“‘What’s this?’ says the hunter.
“‘It’s meat,’ says the priest.
“The hunter sits with the priest and eats the sausage. He has a funny look on his face, but he doesn’t say anything. The next week, as the hunter is passing the church, the priest asks the hunter if he would mind bringing him some firewood.
“‘No problem,’ says the hunter, and returns with a pail of sawdust.
“‘What’s this?’ says the priest.”
“If sausage is meat,” says Bobo, “then sawdust is firewood.”
General snickering — he’s stolen my punchline. But they’re smiling.
Dessert comes, cherry pie that tastes like cough syrup, but it’s sweet and I gobble down a slice, craving the energy. Just as we’re finishing lunch, the rumble of an approaching vehicle drifts through the burned trees. The firefighters all turn to watch.
It’s another RCMP Suburban.
SERGEANT WALDREN STEPS out of the Suburban, escorting one of the largest men I have ever seen. He looks to be in his mid-forties, curly dark receding hair. Huge belly. No neck. He walks with an awkward gait, arms pushed outward by his immense back. Waldren points to the remains of the cabin. Dugan and Verdon leave the table.
I tag along, curious. We meet by the sacred yellow ribbon. Introductions ensue.
The big guy is Charles Hallendry, Rufus Hallendry’s brother.
Condolences are offered, hands shaken. I can only get my hand halfway around the big guy’s mitt, leaving me with the disturbing knowledge that he could easily crush my knuckles to powder. Fortunately, he isn’t in an aggressive mood, seems dazed and bewildered.
“This must be difficult for you,” I offer.
“Yeah,” he says absently, eyes fixed on the black cabin floor. “What happened?”
“There’s not much more that I can tell you,” says Waldren.
Hallendry fingers the yellow ribbon. “Can I go in there?”
“Sure,” says Dugan. “I’ll just give you an escort.”
The two men duck under the ribbon, walk around the remains of the cabin. Dugan looks like a child beside the larger man. Hallendry doesn’t say much, just stares. The rest of us watch respectfully from outside the primary scene. Dugan points out a few things, such as the stove door being open. When they’ve circled around, Hallendry stops in front of what was the cabin door. He stares at the body shadow where his brother was found.
“Whiskey bottles,” he says, shaking his head. “Damn fool.”
Hallendry stares a moment longer then leaves the scene, ducking under the ribbon.
“I’ve seen enough,” he says to Waldren, who nods. They head for the Suburban.
I remember something. “Excuse me, Charles, but there’s a dog.”
Hallendry stops, looks at me, puzzled.
“Your brother had a dog. We’re not sure what to do with him.”
He shakes his head. “You keep him.”
“Is there anyone else? Another relative?”
“Damn fool,” he says again. “I can’t believe I flew all the way up here for this.”
Hallendry turns away, climbs into the Suburban, which settles noticeably. I’m left wondering, among other things, what to do with the dog. Middel, who was talking with Carter Spence by the camp, walks over, picking his teeth with a sliver of wood, watches the Suburban vanish down the trail.
“Who was that?”
“Hallendry’s brother, Charles. You ever meet him before?”
“I think I’d remember. You ready to go, Cassel?”
“In a minute. There’s something I need to check.”
I ask Dugan if I can take a look at the bottles at the cabin, explain what I’m looking for. Dugan has me glove up, hands me the bottle fragments. I handle them gingerly.
There’s no inscription.
HAVING BEEN UNABLE to acquire satisfactory conclusions from Dugan and Verdon, Middel grills me about the cabin fire during the drive back to town. Unlike the ident specialists, I am within Middel’s jurisdiction. And I’m a captive source. We’re barely down the trail from the fire when Middel asks the inevitable. “What do you figure, Porter?”
“SPAM should be outlawed.”
“About the fire,” he says impatiently.
“I don’t have the benefit of everything the RCMP have uncovered.”
“But you’re a fire investigator. You must have some opinion.”
I’m a wildfire investigator, I’m tempted to remind him. Structure fires are far more complex and are investigated by a different sort of professional. The fire dynamics of a building are different than those of a forest, as are the fuels — there are thousands of materials in a building fire you’d never find in a wildfire. “Well, let’s review what we know,” I say. “Both the stove door and cabin door were open before the fire. There were whiskey bottles and one drinking glass found within the vicinity of the body, which was on the floor, indicating Hallendry was likely unconscious or incapacitated.”
“I know all that. I want to know what you think happened.”
“I think it’s too early to think we know what happened.”
We hit a root along the trail and the truck thumps. Middel shifts in his seat, looking irritated. “Why do you make things so complicated?” he says. “What more do we need to know to draw the obvious conclusion that he was drinking and passed out?”
I hold up a hand, tick off the points.
“First, we don’t know the cause of death. Second, we can’t say with certainty that an accelerant wasn’t used. Third, we don’t know if he was alone. Fourth — hell, what does it matter, this isn’t a Forest Service investigation, anyway.”
I slump back in my seat, annoyed and restless. Middel is wearing me out. My head feels as though it’s filled with cotton. I’m nauseous. Everything hurts. I’m not a hypochondriac, but what the doctor told me is eating at me. I can’t remember the last time I really felt well. I lean back my head, close my eyes. Mercifully, Middel lapses into a grumpy silence. A half hour later, we arrive in town. Middel drops me at my truck. I climb in, start it up, lean on the steering wheel, thinking, then drive three blocks to the nursing station.
Maybe the doctor hasn’t left town yet.
5
•
THE WAITING ROOM at the clinic is empty today. The receptionist behind the counter gives me a questioning smile. “No dog today?”
I shake my head. “Is the doctor still here?”
“I believe he was just on his way out. Let me check.”
She vanishes into the bowels of the small building, returns a moment later.
“You’re in luck. Come with me.”
The receptionist shows me into an examination room. I expect another long wait but Doctor Cho arrives almost immediately.
“Ah — the fireman,” he says. “No dog?”
“I left him at home today.”
“Good. How is your arm?”
“Sore, but that’s not why I came. I’ve been thinking about what you said before.”
“Okay. First we look. Take off clothes.”
I strip down to socks and boxers, expecting the doctor will listen to my heart and lungs with his stethoscope, test my reflexes, perhaps draw a little blood for tests. Instead, he silently examines me, touching my neck, checking my palms and the alignment of my hips. I feel more like a horse at auction, being examined by a prospective buyer, than a patient. He frowns, steps back. “Well developed shoulders and chest.”
“Yeah, thanks, but —”
“Lower part of body thin. Hands and feet cold.”
Now I really feel like a horse. “Listen, I don’t mean to be rude, but I came here expecting a medical examination. If that’s not going to happen, let’s not waste each other’s time.”
The doctor looks offended. “Mr. Cassel, you do not understand. Medicine is not only treating sick part of body. Medicine is about all of body. How parts work together. Disease not caused by abnormal body part, but by dish
armony of whole body. Very important also is situation and condition in which body is placed. Harmony is foundation of good health.”
“Sure, I’ll buy that, but —”
“We start by determining your constitution and physical type. The nape of your neck is developed, and you have slender waist. You are determined and talk easily. You have a lot of acid in your stomach and when it is empty your stomach hurts. You tire more easily than most of those around you. You are usually healthy, but when you get sick, you become ill quickly.”
This analysis is delivered in rapid impatient sentences as though the doctor were instructing a medical class. The tone is unsettling, but what I find more unsettling is that everything he has told me fits. Episodes of illness, fatigue, hunger, even social situations where I found myself talking suddenly until I was almost dizzy.
“How do you know this?”
“You are Taiyang,” he says, as if this should mean something to me.
“Is that serious?”
Dr. Cho finds this response amusing.
“Just who you are. Very rare.”
“What does that mean?”
“You must be cautious of becoming angry or sorrowful.”
I focus on a poster on the wall — the lymphatic system — searching for reassurance that I am in fact in a doctor’s office. The last time I really became angry and sorrowful I ended up in detox and I find the doctor’s penetrating diagnosis intensely discomforting.
“You are usually tense? Light sleeper? Frequent diarrhea?”
“Yes,” I say slowly. A shiver runs up my spine.
“Fire type,” says the doctor.
I chuckle, a bit nervously. “That’s for sure.”
“Not firefighter,” he says. “Fire type.”
“Hard to tell them apart, sometimes.”
“Fire type very driven. Easy to lose balance. Tell me about your job.”
“Well …” I sigh, take a deep breath and sit on the examination bench. What I thought would be a routine medical exam has warped into something sublimely bizarre but fascinating in its accuracy. “I’m a wildfire investigator. When there’s a forest fire, I try to figure out who started it, and why.”
“Your arm,” says the doctor. “You are working on a fire here.”
“Several. One very nasty.”
“This nasty fire bothers you?”
I think of the burned corpse. “Yes, I guess it does.”
The doctor looks thoughtful. “This job very hard for you. Fire type will not stop.”
There’s a moment of silence as I ponder his prognosis. I’ve always been good at taking things to extremes. Until now, I hadn’t appreciated that this tendency might actually make me sick. The doctor pulls a stethoscope from his black bag and proceeds with a routine examination. The stethoscope is cold on my skin. The blood pressure sleeve causes my fingers to tingle — my pressure is a bit elevated. While I’m putting on my shirt, the doctor rummages in his black bag, pulls out a small package wrapped in brown paper, which he hands to me.
“You make tea. One teaspoon with cup of water. Four times every day.”
I look at the package in my hand. “What’s it supposed to do?”
“Taste very bad but make you feel much better.”
I LEAVE THE clinic feeling unsettled and restless, drive out of town to the IA base. The big white-and-blue HAC helicopter gleams in the evening sun. I wander past the warehouse where the HAC boys lounge around a picnic table, ready for action, playing cards.
“It’s the fire dick,” says Hendrigan.
“Solved the big case yet?” asks one of the men.
I shake my head, continue on to the kitchen, make myself a sandwich from a platter of cold cuts, grab steak bones for the dog. I apply cream to his burns and we share a meal behind the cook shack. The dog, tethered by a long chain to a pine tree, squats and chews the bones. He looks rough, but seems to be doing fine.
“What am I going to do with you? You don’t even have a name.”
The dog looks up briefly, continues with its supper.
“Hey, Scorch.”
The dog looks up again. Given his burn patterns, the name seems appropriate. When the dog is done his supper, I unsnap the chain from his collar. He runs around, chasing squirrels and barking. Hendrigan and a few of the HAC boys wander over to check out the excitement. It’s a lazy evening without much to do.
“You guys want to start a fire in the pit?”
The question comes from Rudy, one of the HAC boys. Rudy has a guitar and we’ve spent a few nights around the fire, roasting hot dogs and listening to his three chords.
“I don’t know,” says Hendrigan. “It’s too warm out for a fire.”
There are general grunts of agreement and we drift back to the picnic table, where a few of the men resume their card game. Rudy, disenchanted, brings out his guitar and sits away from the group, picking a melancholy tune. I’m challenged to a game of ping-pong, which I quickly lose, vaguely distracted, but not sure why. It hits me when I walk out of the trailer, into the warm evening air. What Hendrigan said is bothering me.
It’s too warm out for a fire.
It’s been unseasonably warm the past few nights — warm enough that I’ve thrown off blankets and opened windows in the stuffy bunk trailer. Why then would someone start a fire in their woodstove? The only explanation would have been to cook, and I don’t recall seeing any pots within the vicinity of the stove at the remains of Hallendry’s cabin. I use the base radio at the cook shack to call the fire lookout tower closest to the Whiskey Creek fire.
“Cambridge tower, this is the IA base.”
“This is Cambridge. Go ahead base.”
“What was your minimum temp two nights ago?”
“Standby one.”
All towers have a set of minimum and maximum thermometers. These thermometers are the usual mercury-filled glass type, with the addition of small plugs which remain at the highest or lowest reading until reset daily by giving the thermometer a good shake.
“Base, this is Cambridge. I had a minimum temp that night of 16c.”
At only four degrees below room temperature, it makes no sense to start a fire for warmth. If there’s no evidence that Hallendry was cooking, then perhaps the stove wasn’t the cause of the fire. The stove door could have been opened to make the fire look as though it were accidental. What if Hallendry was drunk and passed out and someone deliberately burned down his cabin? If I knew there was some evidence that he’d been cooking, I’d feel a lot better.
None of this is my responsibility. My work ended with confirming the cabin as origin.
What if no one else thinks to check?
I debate a moment longer, head to my truck.
THE SUN IS low on the horizon, glinting in my rear-view mirror as I drive the dusty gravel road to the Whiskey Creek fire. On the trail, trees cast long shadows that strobe across my windshield. When I arrive, Dugan and Verdon are gone and the crime scene tape has been removed. I stand in front of the black rectangle of what was once a cabin. It’s eerily silent, chainsaws and fire pumps rested for the night. In the distance, seen between black tree trunks, is the fire camp, placed just at the edge of the burn. Tents are sun-bleached yellow among green branches. Orange-clad firefighters, smeared with soot, cluster around the oversize picnic table. A figure in yellow, with a white hard hat, moves in my direction. Carter Spence, the young Forest Officer, appointed Incident Commander.
“Hello, Porter. You’re a bit late for supper.”
“I’m not here for supper,” I say, staring at the remains of the cabin. There’s nothing left but the deeply charred remnant of floor, the stove, and the bottom of the log wall, framing the scene like a picture. Miscellaneous debris, such as table legs and chair frames, are neatly stacked off to the side. The bottles are gone, on their way to the RCMP crime lab. I wonder if any pots or pans are making the same journey, gaze at the pile of metal debris, searching for the shape of cookware, but the pile is
too dense and tangled.
“When did the crime scene guys finish up?”
Spence adjusts his hard hat. “About an hour ago.”
“Did they say if they were heading right out?”
“No, but I just saw the RCMP plane fly over.”
Damn. I should have come earlier.
“Why?” says Spence. “What’s up?”
“Nothing, maybe.”
I take a closer look at the pile of metal household debris. It’s a big pile — you’d be surprised how much metal is in the average cabin. I’m going to have to dig and I pull on leather work gloves, start to pull apart the pile. Spence watches, curious.
“What are you looking for?”
“Pots. Pans. Any sort of cookware.”
“What would that prove?”
“I’m wondering if he was cooking.”
Spence looks tired, his freckled face streaked with ash and sweat, but he pulls on his own pair of gloves and begins tugging debris from the pile, setting it aside. We work together for a while, find three cast iron fry pans, several metal pots with handles burned away, a muffin tin, four enamelled metal cups, an enamelled teapot, and plenty of cutlery. We stand back, inspect the result of our labours. We’ve taken a small mess and made it bigger.
“Now what?” says Spence, rubbing his forehead with the back of a gloved hand.
“I don’t know. None of this stuff proves whether or not he was cooking.”
“Do we put it back?”
“Later, maybe,” I say absently, wandering around the scatter of debris. If there was some way to determine if the fire was deliberately set, Dugan and Verdon would have looked for it. Perhaps they already found what they needed. I wish they would have told me more. I wish I knew more about structure fires. The doctor was right — I just can’t help myself. I wander around for a few minutes, scrutinizing the cabin floor, the stove, and the debris, and am just about to give up when something catches my eye. In the pile of roof tin, there’s a section of metal which is bulged and has what I think is a faint temper line. Temper lines look like subtle rainbows and occur when metal is heated unevenly — something I learned in knife-making. With my gloved hand, I rub away the fogging of ash that covers the metal and take a closer look. Sure enough, there’s a meandering temper line. I’m not sure of the significance of this, wonder how widespread this might be across the roof. I turn to Spence, who has been watching.
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