Summers of Fire

by Strader, Linda;

  We tackled another steep trail the next week. Trained into a higher fitness level, I could enjoy the hike without gasping for breath. Nothing beat working outside, but hiking into wilderness to repair trails … what could be better? They even paid me to do this. I’d do it for free! Okay, maybe not. But I didn’t mind swinging a tool for what I considered a privilege.

  On lunch break, we stretched out in the shade of pines.

  “I still say the Forest ‘Circus’ needs to replace those ancient C-rats,” Mark said, referencing an inside joke about the agency. “I puked my guts out after eating the spaghetti.”

  “Wusses,” Opie said. “Can’t you take a little food poisoning?”

  Tom pitched a pinecone at me. “What’ve you got for lunch?”

  I laughed. “Nothing you’d like!” I tossed the pinecone back.

  Propped up against the bark of a ponderosa, contented, I listened as Mark and Tom discussed how to make our fire packs lighter. Amidst the pine needles, I found a blue jay feather and attached it to my hardhat. I’d read feathers brought good luck. I slid down on my back, closed my eyes, and positioned my hardhat as a fly deterrent over my face. A beautiful day. Not too warm, the sky a perfect solid blue. I sure couldn’t imagine being stuck in an office. On top of it all, I fit in with these guys. It felt good, filling one of those empty spaces inside you that you don’t know you have until it’s brimming.

  Late afternoon, we got a call to return to the station, but no fire as we’d hoped. Then another call came in, which turned out to be another false alarm. This time we hung out at the office, in case the third time was the charm.

  Joe sat next to me on the office steps, the first time we’d talked since the Kent Fire. Not surprising; he didn’t say much to anyone. Always clean shaven, with hair cropped short, shirt and even his Levi’s pressed, he sat in the corner of the office during the morning meeting while everyone else bantered. His deep-set green eyes were always observing, taking it all in. Texas John teased Joe, calling him “Josephine,” making Joe blush. What was that all about? Who hid underneath the shyness? He had me curious.

  Our friendly conversation didn’t last anywhere near long enough for me—there was much more I wanted to know. Impulsively I said, “I’m hungry. Want to come over for dinner?”

  “Sure,” he said. “Let me go home and clean up.”

  When Joe arrived a couple hours later, he looked so sharp it threw me off kilter. My earlier thinking of “friends only” faltered. Now I wished I knew what he thought of me. He was often shy; but tonight, not so much. Earlier, Texas John had mentioned that Joe never had a girlfriend. Curious, I wanted to ask Joe why not, but couldn’t drum up the nerve.

  STATION MAINTENANCE WAS on tap today. Mark, Texas John, and I drove down to the horse corrals below the station to treat the wood with creosote. I’d worked with Texas John a few times. Twenty years my senior, he treated me like a helpless little girl, which could be why I volunteered to go first—to prove him wrong.

  Creosote is a vile, caustic wood preservative—something I’d never encountered before. I secured the cuffs of my workshirt, tied a bandana over my nose, and pulled on leather gloves. To protect my eyes, I wore cheap, oversized plastic goggles. They slid down my nose. I pushed them back up. Meanwhile, John filled the sprayer. The sharp chemical odor of tar pierced my nose, giving me an instant headache. I’d have to work fast. Texas John pumped the handle to pressurize the tank. “Here ya go, sweet thang.”

  He and Mark sat on a rail to wait their turn.

  Tank in one hand, wand in the other, I squeezed the trigger to coat a post with the fine mist, making sure to stand upwind.

  Moments later, Texas John startled me by leaping off the fence. “Shit! Look out! It’s gonna blow!”

  What? I glanced down just in time to see that the hose had expanded in the middle like a snake swallowing a rat. It exploded, spraying me with the nasty chemical. Overcome by fumes, I watched the corral spin, and then everything went dark. Voices filtered into my subconscious sounding like they came from underwater.

  “She’s out!”

  “We need to get her to a shower and fast.”

  Someone picked me up and set me on the front seat. Driving up to my house, Mark asked, “You okay over there? Geez you gave me a scare.”

  “I guess …” Darned world wouldn’t stop spinning.

  “Damn. You need to wash that stuff off.”

  Mark supported me as I wobbled inside. “Can you manage?”

  I nodded. After stripping off my chemical-soaked clothes, I stepped into the steady spray. Still dizzy, I leaned against the stall.

  “You okay in there?” Mark asked from outside the bathroom door. “You stay in there at least fifteen minutes.”

  I thought of asking Mark for help, but I managed, washing and rinsing until the water ran cool. After the long shower, I studied my reflection in the mirror. Anywhere not protected by bandana or goggles was fiery-red. A light finger-touch hurt, like a bad sunburn. Not too bad, I’ll be fine.

  I dressed in clean clothes and walked back to the office where Glenn insisted that I take the day off. I refused. I wanted to go back to work.

  “Well, okay. You can tidy up the office,” he said.

  Not exactly what I had in mind.

  “She fainted because of the fright,” I overheard Texas John say as I entered the office the next morning.

  Clark, another fire prevention tech, stood with John by the aluminum coffee percolator. John glanced at me, smirked, and filled a stained ceramic mug.

  My jaw clenched tight. “Bullshit, John.”

  Texas John winked at Clark. “If you say so.”

  Infuriated, I recognized he would never have said that if I’d been a guy. I didn’t see the point in defending myself either, what good would that do?

  Later that morning, stuck with John digging a trench for a new water line, he insisted on showing me how to make shoveling easier. Still mad, I folded my arms and glared at him. Okay, so it did make shoveling easier, but I resented him speaking to me as though I had the IQ of a turnip.

  “I don’t get why you’d want a job like this,” he said, pitching a shovelful of dirt. “Seems unlikely for a girl.”

  “So what kind of job would you like me to have?” I asked, my voice laden with sarcasm.

  He hopped out of the trench and extracted a cigarette from his pocket. “I like my women barefoot, pregnant, and in the kitchen.”

  I rolled my eyes and frowned, thrusting my shovel into the rocky soil. Well, isn’t this is going to be fun.

  Early next morning, I sat in the office, wondering what we’d do that day. Part of me worried something might come up that I couldn’t handle. Then what? I stuffed those thoughts aside. If I could fight a fire, I could do most anything.

  An hour later, I stood at the helipad below the Florida complex, pacing, hands tucked in pants pockets so no one could see my jitters. Helispot maintenance was on tap today. I’d never flown in a helicopter before. I did sit in one with a guy from the Helitack crew in the Catalinas last summer, probably breaking all kinds of rules by doing so, but that didn’t count. We’d never left the ground.

  The swoop, swoop, swoop echoed ahead of the helicopter’s arrival. Above the landing pad the Hughes Bell made a half circle and settled down, sending out a whirlwind of debris. The pilot shut down the engine; the long blades revolved slower and slower, coming to a stop. I squinted to get a better look at the man who hopped out: handsome, trim, gray at the temples, wearing Army fatigue coveralls. After a moment of conversation with Glenn, he stepped back to wait.

  “Today you guys are going to clear brush from our remote helispots we use for emergencies. Before we get started, we need to talk about helicopter safety,” Glenn said in a serious tone.

  When Glenn spoke, we listened. He commanded our respect.

  “Always, even when the engine is not running, even when the blades are not turning, approach the chopper in a crouched position.” He de
monstrated. “Remember: Blades lower when they slow down, so always stoop lower than you think you need to. Better safe than sorry.” He made a slicing motion across his throat. “Decapitation, folks. Not a pretty picture.”

  My mouth went cotton-dry. What if I forgot and stood up? No, I wouldn’t forget. Would I?

  “Second—like with a horse, stay away from the rear. Tail rotor will do more than kick you—if you get my drift. You have no business being anywhere near the rear of a helicopter, ever. Always approach from the front.”

  You could’ve heard an oak leaf hit the ground in the silence that followed. Eric nudged Joe. Tom and I exchanged glances. I thought about the training movie where a guy got hacked into pieces. I shivered to rid my thoughts of the gory picture. Hopefully, none of us would do the unthinkable.

  Our pilot selected the correct combination of passengers to equalize weight distribution. He pointed at me. “You—up front.” Then to Joe. “You—backseat.” The cockpit shifted when I climbed in. Joe hoisted himself into the back, sitting next to our gear.

  When I fished for the seat belt, the pilot appeared by my side, leaned over, and buckled me in. He winked and skirted around the front to hop in. I started to say something about closing the door, but there were no doors. Only my seat belt prevented me from falling out. The lack of doors was bad enough, but the windshield wrapped underneath my feet. I could see out through the floor. Flying in a fish bowl.

  No, I didn’t like this. My uneasy smile reflected in the pilot’s dark Ray-Bans. He grinned at me, donned his helmet, and fastened the chin-strap. After positioning the microphone, he radioed dispatch for takeoff. He flipped switches on the console and others above him on the ceiling. The engine began a high-pitched whine, craft shuddering, blades building up momentum. A sensation of weightlessness accompanied the upward lift. Higher and higher we rose, my stomach refusing to stay in sync with the rest of me. I tried to control the weird feeling by holding my breath, but it didn’t help. Below, onlookers bowed their heads, holding onto their hardhats to keep them from blowing off.

  Tilting toward the mountains, we soon picked up elevation, flying parallel to the steep terrain, amazingly close to tree tops. A sudden drop in altitude made my stomach lurch. Oh my God, we’re going to fall out of the sky! Wide-eyed, I turned to the pilot for reassurance.

  He grinned broadly. “Mountain air currents. Play havoc with stability.”

  That was not reassuring. Another dip, another stomach flip. I pressed a hand on my stomach to prevent it from happening again. That didn’t work, either. We continued our ascent with less turbulence, so I relaxed a little, cataloging sensations: gentle swaying, a bump or two, the air rushing through the blades, the sharp tang of jet fuel. I leaned over to see better, but when I focused all the way to the ground, my gut flip-flopped, my heart vaulted. I squeezed the seat cushion, my fingers digging into the vinyl.I hadn’t yet recovered when trees gave way to a vertical drop of several thousand feet. Pressed hard against the seat, as though doing so would keep me from tumbling out, I swallowed to dislodge the lump in my throat so I could speak. No way would I let the pilot know how scared I was. It would ruin my new firefighter image.

  “This beats any roller coaster ride,” I said, forcing a grin.

  He smiled back, reached above him to flip a switch. “Watch this.” The engine noise stopped. Seconds passed. He flipped the switch again, and the engine noise returned. He gave me a rather wicked smile. Having no idea what had just happened, I smiled thinly.

  His attention reverted back to our flight. “There’s our first helispot.”

  He had to be kidding.This tiny, treeless patch was not remotely large enough to land on, but we were going to land there anyway. And we did, dirt and leaves whirling around us. Engine idling and blades still turning, the cockpit bounced up and down, as though anxious to be on its way.

  “Don’t forget,” he yelled. “Crouch down when you get out, and until I’m gone.”

  I unbuckled my seat belt and climbed out. Blades whirred over my head; the forceful downdraft pressed on me like a vertical headwind. I hunched low and rushed to the edge of the clearing. Joe tossed out our gear and scurried to join me. Hunkered down, we watched the chopper lift off in another swirl of dust and fly away.

  Now in comparative silence, I couldn’t wait to ask Joe the burning question. “So what happened up there? When the engine got really quiet.”

  “Oh, that.” He picked up a Pulaski. “He auto-rotated. Gliding without power. They learn it in case the engine dies.”

  Without power?Certainly he was joking. “Are you serious, he turned the engine off? As in off—off?”

  “Yeah, those ex-Vietnam pilots are a bit crazy.”

  Crazy? The guy was insane.

  Glenn told us to hustle, so we hustled. We cut overgrown brush, limbs—anything that could interfere with landings. Within an hour we finished our work. We used the wait-time for our next ride to eat lunch. Sitting on a tree stump, I peered into my sack. What was I thinking when I packed this? I didn’t bring anywhere near enough food. My mouth watered at Joe’s double-decker sandwich, chips, oatmeal cookies, yogurt, apple, and thermos of milk. Joe must have sensed that I was still hungry, perhaps because it had taken me all of five minutes to eat everything.

  “Want my yogurt?”

  “I’m okay. Thanks, though,” I said. Strawberry. I could taste it.

  “Here, take it. I’ll be fine.”

  I savored every smooth, fruity spoonful.

  Joe closed up his lunchbox. “Um, would you … I mean … I’d like to take you out to dinner some time.”

  Just what I’d hoped to hear. “Sure!” And the door was now open to ask a him question. “I’m curious. Why does John call you Josephine?”

  His cheeks tinged pink, and he shrugged. “Oh, I don’t know. He’s done that since I was a kid.”

  Tough, masculine, and that sweet innocence. I liked that. So different from Mark.

  Here came the helicopter. Back onboard, it wasn’t as scary this time. I even leaned a little further to see if maybe those tree tops were within reach.

  That night I lay awake for a long time, reliving the day in movie-like sequences, jumping from frame to frame. At last asleep, I dreamed I had wings, soaring, dipping down to touch soft pine needles with my fingertips.

  I GOT STUCK with station duty the day after all that excitement. Tom and Eric suffered the same fate, while everyone else flew to more helispots. Disappointed over missing all the fun, I grumbled to myself as I spent the morning cleaning out the fire cache and other mundane chores. After lunch, I frowned at the pile of tools in need of sharpening. Not my favorite task.

  “Drop what you’re doing,” Eric said, as he dashed inside and snatched his fire pack off the shelf. “We’ve got a fire!”

  FIVE

  I DROPPED WHAT I was doing.

  Eric pressed hard on the gas pedal of the Model 20 tanker, stones ricocheting against wheel wells as we left. From the front seat, I swiveled around to smile at Tom, who gave me a wide grin, his dark eyes sparkling.

  “Guess getting stuck with station duty wasn’t so bad after all,” he said.

  Once we reached Box Canyon, tight switchbacks and the two hundred gallons of water we carried slowed us down. A rough abandoned mining road got us close, but the fire lapped up a steep, rocky, grass-and-brush-covered hillside, with “inaccessible” written all over it. The tanker would be of no use here.

  I buckled my canteen laden belt around my hips and secured a bandana around my neck. Water stayed attached to my body now, not inside my pack. Difficult terrain, combative plants, and higher-than-usual humidity would make for a tough, sweaty hike. I held my Pulaski at my side, stepping over rocks, maneuvering around prickly cactus and dagger-like agaves hidden by knee-high grass, searching for a route of least resistance. Of which there was none.

  At the fire’s edge, we spread out twenty feet apart to build line. My first swing, the Pulaski jerked to an abrupt halt
on a rock, my wrists absorbing the shock. Damn! How in the world did plants find a foothold here with no soil? Worse yet, could I stop the fire if I couldn’t dig line?

  A distant thunderstorm kicked up gusty winds, sending fire every which way. When the wind pulled a one-eighty, a cascading wave of fire barreled toward us like a high-speed train, flames roaring high above my head.

  Eric’s eyes widened. “Into the black! Now!”

  I covered more ground in fewer seconds than I ever thought possible, somehow managing to avoid tripping over a rock, an agave, or my own feet, feeling the heat of the fast-moving grass fire. I stumbled, recovered, and ran into the black, where fire had already burned the vegetation, where I should be safe. But the all-encompassing smoke blinded and threatened to choke me. Breaths in shallow gasps, eyes smarting, I took a moment to tie my bandana over my nose and sucked cleaner air through the cloth. Eric coughed, and I recognized his tall silhouette through the wafting smoke. Relieved, I blinked tears from my eyes, rubbing them to improve my vision. Where was Tom? I called out his name, my voice cracking from the panic threatening to close my throat. I strained, listening for his response.

  Not too soon I heard, “Here!” accompanied by the sound of boots thumping against rocks. Tom reached my side. “Wow. Was that ever a close call.”

  My relief was so profound, I wanted to hug him. Present danger over, we ventured out of our safety zone. My knees quivered from residual fear, nerves tingly and jumpy. Our fire moved on, finding new fuel and a different course—we’d have to start over. Each swing of the Pulaski removed one rock or one plant closer to a fireline. Each swing hurt my wrists, scorching sun toasted my skin, and sweat burned my eyes. I held back a few frustrated tears. This is so futile! We’ll never catch this. Eric tapped my shoulder and pointed to the sky. A small, fixed-wing aircraft vanished behind a hill.

  “That’s the lead plane scoping things out,” he said, shielding his eyes from the glare. “Air tanker should be right behind it.”

  Here it came. Maybe slurry would do what we couldn’t. The C-47 swept in low and slow, its belly doors dropping open, spreading a plume of pink across the fire’s main path. Retardant smacked the ground hard, raising a cloud of ashes and splattering droplets for hundreds of yards. On our side of the fire, though, we faced more scraping and more digging out rocks to remove flammable grass.