Shroeder returned to the present and looked in the direction of the fire. He again congratulated himself on his success. He had done things by the book, more or less, and become a GS 13, head of both the timber and recreation departments in his District, and rumored to be in line to be a District Ranger. He considered that rules and guidelines were not things that always got in your way, as people often whined. They had successfully guided him through any and all situations. He wouldn’t be standing there today, filled with confidence in himself and the present operation, if the guidelines hadn’t been sound. He had taken them into the field and used them as wellcrafted tools in every situation, achieving ordered results along the way as expected, comprehensible to all who were a part of the system. He couldn’t imagine functioning without such a framework.
Shroeder watched the nearby firefighters digging busily, and a feeling of contentment set in. The crew seemed to already know how to build a fire line, how to take orders, and what to watch out for. Fast Horse too had learned well the Forest Service way of doing things, he decided. Even though the crew was in the midst of a dangerous situation, as long as rules were followed, and he had his radio to use like a lever to provide instant remedies to problems that arose, there would never be anything to fear. It had to be that way. Anarchy could be allowed no home on a fire crew.
After making several hillside cup trenches deep enough to catch embers that might otherwise roll into the green, and putting a few finishing touches on the line, Scott and Frank tied in behind Derrick. The pair soon arrived at the top of a hill where small fires were visible, scattered inside the line being constructed. Old wood popped loudly as it was consumed, but it was the little live plants and trees that burned loudest, the leaves and needles seeming to cry out when the heat finally overcame them, meeting their fate in a screaming collective. These living plants gave off an unmistakable putrid smell that meandered in pungent waves throughout the forest.
Also visible were a couple of burning snags. One snag, standing about thirty feet from a gawking Paul, had large tongues of flames frantically licking its insides and venturing out small holes, trying to taste the uncharred outer wood. The top of this broken snag had a steady tube of flames shooting several feet above it, and spat out live embers, like a volcano. As Paul witnessed the destruction before him, caution in the face of the unfamiliar slowly gave way to fear.
Thick, stinging smoke swirled into Frank’s eyes, causing a steady stream of tears to run down his face. As the line he was improving swung next to a row of two- and three-foot flames, his exposed face felt like it was blistering, and he imagined in fright that it might soon resemble the bubbled skin of a baked chicken. He put his bandana over his bare features and continued working, quickly passing by the flames and shutting his eyes temporarily for relief from the smoke. As he moved up the line, he looked up through the smudgy air, barely able to discern the shapes of some of the crewmembers in the squad ahead of him. He wondered with alarm if he and the rest of the crew could tolerate the conditions much longer, and tried to find the confidence he needed. He had to believe that he could do it. He had no choice.
Fast Horse had already approved the line’s intended course, flagged many of the snags he wanted the sawyers to drop, and was now walking up and down the ranks, doling out words of encouragement, comforting salves for the firefighters’ unease. Frank looked up and Fast Horse smiled back, visibly unaffected by the smoke and heat, seemingly at home in the hellish environment.
“Helps if you brace it on your knee more, there, College Boy,” Fast Horse said to Frank, before taking Frank’s shovel and demonstrating his digging technique.
“Thanks,” Frank said, as he grasped the shovel being handed back to him.
“You guys could make the cup trenches a bit deeper if you have time.”
“Sure.” Frank accepted the order pleasantly. He felt as if he and Scott were already putting a lot of effort into their task, but he quickly blocked the emergence of annoyance and frustration.
“No problem,” said Scott.
Fast Horse had noticed that Frank and Scott were having to work much harder than the rest to finish the line. “You could tell them to take more off, there, Frank.”
“I should, huh?”
“Yesss...” Fast Horse said slowly, his eyes twinkling at Frank.
“Take more off!” Frank yelled loudly, fearing the sound of his voice would convey meekness.
“Take more off!”
“Take more off!”
“Take more off!”
Frank was satisfied with the tone of his request, and enjoyed hearing his words passed up the line to have an impact on each member of the crew.
“Very good, Frank,” Fast Horse encouraged, and walked back up the line, relaxed and in his element.
Frank felt that a void had been created when Fast Horse left, but realized that most of his own insecurities and fears had suddenly dissipated, leaving him feeling almost invulnerable.
“C’mon, Earth, move your ass!” an irascible Alaska bellowed, as soon as Fast Horse was out of earshot. Alaska stomped towards Paul to give him the type of instruction he felt Paul needed. “You’ve got to like, you know, watch the guy ahead. Scrape, watch, scrape, watch... Don’t just do whatever the fuck you want,” he blustered.
“Yeah, I just didn’t want to miss an area.”
Alaska’s frustration once again rekindled. “Paul... Sometimes you can’t get every area. You’ve got to bump up and keep the crew together. You’ve just got to kinda...” Alaska paused, trying to find the right words to explain his philosophy of line building. “You’ve got to start moving at the same pace. It’s like you and the guy in front of you are moving together. He moves and you move with him. You can’t just sit on your ass and then move if you feel like it. It messes everybody up behind you.”
Paul just stared at him incredulously, and Alaska became increasingly annoyed at his inability to get through to him. “You’ve got to, kinda, get aggressive. That’s what firefighting is all about,” Alaska said condescendingly. “I mean, off the record, I have to say that you have this laid-back, mellow kind of attitude, but you’re on a fire crew.”
Paul thought that he had been doing close to what everybody else had been doing, and the criticism fell hard upon him. Not only had he apparently been doing it wrong but, according to Alaska, he was incapable of doing it right. He felt himself backing into a corner for protection. Why did Alaska ask him to continue with the crew if he was such a bad firefighter? Just to be able to continue tormenting him?
“I was fucking moving!” Paul growled back. Then, he yelled with exploding hostility, “Just leave me alone!”
“Paul, man...” Alaska became frighteningly tense, causing hidden veins in his neck to pop out.
Paul stopped working and stepped back, registering danger’s sudden appearance.
Alaska, trying to keep his rage at bay, continued, “You’re always causing trouble, and I’m just trying to help you! You seem like you might need a kick in the ass every once and a while, and it’s my job to do it!” Alaska suddenly felt that conversing with this man was beneath him, and he wished only to shove Paul back in his place and be done with the problem. “Paul, just quit whinin’. You’re fuckin’ twentysome years old. Just move closer and learn to do it like a man!” Alaska started to walk away, relieved to be done with such a frustrating encounter.
“Aw, fuck you!” Paul said under his breath, as he bent over and commenced working.
Alaska scarcely made out Paul’s words, but wasted no time in confronting the young man. He turned and propelled his body in Paul’s direction with all the force of his sudden rage.
Paul looked at the quickly-approaching, stormy form of Alaska and snapped upright. He stared at the man’s bulging eyes and felt nothing but hatred for someone who seemed so entirely consumed by a desire to conquer and destroy him. He stood i
n defiance, with fists clenched, like a small boy determined at last to fight back against the school bully who had harassed him for too long.
“What did you say?”
“I said, ‘fuck you,”’ Paul replied in a shaky voice crackling with fear and bitterness.
“Don’t you EVER say that to me!” Alaska pointed his finger menacingly at Paul’s chest. “Listen, buddy, you need a fucking attitude adjustment, and I’m just about ready to give you one!” Alaska, now consumed by anger, was battle-ready, having been unable to find anything further to say to Paul and otherwise unable to diffuse the situation.
Frank looked on with uneasy excitement, doing nothing to prevent a fight. He felt pity for Paul, but something stopped him. A wisp of a notion flickered within: one man was now certainly lower in the pecking order, and that man had gotten himself into that position.
Paul stood, gripping his tool, finding that he, like Alaska, had nothing more to say. He felt like a scared animal unable to defend itself against naked aggression, bravely choosing to step forward and cower in the open while Alaska, the bird of prey, hovered menacingly overhead. Suddenly, Paul caught a horrifying glimpse of himself as a whiner, as Alaska saw him, and not the competent firefighter he had imagined he could be. His person was under more of a direct attack than he had ever imagined was possible. Paul, too insecure and defensive to carry the protective shields of cleverness or humor, saw only one option left open to him. Alaska had drawn a line that seemed un-crossable. “Fuck it, you dickhead! I don’t have to deal with a powerhungry idiot like you... or this piece-of-shit crew!” Paul decisively threw his tool at Alaska’s feet and stomped quickly down the newlycreated trail, the last acts of the powerless being nearly always selfdestructive.
Alaska looked dumbfounded. He watched Paul until he was swallowed in smoke, and shook his head slowly at his impotence in the face of such a foolish young man. He then realized that he had made a mistake somewhere along the line. Should he go out on his own and bring him back?
“Where’d Paul go?” Frank, minutes later, asked his leader, who was leaning on a shovel beside the line and staring into the distance.
“I dunno. Home, I guess. I told him to do something and he got all whiny and pissed off.”
“Well, why didn’t you try to stop him?”
“Who needs that guy? We can do fine without him. He just got in the way.”
“But isn’t there a rule against letting him go on his own like that?”
“Yeah, ‘spose there is.”
“Fine, I’ll yell it out. Unless you want to.”
Without changing position, Alaska shrugged his shoulders in disinterest. It then registered abruptly that a person leaving the fire line was considered a serious thing; it could cost him his job.
“Paul walked off the line!” Frank yelled. The announcement spread quickly.
“Paul walked off the line!”
“Paul walked off the line!”
“Paul walked off the line!”
When the words reached Fast Horse’s ears, as intended, he whirled around quickly. Everyone stopped working as the leader glided to the bottom of the line and confronted Alaska, directing a shriveling glare into the squad boss’s eyes. “What happened?” he demanded.
“Well, um...”
“Quickly!”
“Aw, fuck. I got pissed... and Paul walked off,” Alaska confessed to the ground.
“Scott, Frank, go find him and get him back here. Take this radio.” Fast Horse said, and ripped Alaska’s radio from his chest, handing it to Frank. “Tell me when you find him. I’ll be calling you on Channel One. If he won’t come back, tell him to wait on the bus till the end of the day.”
“Okay,” Frank said. He briefly studied the radio and swelled with pride.
“Got it,” Scott said.
The two rescuers thumped hurriedly down the newly-constructed trail. Along the way, Frank stepped into one of the cup trenches he had helped to construct and was nearly sent tumbling, prompting him to yell, “Son of a bitch!”
Ten minutes into their search, the two had still not found Paul.
“He couldn’t have gone far,” Scott said, as he wiped his face and scanned his wellcloaked surroundings.
Scott and Frank crossed the creek and walked up an incline to a point where they could see a further distance in the direction they had come earlier that day.
“Fuck, he’s not here!” Frank said, inadvertently allowing a little panic to enter his voice.
They continued along the trail of flagging towards the bus, stopping several times to look around them, but still there was no sign of the deserter. They walked on until the bus was in view. They stopped and scanned the forest toward the bus.
“Fuck, you could probably see him from up here if he was heading to the bus.”
After several minutes had passed and Paul still hadn’t surfaced in the forest below, Scott said, “Let’s go towards the fire. Maybe he never made it this far.”
Upon Scott’s suggestion, they walked back up to the embankment beside the creek and began slowly descending. Through the gray air they continued their visual search. Across the creek, in the distance, they saw that a tenacious orange finger of fire had made its way to the top of small cliff marking the creek’s edge. They walked closer and, next to the point of the finger of flames, they could just make out the yellow-and-brown form of a person trapped between fire and the overhanging cliff. The figure faced the advancing flames, his back to the creek. For a moment, some of the smoke lifted with the wind, and the men’s suspicions were confirmed: It was Paul.
“Paul!” both men cried out simultaneously.
Paul wanted to cry when he heard the voices. He was finally able to face the fact that he feared for his life. “I’m over here!” he cried out in an unsteady voice.
“Wait there, we’ll be over in a minute!” Frank yelled over the noise from the fire, as if he were yelling to someone across a highway of speeding cars. To Scott he said, “He must have tried to go that way and got blocked farther down.”
“Yeah, then got cut off.”
The two men made it to the other side of the creek and were soon near where Paul was cowering before the writhing flames. They stopped at the first small wall of fire they came to, which made up the outer half of the finger of flames blocking Paul’s return path. They backed away from the heat when it became too intense.
“He’s gonna have to jump through there!” Scott yelled, trying to be heard over noise.
“Hey, Paul, run through the flames towards us!” Frank shouted as loud as he could.
“I can’t!” the terrorstricken youth yelled back. He was shielding his face from the heat and smoke, looking childlike and helpless.
“Yes you can, just cover your face and run through!” Frank yelled, keeping his voice calm. He was hoping to relax the young man and convince him that there was nothing to worry about. He knew there was almost no way that Paul could injure himself if he ran through where the flames were only a couple feet tall.
Paul took his arm away from his face for a moment and tried to muster enough bravery to confront his situation and the task before him. His arm quickly went up again as a small tree burst into flames ten feet in front of him.
“All right, stay there and we’ll come get you!” Frank called out.
“We?” Scott looked at Frank with a friendly, amazed look on his face.
Frank smiled back, and the two men briefly bathed together in a newly-formed pool of selfimportance.
Paul lowered his arm again and faced the flames. Suddenly he became horrified, more at the idea of someone having to come over and rescue him than at the idea of running through the fire. He had gotten himself into this situation, and he was going to have to get himself out. No one else was to blame. He chose his path, took a deep breath, and yelled, “Coming through!�
� He shielded his face and submerged himself briefly in each of the two low walls of fire. He emerged from the flames standing, and quickly looked himself over, slapping away any embers he found on his clothing. He soon realized he was unharmed, and lifted his head up to look the two men in the eyes. There slowly appeared a big white smile of satisfaction on his sooty face.
“All right, good job!” Frank said with as much enthusiasm he could muster. “Let’s get outta here. There’s some burning snags over there that’ve got me worried.”
Paul fell into step behind the men and said nothing. His disposition darkened with each step away from the place of his liberation. His pride went invalidated, and he began to question whether he had acted bravely at all.
The three men walked to the creek and sat down to catch their breath, enjoying some lungsful of cleaner air. Frank called Fast Horse over the radio and told him they had found Paul and that everything was all right. When the transmissions ended, Frank turned and said to Paul, “Fast Horse said earlier that it’d be no problem for you to return. Prob’ly even be able to change squads.” Frank sounded detached and unencouraging. He picked up a twig from the ground and snapped it in two.
Paul continued looking at the ground and said softly, “I’m not going back to that fucking crew. Bunch of rednecks. I don’t have to deal with that shit. You can do what you want, but I’m leaving.” Paul stood up abruptly. “Which way out?” He asked.
“That way,” Scott pointed with certainty.
“We’ll take you back,” Frank said authoritatively, before hailing Fast Horse a second time on the radio. Frank’s voice deepened with importance as he told Fast Horse of the immediate plans.
Paul began his march back to the bus before Frank had finished transmitting. This time, he had no trouble finding the flagging marking the way. Frank and Scott soon caught up to him and were content to follow behind. Frank looked at the young man and decided that he could do some good. It was all very simple from his perspective.
When a Fire Burns Hot Page 19
