English Creek - Ivan Doig

by Ivan Doig

  “Well, yeah, I guess. If you can call it that."

  "Tomorrow it’ll be just an ugly sonuvabitch of a forest fire. But tonight, it’s pretty."

  * * *

  My father had come back into camp and was waiting for Paul to arrive with the phone report from Chet. As soon as Paul showed up, my father was asking him, “How’s Ferragamo?" Joseph Ferragamo was the CC the falling snag had sideswiped.

  "The doc splinted him up, then took him to the hospital in Conrad. Says he’ll be okay." Paul looked wan. “A lot better off than some, anyway."

  “How do you mean?" my father wanted to know.

  Paul glanced around to make sure none of the fire crew were within earshot. "Mac, there’ve been two CCs killed, over on the west-side fires. One on the Kootenai, and one on the Kaniksu fire. Snags got both of them."

  My father said nothing for a little. Then: "I appreciate the report, Paul. Round up Ames and Kratka, will you. We’ve got to figure out how we’re going to handle this fire tomorrow."

  * * *

  My father and Paul and the pair of crew foremen took lanterns and headed up the creek to look over the situation of tomorrow morning’s fireline. My father of course knew the site backwards and forwards, but the hell of it was to try to educate the others in a hurry and in the dark. I could not help but think it: if Alec . . .

  At their bed ground some of the fire crew already were oblivious in their sleeping bags, but a surprising many were around campfires, sprawled and gabbing. The climate of the Two. Roast you all day in front of a forest inferno, then at dark chill you enough to make you seek out fire.

  While waiting for my father, I did some wandering and exercising of my ears. I would like to say here and now that these firefighters, from eighteen-year-old CCs to the most elderly denizen among the First Avenue South EFFs, were earnestly discussing how to handle the Flume Gulch fire. I would like to say that, but nothing would be farther from the truth. Back at the English Creek ranger station, on the wall behind my father’s desk was tacked one of those carbon copy gags that circulate among rangers:

  Subjects under discussion during one summer (timed by stopwatch) by U.S. Forest Service crews, trail, fire, maintenance and otherwise.

  PERCENT OF TIME

  Sexual stories, experiences and theories ............ 37%

  Personal adventures in which narrator is hero ........ 23 %

  Memorable drinking jags ........................ 8%

  Outrages of capitalism .......................... 8%

  Acrimonious remarks about bosses, foremen and cooks. . 5 %

  Personal adventures in which someone not present is the goat ...... 5%

  Automobiles, particularly Fords ................... 3%

  Sarcastic evaluations of Wilson’s war to end war ...... 2%

  Sarcastic evaluations of ex-President Coolidge ........ 2%

  Sarcastic evaluations of ew-President Hoover ......... 2%

  Sears Roebuck catalogue versus Montgomery Ward catalogue ....... 2%

  The meteorological outlook ....................... 2%

  The job at hand ................................ 1%

  From what I could hear, that list was just about right.

  * * *

  Stanley I had not seen for a while, and it crossed my mind that he may have had enough of the thirsty life. That he’d gone off someplace to jug up from an undiluted bottle.

  But no, when I at last spied my father and his fire foremen and Paul returning to camp and then heading for the tent to continue their war council, I found Stanley in that same vicinity. Looking neither worse nor better than he had during our day of cooking.

  Just to be sure, I asked him: "How you doing?"

  "Feeling dusty," he admitted. "Awful dusty."

  My father spotted the pair of us and called over: "Jick, you hang on out here. We got to go over the map, but it won’t take too long."

  Into the tent he ducked with Paul, Kratka and Ames following.

  "You want me to get your sipping bottle ?" I offered to Stanley, referring to the one of whiskey-tinged water in his saddlebag.

  "Mighty kind," replied Stanley. "But it better wait." And before I could blink, he was gone from beside me and was approaching the tent where my father’s war council was going on.

  Stanley stuck his head in past the flap door of the tent. I heard: "Can I see you for part of a minute, Mac ?"

  "Stanley, it’s going to have to wait. We’re still trying to dope out our fireline for the morning."

  “That fireline is what it’s about, Mac."

  There was a moment of silence in the tent. Then Paul’s voice:

  "For crying out loud ! Who ever heard of a fire camp where the cook gets to put in his two bits’ worth? Mister, I don’t know who the devil you think you are, but—"

  "All right, Paul," my father umpired. "Hold on." There was a moment of silence, which could only have been a scrutinizing one. My father began to say: "Stanley, once we get this—"

  "Mac, you know how much it takes for me to ask."

  A moment again. Then my father: "All right. There’s plenty of night ahead. We can stand a couple of minutes for me to hear what Stanley has to say. Paul, you guys go ahead and map out how we can space the crews along the creek bottom. I won’t be long." And bringing one of the gas lanterns out he came, giving Stanley a solid lookingover in the white light.

  Side by side the two of them headed out of earshot of the tent. Not out of mine, though, for this I was never going to miss. They had gone maybe a dozen strides when I caught up with them.

  The three of us stopped at the west end of the camp. Above us the fire had on its night face yet, bright, pretty. No hint whatsoever of the grim smoke and char it showed by day.

  “Mac, I’m sorry as all hell to butt into your war council, there. I hate to say anything about procedure. Particularly to you. But—"

  "But you’re determined to. Stanley, what’s on your mind?"

  "The idea of tackling the fire down here on the creek, first thing in the morning." Stanley paused. Then: "Mac, my belief is that’s not the way to go about it."

  “So where would you tackle it?"

  Stanley’s Stetson jerked upward, indicating the slope of grass across the North Fork from us. "Up there."

  Now in the lantern light it was my father’s eyes that showed the hurtful squint Stanley’s so often did.

  The thought repelled my father. The fire doubling its area of burn: both sides of the North Fork gorge blackened instead of one. More than that——

  "Stanley, if this fire gets loose over the slope and up into that next timber, it can take the whole goddamn country. It can burn for miles."

  My father stared up at the dim angle of the slope, but what was in his mind was 1910, Bitterroot, Selway, Phantom Woman, all the smoke ghosts that haunt a fire boss. "Christamighty," he said softly, "it could burn until snowfall."

  Jerking his head around from that thought, my father said: “Stanley, don’t get radical on me here. What in the hell makes you say the fireline ought to be put up there on the mountain?"

  "Mac, I know you hate like poison to see any inch of the Two go up in smoke. I hated it, too. But if you can’t hold the fire at the base of the gulch, it’s gonna break out onto the slope there anyway."

  "The answer there is, I’m supposed to hold it."

  "Supposed to is one thing. Doing it’s another."

  "Stanley, these days we’ve got what’s called the ten A.M. policy. The Forest Service got religion about all this a few years ago. The Major told us, ‘This approach to fire suppression will be a dividend-payer.’ So the rule is, try to control any fire by ten the next morning."

  "Yeah, rules are rules," agreed Stanley. Or seemed to agree, for I had heard my father any number of times invoke the second part of this ranger station catechism: "And fools are fools."

  My father pulled out a much-employed handkerchief, wiped his eyes, and blew his nose. Among the aggravations of his day
was smoke irritation.

  "All right, Stanley," he said at last. "Run this by me again. You’re saying give the fire the whole damn slope of Rooster Mountain?"

  "Yeah, more or less. Use the morning to backfire in front of that rocky top." Backfiring is when you deliberately burn an area ahead of a fire, to rob its fuel. It has to be done just right, though, or you’ve either wasted your time or given the fire some more flame to work with.

  "Burn in a fireline up there that hell itself couldn’t jump." Stanley saw my father was still unconverted. “Mac, it’s not as nasty a place as this gorge."

  "Christamighty, I can’t pick places to fight a fire by whether they’re nasty or not."

  "Mac, you know what I mean." Stanley spelled it out for my father anyway. "That slope is dry as a torch. If you put men down in this gorge and the fire sets off that slope behind them too, you’re going to be sifting piles of ashes to find their buttons."

  I could see my father thinking it: nothing in the behavior of the Flume Gulch fire to date supported Stanley’s picture. If anything, this slow downhill fire was almost too slow, staying up there in wicked terrain and burning when and where it pleased. He and his crews had been able to work right up beside the fire; it was the geography they couldn’t do anything about. True, the fire’s behavior could all change when it reached the gorge, but—"I can’t see how the fire could set off the slope across this much distance," my father answered slowly.

  "I can," Stanley said back.

  Still stubborn as a government mule against the notion of voluntarily doubling the size of the Flume Gulch burn, my father eyed back up at the slope of Rooster Mountain. "Hell, what if we’re up there merrily backfiring and the fire doesn’t come? Goes down this gorge instead, right through this camp and around that slope? Then’s when we’ll have a bigger mess on our hands."

  "That’s a risk," admitted Stanley. "But my belief is it’s a worse risk to tackle that fire down in here, Mac. Up there you’d have a bigger fireline. And rocks instead of men to help stop it."

  My father considered some more. Then said: "Stanley, I’d rather take a beating than ask you this. But I got to. Are you entirely sober?"

  "Sorry to say," responded Stanley, "I sure as hell am."

  "He is," I chimed in.

  My father continued to confront Stanley. I could see that he had more to say, more to ask.

  But there I was wrong. My father only uttered, "The slope is something I’ll think about," and set off back to the boss tent.

  * * *

  Stanley told me he was going to turn in—"This cooking is kind of a strenuous pastime"—and ordinarily I would have embraced bed myself. But none of this was ordinary. I trailed my father to the war council once more, and heard him say as soon as he was inside the tent: "Ideas don’t care who their daddies are. What would you guys say about this?" And he outlined the notion of the fireline atop the slope. They didn’t say much at all about it. Kratka and Ames already had been foxed once by the Flume Gulch fire. No need for them to stick their necks out again. After a bit my father said: "Well, I’ll use it all as a pillow tonight. Let’s meet here before breakfast. Meantime, everybody take a look at that slope on the map."

  Paul’s voice finally came. “Mac, can I see you outside?"

  "Excuse us again, gents."

  Out came my father and Paul. Again I made sure to catch up before the walking could turn into talking.

  At the west edge of the camp Paul confronted my father. "Mac, whichever way you decide on tackling this fire, I’ll never say a word against you. But the fire record will. You can’t get around that. If you don’t have the crew down here to take the fire by its face in the morning, Sipe is going to want to know why. And the Major—if this fire gets away down the gorge and around that slope, they’ll sic a board of review on you. Mac, they’ll have your hide."

  My father weighed all this. And at last said: "Paul, there’s another if. If we can kill this fire, Sipe and the Major aren’t going to give one good goddamn how we did it."

  Paul peered unhappily from the flickering crack in the night on the Flume Gulch side of us, to the dark bulk of the Rooster Mountain slope on our other. "You’re the fire boss," he said.

  * * *

  I am not sure I slept at all that night. Waiting, breath held, any time I imagined I heard a rustle of wind. Waiting for the morning, for my father’s fireline decision. Waiting.

  * * *

  "Christamighty, Stanley. Twenty loaves again?"

  "Milk toast instead of mush to start with this morning, Jick," confirmed Stanley from the circle of lantern light where he was peering down into the cookbook. "Then after the bread, it’s ‘Place twenty cans of milk and the same of water in a twenty-quart half-oval

  boiler.’ "

  "Yeah, yeah, yeah. Let me get the damn slicing done first." My father and Ames were the first ones through the breakfast line. Ames’s men had come off the fireline earliest last night, so they were to be the early ones onto it this morning. Wherever that fireline was going to be.

  I was so busy flunkying that it wasn’t until a little break after Ames’s men and before Kratka’s came that I could zero in on my father. He and Ames brought their empty plates and dropped them in the dishwash tub. My father scrutinized Stanley, who was lugging a fresh heap of fried ham to the T table. Stanley set down the ham and met my father’s regard with a straight gaze of his own. "Morning, Mac. Great day for the race, ain’t it ?"

  My father nodded to Stanley, although whether in hello or agreement it couldn’t be told. Then he turned to Ames. “Okay, Andy. Take your gang up there to the top and get them started digging the control line for backfiring." And next my father was coming around the serving table to where Stanley and I were, saying: “Step over here, you two. I’ve got something special in mind for the pair of you."

  * * *

  Shortly, Wisdom Johnson came yawning into the grub line. He woke up considerably when my father instructed him that the tall, tall slope of Rooster Mountain, just now looming up in the approach of dawn, was where his water duty would be today.

  "But, Mac, the fire’s over here, it ain’t up there!"

  "It’s a new theory of firefighting," my father told him. "We’re going to do it by mail order."

  Kratka’s men were soon fed. It transpired that my father himself was going to lead this group onto the slope and supervise them in lighting the strips of backfires.

  First, though, he called Paul Eliason over. I heard him instruct:

  “Have Chet tell Great Falls the same thing as yesterday—‘No chance ten A.M. control today.’ "

  "Mac," Paul began. "Mac, how about if I at least wait until toward that time of morning to call it in? I don’t see any sense in advertising what—what’s going on up here."

  My father leveled him a stare that made Paul sway back a little. "Assistant ranger Eliason, do you mean to say you’d delay information to headquarters ?"

  Paul gulped but stood his ground. "Yeah. In this case, I would."

  "Now you’re talking," congratulated my father. "Send it in at five minutes to ten." My father turned and called to the crew waiting to go up the mountain with him. "Let’s go see a fire."

  * * *

  "Stanley, this makes me feel like a coward."

  "You heard the man."

  It was well past noon, the sweltering heart of so hot a day. The rock formation we were perched on might as well have been a stoked stove. Pony and the buckskin saddle horse were tethered in the shade of the trees below and behind us, but they stood there drooping even so. Stanley and I were chefs in exile. This rock observation point of ours was the crown-shaped formation above the line cabin where the two of us sheltered during our camptending shenanigan. How long ago it seemed since I was within those log walls, bandaging Stanley’s hand and wishing I was anywhere else.

  I had heard the man. My father, when he herded the pair of us aside there at breakfast and decreed: "I want you two out of here this afternoon.
You understand ?" If we did, Stanley and I weren’t about to admit it. My father the fire boss spelled matters out for us: "If the wind makes up its mind to blow or that fire takes a turn for some other reason, it could come all the way down the gorge into this camp. So when you get the lunches made, clear out of here."

  “Naw, Mac," Stanley dissented. "It’s a good enough idea for Jick to clear out, but I—"

  "Both of you," stated my father.

  "Yeah, well," I started to put in, “Stanley’s done his part, but I could just as well—"

  "Both of you," my father reiterated. "Out of here, by noon."

  The long faces on us told him he still didn’t have Stanley and me convinced. “Listen, damn it. Stanley, you know what happened the last argument you and I had. This time, let’s just don’t argue." Then, more mild: "I need you to be with Jick, Stanley."

  Stanley shifted the way he was standing. Did so again. And finally came out with a quiet "Okey-doke, Mac," and headed back to his cookstove.

  My father did not have to labor the point to me. I knew, and nodded it to him, that the other half of what he had just said was that I was needed to be with Stanley. But he stopped me from turning away to my flunky tasks.

  "Jick," he said as if this had been stored up in him for some time. "Jick, I can’t risk you." His left eyelid came down as he forced a grin to accompany his words : "You’ve earned a grandstand seat this afternoon. Lean back and watch the event."

  * * *

  Thus here we were. Simmering in safety on this rock outlook, barbecued toes our only peril. At our angle the fire camp at the mouth of the gorge was in sight but Flume Gulch and the fire itself were just hidden, in behind the end of Roman Reef that towered over us. The cloud of smoke, though, told us the fire was having itself a big time. The grass slope of Rooster Mountain lay within clear view. A tan broad ramp of grass. If Pat Hoy had had Dode Withrow’s sheep in a scattered graze there they would have been plain to the unaided eye. In fact, at first it puzzled me that although even my father agreed this rock site was a healthy enough distance behind the fire for Stanley and me, the slope seemed so close. Eventually I figured out that the huge dark dimension of the smoke made the distance seem foreshortened. I had snagged the binoculars again from the boss tent, and every few minutes I would squat—as with the slope yesterday at this time, our island of stone was too damn hot to sit on—and prop my elbows on my knees to steady the glasses onto the fireline work.