“Hey, you must be Linda.” He reached out to shake my hand. “I’m Rob. You’re on my crew. Have you met the others?”
“No, just our boss.”
I followed Rob past a window, where The Bear sat at his desk. At the back of the garage, a door opened into the lounge. Numerous windows kept the room bright on this cloudy day. Wildwood’s fire crews sat on two orange vinyl couches or at the Formica-topped table. A small TV on a wheeled cart against the wall murmured the local news broadcast.
Rob ran through the who, what, and stationed where, of Wildwood’s tanker crews. Most interesting to me, though, was that everyone came from outside Alaska, except Fred, a native. Sean, Karen, Fogie, “Ichabod Crane,” and Rob, were all from the Pacific Northwest. Craig was from Minnesota. When Dan told me he hailed from Southern California, I felt an immediate connection. We had the west in common. Someone I could relate to.
Ron then said, “Everyone’s up and running but us. Our boss is building our tanker.”
The government allowed an employee to build a tanker? Apparently so. He had requested the unfinished Model 50 tanker chassis be delivered here for completion and customization.
Dan said that our boss worked secretively, and that he wouldn’t let anyone see his progress. “We call him Strudel,” he said, twirling his index finger around his ear. “As in having strudel for brains.”
I laughed, but hoped The Bear didn’t hear that. Heaven forbid anyone should get fired so soon.
At lunchtime, I found an opportunity to talk to Karen, the only other woman on the crew. “Did the boss say anything to you about your long hair?”
Karen’s eyes widened. “No … why?”
“He told me I had to cut my hair.”
Her jaw dropped. “He told you what? What did you say?”
What a relief I could tell someone. “I told him no way. For a moment there, I thought I’d be back on the plane to Arizona. But he didn’t force the issue, so I guess I’m staying.” I laughed. “I am not cutting my hair.”
After lunch, everyone walked to the warehouse to pick up our gear. Fogie, the foreman on Wildwood’s Model 20 tanker, strolled alongside me. An epitome of relaxation (or sloppiness, I wasn’t sure which yet), Fogie wore his fire shirt with one tail tucked in, one tail out, and one pant leg stuck into a boot top, one not, his bootlaces untied and flinging as he walked. By the end of the week, I discovered that he always dressed this way. Here, I’d worried about my appearance, remembering what Glenn had said about how civilians saw us as “their tax dollars at work.”
Hal, the warehouse supervisor and station custodian, supplied us with fire gear identical to what I’d carried with the Forest Service—except for the industrial strength mosquito repellent, DEET.
Hal roared, his beer-belly shaking. “Not that it’ll do any good. The most effective mosquito repellent up here is a shotgun.”
Everyone laughed but me. I felt a little sick. I hated mosquitoes. Plus, many insect-repellants caused an allergic reaction, and the last thing I wanted to do was experiment to see if this kind gave me itchy red blotches. But I didn’t want to spend my own money either. Still counting on vitamin B-12 and garlic, I put the bottle in my pack to use as a last resort. So far, the mosquito situation hadn’t been too bad. Then again, that could’ve been because it was still snowing.
Hal’s smile turned diabolical. “You foreigners will also need these.”
I held the headnet as though he’d given me a bag of venomous snakes. But I don’t want to have to need one! After a moment, I decided he must be exaggerating. It would never be thatbad.
THIRTY
“LET’S GO CLAMMIN’!” Rob said in front of the gang Friday afternoon.
Just the distraction I needed to alleviate that pang of homesickness. I stood in front of my closet Saturday morning, debating on what and how much to wear. It was hard to imagine being cold, since my bedroom radiator chugged steam nonstop, overheating the room. I found no way to regulate it. Must ask Warehouse Hal. Outside, dark, angry clouds loomed heavy and foreboding. Temperatures couldn’t have been much above freezing; the dirty patches of snow hadn’t budged all week. I dressed in multiple layers and rushed out the door before I began to sweat. I rode with Craig and Sean, straining to see through Craig’s shattered windshield.
“Windshields have a short life on the ALCAN Highway,” Craig explained. “No point in replacing it, it’ll just get broken on my way home. I went through this every summer with my salmon cannery jobs. Worth it though. I made a fortune in a few months, if you don’t mind working until you drop dead.”
I had to admire anyone who’d drive three thousand miles to take a summer job.
We parked at the shore of the Cook Inlet and unloaded shovels and buckets. One shade darker gray than the sky, the inlet no doubt rivaled the frigid temperature of the salty off-shore breeze.
“So how does this work?” I asked, shovel ready.
“I’ll show you,” Rob said, taking off at a brisk pace. At the water’s edge, he slowed, stepping like a cat stalking prey. He stopped where a wave had just receded, squatted, pointed to a dimple in the sand, and whispered, “Clam.” Shoveling like a madman, he flung sand everywhere, sending me leaping out of the way.
“Aha! Gotcha.” He flipped out a clam and proudly dropped it into the bucket. “They can sense you coming.”
“Oh, come on, Rob.” Sean didn’t believe him, and I wasn’t sure I did either.
“You’ve gotta be fast, because as soon as you start digging, they use their foot to pull themselves deeper.”
Wet sand made for heavy shoveling—hard work for one lousy clam. It took two hours for me to half-fill my bucket. We headed back to the station and arrived before the heater could thaw my icy toes.
At home, I tugged off my wet boots. Damn, I just oiled them. I propped them by the radiator to dry out. After a suggestion to buy a pair of Army boots as spares, I’d checked them out. They were flimsy and ridiculously expensive. I’d passed. My boots better dry out fast; I’ll need them tomorrow. I headed upstairs to take a nap and found my bedroom stifling. Ironic, after being so cold. I opened the window. No screen? That won’t do. I’d have to ask Warehouse Hal about that too.
Knocking woke me up. I padded downstairs in sock feet and opened the door to find Rob, Craig, and Sean, buckets in hand.
“You’re the only one home with a kitchen,” Rob said, grinning.
We sat at the dining table; Sean explained what they did. “We soaked the clams in cold water so they’d spit out sand. Now, we just need a skillet to sauté them.”
I found a sixteen-inch fry pan. “Will this do?”
“Perfect,” Rob said. “I’m starving. Let’s cook these puppies.”
I watched from the dining table while the guys huddled over the stove.
“So how long do we cook them?” Sean asked Rob.
“Heck I don’t know, fifteen … twenty minutes?”
I’d never cooked clams, so didn’t have anything to offer. They stirred them around and around, making a tremendous racket as shells rattled against the metal pan. Soon the kitchen smelled like the sea. A half hour later, they declared them done.
I poked at a clam with my finger. “How do you eat these, anyway?”
“Pry the shell open, and scoop them out with your front teeth,” Craig said, demonstrating.
I chewed and chewed, finally swallowing it whole. Like eating a seaweed flavored eraser. Why did people go to all the trouble to catch these things? They were awful!
Sean finally said something. “Are they supposed to be this tough?”
Craig pulled a clam out of his mouth with his fingers, examining it. “No, they aren’t.” He placed the uneaten clam on his plate. “Maybe we didn’t cook them long enough.”
Rob shrugged. We tossed them in the trash.
I woke the next day itching with numerous mosquito bites. I’d forgotten to close the window. I slammed it shut. Need to talk to Warehouse Hal.
In the lounge, Rob had splayed the newspaper in front of him. He laughed and pointed out an article for me to read.
Clams: How to Find, Catch and Cook them. We’d harvested and soaked them correctly, that much was encouraging. Cook clams for two or three minutes until they open. DO NOT overcook. Overcooking turns them into shoe leather.
WITH NOT MUCH to do, we hung out in the lounge in the morning. So far, BLM had provided no fire, safety, or first-aid training. I found it odd, if not scary. I decided to bone up on the tanker operation manual, so made myself comfy on the couch. Might come in handy should I need to use the equipment.
Dan sat down next to me. “So what are we doing today?”
Rob changed the channel on the TV. “Strudel hasn’t said. I don’t think he’s even put together a game plan for the summer yet.”
Fogie scoffed at BLM’s disorganization. “To them, we’re just a bunch of tanker dogs.”
Dog? Not sure I liked being called a dog. I assumed he meant firefighters as grunt labor, but still …
“So what’s it like fighting fire in Arizona?” Sean asked me.
“Oh, about the same as anywhere,” I said, wondering why he’d ask.
“But doesn’t it get kinda hot there?”
Oh yeah, he’s from the northwest. Maybe he doesn’t know.
“Over one-hundred degrees in the summer,” I said. “Everything in Arizona sticks, stings, or stabs.” A little exaggerated, of course, but this was fun.
“I’m guessing you don’t have water to put fires out, so what do you do?” asked Rob.
“We use dirt. It’s hard enough carrying drinking water, let alone having enough to put out a fire.”
They thought for a moment about what I’d said.
“What in the world is there to burn in a desert?” Craig asked.
Many people didn’t know Arizona had plenty of forests, including the largest stand of ponderosa pine in the world.
“Oh, I didn’t fight fires in the desert. I worked in the forests of Southern Arizona, near Tucson.”
“Forests in Tucson?” Sean asked, incredulous.
My first chance to brag about Arizona. Almost as much fun as telling people what I did for a living, always getting a kick out of their disbelief, awe, and confusion as to why would I want to do such a thing.
On Monday, Strudel sent Fred, Ichabod Crane, and me to the main complex in Anchorage to test and tune up Mark 3 submersible pumps. Any other time, I’d have been thrilled to have the government put me up in a motel and pay for meals. The problem? Fred and Ichabod Crane.
Ichabod Crane, not the literary version of course, fit in with us like someone who misread the party invitation and mistakenly showed up in costume. An off-kilter sense of humor didn’t help either. He dissolved into hysterics when things weren’t funny, oblivious to the fact that no one else was laughing, and he regarded us with a puzzled expression when everyone else was cracking up at a joke.
And handsome Fred, studying me with those dark shadowy eyes. Did he do this because I was a woman, a woman firefighter, or because as a native Alaskan he found me an oddity coming from the desert Southwest? He made me self-conscious.
We spent the night before work in a motel and met for breakfast, but I might as well have dined alone. Fred stared at his food. Ichabod Crane gawked at the other patrons. I studied the two of them, wishing I’d ordered room service. I dreaded fourteen more meals like this one.
At the district’s cavernous, unheated warehouse sat dozens of Mark 3 submersible pumps, used to draw water from lakes and rivers; if your fire happened to be near such a thing. Not surprisingly, I’d never used one; Arizona had few rivers and even fewer lakes. However, saws and pumps had similar engines, so my chainsaw experience came in handy. It didn’t take long for me to get the hang of tuning, and soon Fred and I had a nice assembly line going. Ichabod Crane didn’t catch on. Not sure why. I could have sworn he’d said he spent two fire seasons on a tanker crew.
By midday, I decided why not make the best of the situation? I teased Fred, trying to make him laugh. But with Ichabod’s lack of social skills, and Fred speaking no more than two words at a time, I spent most of the day listening to myself talk, at least when pump motors weren’t running at full throttle.
After work, the subject of meeting for dinner came up. I hesitated. Would it be as awkward as breakfast and lunch? However, I didn’t much feel like being alone all evening, either. We took a booth, and I ordered a glass of wine. Fred dittoed my order. Ichabod passed. Soon Fred and I were engaged in jokes and laughs as though we sat alone. My outlook for the week improved. By Wednesday, I was enjoying Fred’s company. It was ironic to think that now, Friday had come too quickly.
We returned to the station in early afternoon, so I stopped to ask Hal about the radiator and my missing screen. He exploded a loud laugh. “What the hell do you need screens for?”
“Mosquitoes!” I said, incredulous.
Hal shook his head, but said he’d take care of it. However, he couldn’t do anything about the heat. It was either on or off, and he wasn’t about to turn it off.
Yeah, I thought, it could snow at any minute.
Every morning at nine o’clock sharp, dispatch radioed fire personnel for service status. Rob responded with “ten-eight,” (in service), and this time he turned to us with a grand smile. He knew who was coming up next. Strudel’s voice, muffled and slurred, also responded “ten-eight.” Yet we hadn’t seen him all morning. Where the heck was he?
“Let’s go find him,” Rob said with a mischievous grin.
We climbed into a tanker and drove past Strudel’s home. His BLM truck sat in the driveway. Dan burst out laughing. “He’s still in bed!”
Sean launched into hysterics and had to pull over to prevent a collision. I laughed so hard, my stomach hurt.Dan wiped tears away with his sleeve, saying, “Hey, it could be worse. At least he’s not bugging us.”
Nobody could argue with that.
BLM HAD NO fitness requirements, but I accepted Rob’s suggestion that we all run two miles through the woods behind the station. Dan’s and my pace matched, so we ran together.
“I worked on a tanker crew in Ojai last summer,” he said.
California, the land of brush fires. “Geez, Dan, that’s scary.” I’d never wanted any part of those intense blazes, wildly more dangerous than a forest fire.
“Yeah,” he said, “Those dry Santa Ana winds send deranged pyromaniacs into action. Add volatile chaparral, which explodes when it burns, and you’ve got a real-life version of hell.”
A herd of animals started across the road ahead. Reindeer? But wait. Are reindeer real, or imaginary? Funny, but I didn’t know. They looked like reindeer to me.
“Hey, caribou,” Dan said.
They stared at us; we stared at them. Captivated by their grace, I resisted the urge to speak so they would stay. Their ears twitched, tails swished, as they evaluated the potential threat. Several minutes later, we pushed on, getting remarkably close to them before they trotted off.
That weekend, I awoke early, ate breakfast, and wondered what I’d do all day with no car, no TV, and no music. I’d never run on a beach, and thought doing so had such a lovely connotation, as in: I’m going to run the beach barefoot today, catch some rays, splash through waves. It was only a short jog to the Cook Inlet, where a sharp wind changed my mind about the barefoot part. But sand invaded my sneakers, rubbing my feet raw. I took them off. Firm, cool sand gave a little under my soles and squished up between my toes. A wave sloshed toward me, and I veered over to splash through it. Yelping, I dashed back to shore. Man that’s cold! In that one brief moment of contact, thousands of icy needles pierced my skin, arctic cold penetrating bone deep. I put my shoes back on.
On my next run, Dan joined me.
“Just don’t take off your shoes,” I said with a laugh.
Our sneakers thumped on the wet sand, leaving momentary footprints that would disappear when the tide swept in. Solar rays push
ed the thermometer up to a balmy sixty degrees, tropical by Alaskan standards, and felt warm on my skin. A gentle surf lapped; the air stirred salty and clean. We jogged up to a commotion on the shore.
Dan paused to take a breather. “What’s going on?”
“I’m not sure.” I stopped beside him. A figure emerged from the sea, dressed in nothing but shorts, taking long, splashing steps. In his arms, he carried an armful of a wiggling salmon.
Dan’s jaw dropped. “How can he do that? Water’s got to be, what, thirty-five?”
“He’s either really brave, or really nuts.”
The strapping man jogged up the beach, dropped the fish into a large bucket, and waded back out.
“What’s he using to catch them?” I asked.
“I think he’s using just his bare hands,” Dan said.
Sure enough, moments later, the fish-catcher splashed back to shore carrying another salmon. Dan and I watched the man wade out for another fish, amazed by his Alaskan fortitude. Wow! We returned to our run and our conversation.
“You mentioned you live with someone back in Arizona,” Dan said.
“Yeah, Joe and I have been together a few years now.”
Dan sensed my wistful tone. “You guys talking marriage?”
“Joe asked me once, but I wasn’t ready. I still don’t know if I’m ready. We’ve had problems.”
Dan’s forehead creased. “Relationships are tough. I still haven’t found the right girl.”
Our sneakers pounded sand, in sync for a few minutes while we gathered our thoughts. Confused, uncertain, and tired of all the heartache, I couldn’t make a decision whether Joe and I were meant to be or not. One thing for sure, he always waited for me to come back. His love was constant and unwavering. Didn’t that count for something?
“I refuse to settle for something less than I deserve,” Dan said.
We continued jogging in silence. His last comment hit home. If I married Joe, would I be settling? I wished I knew the right thing to do. Maybe this time apart from Joe would help me figure that out.
Summers of Fire Page 20