Summer of Fire

by Linda Jacobs

  A puzzled expression gathered on Walt’s sharp features.

  With an effort, Steve lowered his hand to the weathered boards. “No,” he said roughly, “thanks.”

  “Haywood turns down a brew?” Walt’s brows lifted.

  Both men went silent as a pair of young male tourists, identified by their name brand sportswear and the fact that they were strangers, passed the picnic table. They started across the street toward the open field that had once been the parade ground for Fort Yellowstone. With the ancient letters still on his mind, Steve envisioned the afternoon review of cavalry and infantry while wives, camp followers, and guests of the huge wood frame National Hotel looked on. How different the Mammoth of today was, with its eclectic mix of ancient and modern architecture.

  When the tourists had gone, Walt sipped from the beer he’d offered Steve. “When I went home, I happened to catch the national news.”

  Steve tensed. “The fires are a regular six o’clock circus.”

  Walt nodded. “Secretary Mason took a chopper ride with Ranger Shad Dugan and saw that the Clover-Mist really exploded today. When Dugan mentioned we’ve suspended letting natural fires burn, Mason said that after all this settles down, the entire park policy on fire would require review.”

  “Damned bureaucrats. Thinking they know what’s right for the forest because they were elected or appointed.” The bag ripped as Steve pulled out a beer.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  The terrain south of West Yellowstone was relatively flat, making it a good place to acclimate the soldiers to the forest. Clare was pleased that her first group of forty troops from Fort Lewis, Washington, seemed to be in reasonable shape. They’d hiked several brisk miles with full packs, a gallon of water, and heavy Pulaskis.

  In an area that had been clear-cut for timber, Clare stopped the column. As typical young people, the soldiers broke ranks and milled about in the midafternoon sun.

  Time to talk safety, and these kids had no idea how dear that subject was to her heart. Rather than tell her own and Frank’s story of how quickly dreams could become disaster, she began, “Edward Pulaski, the inventor of your fire tool, was a Forest Service ranger in Idaho back in 1910. One day, he and forty-five men got caught, surrounded by fire.”

  Some restlessness and murmuring continued. Sergeant Ron Travis, the troops’ bantam leader, stood at parade rest, making Clare suspect he was permitting the lax behavior as a insult to her. All day he had been disdainful, walking a fine line between accepting her authority and laughing when she’d only halfway turned her back.

  She determined to plow on. “Pulaski led his men to an abandoned mine, the War Eagle. They wet themselves down with water from a seep and hung dampened horse blankets across the tunnel mouth.”

  The troops showed the same reluctance to listen as the high school students Clare used to have in P.E. Today, she wasn’t going to blow a whistle, but tell a story that might reach them.

  “The firestorm of 1910 was the worst in the history of the West. Three million acres of western Montana and Idaho burned in two sweltering August days. The fire generated hurricane force winds that rushed up the hill and filled the mine with smoke.”

  Some of the soldiers fingered the bandannas she’d told them were to go over their noses and mouths under smoky conditions.

  “Those men wept, and not because their eyes stung. The air grew fouler, until prew an audible breath.

  “Everyone passed out. The next morning, they awakened one by one … The last five did not. Pulaski lay by the entrance and they thought he was dead, too. Then he spoke to them.”

  Clare had the troops’ attention. “When we go out to the fires, you’re going to see small flames creeping along the ground, but don’t ever forget you’re here because over one hundred-fifty thousand acres, almost ten percent of Yellowstone has burned.” Her mind spiraled down a vortex into a raging inferno, a blazing apartment superimposed over the awesome might of the Shoshone firestorm. “Never lose sight of how quickly disaster can strike.”

  She let a moment of silence pass. In her mind, it was a memorial to both the fallen men of Pulaski’s group and to Frank Wallace.

  Sergeant Travis looked bored. If she had wanted to slap him earlier, now her palm fairly itched. Instead, with the efficiency she used to set basketball players running laps, she called, “Now you’re going to show me how fast you can make a fire line.”

  She bent to demonstrate how the Pulaski was used. “Everybody works in a row. You ‘strike’, turn the sod, and keep moving. I’ll be checking to make sure you clear down to a mineral soil that won’t burn.”

  The team lined up, spread out, and began to emulate her motions.

  “I want it two feet wide, from here down to that dead tree.” She pointed. “And I want it in ten minutes.” A good hotshot team could do the deed in five.

  As the troops worked, Clare paced their ranks. “You want to watch out for wind shifts that can send fire speeding in your direction. If flames catch up to your line, you see if it holds. If not, fall back to another position.” She stopped and cautioned a young man, “Hold your Pulaski tighter. You’re going to get a blister.”

  She raised her voice. “When you’re on a fire, you may find yourself working up to fifty hours straight without a trip back to a camp. You’ll sleep where you drop, leaned against a tree or stretched out in the dirt of a fire line.”

  That was something Clare had yet to experience, but the troops didn’t need to know. It gave her a sense of satisfaction to see Sergeant Travis look unhappy. She hoped the next group would come with a more enlightened commander.

  “Snags are standing burned trees,” she went on. “You’d be surprised how slight a breeze can bring one down without a sound. When you’re digging, keep up your awareness of everything around you. Somebody is killed by a snag every season.”

  She moved down the line without speaking. A soldier with his head bent over his work formed an attractive target. “Gotcha.” She tapped his shoulder.

  He jumped. A chorus of laughter spread.

  “Not funny!” she shouted. “He’s a dead man.”

  It got quiet fast.

  Clare studied the soldiers’ fresh faces. As part of the volunteer Army, they had asked to serve, but in the late eighties, she imagined most thought they’d never see danger.

  It took fifteen minutes for them to reach the tree she had set as a goal. She berated them severely although she thought they’d done a credible job for rookies. Gathering the group, she said, “You’ve probably been wondering what was in those pouches I gave you to hang on your belts.”

  A number of the young men and women nodded.

  Clare unsnapped the flap top of her own pouch and drew out a folded mass of material that looked like silver foil. “This is your last resort in case you are overtaken by flames.”

  Their incredulous looks mirrored the disbelief Clare had felt when she was first acquainted with the tissue-thin Mylar shields. She shook it out and the wind caught it, making it billow like a sheet on a clothesline.

  “Insert your hands through the corner straps,” she instructed, spreading her arms wide. “Put your boot toes through the bottom corners.” The blanket fluttered behind her like a cape. “If you have time, you’ll clear a patch of bare earth to lie in. If not …

  Clare heard Sergeant Travis mutter, “Then kiss your ass goodbye.”

  She went down onto the ground. For a long moment, she lay still beneath the silver tarpaulin, imagining that choking smoke and superheated air seeped beneath the edges. Without an air pack, she did not believe these things could possibly save lives.

  It was quiet in the sunny glade. Insects droned and the wind soughed through pine boughs. Clare imagined the roar of the Shoshone, trees exploding, without the convenience of Yellowstone Lake at her feet.

  When she got up, she threw the shelter at Sergeant Travis. He took it, but instead of folding it, he crumpled the foil over his arm. “It’s your turn,” she told t
he troops. “Break ‘em out and cover up.”

  As she watched their awkward rehearsal, a flying tanker headed in from the fires, on a line toward West Yellowstone.

  Over a week after ditching, Deering was still grounded. On the tarmac at West Yellowstone Airport, he held tight to the nozzle as he filled a DC-7 tanker with fire retardant.

  None of the charter companies he’d hit up wanted help. Every turndown had cut like a blade and he imagined that his wife wielded them all. Not only did Georgia hope his Bell was lost, she’d be dancing if she knew he was a grunt on the ground crew.

  As soon as the belly tank was full, the plane taxied toward another bombing run.

  Deering removed his goggles and lugged the hose back to the battery of cylindrical tanks. Gary Cullen, a dough-faced youth whose father owned the local Red Wolf Motel, was already mixing bags of fertilizer and red dye for a fresh batch of retardant. Since Deering had joined the ground team, Gary had treated him with the suspicion small town residents often extended to outsiders.

  “Just gonna smoke.” Deering walked off the ramp away from the planes and fuel trucks, patting his retardant-soaked coveralls for his Marlboros. After several tries, he managed to light a limp cigarette. Georgia was always on him to quit.

  That little gal Clare, he didn’t think she smoked. Quick guilt slashed, for he hadn’t worn a wedding ring in years, and he had failed to mention Georgia. He told himself that his reply to Clare’s question about family hadn’t been a lie. Summers in fire were tough on commitment.

  Not exactly a lie.

  Thankfully, common sense had prevailed and he hadn’t left a message for her at Fire Command. On the other hand, he hadn’t phoned home either, still too angry with Georgia. Last week at Old Faithful when he’d told Clare he needed to be flying, he’d been as shocked as if the words had appeared in a cartoon balloon. If he’d said that to Georgia, she would have shrieked. Saying it to another woman who understood his sense of loss made it feel doubly like betrayal.

  The DC-7 he’d filled revved up in a low-pitched drone. The plane swept down the runway, gathering speed with each passing second. With the need to get back in the air an almost physical ache, Deering pictured himself in the cockpit with the patched concrete rushing past at over a hundred miles per hour.

  The tanker’s speed increased until it seemed it would be out of runway. The weight of two fifteen-hundred-gallon tanks riveted onto the aircraft’s belly made it necessary for the rest of the plane to fly empty. The engines rose to a scream and finally, the pilot let the DC-7 have its nose. It swooped up and over the spiky mat of hundred-foot trees, that appeared as matchsticks from the air.

  His chest ached and his anger at his wife renewed. Deering yearned for his Georgie, still in Yellowstone Lake. Not until next week did the insurance company plan to salvage it. As his claim had not been settled, the salvage outfit was gambling between two possible outcomes—payment from First Assurance or taking title to Deering’s helicopter.

  He refused to consider that, focusing instead on the moment when he would see his prize emerge from the lake. A complete overhaul would put off flying it until next year’s season, something that should make Georgia the happiest woman in Idaho.

  He couldn’t help but think again of Clare. If he got a flying gig, she’d help him celebrate.

  Another tanker landed and he recognized by its blue-on-white paint job that he knew the pilot. Adam Parker was a fellow veteran of Vietnam from the fixed-wing side. Adam and his copilot moved off the ramp for a smoke while Gary Cullen helped Deering drag the heavy hose. After coupling, it took under five minutes to load several thousand gallons of retardant, then quick-release.

  When the crew came back to board, Deering said, “Hey there, Parker.” He removed his goggles and bandanna so Adam could recognize him.

  “Deering!” Adam’s broad face, splotchy from the heat, broke into an astonished look.

  “The hell you doin’?” He gestured at Deering’s soaked coveralls and tapped his younger copilot on the shoulder. “Last time I saw this guy, he was flying his own helicopter.”

  Deering’s face warmed. He hoped the other pilots would chalk it up to the scorching afternoon. “I had to ditch in Yellowstone Lake when the Shoshone came through Grant.” He tried to sound casual, but he was sick of explaining the accident.

  “Why aren’t you flying for one of the other charters?” Adam asked.

  “I talked to most of them and the word was they had help.”

  “Hell, talk to them again. Folks are gonna need relief.”

  “Yeah.” Deering looked at the DC-7. “Even this lumbering giant is starting to look good.”

  Helicoptering could be a risky business, but flying tankers was even more dangerous. Taking their large size and heavy payloads so close to the ground, not one season had passed since they started in 1956 without the loss of one of the fifty or so tankers. Everybody in the close-knit community had lost at least one person they knew.

  “It’s a bitch out there,” Adam declared. “Like clockwork, every day at noon the temperature inversion breaks and all hell with it.”

  “Tell me about it,” Deering chimed in as though he were still flying.

  “See that fellow there?” Adam pointed.

  Deering recognized Demetrios Karrabotsos. The stately, silver-haired owner of Island Park Helicopters seemed to lead with his chin as he strode toward a mess tent. Deering had heard that he was a veteran of both Korea and Vietnam. Although he’d seen the older pilot from a distance, they had never met.

  “I heard that Island Park is understaffed,” Adam went on.

  “I’ve tried to see him, but he’s always out.”

  The tanker pilots climbed back aboard and Deering watched as before, until the blue and white fuselage became a silver spark against the sky. When he blinked and could no longer find it, he ignored a dark look from Gary Cullen, and dogged Karrabotsos toward the concession area.

  Despite the warming day, he bought a Styrofoam cup of steaming coffee, sipped and found it bitter. Sighting his quarry straddling a flimsy folding chair, he approached. “Demetrios Karrabotsos?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Chris Deering, of Deering Charters over in Idaho.” He tried to keep his outstretched hand steady and not to stare. Although the older pilot must have once been a handsome man, his face and neck were deeply incised by shiny scars that had to be burns. In his bulky flight suit, he looked formidable.

  “Heard of you.” The voice was gravelly, as though flames had seared his vocal cords as well. Black eyes studied Deering until he felt like a target in a gunner’s sights. “I go by Karrabotsos,” he finally offered, belatedly shaking the hand Deering had in the air.

  Pulling out a chair, Deering sat and held his cigarette by his side. “Pretty wild fire season.”

  “Worst since the blowup of 1910,” Karrabotsos agreed.

  “This drought and wind keep up … “ Deering sipped his coffee nervously. More small talk might be in order, but, fingers crossed, he started his pitch. “I’m a one aircraft service and I’ve been grounded since I ditched my Bell.”

  “Heard that.” Karrabotsos did not sound quite as neutral as before.

  Deering took a deep drag on his Marlboro. “I wonder if you might need a pilot.”

  “Nope.”

  He exhaled smoke. “This is going to get worse before it gets better. Your craft … You have four of them, don’t you, will be busy day and night. Even if you have a full staff … “ He paused to allow Karrabotsos to admit he did not.

  The two men stared at each other. It went on so long that Deering concluded either Adam was mistaken about Island Park being understaffed, or Karrabotsos did not want to admit it.

  “Your men will still need relief,” Deering said.

  Karrabotsos studied him again with eyes shiny as ripe olives. “How’d you wind up in the drink?”

  Sweat broke out in Deering’s armpits. “Bad luck. We’ve all been there, especially us
vets.” He forced a smile to include Karrabotsos. If those burns had come from combat or a crash …

  The other man’s face stayed stony. “Word has it you had a park ranger on board. Seems this fellow told a bartender friend of his, who told a member of a tanker crew, who told one of my pilots …”

  “What is this, some goddamn game of kids’ gossip?” Deering’s face warmed.

  “He said you’re reckless.”

  Georgia would have cheered.

  “A dangerous hot shot,” Karrabotsos went on, “who didn’t need to trash a million dollars’ worth of helicopter.”

  “Haywood’s a fucking liar!”

  “That may be.” Karrabotsos shrugged. “I’m not willing to take a chance.”

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  August 3

  Clare woke in her cabin at Old Faithful. She checked her watch that she slept in from force of habit at the fire station. Ten minutes to her four-thirty alarm, not enough time to get back to sleep.

  Disjointed snippets of dream played on her mind’s dark canvas. While she slept, she’d visited a world that had existed before July 1. In the firehouse kitchen, she’d been helping Frank test drive a chili recipe for a charity cook-off.

  Clare had looked up from slicing onions, her eyes watery.

  Frank pointed with the knife he was using to cut sirloin. The laugh lines around his eyes crinkled. “Don’t let the boys catch you being a crybaby.”

  Sage advice, even from a dream, and now upon waking, she planned to follow it. Especially with Sergeant Ron Travis, whose cocky manner said he was always alert for weakness.

  In another midnight excursion, she and Frank had been showing a group of Special Olympian kids around the firehouse. As usual, one of the tour heights was sliding down the pole.

  Frank waited at the bottom, ready to catch a slip of a girl around eight. Clare demonstrated wrapping legs and arms around the pole and supervised getting the girl in position. “Ready?”

  A tight and wordless little nod stirred the child’s strawberry blond bangs.

  “Set … go.” Clare let her slide.