Summers of Fire

by Strader, Linda;

  “That’s okay.” The last thing I wanted to do was make a stink and have people notice, and speculate on, the girl eating alone.

  Before dawn the next morning, I bought breakfast-to-go from a convenience store. I parked in the same spot as yesterday, only today I headed in the opposite direction, again working until dusk. On the way back to my room, I considered a “to go” dinner too, but wanted a hot meal, so I endured another bland burrito.

  On days three and four, I repeated the routine, parked in the same spot, and headed in different directions. The afternoon of day four, a helicopter buzzed over my head, made a circle, and passed over me again. Huh, is there a fire? I didn’t smell smoke, though, so shrugged off the thought.

  Headlights illuminated a note taped on my motel room door when I swung into the parking lot that night. “Call Ron ASAP.” A bit alarming—but there wasn’t a thing I could do until morning. “Oh, there you are!” Ron said, when I called at eight.

  “Is something wrong?” His concern worried me.

  “Someone reported your truck hadn’t moved for several days, so we sent a helicopter out looking for you.”

  A helicopter? Oh! That’s what they were doing. A bit embarrassed, I explained how I’d parked in the same spot, dawn to dusk, and had seen the helicopter, but didn’t know they were looking for me.

  Ron’s voice calmed. “We’re going to get you a two-way radio. You check in every day.”

  Although I appreciated their concern, it also crossed my mind—why hadn’t they thought of this sooner? And why hadn’t I thought of asking for one? Because I never worried about being alone in the forest—being alone in a city scared me much more.

  MY WORK IN Pagosa Springs completed, I again asked Joe when he could come up. This time, he agreed to meet me halfway in Flagstaff for a weekend. It was way too short of a visit, considering that we’d both spent eight hours on the road getting there. One night only served to make me miss him more.

  That quick trip left me with the Monday blues. Adding to it, Ron sent me out to check on a logging site. Ugh. The last thing I wanted to do was to visit a logging operation. I liked my forests pristine. This was my job, though, so off I went.

  Ribbons of orange flagging waved from a tree branch, marking my turnoff. I eased onto a rough road. No big deal, I’d encountered many of these. After a few miles, though, the ruts turned serious, and I slowed to a crawl. Easy does it, no hurry. After twenty minutes at a snail’s pace, the road turned to squishy mud and the truck’s tires struggled for traction. “Come on, truck, don’t you dare get stuck.” Should I turn around? I slowed down to think. Heck no, I can do this. I pushed on.Up ahead, heavy equipment spewed diesel fumes, fouling the clean forest air. Engines roared, metal clanked and squeaked, and a skidder dragged the downed trees to a waiting logging truck. Awful. Let’s get this over with and get out of here. A group of men turned when they saw my truck—just like loggers in the movies, too, with plaid flannel shirts and red suspenders.

  Midway up the hill, I lost traction and the truck stalled. Oh, great. Just great. I restarted the engine and gave it some gas. The rear wheels spun uselessly, spraying mud everywhere. Darn it. Darn it. Darn it. I hopped out of the truck and landed with a splat in muck up to my ankles. Lovely. After a few squishy steps, I saw what I dreaded. The rear tires were stuck hubcap-deep in the holes made by the spinning wheels. Darn it. Darn it. Darn it. Were the men watching me? Thank God, no—at least not yet. Determined not to ask for help—would they think of me as an incompetent little girl?—I set my mind to finding a way out. I needed traction. What to use?The truck bed held nothing useful, but … boughs would work. Lots of those around. More wading through sloppy mud to collect an armload. Hands sticky with pine sap, I jammed branches in front the tires. Oh, man, I hope this works. I started the engine, slowly gave it gas, rocking the truck gently forward and back. The wheels kicked up a little mud, but then grabbed, and the vehicle lurched forward. Thank you, Providence. I drove back down the hill until I found a turn-around spot and parked with nose down. Mud globs collected on my boots as I slogged up the road, my feet gaining weight with each step. A burly man with a scraggly beard met me halfway. He stopped, turned his head, and spit tobacco juice onto the ground.

  “Hey, missy, I see you had a little trouble back there.” Burly Man grinned, revealing brown, crooked teeth.

  I nodded coolly. “Ron wants to know how much longer you’ll be.”

  He unfolded his arms and hooked thumbs under his suspenders. “Tell him ’bout one more week.”

  Burly Man kept grinning at me. I left after a nod, hoping he’d lost his bet with the others for how long it’d take me to ask for help. My step had a bounce in it, even as I slogged back to the truck.

  A NEW ASSIGNMENT was on tap today—patrolling firewood cutting areas. Would I be catching illegal woodcutters? Writing citations? I guess I could do that.

  “Oh, no,” Ron said, shaking his head. “We don’t give tickets. We do want people to get permits, though. Heck, they’re even free.”

  “So if they’re free, why do you even give them out?” Seemed unnecessary to me.

  “We just like to keep track of who’s getting wood and how much. If you see someone cutting wood and they don’t have a permit, fill one out for them on the spot.”

  Off to explore new territory—which turned out to be not worth exploring. BLM’s bulldozers had dragged chains to rip out cedars for more grazing area. Dirt-covered trees ruined a saw chain and spoiled the “free” aspect of cutting your own firewood. Unlike in Kenai, at least I had more than sixty miles of roads to cruise. In fact, miles and miles of roads to cruise; and every mile looked the same as the previous mile.

  Day ten. I couldn’t believe it. There was no sign of any woodcutters. No sign of anyone the whole ten days I was out here. I didn’t get it. Where were all the people? Miles clicked by, and I began to feel drowsy. My eyes closed for a split second, then popped open. Oh my God, I fell asleep! For how long? Terrified I’d have a wreck, I sang out loud, tapping my hands on the wheel, but that didn’t last long. I pulled over, splashed my face with cool water, but my eyes still wouldn’t stay open once on the road. Finally, I decided to give in, pull over, and a take a nap. When I did, I wasn’t sleepy anymore.

  I thought five o’clock would never come. Boy, do I need a run. I changed into running clothes and sped out my door to log a couple of miles. Once I gained my second wind, I ran faster and with less exertion. When I hit my best speed, a sharp stab in my right knee hitched my breath. I switched to my alternative stride, and the pain eased. Long ago I’d accepted pain as the price I had to pay for my chosen career. This was a minor annoyance. I decided to invest in elastic knee braces, thinking all I needed was some support.

  Sweaty and less stressed, I passed through the kitchen on my way to take a shower. There, I was greeted with dirty pots on the stove, and dried-on food clinging to plates in the sink. Damn roommates. What pigs! I picked up a saucepan crusted with burned spaghetti sauce and wrinkled my nose. Inside the refrigerator, I discovered an equally-blackened pot, growing some kind of science experiment. Oh, this is so not going to work. Frustrated and fuming, I washed the dishes. The stomach-turning mess ruined my appetite, so I skipped dinner, took a shower, and went to bed early.

  My other roommate, Len, worked nights and I rarely saw him, so I confronted Scott again about housekeeping. “You know, I pay rent here too and would appreciate it if you guys cleaned up after yourselves. I’m not your maid.”

  Scott’s dark eyes narrowed and his mouth curled into a sarcastic smirk. “Nobody asked you to be.”

  “Well, I don’t appreciate coming home to mounds of dirty dishes and spoiled food.”

  “Len lives here, too.”

  “Then tell him to clean up.”

  Scott pivoted on his heels and walked away. A wretched gut feeling told me this wasn’t over.

  Saturday morning, Kristy and Heidi squeezed into the cab of my Datsun so we could explore
the mountain community of Ouray. Alaska undeniably cornered the market on wildlife, but here spectacular peaks in the jagged, zigzagging San Juan Mountains pierced the sky at well above fourteen thousand feet, earning the nickname “fourteeners.” Add in crisp mountain air, deep blue lakes, gushing rivers, aromatic pines, and you’ve got the best nature fix that anyone could ask for. If I could bottle it, I’d be rich.

  “Let’s see where this goes,” I said after spotting a dirt side road carved into a deep canyon. I craned my neck to look up … way up … at the tall mountain on my left. I hit the brakes. “Hey! Can you see this? Unbelievable.”

  High on the side of the mountain clung a group of rusty metal and wood buildings. Beneath them, a plume of gray mine tailings sprawled for hundreds of feet down the nearly vertical slope. Using my binoculars, I counted three intact structures.

  “How’d they build them way up there?” Heidi asked, peering into the lenses. “I don’t see any roads.”

  I grinned at them. “I think we need to investigate.”

  Kristy’s skeptical face told me she thought I needed to have my head examined. “I dunno, Linda … looks pretty treacherous.”

  Common sense was overruled by the need for adventure. An hour of crawling up the talus slope and sliding down half the gain, got us, at most, fifty feet closer. Those buildings were not only much farther away than I’d thought, but reaching them from the road was flat-out impossible.

  On the drive back to Durango, Kristy thought out loud. “We have aerial photos back at the office. I bet we could find a way up there.”

  Kristy shared those photos with Heidi, Randy, and me on lunch break. “An old mining road goes at least part of the way. It veers off in the wrong direction about here, but if we take this bighorn sheep trail, we’ll come out above the buildings.” She leaned away from the photo and against the back of her chair. “Probably the only way.”

  In spite of the obstacles, we agreed to try it the following weekend.

  ANOTHER LONG PATROL day was finally over, and I hung up the truck keys, ready to head home. A commotion came from Randy and Dee’s office. Curious, I walked over.

  Randy rushed around his office, frantic. “Fudge! Where the heck’s my radio?”

  “What’s up?” I asked from the doorway.

  “We’ve got a fire!”

  THIRTY-SEVEN

  “WE’VE GOT A fire, Dee took the day off, and Jerry’s out sick. We finally get a fire, and no one’s here!” Randy said, flustered.

  Adrenaline had kicked in the moment he said “fire.”

  “I can go.”

  “Hey! That’d be great.”

  “Your radio is over there next to the window.”

  Randy frowned. “What’s it doin’ there?” He snatched the radio, then the tanker keys from his desk. I trotted downstairs behind him to the parking lot.

  Randy pushed the tanker’s gas pedal to the floor and raced down the main drag of Durango. My eyes darted from the speedometer to traffic. I debated whether or not to play backseat driver.

  “So, what kind of fire are we talking about? Big? Little?” My eyes stayed glued to the road in case I needed to warn him of a pending accident.

  “Snag.” The traffic light turned red, and he slammed on the brakes.

  I braced against the dash. “Hey! Take it easy, Randy. A snag fire isn’t going anywhere fast. Plus, it looks like rain.”

  He sighed. “I know. We don’t get many fires.”

  Safely at our destination, we parked the tanker next to a barely discernable two-track road, which hadn’t seen a vehicle in a long time, evidenced by grass creeping into the tread. A display of horizontal zigzag lightning flashed, and distant thunder drummed. A whispery breeze carried the scent of rain, but that didn’t mean it would rain here. Summer storms were fickle that way.

  Our snag glowed far away as a red speck. Unsure of the road condition, we decided to hike in. Randy balanced the chainsaw on his shoulder; I carried a shovel and a canteen.

  Gray, dusky light turned gnarled cedars into looming, spooky shapes; perfect for a Halloween scare-fest. An owl hooted; even more perfect. About a mile later, we stood next to the forty-foot snag, where flames flickered in and out of cracks, playing a bizarre game of hide and seek.

  I’d never felled a burning tree before and wanted to. “I’d like the honors, if it’s okay by you,” I said, hoping Randy would say yes.

  “Go for it.”

  Serious decay at the base would be a problem, and it made for a dangerous felling operation—a “widow maker.” But there was no decay here. Randy positioned himself as spotter to warn me of falling branches, or if the gas in the chainsaw caught fire. I placed the saw on the ground and stuck my boot in the handle to hold it steady. Despite a good yank on the starter rope, the engine sputtered and died. Two more pulls, and the engine roared to life, sending out an acrid puff of blue smoke. I gave it full throttle and began the horizontal cut, vibrations tingling through my arms. The saw’s teeth chewed into the dense, dead wood, spitting out cedar-scented sawdust. Earplugs merely muted the mind-numbing noise.

  I turned toward Randy to see if all was good to go. He nodded. I made the second cut, angled downward, to meet the first. At the first creak, Randy and I dashed out of range. The tree teetered, snapped, and fell in slow motion, with a crash and a shower of sparks, right where I’d planned. Randy dug in with the shovel, smothering the flames with cool soil. Fire now subdued, I offered Randy the canteen.

  “Now, that was pretty darned cool,” he said, taking a swig.

  Satisfied with how everything went, I had to agree.Mission accomplished, I offered to carry the saw. The awkward weight tugged on my shoulder muscles and my arm soon tired but I didn’t want to ask for help. I could do this. Excitement over, I remembered something we’d forgotten. Randy did too.

  “Damn. We should’ve brought headlamps.”

  Fortunately, unlike at the Box Fire with Eric and Tom, the moon was out and the terrain was easy.

  A TASTE OF fire excitement made the next day’s patrolling unbearable. Sitting behind the wheel all day wore me out more than hard work. Afterward, in need of a run, I started out at a slow jog around my neighborhood, passing a home with a dad washing the car, kids playing kick-the-can. A lawnmower buzzed, the air scented with fresh-cut grass. Exercise always helped me sort out my thoughts. Just a little knee pain today, which I easily ignored. I decided the brace must be helping, and I was getting better. What a relief.

  “LET’S GET THIS show on the road!” Randy said, early Saturday morning at our appointed meeting place. Heidi climbed into his truck; Kristy rode with me.

  “According to the map,” Kristy said with it spread out on her lap, “the road should be coming up on our left.”

  “And there it is.” I pulled off and parked.

  After hiking for more than an hour, Randy recognized a narrow path as the sheep trail we would use. We opted for a short break before pressing on. A bold, dark cloud drifted over the sun, casting a cool shadow. Goosebumps prickled on my arm.

  “Hey guys, we might need to turn around.”

  “What, you afraid of getting wet?” Randy said, teasing.

  “Struck by lightning is more like it,” I said.

  Thunder grumbled; rain-scented wind swirled around us. I felt a wet drop. Then more thunder boomed, much louder and closer this time. Everyone donned rain ponchos just before the clouds released.

  Randy dashed off. “Last one to the truck …”

  Whooping at the top of our lungs, we ran all the way back. Naturally, when we reached the vehicles, the rain stopped and sunshine broke through the clouds with strong chords of light. I always thought Mother Nature played that particular trick just to remind us that she was in charge. We agreed to try again next week.

  Lesson learned, the following Saturday we left much earlier and hiked faster, reaching the sheep trail in less than an hour. Steep slopes meant nothing to sheep, but were much harder for humans. Although we
were fit, the high altitude made us short of breath. We’d already passed the timber line, the boundary above which trees won’t grow. I rounded a bend and gasped. No wonder the buildings appeared reachable from below. They were huge!

  Randy caught up with me. “How in the heck did they get everything up here?”

  “That’s why I’m here. I want to know!” I frowned at our downhill route—mine tailings of loose, golf ball-sized rocks. “You guys realize, don’t you, that if you start sliding, there’s nothing to stop you from going all the way down.” A rational person would have feared sliding thousands of feet to certain death—but we weren’t rational.

  “Tally ho!” Randy plunged ahead, sliding several feet with each step.

  I inched my way down, determined not to slide. Kristy and Heidi followed. Randy reached a manmade terrace, where a massive beam cantilevered over the thousand-foot drop.

  He walked out, tight-rope style, sat down, and straddled the beam. “I’ve figured out how they built this.”

  After a brief, terrifying moment, fearing he’d fall, and warning him to please not fall, I asked him how.

  “A tram,” he said, pointing to a rusty ore car with a pulley at the top.

  Those persistent and dogged miners of yesteryear …

  While we were preoccupied, ominous clouds had formed—rumbles of thunder echoed in the valley below. We needed shelter, and fast. To reach the structures, we carefully maneuvered around rusty, sinuous cables partially hidden in the grass. I shuddered at the precarious way wooden stilts supported the buildings stuck onto the mountainside. Knees quivering, pulse racing, I approached the largest with an intact roof. The old wooden floor creaked as I entered, announcing my arrival to the ghosts of these ruins.

  “Seems solid …” My voice echoed in the musty, cavernous room; dust motes danced in the shafts of light spilling through windows and cracks. The floor moaned with each tentative step. My eyes widened with wonder. What a place this must have been in its day.

  Randy stuck his head out a glassless window overlooking a decrepit porch, under which there was nothing but air. “Can you imagine? You wake up in the middle of the night to take a pee, then one wrong step … and … whoops! Adios, amigo!”