The Sky Fisherman

by Craig Lesley

  "It's a plane; it's a bird; it's superduster!" Jake waved at the plane. "My man Buzzy."

  "What the shit?" Billyum seemed disgusted. "Is he sightseeing or what?"

  At first I thought the little Stearman was just flying over to observe the disaster. But Buzzy flew dangerously close to the burning. The fierce updraft shot cinders toward the plane like tracer bullets. Some bounced off the fabric wings as the Stearman kept coming toward us, lined up with the railroad tracks and heading for the Shell tank. Buzzy flew so low I feared he'd hit the telephone wires, but he cleared them by inches, then aimed for the tank.

  I remembered how Jake had bragged about Buzzy's crop dusting, claiming he flew so close to the ground he hiccupped to clear barbed-wire fences around fields of potatoes and peppermint.

  Now he appeared to be landing the Stearman on the tank top, but as he skimmed past, Buzzy pulled the lever to the hopper, drenching the tank top and side with a reddish liquid.

  "Bingo!" Jake turned to Billyum. "Extra tomato sauce for our pizza."

  "Borate," Mullins said. "Where the hell did he get that?"

  "Keeps it stocked now. He thinks these hardheaded Indians will hire him to fly fire patrol and put out lightning strikes on the rez."

  Billyum put on his helmet. "Don't look at me. Take it up with tribal council."

  "Okay," Jake said. "Let's act like we know what we're doing."

  "How do you want to work it?" Mullins asked.

  "We'll give Buzzy time for two more borate runs. Make sure the damn tank quits venting. I'm not keen about having my cookies toasted up there."

  Buzzy made two more drops on the tank while Jake and the others checked their gear and dragged the fire hose into position. The Gateway airstrip was close by, and Buzzy had someone back there mixing borate, so a round trip took him only eight minutes. Since Buzzy had dropped the first load, the tank hadn't vented, but we were all holding our breaths. Reddish borate covered the tank top, oozing down the side in a thick red paste. With a little imagination, it did resemble pizza.

  Jake gave instructions to the firefighters who had been hosing off the tanks. "Train your hoses on the ladders now. Cool off those rungs."

  The firefighters crouched behind their tin shields, and I could only imagine how hot the ladders were.

  "Watch it when we head up the side. Don't knock us off the goddamn ladders."

  "Don't worry, Jake. They call me Deadeye Dick," one of the firefighters said.

  "Your wife doesn't," Jake said. "And I've seen you piss all over your shoes down at the Elks."

  The man laughed. "That was when I first got there. After a few drinks, I get steady."

  "Let's hope you're blotto now," Jake said.

  As the three started up the ladder dragging the hose, I crossed my fingers, prayed, cursed, made all sorts of bargains with God. They inched along—Jake packing the nozzle, Billyum lugging most of the weight, Mullins playing out hose and shouting directions to the firemen below. Each rung seemed a struggle.

  As they crawled up the tank side, I considered the circumstances that brought them to that exact moment. How terrible, I thought, to have escaped drowning with my father only to be blown kingdom come by a fuel tank overlooking Gateway. If it happened, I didn't know how I could describe the scene to my mother. In high school, the gloomy shop teacher had lectured about various industrial accidents, embellishing his stories of reckless victims who ignored safety procedures only to wind up in Mason jars or other unlikely burial vessels. Out here in this emergency, I realized Jake had no rules to follow.

  Finally, Jake and Billyum made it to the catwalk above the tank and began inching along. Mullins stayed on the ladder, keeping the hose unsnagged. I understood the plan. Tie the hose and open the nozzle to provide a steady flow of cooling water over the tank and down the sides. This, in combination with the streams from below, should prevent the tank from blowing until the cold deck was stopped or burned out. Thanks to the millpond and the farmers' irrigation ditches, water was available in spite of the general drought.

  Behind me I heard someone remark, "That Jake would ride into hell with a bucket of water." I recognized Sniffy's voice, and at that moment I was terribly proud of my uncle. Billyum, too. And I prayed all the harder for their safekeeping. In spite of the water and borate, the tank could have exploded during the climb, but now that they were crawling along the catwalk, where the hot gases had vented, igniting into the fiery balloon, the danger seemed doubled.

  I don't believe it took them over three or four minutes to secure the hose and nozzle, but during that time I don't remember breathing. Finally, they had it secured, and Jake waved for the men below to put water in the hose. A couple firemen started up the pumper and you could see the hose bulge and straighten all the way up the tank. Mullins had tied it to the ladder in a couple places, and it stiffened against those restraints.

  As the water gushed from the nozzle, spreading across the tank top and washing the reddish borate down the sides, the men below cheered and whooped. A couple tossed their helmets into the air. Water and borate continued running freely down the sides of the tank now, giving the reflections of the cold deck flames eerie undulations. Jake and Billyum grabbed each other's shoulders and danced a funny little dance on the catwalk. With no room to move their feet and wearing the heavy boots, they bent and swayed like crazy men dancing on top of the reflected flames from the cold deck.

  Everyone on the ground was watching the two act like firewalkers when I saw a flash of yellow. Turning away from the primitive spectacle of the dancers, I realized Buzzy and the Stearman were leveling off for another run. The plane had suddenly emerged from a dense cloud of smoke and now headed for the Shell tank.

  "Christ, he's too close to see them," Sniffy said, and I knew it was true. The Stearman's front seat had been converted to the hopper that held the fluids, and the pilot sat in the rear seat, making it impossible to see the blind spot directly beyond the plane's nose.

  "That prop will chop their heads off," Sniffy screamed.

  Horrified, I watched the Stearman bear down on Billyum and Jake, imagining the fatal carnage of the 450-horsepower radial engine. In that instant while the fire roared, sirens screamed, and the men cried out, time hesitated and all sound ceased.

  Jake's arms were still draped over Billyum's shoulders in the style of close dancing, and he forced the bigger man to his knees, pushing him out of harm's way.

  Jake dropped a split second later, but not in time to avoid the plane except for the tiny hop that slipped it clear of both men and beyond the Shell tank. Jake and Billyum lay tangled on the catwalk, propwash fluttering their fire coats. Jake's helmet came loose, tumbling slowly toward the ground.

  Fearful the helmet contained Jake's head, I followed its path to the cement skirt below the tank, listening for the high empty clang as it bounced high and away.

  Jake and Billyum struggled to get untangled and regain their footing.

  Buzzy dropped his borate on the Union 76 tank, then flew over them again, waggling his wings as he cleared the Shell tank by a good fifty feet. Billyum heaved his helmet at the plane underbelly and Jake flipped him both birds. Then the Stearman was out of sight, lost in the pall of smoke enveloping the co-op.

  When Billyum and Jake made it to the ground, so many people lined up to thump their backs and pump their arms, I hung back. Someone gave each of them a beer, and they drank, heads thrown back, foam dribbling down their chins.

  Sniffy pounded Jake on the shoulder. "Thought you'd fit in a short casket. Buzzy couldn't have missed you by a foot."

  Jake rubbed his jaw. "Nothing shaves close as a blade. That sonofabitch Buzzy farted just in time or we'd be dead."

  17

  I DON'T BELIEVE I had ever been so proud of anyone as I was of my uncle Jake. A twinge of regret came over me, too, because I wanted to be a part of it, even though I realized I couldn't have climbed that tank for love or money. Dying was one thing, but being incinerated in a fiery explosi
on ... that terrified me. Maybe it terrified Jake, too, but he wouldn't drop his brave disguise. I could tell Billyum and Mullins had been reluctant to drag the hose up the tank but had bent to Jake's goading.

  Buzzy continued making runs with his Stearman, bombing the Union 76 and Chevron tanks. Mullins had managed to get several other volunteers to climb them and tie off nozzles. They hadn't vented fiery gases like the Shell tank, and because the first three climbers had lived, more of the young breaknecks stepped forward. Their eager faces flushed with the excitement of fighting fire, and they laughed and joked with one another as they buckled their equipment.

  Older men and those with families stayed below to man the hoses and shields. Faces set, their eyes betrayed worry behind the dancing flames' reflections. Some had worked over twenty years at the plant and perhaps now suspected they were facing an uncertain future.

  Mullins went from group to group patting backs and offering encouragement. "You boys will be getting medals for this," he said. "Damn right. We'll pass out boxes of medals. The price of silver's going up."

  They grinned and shot smart remarks back, but no one was interested in medals. Somehow I realized that I was witnessing the best of Gateway, the best of small towns, where neighbors dropped their everyday grudges and risked their lives for the spirit of the community. Except for the professional firemen from Central, no one was getting paid for helping out. Years later, over drinks and memories, the volunteers would treasure the slaps on the backs above medals or money.

  Jake and Billyum had been quietly drinking beers and studying the burning cold deck. Half the stacked logs were involved now, and the heat along the fire line was so intense that the railroad ties were twisting from the expansion.

  "You want to have a go at that cold deck?" Jake asked Billyum.

  "Forget it," Mullins said. "You can't stop a burning cold deck. Fire burns so hot it dries out the fuel ahead and just keeps eating away."

  "I don't know that," Jake said. "Never saw one this close before." He tossed the beer can into the pickup bed. "What if we take some hoses, tie them up ahead where it's not burning yet. Soak the logs good. When you're camping, you can't get soaked wood to burn. It'll just char around the outside."

  "Camping's for Boy Scouts," Mullins said. "She's burning too hot."

  "Put a pumper on it, too," Jake said. "Worth a try."

  "You should call the Forest Service," Billyum told Mullins. "Have them bring in those B-seventeens they use in forest fires and drop a few thousand pounds of borate on it. That should slow it."

  Jake tapped his forehead. "Good thinking. Bomb the shit out of it."

  Mullins said, "The farmers are going to raise hell for using their irrigation water and now I got to call the governor for an okay on the planes."

  "Forget the farmers," Jake said. "They're always bitching and driving a hundred miles to save a dollar." He gripped Mullins's shoulder. "If you're scared, I'll call the governor. Took him fishing twice. Secretary of state last week. We're tight as ticks."

  Mullins thought it over. "You trying to be head man around here, Jake?"

  Jamming his thumb toward my uncle, Billyum grinned. "Your wife says he already is."

  From the look on his face, Mullins didn't like that wisecrack coming from an Indian. But the way Jake and Billyum had volunteered for the tank, he couldn't say much.

  "Just think," Jake said. "Everybody is going to want to interview you. Maybe this is your shot for Hollywood, the one in California, I mean. From the right camera angle, that mug isn't too unattractive."

  "I'll give it a try," Mullins said.

  "The dime you drop will save your ass," Jake said. "Maybe some hotshot reporter wonders why the cold deck wasn't protected better. Get it out and you'll be a hero, not a goat."

  I was itching for action, but Jake wouldn't let me fight the cold-deck fire, so I joined dozens of volunteers swarming the co-op roof. With axes and crowbars, they pried up corrugated sheets of tin, then used one-inch hoses from their grass-fire pickups to douse spot fires flaring in the seed bins. They had ripped out the back of the co-op building, the side farthest from the blazing cold deck, and hauled away pallets loaded with ammonium nitrate fertilizer because it exploded if overheated.

  Most of the volunteers were farmers trying to save their seed harvests. All had blackened faces from the cold-deck fire. None wore helmets or fire gear. A few scrambled across the rooftop in tennis shoes, and I thought of Jake's warning—rubber melting to flesh. Sparks and soot rained everywhere, driven by the fire's wind. The men soaked their clothing with water to prevent it from igniting. Those without caps soaked their hair.

  In spite of their grimy faces, I recognized a few as avid fishermen who came by the store to stock up on equipment. Most used credit, waiting for harvest to pay Jake. They laughed at the dummy grenade hanging by the charge ledger. A huge "Number i" tag hung from the grenade pin along with a sign that instructed IF YOU DON'T LIKE OUR CREDIT POLICY, TAKE A NUMBER.

  When I scrambled up the ladder to the co-op roof, a man holding a fire hose waved me over. From his potbelly and tattoos I recognized Seaweed Swanson, the retired Navy man who raised sheep. "Come here, Little Jake. Help out."

  Moving carefully to avoid the gaping holes in the ripped-up sections of roof, I scooted across.

  "Take the hose, would you, kid? Getting parched up here without a beer. Hell of a note for an old swabby to be so dry. Some of these sick bastards"—he flicked the hose across the roof—"are so damn perverted they're drinking water."

  After handing me the hose, Seaweed took a tallboy from his bib overalls front pocket and snapped the tab. Warm beer foamed across his hand, but he drank with gusto, then held the can to my lips. The wetness felt good in my mouth.

  "This is a helluva fire, Little Jake. Saw your dad up on the tank. That took some balls." He belched and a little beer trickled out his nose. "Well, pardon me. Saves wear and tear on the other end." He dropped the can into the gaping hole. "Man overboard!

  "This here's a lulu all right, but nothing tops a fire at sea. Once I worked a grain ship that caught fire off the coast of Pakistan. Three days that fucking wheat smoldered, and we couldn't get it out. You lived with the smell—scorched Quaker Oats or something. Then the fire spread through the electrical system to the engine room. Lots of oil and grease, chance for an explosion." He shook his head. "No choice. We opened the sea valves and flooded the bastard. Put on our swimming trunks. Those pissant Pakistanis were supposed to send rescue helicopters but they took their own sweet time. We were swimming laps by the time they showed and lost three guys to sharks."

  "No sharks here," I said, not knowing how much of the story to believe. According to Jake, Seaweed had more bullshit than the Pacific had salt.

  He stretched, surveying the scene from the rooftop, while I concentrated the stream of water on the seed. I couldn't see flames, but there was plenty of smoke and sparks thick as raindrops. It smelled like someone was toasting birdseed.

  The firemen at the fuel tanks and cold deck had taken off their heavy equipment and worked in boots, pants, and helmets. A few clustered at the millpond, dipping water with their helmets, then pouring it over their heads and shoulders.

  "See how the track is buckling?" Seaweed pointed at the twisting rails. "Rails are swollen clear past the expansion joints. Now that's hot."

  From this perspective, I could see the chaos of the fire, the jumble of hoses and equipment, tight knots of men trying to get some control. Jake, Billyum, and a couple of the other Indians had dragged hoses onto the log deck and were finishing tying them off. The hoses poured streams of water into the stacked logs. One of the Indians cocked his head and pointed toward the sky. The men on the co-op roof heard the deep droning too.

  Not the high hum of the Stearman, this was an earthshaking rumbling similar to the ones depicted in old World War II movies as the big bombers throbbed over Germany's night skies. The entire co-op vibrated. Just knowing the converted B-17S had joined the
fight gave me a thrill.

  Below, firemen put on their helmets and took shelter in the trucks. Jake and the others scrambled off the cold deck, moving from log to log like frantic children at some kind of crazy jungle gym.

  "Borate comes out in chunks!" Seaweed shouted, barely audible over the din. "Cover up, Little Jake." Dropping to his knees, he covered his head with both arms.

  The first plane came in low, maybe three hundred yards off the ground, but it seemed the roar would shake the co-op apart. The corrugated roof rattled.

  When I was younger, I assembled plastic models of World War II planes, including B-17S. These hung above my bed, twisting slowly on fishing line tacked into my bedroom ceiling. Now it seemed one of the big bombers had come to life.

  Seaweed tugged my pants leg, urging me to kneel and cover, but I stood, waiting for the bomb doors to open.

  And they did, dumping four thousand pounds of reddish borate mix, a huge red drench, most of it concentrated on the cold deck and vicinity. The updraft wind carried some of the mist in all directions and it fell around us like blood rain.

  "You're bleeding like a stuck pig," Seaweed shouted, then grinned.

  After the first bomber passed, I could hear better for a moment. The men on the co-op roof cheered, waving their hoses in the air.

  As the second plane dumped its load, flames guttered and dimmed on top of the cold deck, even though the logs burned steadily below. But the top layer of logs between the fire and the drenching hoses was covered in a red paste, and for the first time I thought maybe they could stop the fire.

  "Bomb the hell out of the son of a bitch," Seaweed yelled, waving his hose.

  The B-17S droned into the distance, the noise of their big engines fading, but you could feel the surge of enthusiasm sweep the firefighters. On top of the co-op, men redoubled their efforts. Below, they dragged more hoses toward the deck, pouring on water.

  Seaweed got so excited he dropped his beer. "Damn! Little Jake, go get me a couple more would you? How else can I endure fireman's fatigue?"