When a Fire Burns Hot

by Corey Richard

  “Man, you know it’s not the crew’s fault that you didn’t like it,” Frank said to the back of Paul’s helmeted head.

  Paul said nothing and continued walking.

  Frank’s voice took on an admonishing tone. “You can still get used it, I bet.”

  “Yeah, whatever.”

  “Man, you never even tried to fit in. You just walked in all cool, above it all.”

  “That’s the truth,” Scott said, to encourage the continuance of what proved to be a very entertaining scene being enacted before him.

  Paul turned briefly to look blankly at Frank. This encouraged Frank further. “So why do you act like you alone shouldn’t be criticized when you work?”

  There came no reply.

  “Fuck Alaska! We all have to take shit from someone like him at some time in our lives.” Frank relished the new, harsher tone and attitude he had suddenly adopted. He almost believed that he took such a defiant yet tolerant stance in dealing with his squad boss.

  “You can go back to the cool crowd you hang out with,” Frank continued, “but remember that it isn’t the real world. You can’t do anything to change the world unless you know it, and to do that you gotta be in it, not on the farm running away from it.” Frank spoke with his lips slightly more pursed than usual. He was ready to let loose with everything he had thought of saying to young men like Paul. He stared at the back of Paul’s head and felt an urge to reach out and strike him for ignoring his words.

  The tenor of his speech became nastier. “Even if you could create this utopia out there on the farm, all you’d do is do stuff for yourselves. What you do is take a cause and turn it into an excuse for your elitism. Go ahead, go back to your unreal scene if you want, crawl in your hole with your badsmelling friends. The people you hang out with don’t know the real world and never will.”

  Frank fell silent amidst Scott’s laughter, and became thoughtful. It was he who had been given the responsibility of going back to rescue a less-adept crewmember. He must be doing something right, unlike Paul, who had just proved he couldn’t handle the fire crew. He then looked at Paul and decided he was glad to have had the opportunity to give Paul a piece of his mind without having to listen to him in return.

  The men finally arrived at the bus, and left Paul there with a curt goodbye. Paul gave them one last stonefaced look before he clomped up the steps and then past the concerned face of the bus driver. He sat and immediately began licking his wounds. He watched Frank leave, and wondered why someone who had seemed to want him to change so as to fit in with the crew better hadn’t even wanted to spend the time to get to know him. His opinion of himself was tumbling dangerously downhill. Fuck Frank and his ideas! Paul told himself. He noticed the bus driver looking at him with a concerned expression, and he finally allowed the tears he’d been fighting to rise up and pour out of his eyes.

  The bus driver quickly approached.

  As Frank made his way back to the crew, with Scott by his side, his thoughts drifted far from his surroundings. He noted to himself that first Todd and then Paul had been excised from the crew, as if they were contagions. The crew had cured itself without outside help. Neither man, he mused, deserved to be on the crew, as neither had exhibited any understanding of their place in the scheme of things out there. It was just for them to be off the crew. There was one small thing that troubled him, though; if they lost more people, the crew could be sent home from the fire with inadequate numbers.

  “So, you always been such a crusader?” Scott goaded Frank, as they sat and rested halfway up the hill.

  “Oh, you mean like with Paul just now?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Hey, someone hasta do it,” Frank responded with an uncharacteristic cockiness. It felt good to him to try on this new skin, and he wanted to walk around in it a while. “And I believe that’s how you get things done: by dealing with people one at a time. Paul will think about what I said someday.”

  “He ain’ sayin’ he understands what you tellin’ ‘im, though.”

  “That’s right. That’s the first time I ever heard him stay silent,” Frank said smugly.

  “I don’t know, maybe you can get through to a white college boy like yourself,” Scott said, and laughed deeply.

  “Scott, are you a religious man?”

  “Sure am.”

  “So do you believe in saving people?”

  “Well, first of all, I don’ try an’ change people to begin with. I don’t like someone tryin’da mess with me. If they don’ wanna be messed with, then fine -- ain’ my business. But if I had the notion to change ‘em, I’d hafta say that folks gotta wanna change ‘fore you can do sum’n’ like that.”

  “What if they’re just evil, and you think they have to be changed before they go and destroy others?”

  “I guess I figure everyone’ll get it in the end.”

  Frank felt the allure of Scott’s stance, as if he had unexpectedly become the envious friend of the school thug. He, too, wanted to be strong in his convictions. But he was able to reason with himself and get back on track. “This thirst for justice just keeps the cycle going.”

  “You hafta stop tryin’da make people get along and look at the rage. And you ain’ gonna stop it. You ain’ gonna like what you see, but it’s there for a reason and it’s gonna help us do what we ain’ been able to do yet.”

  “You’ve said something like that before,” Frank said, disconsolately. “This flash-fire you advocate seems like it’s just too quick to be controlled, and too... merciless. Change is a struggle. A long, slow one that we can’t afford to ever give up.”

  Scott would have jumped to his feet had he been sitting. Words sped quickly out of his mouth. “I want revenge on top a any kinda change! That’s the only way it’s gonna work. Don’t look so surprised, Frank. That’s American, man. Ain’ you ever seen any of them Eastwood movies? Who the hell wants the bad guys to say they’re sorry an’ repent an’ walk ol’ ladies ‘cross the street? An’ who the fuck’s gonna believe ‘em anyway? You want them and their fucked-up attitudes shot fulla holes. They gotta pay for what they done! You cain’ tell me you didn’t love seein’ ‘em make ol’ Clint’s day. You hoped to see ‘em fuck up and get blown away. That was the only type of justice you wanted, weren’t it?” Scott looked Frank squarely in the eyes, challenging Frank’s stance.

  Frank was surprised to find that he wasn’t intimidated, and stood his ground in comfort. “Maybe I did,” Frank replied calmly. “Still, I sure try not to see the world in black and white.”

  Scott laughed and let the tension subside before responding, “When it boils down to it for me, the world is just that, baby. I ain’ brown, I’m black. You ain’ tan, you white... You and I didn’t make the terms up, but if thas the way it’s gonna be, then I’m a proud black man.”

  “But aren’t you just feeding the cycle?”

  “Who says its stoppin’? I just wanna ride on top for a while... tired a the bottom. Wanna take some land and stand my ground.” Scott paused. “Frank, how the fuck you get me on this shit again anyway!” Scott smiled at Frank’s more aggressive posture, but his smile was a slightly uneasy one. He had no definite answers to Frank’s questions.

  Frank looked at the distant peaks visible through an opening in the forest, and thought about how permanent they seemed. How unchanging one might think they were upon first glance. “Those are some pretty cool-lookin’ mountains,” Frank said, letting the conversation cool off.

  “Sure are. I need to get out here more often,” Scott said.

  “Yeah, so do I. I studied all this stuff, but I never get to see it enough.”

  “St. Helens, you see that years back?”

  “Yeah, that was pretty impressive.”

  “Sure as hell was! One day it was there, the next day half the mountain was blown off, fuckin’ everthin’ around it up for
miles! That erosion shit just don’ do it fast enough, Frank.” Scott laughed. He had not enjoyed conversing with anyone so much in years. He looked at Frank slyly and said, “Cain’ beat that shit, huh, Frank?”

  Laughter filled the forest, and the men got up and resumed their march. Before long, they found the crew, scattered alongside a road where the finished hand line had terminated, eating lunch in the shade of a small strip of second-growth trees. Frank and Scott stepped onto the road and were immediately met by Fast Horse. “Couldn’t get him to stay, huh?” Fast Horse asked.

  “Naw, he wanted to go home, I guess,” Frank said nonchalantly.

  “Well, not much we can do about that now,” Fast Horse said. He was disappointed that he had lost a crewmember, and felt that he had failed somewhere along the way. But he had already accepted the fact that he was going to have a tough time getting the members of this crew to work well together, and one less person who engendered conflict did make his job easier.

  The two rescuers left Fast Horse and sat down together. Frank returned the radio to Alaska, and basked in the imagined glory of his return from so important and arduous a journey.

  Alaska’s shrewlike face scrutinized Frank suspiciously before he returned to his lunch, quickly convincing himself that he had nothing to fear from a fool like Frank when it came to keeping his position as squad boss.

  Alice had overheard the conversation regarding Paul that had just taken place, and felt that the men had acted oddly indifferent. She wasn’t sad to see Paul go, but she was sad for him that such an incident had occurred. By this time, she had forgotten about Paul’s laughter. She was used to blocking out such things.

  “So, you tried to get him to stay?” Alice asked Frank.

  “Yeah, sure did,” Frank said with a mouth full of sandwich. “The guy just wouldn’t listen to reason.”

  “Yes, I imagine you reasoned right at him pretty good.”

  Frank was confused by Alice’s tone. “Well, I tried to convince him. What else could I do?”

  Alice was startled by something she had seen when Frank spoke. It was an unfamiliar sneer that had appeared and disappeared, leaving no trace. “I guess you didn’t like Paul much,” Alice said.

  Frank looked at Alice and decided to share something of his feelings. He looked over at Scott before speaking, “It’s people like him who have been fucking up the classes I study at school, turning them into something closer to group therapy, rather than taking a chance at learning something. I guess I didn’t exactly appreciate him.”

  Alice knew what he meant by this comment, and nodded. “I still feel bad for him,” she said after a pause. “He’s defensive because he’s so insecure. Anyway, everyone’s got something to offer.”

  “I agree, of course. that’s why I told him that his way of acting and thinking was messed up and that if he changed, he could fit in better.”

  “So you asked him to reexamine his general approach to things?” Alice asked snidely.

  “Man, why don’t you both quit squabbling and eat your lunch,” Alaska grumbled. It seemed to him like there was a serious conflict heating up, and he knew that somehow he would get himself involved if it progressed. He was relieved that Frank and Alice obeyed his command. He realized that he hadn’t liked listening to their intelligent-sounding voices. Their patterns of speech seemed, to him, overly affected. They discussed things that only confused him if he tried to understand, and he figured he didn’t need to understand to begin with.

  Alaska’s thoughts returned to the scene with Paul, and he was quickly irritated with himself for recalling that which he wished to forget. He decided to concentrate on the weather instead, and took out a weather kit comprised of two encased thermometers and an attached chain. He dipped the thermometer with a cloth-covered end in a vial of sterile water and then spun the instrument in a circle from its chain. After a few minutes of spinning, he took the readings of each thermometer and located the readings on a chart that calculated humidity. “Thirtytwo percent humidity!” He announced, and hoped his voice would carry to others in the crew who might appreciate his mysterious technical achievement.

  It came over the radio that Paul was being driven back to camp by a safety officer, and that they would take care of all the paperwork there. It was probable that Paul would be flown home as soon as possible. To the Forest Service, he was now just a guy gobbling free food.

  Chapter 14

  With only a trace of a wind blowing, Fast Horse concluded that backburning would pose no significant danger to the crew, and ordered the crewmembers to space out along the entirety of the line. Squad Two, in the middle as usual, soon faced an area where the flames were already burning up to the edge, making it their job to simply oversee the burning already taking place. The firefighters of squads one and three, meanwhile, lit their fusees with purpose and poked the red flaming ends into the unburned brush on the fire’s side of the line. In many cases, self-sustaining fires immediately sprang to life, some joining together to march forward and meet the oncoming flames. The work of these manmade flames would deprive the original fire of much of its momentum and, if successful, keep it from rallying at the edge of the line and crossing into the green. It was also a good idea for the line’s edge to burn at a time when firefighters were present as monitors.

  Frank delighted in his work, as he tried to light the few remaining unburned patches in his area. For a moment he wished to dip his fusee into brush on the other side of the line, the side that he had effectively sworn an oath to protect. The forest looked as if it would benefit from a fire, he decided. Although his pyromaniacal tendencies had been inadvertently awakened, he did not allow reason to be pushed aside, however.

  Frank glanced at Scott, who he expected would be enjoying his work. Scott, however, looked blankly at the foliage as he lazily lowered his fusee into it, birthing a little fire, which soon crackled happily in its work. Scott sensed he was being watched and turned to Frank. “Sure wish I had me some gasoline,” he said. “Get this fucker really goin’!”

  Frank nodded.

  Derrick, meanwhile, hesitantly poked his flaming fusee into the brush, unimpressed with his job. He wanted instead to wander through the trees, without aim but with a purpose he would discover along the way, perhaps recovering something he had lost. He examined the burning bush in front of him and wanted to bear witness to its growth in the years to come, but it was consumed by the angry-looking little flames in a matter of seconds.

  Nearby, Alice was playfully picturing a patch of ground moss as Alaska’s bristly head. It wasn’t lighting easily, however, and she wasn’t experiencing the satisfaction she had hoped for. More heat would be needed to burn it thoroughly, she realized. She scorched two pinecones and smiled to herself with playful wickedness as they quickly became fiery spheres and then turned to ashes.

  Alaska approached Alice from behind. “Hey, it’s easier to find a pile of stuff, or get one together to get a big fire going ‘first so it’ll spread to this little shit.”

  Alice decided that Alaska might be right, and waited for him to leave before stacking up a larger pile of pinecones and torching them. She watched in delight as the fire grew big enough to spread from the fiery orbs to the surrounding moss and join other flames in their march across the forest floor. She tried to imagine an entire living tree bursting into a huge column of fire, and hoped for a chance to witness such violence.

  After returning to his designated area, adjacent to Alice’s, Alaska squatted at the base of a bush. It proved to be difficult to light, and Alaska browbeat it for its stubborn refusal to burn. The bush would allow flames to sputter momentarily as leaves turned brown and popped, but repeatedly the flames disappeared. Alaska’s irritation was slowly turning into rage; he had entirely deserted the fact that it was not all that necessary to burn the bush in the first place. Meanwhile, of the many small flames that were making their way across the dry
moss floor, one slithered forward until it reached a small, dead pine branch immediately under Alaska’s posterior. Boosted higher by the pine blanch, the fire leapt up high enough to get a taste of Alaska’s right buttock. Seconds elapsed before the heat from the flame traveled through Alaska’s fireproof pants, and almost as long again before the pain finally registered in his brain. Alaska then leapt madly into the air and slapped himself.

  Alice watched her boss with delight as he continued hopping up and down, beating on his own backside.

  “What the fuck!”’ Alaska exclaimed, after recovering from the stinging pain. He wheeled around, ready to strike the offender, but foolishly realized that the little yellow flame tauntingly waving up at him was to blame for his pain. Ho looked quickly around him and was horrified to learn that someone had witnessed his wounding, and that that person was Alice. He chose to ignore her, and looked back in paranoia at the little flame. He stomped on it resolutely and returned to his futile efforts to light the bush, immediately regaining an insular agitation. The extinguished flame was quickly replaced by its brethren, but Alaska paid them no heed.

  Alice could contain herself no longer and snorted pent-up laughter through her nose.

  With the sun beginning to set, Fast Horse declared an end to the day and pulled his crew off the hill. When the bus returned to camp, it found a much-expanded lot, overflowing with more than fifty buses. Crews continued to stream into this and the other two camps in the District, from all over the continental United States.

  “Shit, it’s like a fucking carnival out here,” said one Willamette firefighter.

  Outside the bus, three women passed within view of the crew. Jim said, “Man, I know there’s ladies out there just waitin’ for my trouser python,” and grinned viperlike.

  “I hafta tell you dey are waiting for my beeg burrito, cabrón.”

  Someone from Squad Two then imitated the rhythmic creaking sound of bed springs in motion.