at his feet. He then softened his anger. He liked Frank, and didn’t want Frank to think that the anger was directed at him personally. He became impressed that Frank had kept his cool so far; not many soft white kids like him would have. “Yeah, talkin’ about those trees reminds me of when I worked for the city up in that Forest Park,” Scott said. “Tendin’ to them trees did give me some satisfaction. Kept the rage in. Helpin’ stuff grow gave me somethin’da live for for a while there.”

  “So why’dja quit?”

  “What made you think I quit?” Scott shot back at Frank.

  “Sorry, I guess I just assumed that you did. I know the trees didn’t die, and that you must’ve worked hard at a job you say you liked.” Frank hoped desperately that he had talked his way out of the hole he had stepped into. It felt good not to shrink in the face of aggression.

  “Exactly; you assumed I quit.” Scott smiled thinly to erase some of the tension. “No, that wadn’t it, my friend, they jus’ cut my job.”

  “That sucks.”

  “No shit... That was the last job I cared about. Frank, I tell you, I worked my ass off... Always on time an’ doin’ as much as I could in a day.” Scott paused and shook his head. “Yeah, there was another job ‘fore that I guess I liked. I was a painter for a little while. Hell, sometimes I did it for free if they was too poor. They just had to help out an’ buy the paint. I wanted a better job, but it was okay for a while, ya know? I got real satisfaction makin’ an ugly house all new-lookin’... Couldn’t fool myself for long, though.” Scott looked slightly despondent and stopped talking.

  Frank struggled to internalize all that had been said, forcing Scott’s words into his collection of facts and impressions. “So, what should we do about Todd?” Frank asked, hoping to pull Scott out of the melancholic state he seemed stuck in.

  “Unless you wanna change ‘im,” Scott began, eyeing Frank and smiling, “I figure we oughta try an’ move that thinkin’he’sbetter’ananyone-else, gonnaexplodeanyminute time bomb outta our fuckin’ way!” Scott’s face went from nearly jubilant to darkly pensive in a matter of seconds. “You know,” he continued, “back to talkin’ about trees, he’s like this tropical tree they planted at the park. It just shot up, thinkin’ it was still in the competitive jungle or somethin’. Sent out these weird lookin’ shoots that wrapped ‘round other trees, chokin’ ‘em as they grew up to the top. It was getting’ so topheavy it woulda fallen in a windstorm and taken others with it. I had to cut it down.”

  Scott looked at Frank and found himself warming instantly to the young man. Perhaps he had slammed his fist down a little too close and with a little more force than had been warranted, he thought. “Maybe you are different, my friend... maybe you are...” He slapped Frank on the knee, stood up, and walked away to relieve himself.

  Frank smiled at the compliment and congratulated himself. He felt that in his life, he had won the battle of trying to keep others in mind as he strove.

  Chapter 8

  “Everybody uuup!” Fast Horse’s voice boomed. The crew began to stir in the morning darkness. He called out, “Demobin’ today, so put any borrowed camp gear in a pile.”

  The bad news blasted the waking crew, leaving discontent in its wake.

  “Aw man... what the fuck?”

  “Demobing?”

  “Hey man, wake up. We’re demobin’!”

  “What the fuck! We just got here!”

  “After we eat, we’ll pack up our personal gear and head back to the station,” Fast Horse said. “Look, I don’t want to hear any shit about this. It’s simple, we’re demobin’ and we may get called out on another one before we even get back to the station. I don’t like it any more than you. So just get up and line out for breakfast.” Fast Horse wanted to quench the flames of discord before they grew, but he knew he couldn’t stop disappointment from stomping painfully over his firefighters.

  A few pairs of eyes wandered questioningly to Shroeder, and he nodded his head in affirmation, but then looked at Fast Horse with uncertainty and a trace of contempt.

  Frank and Scott sat up and looked at each other, befuddled. Both wondered if the order to demob had something to do with telling Fast Horse the night before about Todd and the tree incident. It did seem odd that they would’ve been given such an order before the day had even begun.

  “Why are we demobin’?” Todd asked, consumed by a mixture of fear, anger, and disappointment.

  “There’s no tellin’ for sure, somethin’ about too many crews. I got us on the top of the recall list, and that’s about all I can do.”

  “But...”

  “I said I don’t want to hear it, Todd!” Fast Horse said, with a glimmer of hostility that surprised the crew. “Everyone just go to breakfast.”

 
; Frank felt a deep and helpless loss; they were going home. He and the rest of the crew had hoped to be gone for weeks on this dispatch, but they had been out only two days. Something seemed amiss. It had to be too soon to demobilize people. Yesterday, the perimeter not yet been mopped up entirely. He feared that Fast Horse was hiding a bad report. Or perhaps a safety officer had seen Todd push that tree over. It was true that he hadn’t checked the cat line after the incident. The two Forest Service regulars could also have even seen the tree fall and said something. Or maybe one of the Mexicans had been caught stealing something. Frank thought deeper about his last supposition and scolded himself for leaving his mind unchecked.

  Frank trudged up the hill and looked back at the river. He had hoped to get to know it better. But he could always return, he decided; he might come back and catch some of those trout he had seen slapping at the water’s surface.

  While in the breakfast line, Frank passed the information board and saw that his crew, along with a couple of shot crews, likely in need of R and R, were alone on the demob list. After getting his food, he sat down at a table by himself, being one of the first of his crew to enter the tent. He looked at the other tables filled with boisterous firefighters and watched some of the crew bosses and squad bosses as they strutted by, radios strapped to their proud chests. He listened with increasing irritation to the “overhead team” seated nearby talk in rougher voices than they seemed accustomed to. Determiners of the unacknowledged firefighters’ fate. He noted that they appeared to prefer to use abbreviations instead of words whenever possible. He looked at his line uniform and compared it to the starched green uniform of the other team members. For the first time, his uniform seemed shabby and ill-fitting. These men and women had a right to be self-assured; they would be staying out there, in charge, while he was being sent home to wait to be invited back. The more he thought about it, the more he wanted to become a member of their coterie: Protected by a cocoon of mutual acceptance, spun with strands of each individual’s sense of importance. They would remain, clustered together like cowboys on the range, finding shelter enough in the company of their fellow men and women. He would soon be back on his parent’s couch again, alone, watching reruns.

  Finally, some of Frank’s own scorned class came stumbling into view. Squad Two stopped in the middle of the tent, trying to agree on a place to sit. Frank kept himself from laughing when he saw them bump into each other, suddenly appearing awkward and slightly ridiculous in his eyes for the first time. They finally gravitated towards Frank’s table and sat down, spreading out to claim it as their own to help alleviate their sudden bout of insecurity.

  As the rest of Squad Two grumbled to themselves, Randy turned to Frank and said, “Hey, what’s up, Frank?”

  Frank was startled that Randy had addressed him by name. It revealed that Randy was not as aloof, and perhaps not as arrogant, as Frank had initially supposed.

  “Not much, I’d say,” Frank replied, and immediately feared he hadn’t sounded tough enough to survive Randy’s strict scrutiny.

  “Drag we’re goin’ home huh?”

  “Yeah, sure the fuck is,” Frank responded.

  Both men searched for something more to say, but then quickly took cover behind the shields of their shyness. As Frank crunched more sugary cereal, Randy went back to listening with displeasure to his squad gripe.

  “What the fuck they expect? I’ve got a wife and kids bitchin’ to buy ‘em shit, and they send us home after two fuckin’ days! If you ask me, they know this crew ain’t shit,” Roy grumbled loudly.

  John, who was usually referred to as “the kid”, being much younger than the rest of Squad Two, had been listening with hidden anxiousness, trying to digest the nourishing words. He exalted in his position as a squad member alongside these men he had known and worshipped all his life. Back home, he never got a chance to be included on such a level with them; now, not only was he tolerated but, for reasons unknown to him, had actually been welcomed into their fold. Jim even knocked him on the head every once and a while when he said something clever. He looked on in admiration as his hero spoke.

  “It’s this crew, man. It’s the joke of the Forest Service.” Jim, again playing the caustic comedian, lowered his voice, easily concealing it amongst the other voices in the tent. “Nigs, spics, a chick, what the fuck do you expect?! It’s not a crew, it’s a goddamn zoo.”

  “Yeah, no shit! Fuckin’ Forest Circus.” George exclaimed, and laughed.

  Randy, who had grown increasing uncomfortable with the banter, finally spoke up. “Fuck! All you guys do is bitch about it, and it ain’t doin’ you no good. Just fuckin’ accept it. We have no choice if we want to fight fires this summer. I might not like it any better than you, but this crew can work out all right. You got somethin’ better waitin’ for you, then go ahead, take it.”

  John’s face registered confusion and a little surprise, as if he had just noticed a fissure in what had seemed like a stalwart castle wall. He didn’t understand what it was that had made Randy say what he had said, but he felt that for some reason he needed to understand, as if something important was at stake.

  Frank was impressed at the courage Randy had exhibited in standing up to the entire group without flinching. Randy’s ability to do that must have been part of what made him a leader, he decided.

  Squad Two’s members looked dumbfounded, unsure of what to say next as they stared at Randy. Jim finally broke the tension. “What’s up with you? Doin’ that Alice chick or somethin’?”

  “Naw, one of de Mexicans promised to geev heeem heez seester.” George giggled at his own joke, and was soon joined by the others.

  Randy remained silent a moment longer than the rest, before cracking a slanted smile and pushing out a laugh of his own. His brief exhibition of courage was over. These men were his partners, and he accepted that as much now as ever. He’d known them all his life; they’d worked together, drunk together, and fought together. Without them, he was lost. He had never questioned that they were special and unlike any he would ever know. They did things he didn’t like or agree with, sometimes horrible things, but guys always did these sorts of things, he figured, and guessed that the men felt the sting of regret even when they didn’t say so aloud. Before the laughter died, Randy finally said, “Fuck, it is kind of a strange crew, huh?”

  ***

  Meanwhile, the embryonic fire in Devil’s Gulch, lying under the shattered tree, had survived the damper night air. Morning found it nestled in its bed of dry needles, being nourished by small bits of organic debris and growing steadily in size. A first sliver of sunlight crept slowly across the uneven ground in its direction; the instant the rays met the embers and preheated needles, small flames wriggled up several inches above the nest, stretching in a desperate search for more food. In their persistence, they managed to heat the fallen tip of a dead branch, clearing the way for them to traverse its length and encounter more dried needles and twigs. There, the fire’s efforts to survive beyond the vulnerable fledgling stage met with success; popping and cracking noises were emitted as the easily-consumed debris was gnawed on hungrily.

  The strikes from the lightning storm had been recorded by satellite, and a scout plane was taking advantage of the clear weather to fly repeatedly over the District. The pilot noted a handful of starts, all under an acre in size, along the ridges that had received the brunt of the storm’s electric rage. He flew next over the Devil’s Gulch area, as ordered, and scanned the ground with tired eyes. He figured that the few strikes reported there were unlikely to beat the present odds against starting a fire, which probably stood at several hundred to one. He decided there were too many other areas that needed more thorough checking to waste time and he veered out of Judgment Valley, calling in the location and size of the fires he had spotted thus far.

  Seconds after the report of the strikes was received, the local crews standing by were mobili
zed. They scrambled into vehicles, helicopters, and parachute jump planes, off to battle the most volatile of elements and the most uncompromising of foes; the small window of opportunity for the fires to be controlled easily by organized human methods of fire suppression was closing quickly.

  The members of the Willamette crew signed their time sheets and seated themselves on the bus. Two hundred and fifty dollars would be the amount of their checks, enough for Squad Two to buy beer and ammunition and spend a couple days blasting small mammals in frustration.

  As the bus droned down the highway, the sparse dry forests of the foothills soon gave way to thin pine groves. Later, when they came out on the wetter, west side of the Cascade range, moss-draped stands of swollen fir trees crowded the dark edges of the road.

  Todd, as usual, sat stiff and upright in his seat, watching the alien landscape rush past. Looking at it made him uneasy, but curiosity did not desert him. “Hey, Fast Horse, ya really think we’ll be goin’ out on another one soon?” he asked, while still staring out of the window.

  Fast Horse too continued looking solemnly out of the window. He answered, “Uh, yeah, probably.”

  “This crew fuck up or somethin’?” Todd asked nervously.

  “Naw, it wasn’t the crew...” Fast Horse appeared thoughtful before turning to face Todd. Their eyes met. “Well, you know, I can’t figure it out,” Fast Horse began quietly. “They really shouldn’t have demobed us. I think that safety officer saw somethin’ he didn’t like after lunch yesterday. Nobody said nothin’ to me, but I just got that feeling from ‘em by what they weren’t saying and the way they were actin’. If something did happen, I wish I’d known about it at least. I could’ve made an excuse for us and we all coulda learned from the mistake and still be out there maybe. If somethin’ happens and the crew boss shows he doesn’t know about it, then they think he has no control over what’s goin’ on in his crew. So, now I just have to accept getting sent home with my tail between my legs. Had no choice. And as it is, the crew’s rep might be fucked up a bit. Still, it’s not too late to fix it... If I knew I could tell ‘em we dealt with the problem. You know, tell ‘em I talked to whoever did something wrong and it won’t happen again.”