Shroeder sat in the distance with a smug, satisfied look on his face, his lips drawn to a smile over bared white teeth. The coarse had easily separated from the refined.
Randy was frozen to the ground, unsure of what measures he could take to stop the fight while not getting involved physically in the fray. He had witnessed Jim’s whirling method of fighting before. But it was Scott who took action. He jumped between the two combatants and put a hand on each of their outwardly thrust chests. Under protective restraint, the men made efforts to lunge at each other, but Scott’s large frame sufficiently blocked each from landing any blows. They strained under the force that held them back, but neither put in the effort required to break free and unleash his violence on the other.
“Fuckin’ kick your ass, you little shit!” Jim yelled, his face red with what seemed like genuine rage.
“Try it, fuckhead! I’m waiting!” Frank snarled. And then, as a streak of adrenaline again shot through him, he screamed, “Come oooon, motherfucker!”
Scott, in the slow, calm voice of an elementary school teacher said, “Now, nobody’s kickin’ no asses here taday. You both out here to do a job and it don’ involve kickin’ no asses, now does it? Now, you, Jim is gonna go back to your corner over there, and you, Frank, is gonna sit back down where you stood up from and ain’ nobody gonna say nothin’ more, ahrite?”
The two adversaries continued to stare at each other with hatred flickering in their eyes. It was a hatred partially born of having been reduced to such a wretched state.
“I mean what I say,” Scott said forcefully, losing his smile entirely. “You both turn around and sit back down! Now!”
Frank was first to look away. This gave Jim the chance to turn slowly around and step back, while still eyeing Frank to make sure he would do the same. But Frank didn’t move, as if he were the victor and had a right to stand his ground. Jim turned and stood once more to face him. “Look, fucker...! “
Scott cut Jim off and roared, “THAT’S ALL, I said!” He then manually turned Frank around and led him back to where he had been sitting. All three men involved sat down nearly simultaneously.
Scott knew that the danger was far from over as he watched Frank, apparently still sizzling in his anger, glance malevolently in Jim’s direction. Scott knew that all it would take to restart the whole thing would be for Jim to get tired of Frank’s looks and stand up. “My turn to save your ass there, Frank,” Scott said with a smile, and nudged his partner.
Frank didn’t smile but did finally look away from Squad Two. His eyes focused on the top of a distant tree. “Didn’t save my ass,” he said, without turning his head, intending his declaration to reach Alice’s ears.
Alice reached over and brushed her hand across Frank’s leg. “Frank...” She said his name with the laughing affection of a mother whose misbehaving child was so endearing he could do no wrong.
Fast Horse, having just returned from his scouting mission, rushed over to the center of the previous confrontation. “What the hell’s been going on here?” he demanded of the group.
No one answered.
He approached Frank, who still looked solemnly into the depths of the forest. “Frank, what’s all this yelling I heard? Sounded like you.” Fast Horse’s eyes clasped onto Frank, demanding an answer.
Frank didn’t turn to look at his boss. He knew that if he did, his resistance would wither, and he’d end up feeling nothing but shame for his actions. He didn’t want to believe he had done wrong. He tried to convince himself that he was right, and that Fast Horse couldn’t possibly come to a full understanding of the situation.
“Everythin’s all right now, Fast Horse,” Scott offered, in his slow, deep voice. “Just a little shoutin’. All cleared up now. Just had to let some steam out.”
“Well, this isn’t the time for letting steam out, and you all know it. I don’t want any more of this shit! You come and talk to me if there’s a problem that makes people think they need to start hollerin’ like that. I don’t mind a little yellin’, but when it gets to where I can hear it a quarter-mile off, there’s more goin’ on than a little shouting!” Fast Horse ended his exhortation abruptly, and tromped over to eat his lunch.
Alaska, seated a short distance away from the body of the crew, stared at Frank’s face, noting the tightness of his jaw muscles and the drops of sweat streaking down his cheeks. Alaska smiled, then burst into laughter. He received an angry glare in return, impelling him to laugh harder.
Chapter 22
The set of thermometers whirred as they gyrated around Alaska’s hand. With legs wide apart, Alaska stood in a stance of pride. Around his nearly motionless figure, the crew began gathering up their gear in preparation to resume working. He felt uneasy with so many people moving in such close proximity to the vulnerable glass instruments, the tips of which protruded a short distance from their metal housings. He eyed a spot away from the others and stepped slowly towards it. The instant he felt the smooth circular motion interrupted and heard a small cracking sound, he knew what had happened. He stared incredulously at the broken ends of the thermometers as they slowed to a stop, then at the small stub of what had once been a branch poking out from a tree beside him. The liquid innards dripped of the thermometers onto the ground in small droplets like tears, but with the color and consistency of blood.
Alaska fell to his knees, then resisted the urge to gather up the red mess. It was too late. Nothing could be done. He slumped to a sitting position and rested his head on his hands. “Fuck!” he cursed aloud.
“It’s all right, Alaska. I got a pretty good idea of what it’s at anyway,” Fast Horse said offhandedly, from behind.
“No, it’s not all right. And I have a feeling no one could have an idea of what it’s really like out here.” Alaska replied softly.
Rivulets of sweat washed clean paths through the dirt on the firefighters’ faces. Dry, cracked lips were licked periodically. Grunts and moans of work could be heard, but there were no complaints. When the line was nearly two thirds completed, Fast Horse called a break. Most of the crew soon lay gasping in the shade, feeling the relief of a moment in which they did not have to work. The ground upon which they laid was hard and littered with sticks, but none seemed to notice.
“Son of a bitch it’s fuckin’ hot!” Randy said to his comrades.
“No shit,” Jim returned.
“Fuckin’ hot today,” Frank offered to his squad.
“You ain’t shittin’!” said Scott.
“Itishotashell.” Alice said, enunciating each word with an degree of forced bravado that Frank thought somehow touching, but also slightly embarrassing.
The voices of the crew faded behind Derrick as he walked, reminding himself that he could only be gone fifteen minutes or so. He looked up at the forest and tried to see what the young deer, whose fresh tracks he was following, might have seen. He reflected on the fact that the animal hadn’t taken a wellused path, as if it were merely passing through the area on the way to somewhere else, but had instead meandered almost aimlessly through the trees. Yet he hadn’t seen any signs that it had stopped and fed on anything along the way either. He got down on his knees and looked at the forest from what he figured had been the eye level of the young animal. The forest looked much different from his new vantage point. Maybe the deer was just wandering for fun, he considered, but at the same time he knew that most actions of a deer had a reason behind them. What was the deer out here doing? What was its purpose?
Derrick started to walk on his knees, ignoring the pain the sticks sometimes caused. He liked following the tracks better from that level, there were fewer branches to scratch at his face. He soon found that on all fours, no branches scratched him at all and he was able to pick up his pace. He considered it unlikely that he would have time to actually track the deer down, but he still held onto the hope that he might get lucky and find it resting
nearby. Perhaps the tracks meandered because the deer had been looking for good place to rest in this thicker part of the forest, he thought excitedly. Here there was shade and more protection from the perils the deer often faced. It was smart to hide out like it was probably doing. Here it could relax and feel safe, while it waited for the cool, protective cover of nightfall.
Derrick stopped and scraped a patch of ground, as the deer might have done, till it was void of sharp sticks. He crouched and found that he could imagine he was a deer to an even greater extent than he had been able to while crawling through the brush. Yes, resting was exactly what that deer was doing right now somewhere nearby, he decided.
He wanted to let the sounds, smells and images of the forest penetrate him like they penetrated the deer, who could never forget where it was and let down its guard. Only survival mattered. He inhaled deeply and concentrated on letting his external senses take over. With his nose, ears, and eyes, he evaluated his level of safety from the wild world around him and considered it acceptable. He felt almost liberated. He shifted to a more comfortable position, and allowed himself to drift into the light, cautious sleep of a wild animal.
***
In another part of the forest, Fast Horse removed his pack and smoothly hoisted himself onto the first branch of the tallest lodgepole he could find. He writhed and twisted his way up through its many branches until he arrived at a place that afforded a view of the valley. He stood out on the end of a limb, just before its breaking point, craned his neck, and became startled by the size of the single smoke column now visible to him. It had grown alarmingly fast, yet it was on the downhill side of the burn.
He watched an air tanker buzz the fire’s downhill front and release its load. He noted the absence of helicopters, and figured that those in charge had chosen to use only the bigger artillery at this point. It would be wise to get the line in fast and get the hell out of there, he thought to himself. He didn’t like their situation. That fire wasn’t dying down as he had hoped, and his crew wasn’t wellprotected. They could complete their line in about two hours and then pull out; orders or no orders, he sure as hell wasn’t going to backburn any time soon. All it would take was for an afternoon or evening of down-slope wind to kick in, and they’d be scrambling.
***
The crew welcomed the new breeze with groans of appreciation, just as they had welcomed a similar breeze the day before. Many took off their hardhats and pointed their upturned faces in its direction, towards the burn. Others opened their shirts to let the warm wind sift past their wet, bare chests. The trees, in turn, spoke in swaying murmurs and gave most of the weary crew a fleeting sense of tranquility.
“Get up, everybody! Get ready to pull out!” Fast Horse yelled upon his return.
With astonishment, the crew looked up at their leader as he emerged from the forest.
“Now! C’mon, get up!”
Shroeder boosted his level of courage and, from a reclined position, asked, “Why?”
“Because I got that feelin’. This wind. Call your people and ask them for permission if you want, but I’m ordering the crew up and out of here. It’s blowin’ up already on our side of the burn, and this wind is just enough bad news to make us pull out.” Fast Horse stood tall as an erratic gust of wind pressed his wet yellow shirt to his chest.
Frank jumped to his feet. “Come on! You heard our crew boss, let’s get up!” he yelled. He was pleased, and a little surprised, to see those in his charge respond dutifully. Squad One’s firefighters also rose to their feet, with no prompting from their squad boss.
“Come on. Let’s do it,” Randy flatly insisted. At this, Squad Two stood slowly to join the others.
Only Shroeder remained sitting, in lackadaisical defiance. Out of the corner of his eyes he looked at Fast Horse suspiciously, and ripped the radio from his chest. “McDaniels, Shroeder.” There was no answer. “Strike team leader McDaniels, this is Shroeder,” he again called, and rose to step away from the crew.
“Shroeder, McDaniels,” came the voice of a man who sounded as if he had just woken up.
“Yeah, McDaniels... uh, just checking commo from our new location.”
“Copy. You’re coming in fine. How’s it from your end?”
“I read you loud and clear. Hey... there wasn’t any order to pull out, was there?”
“No, not yet, why? Somethin’ up?”
Shroeder feared he would appear foolish mentioning the slight breeze, that he was exhibiting the paranoia of the inexperienced. He was also willing to set up a confrontation with Fast Horse. The time had finally come. He was, after all, the ranking officer. “No, just checking. Thought I overheard something about it.”
“Yeah, I’ll keep you informed.”
“Copy that. Shroeder clear.”
“McDaniels clear.”
Shroeder slipped the radio back into its chest holster and looked Fast Horse in defiance.
To Shroeder’s astonishment, Fast Horse ripped his own radio from its Velcroed chest pouch. “McDaniels, Willamette crew.”
The calm voice of McDaniels replied, “Go ahead, Willamette crew.”
“Yeah, we got some 15 mile-an-hour wind gusts coming downhill already from the northeast. I just scouted the fire and I don’t like the spot we’re in. I’m going to take my crew out. Over.”
“Copy that, Willamette. Stand by.”
“Standing by.” Fast Horse quickly tuned into another channel on his radio. He and the rest of the crew listened in. “Wilson crew, McDaniels.”
“Go ahead, McDaniels.”
“Willamette crew reported some wind gusts of fifteen from the northeast. What’s happening where you’re at?”
“Nothing here.”
“Copy. Just checking. Over.”
“Copy that.”
“McDaniels clear.”
“Wilson clear.”
Fast Horse hoped to hear the resulting conversation between McDaniels and the I.C. regarding his decision to pull out, but he found that in the valley they were unable to read the mountaintop repeater that transmitted that frequency. Fast Horse didn’t have to look in the direction of the neighboring Wilson crew to understand the contradiction. “They’re blocked from the wind there on the hillside,” he announced to Shroeder. “I’m not waiting around. We’ve got almost an hour of hiking to get out of here in either direction, and I’m ordering us out now.”
Shroeder stood and faced Fast Horse squarely, breathing heavier.
Fast Horse looked with cool detachment at the man who had decided to make himself an obstacle. He had already guessed what steps he might have to take to win the contest now facing him. He had taken similar steps with others in such situations before, and his level head and commanding nature had usually served him well; his confidence, meanwhile, never faltered.
The crew looked at each of the two leaders in turn, and quickly took sides. The questioning sneers on the faces of most of Squad Two nearly matched that of Shroeder. The other two squads stared at these mutineers with amazement and repugnance. Every member of the Willamette crew stood still as the largest gust of wind yet whipped past them, ruffling their clothes.
“Sinclair, strike team leader McDaniels,” A flat, officious voice called over the I.C.’s radio.
“Go ahead, McDaniels,” the voice of the I.C. answered calmly.
“Yeah the Willamette crew on the Gulch fire is reporting fifteen-mile-an-hour winds from the northeast. The crew boss says he’s pulling out. Over.”
The I.C. squinted his eyes in irritation. He tilted his chair back and thumped his desk briefly with his fingers. He didn’t like it when a crew decided on their own to pull out. This was like losing trust in the great system that kept them all safe. Pulling out was not usually supposed to be discretionary. He appreciated the fact that the wind spelled caution, however. “Copy that,” he said. “T
here’s nobody in the air right now to scout, so it’s up to you guys to figure out the best helispot, and I’ll send some ships in. I’ll let you know which ships as soon as I can. Over.”
“Copy that.”
“And keep checking with the other crews about the wind. There’s not supposed to be any weather in that area. Sinclair clear.”
“McDaniels clear.”
The I.C. let his chair fall back down and returned to a hunched position over a map of Devil’s Gulch, stroking his chin. So much for lining the rear of the fire. “Shit!” he said aloud. Without a line in, that fire could eventually back downhill far enough to have a chance at reaching his replanted acreage. He reached for his radio but paused and slowly retracted his hand. Things could always change for the better in a short span of time out there. Maybe the crew boss would think better of a hasty decision, and this alleged wind would die down.
Fast Horse and Shroeder stood facing each other in the simmering tension that had engulfed the entire crew. The firefighters looked on as if standing at sidelines of a game. Yet it was more than a game to participants and spectators alike. The entirety of what was at stake was not completely understood by anyone present, but a foreboding sense of importance was pervasive.
The radios on the chests of both men crackled with the opening of a transmission. The muscles of each tensed. “Willamette crew, McDaniels,” the radios called. Each man whipped his hand upwards and snatched his radio from its holster before putting it up to his mouth. Fast Horse was the quicker of the two, and his transmission rendered the other unsendable. “This is Fast Horse, go ahead McDaniels,” he said.
Shroeder stared in stunned amazement at his own radio and desperately wished he had found the right button a split-second earlier.
“Yeah, we’ll send some ships your way. Travel time will be approximately twenty minutes once they’re up. I’ll let you know when they leave and inform you of the size of the ships at that time. You can return to the helispot you were at last night. Over.”
When a Fire Burns Hot Page 34
