The Big Burn

by Jeanette Ingold

  "You know," Abel told Seth, "there's other food here wouldn't take all this work."

  They'd been pulling details together enough that they were getting to know each other's ways. Seth realized he did more than his share, but he was glad for how Abel put a gloss to things. Abel saw to it that their work—and the two of them—looked good, and for the first time, Seth was feeling and getting treated like the soldier he wanted to be.

  Now, though, looking at the huge chore in front of them, Seth was impatient. "You gonna help?" he asked.

  "Sure," Abel answered. "Here, I found the tomatoes packed in with some pickles and stuff." He put an opened crate atop the stacked crates. "Hey," he said, "hand me your knife."

  Seth watched him carefully slit under the flap' of a box marked with a skull and crossbones. "What's that?"

  "Rat poison," Abel answered. "Folks ought to be careful where they put this stuff." He tilted the opened box so its powdered white contents sprinkled down through the vegetables.

  "What the hell are you doing?" Seth demanded. "You want to kill somebody?"

  "No, I'm taking care of us." Abel placed the rat poison box in with the tomatoes. Then he pulled out a jar of pickles, loosened the lid, and poured the juice on the box.

  "By ruining all that food?" Seth said. "No washing will make it safe now."

  "The army won't miss a few vegetables," Abel said. He poked at the box until the cardboard gave way and juice and more white powder dripped down into the crates below. "Leave it," he said. "I got to go tell Sarge we got us a problem."

  ***

  Seth couldn't raise his gaze up, not when his only friend was busy telling Sarge such barefaced lies. Seth was just waiting for Sarge to bellow, You expect me to believe that?

  Only, Sarge didn't. After asking a few suspicious questions, he seemed to buy the whole story, right down to Abel's saying the grocer who'd packed poison in the same container with canned goods ought to make good on all the spoiled food.

  "Cook didn't say to start anything else," Abel said, "but there's canned beans and bread enough for one meal. 'Course it's too soon to pull 'em out."

  "Clean up here and haul this stuff off for burning," Sarge said. "Then I guess you two can take off." Only then did he throw Seth a troubled look. "Strange," he said.

  ***

  Seth told Abel, "That wasn't right"

  "Nobody got hurt," Abel answered.

  "How about the store man who's going to have to pay for that stuff?"

  "The army won't track him down. Anyway, what do you care about someone you don't know?"

  "What we did was wrong," Seth said.

  "And making us peel vegetables when everybody else was off wasn't?" Abel demanded. "Let's go. I want to get to the baseball game in time to play some. Once people see my pitching arm, won't neither of us never have to work when there's a game on."

  "I'm not that good a ballplayer," Seth said.

  "They want me, they get you," Abel answered. "It's you and me, right? We're a team."

  Cool Spring Ranger Station

  July 23, Night

  Samuel finished the previous week's worth of notes.Liars diaries, the rangers called the reports they were supposed to keep up daily but rarely did. Since the reports were more often done in chunks of a week or two at a time, the facts had a way of getting mixed up. Also, everyone had heard the story about an honest ranger who once wrote that torrential rain kept him idle for a day. Supposedly the Forest Service had docked him the day's wages, with the result that ever since, a ranger with no other official business to report either "patrolled" or "maintained equipment."

  Samuel considered what details to put in the current day's report.Patrolled. Cleared trail. Warned folks about fire danger. Same as most days. He knew that Jarrett, after just a week, was already chafing at the monotony of it.

  A marauding bear had left the springhouse in need of re-roofing, and he'd suggested Jarrett might tackle that job. Instead of welcoming the change, though, Jarrett had seemed to think the task was a demotion. The thought was clear on his face, though he'd set about the work without a word of protest.

  That one keeps his own counsel, Samuel thought.Maybe none of us Logans are good at saying what's on our minds.

  He put the report away and turned down the wick in the kerosene lamp. He was remembering the ride back to the station from the Whitcomb place. Jarrett had asked a dozen questions about homestead laws without once mentioning Lizbeth, but Samuel was sure that's who all the questions revolved around. "What did Mrs. Whitcomb mean about doing their six months and a day?" Jarrett had asked.

  Samuel had explained that one of the requirements for proving up a homestead was living on it for more than six months a year. "Probably in the winter they stay in Wallace."

  "It must be hard to keep up a place like that," Jarrett had said. "Two women alone, I mean. And lonely, too."

  "I reckon." Samuel could have added, Of course, men get lonely, too, except there was no way he'd admit that to anyone.

  Maybe that lonely side of ranger life was why he'd never quite got around to taking down that Wife Wanted poster. The rangers who put it up had meant it for a joke, but Hank Sickles, his best friend among them, had said, "Leave it for a while," and Samuel had.

  Not that he really did want a wife. But the station sometimes seemed awful empty with just him by himself. Especially on evenings after he'd seen something extraordinary, like the time he'd watched a pair of half-grown, playful fawns snatch crab apples from their mother's mouth just to tease her. When you see a thing like that, you want to tell somebody.

  Samuel had tried to sketch the scene into one of his notebooks, but although he could draw an apple that would pass scientific scrutiny, and do a passable deer, too, he didn't have the skill to put the story together right. That kind of drawing took talent like Mrs. Whitcomb's, though he couldn't see her painting deer, playful or otherwise.

  He chuckled. Maybe he ought to be glad that poster hadn't brought results. What if he'd ended up with a wife as sharp-tongued as that one?

  Distant thunder interrupted his musings. Boone came over to lean uneasily against Samuel's legs. "What do you think, boy?" Samuel said, rubbing behind the dog's ears. "Do we get along pretty well without a woman here?"

  The next peal of thunder sounded closer, and the next one closer still. A bolt of lightning briefly turned the cabin bright as midday, and Boone tried to squeeze between Samuel's legs and the chair. Then a craaack many times louder was followed by the sounds of tearing wood and a tree crashing down through other trees.

  "Jarrett?" Samuel called. "You awake?"

  "Are you kidding?"

  "We better go see if we've got us a fire to put out."

  FIELD NOTES

  The threat of dry lightning nags in the mind of a firefighter who guards acres of unburned fuel or struggles to bring control to land where trees already burn. He watches for clouds that might be forerunners of lightning storms. He frets over sullen weather that squats in a ragged gray heap on the southwestern horizon. He worries that a cold front is about to move in and bring him new problems.

  Much of the year, over much of the earth, the thunderstorms that come with moving weather fronts carry enough rain to quench fires ignited by their lightning.

  But sometimes, especially in a summer of drought, over parched land, thunderclouds form with only the barest amount of moisture. Enough moisture to put into motion the electrical imbalances that create lightning, but not enough moisture to make rain.

  A fire must have heat to start. A bolt of lightning streaking down at temperatures hotter than the sun's surface bring? far more than enough.

  Placer Creek

  July 23, Night

  Jarrett's leg muscles ached and his lungs felt ready to explode as he fought to maintain the pace Samuel set. They went on foot, tools and knapsacks on their backs, hacking their way through trailless wilderness that horses couldn't negotiate. Tree branches swatted Jarrett's face and brambles scra
tched him as they climbed to a spot where they had glimpsed a small glow. Electricity in the close air made his skin tingle, and in the brightness of a lightning flash he saw the hair on his arms, below his rolled-up sleeves, stand up.

  When they finally reached their destination, they found a meager fire lazily licking along the split trunk of a lodge-pole pine. Half the tree angled down from the break to within arm's reach, and Jarrett hurried to it, assuming that's where they'd start.

  "And what are you going to do if that other piece crashes down, and then a wind comes along and scatters flames everywhere?" Samuel asked.

  Jarrett, not knowing what he was supposed to answer, remained silent. "The first thing you do on a fire is figure out how you can get away from it if need be. Here, we're not far from a ridgeline that we could probably walk down. And in a pinch that clump of boulders we passed might make a decent shelter."

  Samuel took off his knapsack before adding, "Running down the way we came would be tempting, but when a fire blows up, whatever you do, you don't want to get trapped in some gully."

  He unstrapped his one-man saw and told Jarrett to pick up his ax. Then he pointed to a stand of skinny trees and shrubs that grew within the area where the burning pine might fall. "We'll down these first and drag them out of the way," he said. "Then dig a fireline and see what we've got."

  Working in the poor light given off by the flickering flames, they chopped and sawed for an hour, clearing the area of wood and most other fuel. Then they worked another smoky hour to cut a foot-wide, bare-dirt line around what was left.

  They smothered small spot fires inside the perimeter by breaking them up and spreading out the heat. The strategy wasn't too different from what Jarrett had figured out for himself, back on the Avery fire he'd tried to handle alone. Now, though, imitating Samuel's efficient moves, Jarrett gradually learned to make every shovel motion count. And after a while he was hardly wasting any muscle or wind at all on shallow scrapes and wild throws.

  By that time the fire in the pine had about burned itself out.

  Samuel straightened up, studied the scene, and nodded. "I think it's safe to go on. Ready for the next one?"

  Jarrett, too exhausted to spend breath on words, just nodded.

  "By the way," Samuel said, "you caught on fast, almost like you'd dug fireline before. Good work."

  ***

  They repeated the routine at the site of a second strike, this one in a lone snag that they reached just as the first light of dawn broke. Here, before they got started, Samuel pointed out a large patch of ground scorched in some previous fire. "That would be a place to escape to," he said. "Fire doesn't usually waste its time on old bums."

  This time, while Jarrett cut fireline, Samuel brought down the snag itself, since it was spawning new blazes faster than they could put them out.

  They worked furiously, and soon Jarrett was gulping for breath through the dry handkerchief Samuel had made him tie over his mouth and nose. Smoke hurt his eyes, and salty sweat stung his body. It stuck his clothes to him and made his hands and tool handles slippery.

  Finally, though, Samuel said to stop—they had it.

  Plodding back to the ranger station, Jarrett had all he could do just to keep upright.

  As they went inside the wall phone sounded the two long rings that meant a call for Samuel rather than for someone else along the telephone line. Jarrett, dropping into the nearest chair, watched his brother close his eyes in weariness as he answered.

  After listening a moment, Samuel said, "Sure. I'll get on it."

  He put the earpiece into its hanger on the side of the telephone box. "Report of another smoke," he told Jarrett. "Probably one I can handle myself. Why don't you get some sleep?"

  Sleep would feel so good, Jarrett thought. Then he got to his feet, because there was no way he would give up before his brother did. "It'll go faster with the two of us."

  Homestead off Placer Creek

  July 24, Morning

  Sunlight streamed down through the skylight, warming the batch of dough Celia was kneading.

  Whenever did Lizbeth grow up enough to start thinking about boys? Celia wondered, as she lifted the far side of the dough and pulled it toward her and then leaned into it with the heels of her hands. Or may be she just wants a friend. Celia spun the dough a quarter turn and lifted again. The question had been bothering her better than a week now, popping up when she least expected it.

  She hoped her niece wouldn't fall for someone like Tom Whitcomb.

  Not that all men had faults like Tom's. That Ranger Logan, for instance. He seemed bound to duty just as sure as Tom Whitcomb never even saw his. She'd wager Samuel Logan, however tired he might have been, had spent the night out meeting that electric storm head-on. Just as she and Lizbeth had walked their own place at dawn to be sure they had nothing burning.

  Through the door open to the morning breeze, Celia could see Lizbeth replacing a broken rail at the corral. What kind of work was that for a young girl to be doing? And she never complained, except when Celia didn't let her take on even more.

  Celia couldn't remember once in the last four years that Lizbeth had asked for a thing besides wire or nails or plant starts. Never once, until making that one comment last week about Jarrett Logan and his brother—"I bet they don't come back"—had Lizbeth let on that she missed other young people.

  Celia kneaded the dough until it felt elastic with yeast coming to life. She covered it with a rucked towel and set it aside to rise. Then she walked out to where Lizbeth was working.

  "I owe Dora Crane a letter," she said. "I was thinking that if I got to it one day soon, then we might drive it down to the mail drop. We could stop by the ranger station and leave a pie to make up for how ungracious I was to the ranger and Jarrett."

  "If you want," Lizbeth answered, her voice stiff. Then she flung her arms around Celia so hard that Celia had to catch hold of a corral post to keep from being knocked off her feet. "Thank you!"

  "Of course," Celia warned, "they might be away. Ranger Logan himself said this summer's keeping him busy."

  FIELD NOTES

  In the summer 1910, rangers who were used to working in isolation suddenly found their forests filling with strangers.

  With new fires breaking out daily through July and older ones stubbornly resisting control, the Forest Service's District One had no choice but to hire more and more men to fight them. By the end of the month, there were almost three thousand firefighters scattered across the district's several forests, one of which was the Coeur d'Alene.

  District One Chief Forester W.B. Greeley would later say, "It was a case of hiring anyone we could get. We cleaned out Skid Road in Spokane and Butte. A lot of temporaries were bums and hoboes. In a bad fire year, the temporary is the weakest link in the chain."

  He would also praise the help given by logging-camp crews and miners, just as Forest Service people would be quick to say good words about the efforts of homesteaders and townspeople, railroaders and others with a tie to the woods. But the truth was, the temporary fire-fighting force was a mixed and untrained lot.

  Many of the men who went out to firelines had no experience with fires. Many spoke little English. Some were drifters who signed up under false names and lied about their hometowns. They went into the burning forests wearing the clothes they'd been recruited in, and the ones wearing street shoes or snug wool suits would regret that.

  They worked for twenty-five cents an hour with board, thirty if they provided their own food. For some the regular work was a godsend. For more than a few, it was an invitation to devilment.

  Placer Creek

  July 24, Afternoon

  Boone, brave again now that the lightning storm was over, accompanied Jarrett and Samuel when they set out for the smoke Samuel had been called to check on.

  They had to climb halfway up a mountain to get to it, and Jarrett's aching legs felt more rubbery with every step. When they finally reached a smoldering log and small g
round fire that seemed to be the source of the smoke, Samuel asked Jarrett what he thought they should do if the blaze got away.

  Jarrett, cross and weary, snapped, "I don't know! You tell mel"

  "And be to blame when what you don't know gets someone killed?"

  "No! I've just had it with lessons for now," Jarrett said. Then, shamed by the disappointed expression on Samuel's face, he added, "Look, I want to learn all this stuff, but no more right now. Can't we just get done here?"

  This last fire proved to be more stubborn than either of the ones they'd handled during the night, and they sawed and chopped and stooped over their shovels for several hours. The day's rising heat made the fire burn hotter, and it turned fighting the fire into miserable, broiling work. Jarrett got so thirsty he drank his last quart of water all in one wonderful moment, and then the liquid slogging around inside him, along with the sun beating down, made him want to vomit. And then he was desperately thirsty again long before Samuel declared, "That's enough. Let's pack up."

  ***

  They were bushwhacking down the side of a steep slope, looking for a trail out, when something caught Boone's attention. His ears pricked forward, and his neck hair bristled.

  "What's wrong, boy?" Samuel asked.

  Boone whined softly and then dived down a game path that branched off at a sharp angle. He looked back once, saw Jarrett and Samuel were following, and went on.

  Jarrett heard men's voices and then pleased-sounding, distinct words. "She ought to run up that face."

  "Boone!" Samuel said softly, and the dog came instantly to his side.

  "Jarrett, you stay here," Samuel ordered. "Boone, come."

  Jarrett watched them make their way quietly toward the voices, and then, once they were out of sight, he waited impatiently to hear what was going on. Finally, when he couldn't stand the waiting anymore, he worked his way down to where he could see.