Hotshots

by Judith Van GIeson

“Sure.”

  “Okay, let’s do it.”

  The crosses were a short distance away as the bird flies or the fire jumps, but getting to them was a steep and difficult climb down to the drainage and back up the other side. Mike did it faster than Hogue and me. When we caught up, he had taken a rose from his backpack and placed it at the foot of Joni’s cross. Several of the other crosses were marked by ribbons and flowers.

  “I’m going to start at the place where the fire jumped the drainage,” he said. “Time me to the top cross. That’s two hundred and fifty yards.”

  “Okay,” I said.

  He ran the distance first with the pack and then without. Each time he began with a fierce burst of speed but slowed down as he ascended the slope. Even without the pucker factor he seemed to be running as hard as anyone could. It took him four minutes to run the distance with the pack. Three and a half without. He came over to me when he had finished, but he was still in the zone. His eyes had a look of glazed ferocity and total concentration. Hogue saw it and moved further up the slope.

  “Mike?” I said.

  He shook his head and came back to the present. “How’d I do?”

  “Thirty seconds faster without the pack.”

  He did some mental calculations. “I was right,” he said. “No way she could have made it out of here with or without the pack.”

  “Does it help to know that?”

  “It proves they were wrong. It proves they had no right to criticize her in their report. Joni knew what she was doing.” He put his hand on her cross. “That was for you, babe,” he said. “And now I gotta get out of here.” He shouldered his pack, wiped his eyes, and began climbing uphill.

  Hogue was standing near the second cross from the top. “This is where Chancellor’s ax was found,” he said when Mike reached him.

  “So?” replied Mike.

  “His body was found in the number-nine position.”

  “I know that,” Mike snapped. Hogue was an annoying mosquito who didn’t know when to buzz off. Mike was a person who didn’t want to be bugged. Tension was building in the narrow canyon.

  “He must have dropped his pack and gone back to help the women out.”

  “Chancellor didn’t drop his pack. When the flames hit him they burned the ax off.” Mike spoke slowly, leaving spaces between the words as if he were talking to a child or a jury. “The women on this crew were hotshots who were dropped into a red-flag situation. They didn’t need Chancellor’s help. They needed the support of the Forest Service. They needed a fire supervisor who knew what the hell he was doing.”

  “If the flames hit Chancellor here, then why was his body found in the number-nine position?” Hogue asked.

  “He was on fire at that point. He was already dead. He didn’t know what he was doing. He just ran.” Mike’s words came closer together now. His patience was running out.

  Hogue’s response was a shrug—a stupid, annoying gesture. Maybe he didn’t know any better, maybe he couldn’t help himself. This situation seemed to be taking on its own momentum and spiraling out of control. The death and the tension in the canyon were bringing out the beast in everyone. The conditions were ripe, the wind was up. Mike was about to explode and there wasn’t anything I could do to stop him. In a way it was a relief when the blowup came.

  “You’re a pain in the ass, you know that!” Mike shouted.

  Hogue’s response was to tighten his lips. “That’s insubordination,” he answered. “It’ll cost you your job.”

  Mike grabbed Hogue by his lapels. “As far as I’m concerned you can shove your fucking job. I’m out of the Forest Service.” Mike was in Hogue’s face. His hair was electric. His eyes were wild.

  The eye in the calm of the storm was Hogue’s unruffled contempt. “This is what happens when you hire people based on their gender or color instead of their ability.” There were no more secrets on this naked hill. It was all coming out: the meanness, the prejudice, the anger, the power. “If you ever find Ramona Franklin on this mountain you can tell her she’s out of the Forest Service, too.” Hogue’s narrow eyes indicated he was mean enough to do it.

  “You son of a bitch,” Mike said. He dropped Hogue’s lapels and stomped up the mountain, leaving deep imprints in the soft soil and me alone with Tom Hogue.

  7

  MIKE WAS OVER the ridge long before we got there. With or without the anger factor it was a long, steep climb. Hogue paused occasionally, waiting for me to catch up. The altitude was turning my heart into an engine running on low-octane gas. I felt that even if I could suck up every bit of oxygen in the South Canyon, it wouldn’t be enough.

  “I don’t enjoy this sort of thing much anymore,” Hogue said at one point.

  Did he mean the hiking, I wondered, the fighting, or the firefighters who’d fallen on this hill?

  “The Forest Service isn’t what it used to be.” He’d already said that. “Everybody wants a piece of the forest these days: the loggers, the spotted owl lovers, the ranchers, the environmentalists. I’m looking forward to retirement.”

  “Right,” I replied. Women had invaded the old boy network. They shouldered the saws and jumped from the planes and were working their way up in management. If Hogue stuck around long enough he might even get one for a boss, and she could make it harder for him to fire a point woman (or anybody else) in an angry fit. But catching my breath seemed more important than wasting any more of it on him.

  When we reached the helipad Hogue looked at his watch. “Only two-ten,” he said, but we could already hear the helicopter buzzing across the valley.

  He got the pilot on the radio. “There’s a fire burning at Crested Butte. I’m on my way up there,” the pilot squawked. “You guys still need me to pick you up?”

  “Mike Marshall took off. I’m planning on walking myself, but I’ve got a lady here who seems a little tired.”

  “I’m not that tired,” I said.

  “It’s a strenuous hike. You sure you’re up to it?”

  “I’m up to it.”

  “Okay,” said Hogue, getting back on the radio. “Go on up to Crested Butte. We’re walking.”

  Hogue and I started down the wooded side of the mountain. By now Mike could already be near the parking lot. He’d know the way out; he’d done it before. But there really was only one way—down. Ramona could be waiting for him at the car, or she could be anywhere else on the mountain, leaving her tribute. It would be easy enough to lose a person in the PJ forest. All I could see was the juniper in front of me, the piñon behind, the Gambel oak clustered everywhere—and all of it taller than I was. Hogue had gone on ahead but it didn’t matter; he wasn’t my idea of a great traveling companion. The forest wasn’t as lush as it had appeared from the air. There were places where the fire had spotted, where cinders had jumped the ridge. I didn’t see any fallen trees, but some of the trunks were charred black and the smell of the burn seemed even stronger over here.

  Hogue waited for me at the top of a side ridge, one of the few places on the mountain where you could get a clear view of the canyon. We stopped and took a long drink of water from the bottle in his backpack. The wind seemed to have died down. At least it wasn’t turning me into a big-haired woman or blowing dust in my face.

  “How’d you finally get the fire out?” I asked Hogue.

  “Bucket drops, slurry,” he said.

  Across the drainage, snuggled among the piñon, juniper, and Gambel oak, was the trophy house I’d seen from the air. It was the size of a destination resort. From here I could also see into the parking lot at the trailhead. Mike’s car was there, but I didn’t see Mike, Ramona, or the Barkers. North of the parking lot a dusty cloud hovered over the drainage area like a smoke signal that had run out of lift. The winds had slowed down enough to hold it in place.

  “Is that smoke?” I asked Hogue.

  “Dust,” he replied. “It’s a false smoke. There’s a road down there. Kicks up a lot of dust this time of year.”


  We kept on trekking. The eastern slope was as precipitous as the western slope had been, and the going was slow. My toes slammed into the fronts of my running shoes and were turning numb. It felt like the beginning of frostbite. To the north of us I could see an area where the fire had leaped the ridge and burned about a third of the way down, about as far down as we’d come. I began making narrow traverses to cut the steepness, wishing I had a pair of custom-made hotshot boots, remembering a pair of favorite ski boots. It would have been a challenge to ski this slope if I were in shape and if I still skied. When I skied we used to joke about making birch christies, grabbing a tree and swinging yourself around it when you got into trouble. I grabbed a juniper to catch my breath and got a handful of pine tar.

  The smell of smoke was stronger. The wind had returned with a vengeance. The afternoon updrafts were whipping the PJ into a jittery dance. The air seemed charged with nervous electricity. I came to a hump in the hill and there, as I’d always known someday it would be, was death staring me in the face. Hogue had seen it, and he turned toward me with the expression of stark terror you see on an unwrapped mummy. Death was behind him and it was the fire this time. Nothing false about the smoke we saw now. The smoke I’d been smelling hadn’t been an illusion or the ghost of fire past. A monstrous orange glow filled the drainage. I looked into it and saw bursts of dazzling yellow as trees candled out, fire within the blaze. How had it gotten so big so fast? I wondered. High winds and fuel buildup had to be the answer. The trees that had hidden it before were fueling it now. There was a sudden roar like an F-16 taking off, the hiss of Gambel oaks giving up their lives. The heat became intense and seemed to zap the fluids from my body. Fingers of flame explored the side ridges to the north and the south. Directly in front of us the fire blew up to the size of downtown. It was still a couple of city blocks away, but moving fast, a lot faster than I could even with a major pucker factor. For a moment I couldn’t move at all. I was an icicle in the face of the flames, frozen in place. My first thought was of the Kid. My second was of my house. My third was that I wanted to get the hell out of there.

  “Run,” Hogue screamed.

  “Where?”

  “To the black.”

  He turned and raced up the mountain, pursuing a course diagonal to the fire. I followed. If I’d had a pack I doubt I’d have had the time or wits to unload it. My instinct was to turn my back to the fire, go for distance, and run straight up, but fire, I knew, moves faster uphill than people can. I followed Hogue. The flames crackled and hissed below us. The fire was a hot, hungry dragon and we were its food. My shadow extended uphill and became a monster in the fire’s glow.

  The black had been visible from the side ridge, but here I couldn’t see it because of the trees. Until the trees in front of us burned up we couldn’t see how near we were to the black, and once that happened we’d be a part of the black ourselves. I had no way of pacing myself. I just ran as fast and hard as I could. I ran until I was gagging and coughing. I ran until whatever moisture I had left had sizzled out of me.

  The fire’s hot breath was scorching my back when I saw some black tree trunks ahead. Hogue dove into them and I followed, hoping this was real black, good black, black without the potential to reburn. The fire roared and made a run on our left, consuming the PJ with voracious appetite and speed. It nibbled at the edge of the black, but found nothing to feed on. It burned the PJ with an intense red heat, leaving behind a blinding cloud of smoke. I’d skied in a whiteout once where I couldn’t see my hands or feet, didn’t know if I was going up or down, didn’t know where anybody else on the slope was, and kept calling out so I wouldn’t bump into them. Hogue was in here somewhere, but I couldn’t hear or see him. “Hogue,” I yelled, but he didn’t answer. There were tree trunks in the black, but I couldn’t see them either until I collided with one. My forehead smacked into a trunk. My ears were ringing, my eyes were stinging and tearing, my face was bleeding from the tree I’d hit. I was eating, drinking, sweating, and coughing up smoke. Death by smoke inhalation was making death by fire look downright appealing. At least fire was quick. I was desperate to escape from the heat and the smoke. I had an all-consuming thirst that only an IV could fill. I felt nauseous and dizzy, so I got down on my hands and knees and vomited smoke. “Help,” I called until my voice became a pathetic croak. There was some sort of answer, but my brain wasn’t able to process it. “Here,” I gagged.

  There’s a place where heat turns to cold, fire to ice, legal business to dreams, and that’s where I was headed. In the lore of ice and snow there’s always the story of an explorer or skier who becomes crazed by the cold, thinks she’s burning up and throws her clothes off. That the opposite could occur in fire was my last thought before I entered the kingdom of snow and came out on a perfect winter day, crisp, clear, freezing. Cold bit my nose and I could see the shape of my breath. The air was clear, but so cold it hurt to breathe. The only way to get warm was to ski fast and hard. The sky was as blue as it ever gets in the East. The snow sparkled like Ivory flakes. There were six inches of new powder, and I was skiing the Rumble alone. It was a side trail where no one could see me, but that didn’t matter; I wasn’t performing for anybody on the lift. I was out here for Joe and myself, skiing the fall line in linked turns. The snow came over the top of my boots; all I could see of my skis in the fresh powder was the tips. The turns flowed into one another, smooth, quick, easy. I only had to flex my ankles and shift my weight. I was in the zone, queen of the hill, master of my sport. The pain that Joe wasn’t alive to enjoy it was the long shadow I was trailing, but if I skied fast enough I could stay ahead of it. I looked down and saw him waiting for me at the bottom of the Rumble. He was wearing a plaid jacket and smoking a cigarette. The smoke expanded, slipping through the trees, billowing, smothering, making me gag and cough.

  A voice brought me back to the harsher reality of heat and smoke. “You will be all right,” it said. “This is good black. It won’t reburn. The fire cannot reach you here. I’ll wrap you in this to keep the heat off and the smoke out. Stay inside. I will come back for you when the danger is over.”

  It was a cocoon, a space blanket, a fire shelter. The arms that wrapped me in it were firm and strong. The voice I heard belonged to a woman.

  8

  WHEN I WOKE up I was still seeing white, not the blinding white of snowfall or the searing white of smoke but the antiseptic white of a hospital room. A nurse was adjusting the IV I’d been craving. A stern and fit doctor came in to tell me I was suffering from smoke inhalation and dehydration and that he wanted to keep me in the hospital for a few days for observation. I looked up at the dull white ceiling, heard the woman in the next bed gag and throw up, listened to the clatter of food trays in the hallway, and decided that if I was going to be sick I wanted to do it in my own bed, looking at my skylight, listening to the sounds my house made. When I told the doctor I didn’t have any insurance, he said he’d consider releasing me the next day.

  As soon as the doctor departed an investigator for the Forest Service entered and sat down in a chair beside my bed. His name, he said, was Henry Ortega. He had a long face and a mustache that nestled above his lip like a large, brown moth.

  “We’re very glad you are going to be all right.” He sighed.

  I answered with a gut-wrenching cough that seemed as if it would last into the next millennium.

  “I know how you feel,” he said. “I was on the line for ten years and every season I coughed up smoke until Thanksgiving. You were very lucky that Ramona Franklin was on the mountain and carrying her equipment. She found you, wrapped a wet bandanna around your face, and covered you with her fire shelter.”

  “That was Ramona who spoke to me?”

  “Must have been. Once the fire was extinguished and the smoke died down, a helicopter lifted you out. I thought you would like this.” He presented me with the fire shelter, a crinkly mess of Mylar that probably resembled the surface of my lungs. I knew where it would end up
—in the closet of the empty room. Maybe I’d take it out someday if I needed reminding of how close I’d been to becoming a crispy critter. Maybe not.

  “Thanks,” I said. My voice was the rasp of someone who’d smoked for two lifetimes or spent one day on the fireline. If I hadn’t had any respect for the endurance of firefighters before, I did now. “What happened to Ramona? Did she get out all right?”

  Henry nodded. “She had to leave you to save herself. She managed to escape over the ridge into the South Canyon. We found her there, shaking and crying.” Willingly or not Ramona had ended up near the place where Joni had died. “She’s been through a lot.” Henry Ortega’s eyes were deep and soulful. Another poet whose profession happened to be fire. “The hospital examined and released her. We offered her counseling with a trained professional, but she refused.”

  “Ramona does things her own way. Is she here? Can I talk to her?”

  “She’s been released.”

  “What happened to Tom Hogue?”

  Henry Ortega looked at his hands, studying the fingernails and knuckles that had been outlined by ten years of soot. “He was found dead on the mountain.”

  “Oh, God.” That explained why the Forest Service had been so quick to send an investigator. The death of a federal employee in the line of duty gets an immediate investigation. Better the gentle Ortega than some pit bull of an FBI agent anyway. “Where?”

  “Just outside the black.”

  “Why did he leave the black?”

  “We don’t know. We were wondering if you could tell us anything.”

  “Not much. The smoke was very dense. I lost sight of him. I became confused. I thought I was skiing.”

  “You were severely dehydrated. That can cause hallucinations.”

  “I called to Hogue, but he never answered. You couldn’t tell where you were, whether you were going up or down, the smoke was so thick.”

  “That’s how Ramona found you, you know. She said she heard you calling Hogue.”