by Chris Offutt
He returned to the ranch tired and happy. The children met him at the door, yelling his name, trying to climb his legs.
“How was it?” Botree said.
“A truck’s a truck,” Joe said. “I can drive anything.”
“You seem different already,”
“I like working. It makes me feel worth something.”
Joe felt lucky but was afraid to say it and risk hexing what little he had. After supper he lay in bed and read to Dallas and Abilene. He woke disoriented, with Abilene’s foot against his face, and a pile of books on his stomach. Botree was asleep. He undressed, feeling the unfamiliar sensation of peace.
For the next two weeks, Joe transported provisions to various camps in the mountains. Thousands of acres were burning daily. Crude camps were hastily arranged, with men sleeping outside in government-issue yellow bags. Fire crews were arriving from around the country. The main camp became so vast that a plywood billboard was erected with, information for the firefighters—maps to the sites, lists of crews and their home, newspaper articles from hometown papers of many states.
One morning Johnny was waiting for Joe by the Jeep. He looked tired and skinny. He asked if he could ride with Joe to work.
“How’s the bunkhouse?” Joe said.
“It stinks. Cold at night and hot in the day. The pump’s broke so there’s no water. You wouldn’t believe what Owen calls food.”
“Botree told me. How’s Sally?”
Johnny slumped in his seat and stared through the window for several miles. The western sky held a haze of smoke. An eagle flew along the river as if it were a road.
“I got to get out of there,” Johnny said.
“How come?”
Johnny shrugged. He rolled the window down and the smell of smoke entered the cab.
“Look,” Joe said. “Come back and live in the house.”
“That’s not it.”
“Then what?”
“Can you get me on with the fires?” Johnny said.
“Driving?”
“I don’t have a damn license. But I’ll do anything else.”
“I’ll try.”
“I’m not going back to the bunkhouse.”
Johnny signed with a crew digging fire break, using a shovel twelve hours a day and sleeping at a camp in the mountains. Joe began a daylong trip to a fire camp near the Idaho border. The fires had spread to Canada and were continuing to jump east into Montana. Gerard and Phil packed socks in the cab to sell to the firefighters at a profit.
“You think that’s right?” Joe said.
“Why not?” Gerard said. “That’s what they need the most and the concessionaire runs out every week.”
“I mean making money off it.”
“You are, too,” Phil said. “We all are. Those guys can afford it. They get the best wage except for pilots.”
Joe recalled a government project in Kentucky known as the Happy Pappy program that was designed to employ fathers. One of the jobs was fighting forest fires. Joe knew several men who’d set fires in the woods, then waited near the government office to be hired.
“I used to know a boy back home,” Joe said. “He wanted to go fishing, but didn’t have no bait. Went up to his cousin’s house and asked did he have any. His cousin said no, but he told him where to dig for fishing worms. That boy, he dug all day long. Worked hisself like a borrowed mule. Never did get a worm. At dark he said to hell with it and went to the house. Next day, his cousin went outside and planted a garden where he’d dug.”
“Sounds like a bait fisherman,” Phil said.
“I can just see you two charging him good money for digging.”
“If he was a friend of yours,” Gerard said, “we might give him a break.”
The smoke became thicker as they neared the fire zone. By midafternoon, the air was dark as dusk. They passed a freshly bulldozed landing strip where several air tankers were being serviced, their huge tanks refilled with fire retardant. The base commander was a Blackfeet man with a powerful body. Joe knew him from other camps. He worked harder than men half his age, and never appeared to have had much sleep. He was always calm.
He dispatched two men to help Gerard and Phil unload the truck.
“Getting worse, ain’t it,” Joe said.
“We lost two men last night and I got four more burned in the hospital.”
“How come this year is so bad?”
“You want the official answer, or mine?”
“Yours.”
“Putting out too many little fires.”
“What do you mean?”
“A lot of people move out here and build in the woods. They start crying when it catches on fire, and we get sent to put them out. Used to, we let those little fires burn. The brush builds up in the timber and there’s more to bum when it ignites. That kept a big one like this from happening. But the new people got the money and the juice.”
“That’s the way it always is, ain’t it.”
“No real Montanan builds a fancy house in the woods. I got two men died trying to save million-dollar homes.”
He turned to spit and the desiccated earth sucked the moisture like a sponge.
After three eighteen-hour days, Joe took a day off. The next morning, he and Botree drank coffee in sunlight the color of sweet corn.
“Got a visit from Owen,” Botree said. “He wanted us to be ready to mobilize.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“I don’t know exactly. Frank might have to move his camp because of the fires.”
“It’s not my fight.”
“He said he’s just keeping us informed.”
The boys ran around the house, their boots raising a trail of dust. Abilene grabbed Joe’s leg, Dallas pushed his brother, then took Joe’s hand.
“Why are mountains so close together?” Dallas said.
“That’s just how they grow, I guess,” Joe said.
“I know,” Dallas said. “The seeds were close together when they got planted.”
“That makes sense.”
“And rocks are seeds.”
The boys began hunting rocks to plant.
“You’re good for them,” Botree said.
“You know what Dallas said the other day? Said he had two heads—his forehead and his main head.”
“Sounds like you.”
“What do you mean?”
“There’s you that’s here now,” Botree said. “And there’s the other you that drifts away sometimes. Makes me wonder if we can ever have a normal life.”
“What do you call normal?” Joe said. “Your kids don’t go to school. Your neighbors think freedom of religion means picking which Christian church to go to. The main thing your family is worried about is keeping their guns, and they got enough to start a war already.”
“What about me?”
“You’re normal enough.”
“My mother taught me to shoot and my father taught me to cook.”
Joe watched the boys dig for a rock embedded in the hard dirt. Boyd had taught him more than his parents had.
Abilene was yelling for the stick Dallas was using to dig. Dallas pushed him, and Abilene hit his brother.
“You all shouldn’t fight,” Joe said. “Know what me and my brother did when we had to share?”
The boys shook their heads.
“We flipped for it. Got a penny?”
The boys shook their heads.
“Neither did we.”
Joe stooped for a flat rock. He spat on one side and smeared it with his thumb.
“Now you have to call it in the air. Dry or wet.”
He flipped the rock high. Dallas yelled “Wet,” and the rock landed with the dry side up, Joe found each of them a stone and returned to Botree. She looked at him carefully.
“I didn’t know you had a brother,” she said.
Joe turned away. The mountains were spiked with trees that would remain green throughout the fall. He missed t
he brilliant foliage of home. Autumn had been Boyd’s favorite season. Long after he’d quit hunting deer, he’d still tracked them every year, hoping to touch one in the woods.
23
* * *
In September the fires were deemed the worst in thirty years. Camping in parks was suspended, Missoula filled with evacuated families, off-duty firefighters, and emergency volunteers. The Red Cross set up temporary housing in school gymnasiums. Gerard and Phil were promoted to driver, and Joe worked alone. He lost weight from missing meals, and his leg ached from saying in one position while driving.
One morning Joe hauled cases of dried military food to a new base deep in the Flathead Valley. Each crate was stamped MRE. The slanting sun lit the Mission Mountains as if the rock walls held shards of glass. Deer cropped grass in a meadow of oxeye and balsam root. Joe followed a crude map to the first turn. A ladder of freshly dozed switchbacks climbed upslope to a new camp high in the mountains. From the summit, fire was visible in the west. It made arcing lines of orange along the slopes, forming a border of green trees and blackened earth. Aircraft circled overhead, carrying fire retardant and men.
A single tent stood beside a mess trailer and mini-dozer. Joe opened the truck’s rear gate and waited for a crew to help him unload the crates of food. He stood in the sun, wearing a down vest over flannel shirt and long johns. He was eager for the day to end. Tomorrow was Abilene’s birthday, and Joe had bought a board game that he and Boyd had played as kids.
Four young men approached the truck. Joe knew they were fresh recruits by the enthusiasm in their stride. These men hadn’t learned to hoard their energy for the fire. They seemed vaguely familiar and Joe wondered if they lived in the Bitterroot.
“Shit fire and save matches,” said a man. “Now we got to work.”
“All right, boys,” said another, “let’s knock this out fast and loaf.”
“Let’s not and say we did.”
“By God, he’s so lazy he’d not hit a lick at a snake.”
Joe recoiled from the raucous twang of their voices. He knew instantly where they were from. He turned to climb in the cab, but the men were upon him.
“What the hell’s in this truck anyhow?”
“Ever you boys see food that looked like that?”
“I’d not eat that to save me from Horn-head’s Hades.”
“Nothing’ll save you, son. You’re plumb wicked. Satan’s got a special room just waiting on you.”
“By God, it’ll be warmer than that damn tent. I’m sleeping in the middle tonight.”
“Will you give favors?”
“What do you mean?”
“Shoot, last night Bobby here gave us a little brown-eye, didn’t you, Bobby.”
“Shut up, you heathen.”
Joe hurried across the hard earth to the base commander, who was muttering into his radio. Joe waited until he finished. Strips of mist twined among the boughs of tamarack.
“Brought a load of food,” Joe said.
“We need it. Threw twenty men in the fire last night. They’ll be hungry tomorrow.”
“Anything special you’re needing?”
“Yeah. Rain.”
Joe made his voice flat.
“Where’s that new crew from?”
“Kentucky.”
Joe stood without blinking for nearly a minute. The pounding of his head moved across his shoulders and down his spine. In as casual a fashion as possible, he walked to the edge of the clearing and entered the woods. He watched the men unload the truck. They worked without talking, moving as a team. When they completed the task, they squatted on their heels to rest.
Joe walked to the truck, careful to keep it between him and the crew. He climbed in the passenger side, slid across the bench seat, and started the engine. Its steady rumble calmed him. From the open window came a voice.
“Hey, buddy. You ain’t got any water, do ye? Ain’t a one of us had a thing to drink.”
Joe passed a canteen to the man, who showed it to the crew behind him. Another man approached the truck. Joe thought he was staring, but couldn’t be certain.
“Keep it,” Joe said.
“Thank ye. We’re kindly new here. What about blankets and such?”
“I don’t know.”
Joe put the truck in gear too fast and stalled the engine. He fumbled with the key. The second man joined the crew boss. He was staring at Joe and frowning. Joe eased the truck into reverse. The second man spoke.
“Hey,” he said. “Hey, you.”
Joe revved the engine and lifted his foot from the clutch. The truck jerked backwards in a spray of dirt. The two men cursed and jumped away as Joe spun the truck in a lumbering circle. He forced it into first gear and sped down the dirt lane.
Joe yanked the wheel into the first switchback and clipped a pine, shattering the headlight. At the bottom he veered off the road and scared an elk that plunged into cover. Joe jerked the steering wheel and bumped back into the road ruts, his head striking the roof of the cab. When he reached blacktop he pulled over, his bad leg throbbing. Nausea passed through his bowels and he leaned his head outside until the sensation passed. He tried to calm himself. The man probably wanted to know how to get cigarettes. Joe had been surprised by the number of firefighters who smoked.
He wiped his face with his sleeve and drove back to the warehouse in Missoula. He’d become lax. He should have watched the billboard at the Incident Command Post for evidence of a crew from Kentucky. He wondered if he was in danger. The best move was to quit, but he liked the job. More important, he liked himself for having a fob. He thought of his father continuing to go into the mines after being diagnosed with emphysema. That decision had turned Boyd against work for life.
He parked in the lot and turned in his keys. The boss accepted Joe’s resignation without comment. He drove through town to the interstate. At the last red light he headed east through Hellgate Canyon, where pioneers had suffered ambush by the hundreds.
He followed the Clark Fork’s gentle meandering until it reached the juncture of Rock Creek. Traffic was slowed by campers and trucks pulling enormous trailers. An RV crept around a tight curve, the face of its driver tense. A tiny slip of the wrist and the whole contraption would plunge into the creek. Beyond the tourist lodge were fewer cars, and Joe felt as if he were going home again.
An expensive truck with. Nevada plates sat before his cabin. Fishing gear lay strewn about the soft earth like a yard sale. Joe backtracked to Ty’s place. No one answered his knock. A silken light sifted through the juniper boughs, imbuing the air with a golden glow. After several minutes Ty approached the Jeep from, behind, holding a rifle loosely in his hands.
“Hey, brother,” Ty said. “I thought you’d be gone by now. How’s your leg?”
“Better. Stiffens up when I don’t work it.”
“That was some bad luck getting shot on Skalkaho like that.”
“I reckon,” Joe said.
They walked behind Ty’s cabin to a redwood table turned gray from sun and snow. The steady rush of Rock Creek came across the grass.
“I hear you’re a Fed after all,” Ty said.
“What?”
“Got your snout in the fire trough.”
“Not anymore. I just quit.”
“And came here on a social call.”
“Not exactly.”
Ty sat with one leg extended on the picnic table. He seemed content to remain there for hours. A wren called from the woods and another answered. Joe struggled against the urge to explain his situation. He wanted to tell Ty about Boyd and Rodale, his family and the garbage crew, Abigail, and Zephaniah. He wanted to confess.
“I need a gun,” he said.
“Talk to Owen.”
“If I ask him for help, he might get the wrong idea.”
“How’s that?”
“I’m not a Bill.”
“Me neither,” Ty said. “I don’t take sides.”
“I know you sell them
guns.”
“In the eighteen hundreds, the French armed the Indians with rifles. The Indians lost, but at least they went down fighting. Then they got put in camps as bad as the Japanese in California.”
Joe wasn’t sure what Ty was talking about, but he believed him.
“Have you met Frank yet?” Ty said.
“When I got shot. And at a picnic.”
“Take it from me, Frank is a frigging lunatic. In my line you meet all sorts. Sociopath, gun fag, religious nut, even environmentalists want guns these days. And sometimes you meet a genuine psychopath. Frank is special, like Custer. He can’t wait to die in a blaze of glory. So watch your ass around him.”
“He doesn’t like anybody but white people.”
“You figured that out, huh.”
“I don’t understand it.”
“Let me tell you, brother. Hatred is the cheapest pleasure there is.”
“One man blamed everything on the Jews.”
“They’re like a broken record. I always tell them they’ve got things backwards. First of all, Jesus was a Jew. And second, the Jews didn’t kill him, the government did. The government bribed Judas, arrested Jesus, put him on trial, and executed him.”
“I never thought about it that way.”
“It’s hard to argue with since they’re against the whole alphabet soup.”
“What’s that?”
“CIA, FBI, ATF, NSA, IRS, UN, FEMA. There’s tons if you buy it.”
“What made them get that way?”
“The end of the Cold War.”
“You lost me.”
“During the fifties,” Ty said, “the government wanted everybody to be afraid of the Russians. That brought on a bunker mentality which led to people stockpiling arms and food. When the Cold War ended, all that paranoia lost its enemy. The Feds filled the gap. Then what happened at Waco and Ruby Ridge proved them right,”